A group of veterans from the US armed forces burnt their uniforms in a show of solidarity with the airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington in a protest over the war in Gaza.Footage by Alissa Azar shows veterans lining up and taking turns to burn their military jackets at a vigil in Portland on February 28.A banner can be seen behind them, reading: “Veterans say: Free Palestine! Remember Aaron Bushnell.”The event was organized by the group About Face: Veterans Against the War, which told attendees to gather in front of the Wyatt Federal Building in Portland at 5 pm.Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell filmed himself saying he would “no longer be complicit in genocide". He then yelled “Free Palestine” several times as flames engulfed him. Credit: Alissa Azar via Storyful
I’m not sure how to feel about the level of support shown for Bushnell, when previous self-immolators have been thoroughly ignored.
Part of me is glad that his death is not in vain, and his friends and family can take some solace in that fact.
But part of me is terrified that 20 more people are going to try similar stunts and achieve… less-than-nothing.
There are already too many martyrs. We need agitators. You can’t agitate if you’re dead or otherwise removed.
Please: If you’re considering Aaron Bushnell an inspiration, be inspired by the fact that he did something unusual, not that he did something self-destructive. Go throw some soup on a Van Gogh instead.
Arguably a self imolator ended the war in Vietnam. He absolutely got the ball rolling.
That happened in 1963. The war only got worse and went on 10 more years.
Yep. It took quite a few for the reality of the war to kick in for most people.
No, he fucking didn’t. The Vietnamese breaking the US military through the use of force ended the war in Vietnam.
No. The Vietnamese did not “break” the US military. We got tired of being there, though.
I hate to be the one to break it to you… but the Vietnamese broke the US military. Swallow all the cope the propagandists have been spoon-feeding you about this since the 70s - it doesn’t change anything.
What do you mean by “broke”? I’m quite literally in a class on the Vietnam War this semester, writing a paper about how ineffective our policy of bombing an agrarian society that only needed to supply its forces 50 tons of supplies a day.
Please, elaborate.
“Ineffective” at what? The indiscriminate carnage that the US visited on SE Asia from the air was possibly the most effective mass-slaughter campaign ever perpetrated by a colonialist power - it was even more effective than the colonialist slaughter Germany visited on eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during WW2.
So no… as far as the tenets of colonialist warfare is concerned, it was perfectly effective.
At stopping supplies and people from moving south?
So, our goal was genocide? I’m not saying we were the good guys, but clearly we weren’t comparable to the fucking Nazis eastern campaign.
You still didn’t answer what it meant to break the US military.
Actually, the US actions in SE Asia is very comparable to what Germany and it’s allies did in eastern Europe and Russia… not even the Nazis attempted to use chemical warfare to starve their victim population into submission - the US did.
What the Nazis did was nothing unique - it has been standard fare for colonialist powers long before WW2 happened, and it was stadard fare for the US both before and during the (so-called) “Cold War.” The only reason the Nazis became infamous for it was because they literally perpetrated it on the (so-called) “civilized” world’s doorstep on people that looked “white.”
That’s because I won’t - there is no need. Col. Robert D. Heinl answered this all the way back in 1971.
TLDR - “Our Army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous.”
And never stop, even if liberals are denouncing you. Stand up for what you believe. Never capitulate to them. Be strong. America is inherently violent. Maybe it’s time Americans experience the terror they’ve perpetuated overseas.
Liberals, huh?
What political affiliation is Netanyahu?
And what affiliation is his bestie, Biden?
No war but class war.
Ah yes, it’s liberals who are the problem. It’s liberals who want you to bent to authority, for sure. It’s liberals who are supporting the IDF
Lol! Close your mouth… you don’t want all that sarcasm back-blast getting in there.
You’re attempting sarcasm, but it kinda falls flat when the liberals did indeed line up to give more funding to Israel right alongside the conservatives.
Are democrats liberals now? Did I miss something?
In the US, modern liberalism is definitely associated with the Democrats. Whether they are truly liberal or not can be debated, but they are almost always referred to as liberals over here.
Always have been.
You’re literally calling for domestic terrorism on American soil. You aren’t a victim here, bro. No one is trying to take your tendies. Go outside, touch some grass, have a drink, and get yourself a hooker. Some post-nut clarity will do you good.
He’s calling for direct action against American imperialism. If that scares you, I suggest taking a good hard look at the world and what America has done to it. Believe me, nothing that could happen to America would be worse than it’s done to others.
And that’s a bad thing because…?
Do you know what the definition of terrorism is?
You require a “definition” to know what terrorism looks like?
No but apparently you do to know that terrorism is a bad thing
Oh it is, is it? Seems to me that these days the term “terrorism” is only applied to the actions of people who doesn’t act in lock-step with white supremacists and their liberal protectors… pretty soon, the term “terrorist” might be a badge of honor for everybody that doesn’t have a swastika tattoo hidden underneath their shirt.
So go ahead… tell me all about “terrorism.”
Just how many times you were dropped on your head?
Lemon
All of the stairs
You are correct… Bushnell isn’t even the first USian to self-immolate as a form of protest this decade - the others barely made the news.
While I can’t bring myself to criticise people like Bushnell (for obvious reasons), I also cannot endorse it. I don’t want to die for a cause - I want to make the fascists die for theirs.
Honestly this is one of the best quotables I’ve found on the internet this year. Permission to steal?
It’s a paraphrase from a Patton quote. I don’t have the exact quote readily available, but the gist is, “The objective of war isn’t to die for one’s country, but to make some other poor bastard die for his.”
Always love to see Beau’s content linked in the wild. Good stuff.
I worry about this too. I don’t like self immolation as a form of protest. Normally I’d say it accomplishes nothing, but in this case it did draw a lot of attention – that by no means though should be an endorsement for others to do this. We can find better, equally effective ways to organize. There’s already enough senseless death going on.
I appreciate his gesture, but I wish he hadn’t done it. I wish he was alive.
Except for that last part. Don’t waste food. And don’t destroy unique stuff.(Yes, the van Gogh was protected by glass iirc, but most other paintings aren’t) Plenty of ways to get attention without doing irreversible damage to art.
The van Gogh was chosen specifically because it was protected by glass.
You apparently have way too much faith in copycats and people without critical-thinking skills…