US airman protesting genocide in Gaza dies after setting himself on fire | PressTV
US airman protesting genocide in Gaza dies after setting himself on fire | PressTV
Aaron Bushnell said he will no longer be complicit in genocide before setting himself alight.
If you come into any thread on this topic flailing quips about how this person was a scumbag and deserved it, this genocide has drained you of your morale and your conscience and you need to take a step back and re-examine the words coming out of your mouth. Her action was idealistic yes but it was also a horrible fucking tragedy. She saw the genocide just like us and she was lost and confused of what to do about it. She did the only thing she thought would make people look and gave her life to do it and people still shit on her corpse. Have some fucking respect. She saw what we all saw, this horrific fucking genocide and was overwhelmed by the terror and did the only thing she thought made sense.
Edit: Adjusted the gender in my comments according to new findings that she was transgender. The proof being that the account the action was streamed on using Twitch was named acebush1 a month prior before it was renamed to Lillyanarkitty. Her reddit account /u/acebush1 was found and contains anarchism posting and some LGBTQ content which convinces me that acebush1 and Lillyanarkitty are the same person. Here's a link since the account was wiped clean by the feds at Reddit. https://www.reveddit.com/y/acebush1/
Yes idealistic is the way to appraise this.
He was born to certain material circumstances, was in a situation as part of something oppressive. Became conscious but lacked the materialist analysis (intentionally denied to him via propaganda) to really evaluate and understand. He acted with heart, with courage, but the effect of such actions while showing great personal moral fortitude and resolve is a sad reminder of how far we have to go in educating the proletariat of the west. He found himself awake in a nightmarish system with no escape, no real understanding of its basis, his world, the lies told to him as a child (and adult) crumbling down around him as he watched untold horrors unfold with no way to stop or slow them. He felt the pain as many of us feel the pain seeing people slaughtered in a genocide that his government was enabling. It doesn't matter that he didn't see through other acts of the US military, it matters he saw through this one and wasn't silent and felt strongly enough to be more than passive.
He's a martyr the same way someone who died protesting lack of medical care on a sidewalk is. He may not be worthy of a place in some future hall of peoples heroes, of comrades, cadres who died in the revolution, in educating others, in state anti-com action, but he's worthy of acknowledging now as someone on the right side of history. As someone braver and better than every scumbag journalist on television who reports on the genocide in a "balanced and neutral" (read: pro-genocide, zionist propagandist mouthpiece) manner. Braver and better than every liberal who tries to make excuses for Biden, who tries to both-sides the genocide, who demands people vote blue and claim he is the lesser evil. This was an unremarkable man undertaking an action that likely won't result in any real material change, and yet he did more, tried harder, was truer to the ideal of being against genocide than every simpering, disgusting liberal excuse-maker.
Can think of a couple people in this thread whose comments on this matter warrant discipline.
Already banned one from the comm I moderate on hexbear.
Fucking calling this "performative liberal virtue signaling" is so fucking disgusting coming from a supposed comrade.
Yep, he literally did more than the entirety of the Gulf states combined.
Also, so what he was a troop. He saw the right side, I am the last person for troop worship, but he saw something wrong and acted. He was also only 25. There are people who will tolerate the most racist xenophobic warmonger friends and relatives twice or three times this guy's age because they PERSONALLY know them and then will shit on this guy.
Braver than all the other troops combined.
Guess the Gaza genocide woke them up to the psychic horror of being a storm trooper and suddenly realizing they were on the side of the baddies.
I definitely wish they’d done something that didn’t result in their death though I understand the appeal to a non-Marxist when all the shouting in the world doesn’t make a difference to a government determined to help carry out a genocide and you don’t have tools for understanding why and it just seems like madness.
I imagine there was extreme anxiety, depression, and/or other mental trauma or illness in conjuncture with this that drove them over the edge. This country literally can drive anyone with a conscious insane if they actually see the truth of it. It's tragic.
eh, supposedly he was subscribed to an anarchist's patreon for over a year before this, I think he was already aware of the horror of the US military before october 7th. my position is that he did this in an attempt to cause discontent among the military, not to actually spread awareness (it means a lot he did this in his military fatigues, imo)
I wish he didn't do this but he is a hero nonetheless. Knocking this guy or saying he should have sought therapy is therapy fetishism and "leftists" promoting this line of thinking are just frauds. They will readily trade in radicalism to be a plus one at the liberal party.
Please keep comments respectful or go touch some grass.
I believe both Ansarallah and the Palestinian resistance have both issued statements honoring him so at least the most impacted people see his actions as valid and revolutionary.
Rest in peace, hero...
The fact that major news networks are talking about this is a victory for him. This is something you can't just sweep under the rug.
Sadly, Israeli intel assets are doing everything they can to smear him as an insane man. Whether he was mentally ill or not is irrelevant since he got what he wanted.
Everyone is mentally ill. Those who support the genocide aren't sane , that's clear.
Those who protest the genocide are smeared as lunatics while being sane
RIP. Very brave, at least tried to do something and override media censorship.
This is the most extreme way of sacrificing yourself, there are Buddhist monks who did the same against Vietnam war if I remember correctly.
He will be remembered after Palestine is liberated, RIP! 🇵🇸
o7 comrade Aaron Bushnell.
Livestreaming it was a smart move, I don't think this story would have had anywhere near this much attention if not for the video.
Atlanta woman didn't get any attention.
Hell, they didn't even report she was a woman...
Welp. Wonder how the empire is gonna respond to this.
Aparently NPR still does not know why he did it
Obviously a lone wolf attack
Bury it then "Look! Aliens!!" if it doesn't die on its own.
Source: They do this every single time their fuck-ups boil over.
They're not going to do anything, i dont know why people are expecting something.
kinda extreme, but that's what a person with empathy and disgust for injustice probably would do after killing or helping to kill thousands of innocent people with such violence
How do we get the other guys to set themselves on fire?
Fascist settlers like the zionists occupying Palestine won't do that. They'll just go home to Europe if their project falls far enough for them to begin to experience anything approaching this level of despair. Already many of them fled back home after Oct 7th because they don't feel safe in the settlements.
touch grass
?
at least sabotage something before immolating yourself, this kind of protest is nonsense.
Something similar could be said about hamas' flood operation. That it achieved nothing (much), other than zionists fury.
Hopefully his sacrifice, from his own in-empire position, could get some political traction? Unlikely, but not impossible, I think.
Edit: in parenthesis