A US Air Force soldier is in critical condition after he set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, Sunday. He live streamed the self-immolation action on Twitch where he captured himself standing outside the gates of the Israeli embassy and identifying himself as a member of...
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide [in Gaza]. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” the man apparently said before setting himself alight and repeatedly shouting “Free Palestine!”
I read that and was like "of fucking course they did." Honestly the next paragraph makes it even worse, IMO.
Authorities were heard asking the man – “May I help you, sir?” – at first but as soon as he was engulfed in flames they started yelling at him to get down on the ground. They even drew their guns on the burning man before someone pushed them to get fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire.
Threats of physical violence are the only tool they have in their toolbox. THE ONLY tool.
It's a bit of a beleaguered point, but it's very telling that this will assuredly get almost no coverage on big news networks like abc, cbs, fox, etc. and virtually no coverage in the larger papers like the NYT, sure the press agencies like Reuters and the AP will cover it and then redistributors like your source will publish this, but little thought among the media class/commentariet will be given to the man who decided there was so little hope of being able to do anything through legal/electoral means to stop a genocide that he could no longer stand idly by and had to do something to protest the sheer inhumanity of what's going on. Barely anyone probably still remembers the person who did the same thing and died in 2022 on earth day protesting inaction on climate change/destruction, that story was absolutely buried. I don't support any kind of self harm, but doing something as drastic as this requires a pretty compelling reason, most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing, but the same importance was not extended to that person in 2022 and will almost definitely not be extended to this person now. I may end up being wrong, but I expect this to be out of the news cycle/discourse in days at most.
I was listening to BBC World Report this morning. They made quick mention of it along with some other things happening in the conflict, then went on to introduce their "expert" who would illuminate the situation.
Their so called expert was an employee of some Israeli institute of security or whatever, and he talked on for ages with minimal push-back about how the israeli army is doing everything by the book and how "Gaza is safe for civilians, and if it's not it's the fault of Hamas".
"gee why did he set himself on fire? must just be something people do"
it's laughable how US media attributes self-immolation in Tibet to what must be CPC oppression, but self-immolation in the US must just be a cute little coincidence due to poor mental health
Yeah, I've seen some discourse that things like this when done by an individual as opposed to a group effort like the Tibetan monks are primarily to take their own life and the message is secondary/additional, but I would like to think that on some level something positive will come out of someone doing something as drastic and sad as this. Dying or taking your own life is not something positive or to be glorified, but when someone feels so hopeless to the point that they turn to this, I hope it's at least a wake up call for some people to take this seriously and not just ignore/tune out one of the biggest genocides in recent history.
most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing
Out of political selfimmolations there were 7 Tibetan cases, but dozens of others including many Americans. I wonder why "most people" remember particularly those. Would it be that US media wasn't fair to report not only this one here?
Yes, my first thought was, "Crikey! Has anyone in the united states self -immolated, before?!"
It's a horrific way to call attention to a cause. I'm sure after his best possible recovery, his military unit will rally to prosecute to add to his anguish.
I don’t think he’ll recover. (In fact, apparently it is already being reported that he died. But even if he hasn’t yet he will.) He was taking deep lungfuls of flame and smoke to continue his chant. He’ll have destroyed his lungs. He knew going in that he wouldn’t come out of this alive.
OMG THEY HAVE AN ARTICLE OMG THAT WAS TOTALLY MY POINT, I QUITE LITERALLY TALKED ABOUT REDISTRIBUTING THINGS FROM PRESS AGENCIES JFC, HOW CAN YOU READ WHAT I WROTE AND GET TO THIS, IS THERE ANYTHING RESIDING IN BETWEEN YOUR EARS ???
as he was engulfed in flames they started yelling at him to get down on the ground. They even drew their guns on the burning man before someone pushed them to get fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire.
Seems weird that an anarchist was a US soldier. Maybe he joined before he came to the political beliefs he held as he burned, or perhaps he came to these beliefs because of what he saw in the army.
This is the 2nd one. The only reason we're even hearing about this is because he had to foresight to live stream it and also an independent journalist was there with a camera
Anyone who still visits reddit, how [deleted] is this story over there?
Edit: I've created a torrent for the video if anyone wants to help seed. His sacrifice in bringing attention to the US-sponsored genocide in Palestine must not be forgotten.
Wait really? Just using genocide gets you banned in politics? What a bunch of shmeggs. I got banned there years ago because the mods simply went through my post history. I'm still shook with how the narrative and mind of users are tilted towards a very skewed viewpoint.
Some people believe the user base of reddit is diverse, and they're getting a healthy view of the world. Unbewknowest to them they find themselves dumbfounded when the world isn't conforming to what they believe is the majority opinion
I guess this part of the reactions to this video illustrates the confusion that people have about how it feels to be in that situation. I'm confused that people are unable to imagine it how chaotic the situation might be. We have the benefit of knowing how it unfolded, but what the police officers knew is what they were briefed on that morning (most probably threats against the embassy) and the exact situation they are in.
Self immolation as a form of protest. For anyone unaware of it there was a Buddhist monk who immolated themself to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Catholic PM of Vietnam.
What really shocked me about this list is that Aaron was apparently already the 23rd person to do so SINCE THE START OF 2020, meaning there's roughly been one person setting themselves on fire every other month or so, and I don't think I've even HEARD of any of the other ones.
And not all of them happened in foreign countries either. In fact, apparently someone did the very same thing in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta a mere 3 months ago and I don't even remember hearing about it.
He specifically livestreamed the video and sent links to the livestream and archive to various journalists and anarchist press so that the video would be shared and viewed. Its a disservice for it to be censored and weird that person also watermarked it with their @
I really debated if I wanted to see this, I thought didn't need to get what he did. Let me tell you watching it made me sick to the stomach and made it much much more real than just knowing what did in text.
He was too innocent for this world. I don't know what to say other than I promise I will never forget him and that I'll try to spread his message and do everything I can to help free Palestine.
He is the fiery monk of our time. I watched the video below and I will admit after the second "Free Palestine" and the screaming started, I had to turn the sound off until he fell and I suspected the screaming stopped.
He is braver and has more strength than anyone on the Israeli side. I won't forget that this hero couldn't stay silent in the face of genocide.
I've created a torrent for the video if anyone wants to help seed. His sacrifice in bringing attention to the US-sponsored genocide in Palestine must not be forgotten.
God damn, this is brutal. I watched it and it gave me absolute chills. The world won’t forget this man’s bravery and sacrifice, even if the media doesn’t cover it.
There's going to be some big presidential debate drama. Bidens going to forget to wear socks or Trumps going to go tanning again... The important stuff.
It's nowhere in the news cycles here in Europe. Sadly, maybe we won't forget but the world is already neglecting it. I wish he hadn't done it, we've seen enough death already.
having viewed the video now, i initially found myself surprised i was not more horrified. my best guess as to why is this - what seemed most notable to me was his apparent sanity and intentionality in making this choice. he chose the where and when of his death and intended it to matter.
He stopped feeling pain because shock set in about 30 seconds into it, I could get more graphic but that's about how long it took for his eyes to get to fucked up to close them.
This guy is very brave, but everyone taking about the embassy security drawing weapons when they arrive. Of course they would. They don't know what was planned, if it was a suicide bombing gone wrong, our whatever else. I'm not pro cop but I don't understand why people are surprised by this. They are security
Sure, maybe if they drew their weapons immediately, before his act. That'd make sense. They wouldn't know what he was gonna do.
The trouble is, based on the reporting we have, they drew their guns after he lit himself on fire, not before:
as soon as he was engulfed in flames they started yelling at him to get down on the ground. They even drew their guns on the burning man before someone pushed them to get fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire.
I'm thinking by the time the guy was engulfed in flames he was a little too preoccupied to do much else.
Can you imagine facing a living bonfire, and your first thought is "I should draw my gun and tell them to get down on the ground"? There's genuinely no excuse for that level of inhumanity.
If your job is to secure the embassy/ site/ scene you work down a list. They clearly followed the list.
We now know that he was no risk, but they couldn't.
They aren't equipped with fire extinguishers (aside from the guy who got one), so are you assuming they should jump on him? Smother a fuel fire with their bodies? Does that secure the site? No. It's also not realistic.
Seems like securing the site then 1 person getting a fire extinguisher is a completely responsible response.
Stop him before he got any closer to the embassy. Obviously a gun won't stop him from commiting suicide, but it could easily be the difference between one person dying and a much larger act of terrorism
Shoot the suicide bomber before a bigger boom. What if there was another person? Another thing? We can't know, they can't know. We know now, due to hindsight.
They are security. They secure scenes. They aren't paramedics.
I am not making pro cop statements here, but all the comments about "ohhh the cop arrived to a dangerous scene with a weapon drawn!" Is like saying "the garbage man picked up the garbage bin when he drove past my house!" Duh!
Whoever keeps throwing in the shit about law enforcement in these stories, which I think was actually a security officer for the embassy, drawing a gun, is doing a pretty good job of distracting from the main issue of what this guy lit himself on fire and died for. Doing a much better job than all the whinging about how he was mentally ill, and how this won't change anything, and how there's no clear cause, that mainstream news outlets are doing when they cover this type of stuff, if they cover it at all.
I would also like to kind of point out here, that "this won't change anything, this guy was mentally ill, he killed himself for nothing", is really only true if you decide it to be true. We get to decide whether or not this motivates us to do something or not. We get to decide whether or not we let this affect us. Whether or not we do something, to make sure this doesn't happen again, you know? And that's mostly, in my mind, the purpose of this kind of protest.
Maybe it makes the institutions think about what they're doing, probably not, since, if they were gonna think that, they should've probably thought that about the 20,000 or so palestinians that have been killed. This protest is mostly engineered to get you mad, and sad, and to make you, the viewer, think about why this is happening, and think about what you can do to stop it. Not just deflecting immediately to whether or not it was effective, because by doing so, you let it not be as effective.
Brings to mind the discourse against, really any form of protest that I've seen. You could take the george floyd protests, for example. So, sure, the government throws in agent provocateurs, in order to turn what would otherwise be peaceful protests, which would shut down any traffic into and out of the city, and would choke off any economic activity (puts pressure on businesses, utilities, puts pressure on local government, which needs to please these people who don't really care about the protest but want things to go back to normal).
But by doing so, right, by causing those passive forms of damage, but also by causing active forms of damage, say, burning a big box store down, right, the public showcases that, if a certain legal decision to, say, let derek chauvin off, occurs, then there will be potentially more protests and more destruction, which provides great incentive against that decision occurring.
Now, in this case, there's not as clear of a process, because there's not as clear of repercussions if they decide to do nothing. About the only thing that might happen is that this might happen again, which, might, by some process of media coverage, put enough pressure on politicians to cause this to stop, if it becomes a political issue. The same thing is happening with mass shootings, which aren't a greatly impacting issue, by the numbers, right, they're much less than that of road deaths, heart disease, other forms of gun violence.
But they are so horrifying to the american public and to really anyone of moral conscience, that they should serve as a clear marker that something is wrong, and something needs to change. Serial killers create a similar effect. It's almost like a kind of terrorism, using that word without judgement, here. That's the power of these protests. We've already seen it spread across a bunch of news media, even though it's being reported about as poorly as you'd expect.
I'm not particularly sure that repeat incidents would do any good, and I think I'd generally be opposed to that, as should anyone, but, an instance of self-immolation is what caused the arab spring. This sort of thing isn't ineffective, I think it does a disservice to aaron bushnell to say otherwise.
If you want to stop this sort of thing from occurring in the first place, you should really try to understand why it was happening, instead of brushing it aside.
The comments on the video are actually more horrifying than the video itself. How can a human watch another human suffer like this and be happy/laugh about it? They're wishing that others would do the same just because they think differently from them? Do we even have any hope left in humanity anymore?
Israelis blocking aid trucks to Gaza at the Karm Abu Salem crossing, hold a dance party as millions of Palestinians face death, starvation and disease due to lack of food, clean water, and medical supplies and Israel’s relentless military bombardment.
I try not to let myself get affected by crazy anonymous comments on the internet. I definitely avoid thinking that they're any kind of majority. I figure that those comments come from a minority of people who are either really messed up, have an ulterior motive, or whatever variety of atypical motivation. If nothing else, it's better for my mental health to think this way.
Ugh, I hadn't even noticed the comments until you mentioned it. I avoid the comments sections on most "news" sites because they're almost universally dumpster fires if they're not properly moderated.
Edit: although Giant Meteor 2024 definitely sounds like a winning ticket.
I hope it changes what we do. If he is this brave, we can be a little braver in organizing a movement to stop our governments from supporting Israel, at any cost.
While this man is brave and all (I wouldn't have burnt myself), what does this achieve? I doubt authorities care a lot. And it's not like visibility over this situation isn't there.