The Life and Death of Aaron Bushnell: Friend Says Self-Immolation Was a Demand for Justice
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/28/aaron_bushnell_self_immolation_gaza_protestOpen linkView original on lemmy.worldSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.worldhttps://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/28/aaron_bushnell_self_immolation_gaza_protestOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
53 replies
I mean, that's kinda obvious ain't it?
Some are trying to paint him as suicidal rather than this being the act of protest that it is.
Self-immolation is one of the absolute worst ways to end yourself. If he was in the army and just suicidal, he'd have way better options to do it.
The sad fact is that mentally stable people do not burn themselves to death in protest. He got too wrapped up in current events when he should have been spending time with family and friends (and probably doctors too).
Can it be both?
It's definitely both. Lighting yourself on fire to make a point is a terrible idea. If your goal is to bring about change, killing yourself actively works against that.
Self-immolation is a powerful form of protest. He sacrificed his life to draw attention and send a message.
Suicide as protest is the same act as silencing yourself. That's not protest. It's submission.
Well, we are talking about him now, and millions of people have hears his message in his own words. Or he could still be alive in a sea of picketers being ignored. I don't approve of suicide either, bit he very effectively got a lot of people to listen to him, or at least to hear him. We all should be so silent.
I'm pretty sure the other commenter will continue to ignore this fairly obvious facet to his death.
Nobody should be silent
For 2 weeks. And then he won't be part of conversation until the next person does it. Then we'll all look back. Say remember when they did this too. And forget again.
Taking away your ability to bring about change isn't effective protest.
Yea sure, tell that to people who still celebrate the man that started the arab spring by committing self-immolation:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/12/17/remembering-mohamed-bouazizi-his-death-triggered-the-arab
You'd have an argument if he had shot himself, or ODed on pills, or slashed his wrists, or any number of other painless, or at least very quick, ways of offing himself.
He set himself on fucking fire. One of the worst ways imaginable to die that doesn't require someone else's active participation, and in fact resists someone else actively trying to stop him. It gets attention.
I guess you haven’t heard of the arab spring https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mohamed-Bouazizi
Yes I have. And you're only thinking about that moment because another occurrence happened recently.
You'll even recognize if you're honest about this that the situation for most people did not change. In Yemen they even got dramatically worse.
Terrible idea, yes. Powerful form of protest? Also, yes.
Not protest. It's giving up with style.
Yet here we are talking about it.
The pushback is right wing trolls posting screenshots about fictional leftist "infighting" from Twitter accounts that have zero likes or re-tweets. In reality those are either fake or just a few random people that nobody cares about.
Not if you're NPR apparently.
Not as if he wasn't screaming "Free Palestine!" for as long as he could or anything
Rest in power.
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Mentally ill people burning themselves to death in protest is a lot more dramatic than angry facebookposting but fundamentally accomplishes about the same thing. Sorry we lost a good airman for nothing...seek help if you're feeling suicidal folks.
What should he have done?
That's the only real crime you can think of, really?
Hmmm.
He asked, what would you do if you lived in a genocidal state?
My answer "always have been".
you mean the US?
I'd say at least half of all modern nations, but yeah the US is one of the better examples
yup the US was an apartheid state from the start as well
Ridiculous. It was a flawed democracy not comparable to apartheid, which literally is a system where a minority group rules the majority group without consent.
tell that to the natives. tell that to the slave population it held. tell that to the current incarcerated population.
Yeah bud it's pretty much all bloodshed all the way back through human history. But right now with America as the only world superpower, it is better than has ever been for more people than ever before. If we take your approach, nobody has a right to anything, everyone is a colonizer and rapist. The world is always going to be half terrible, you are letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Yes, defend current atrocities now because "the past was worse". Wait, people couldn't own things before America? There have always been docile people as well so I think you may just be exaggerating on those points.
America isn't the only superpower though. And why do you think they are such a superpower? Could it be because of all the free prison labor we have and all of the unpaid labor that went into US infrastructure both during and after slavery was abolished?
The world doesn't have to be half terrible and if the US is such a good powerful supernation, why doesn't it fix the very problems that it causes? I think its because the US is an ultra-capitalist empire and requires all of the suffering it takes to maintain that empire.
wait the US is giving Hawaii back?
You sound like a flat earther.
did you know that the US is illegally occupying hawaii?
Very reasonable. Someone must be very proud of you!
You just made a complete sentence on the internet!
So just... Why, exactly?
You don't see the irony of a government comprised of people that had a genocide inflicted on them 80 or so years ago are now committing a genocide themselves? I'd think that someone didn't learn a valuable lesson, but you just think that it's cool or something?
It was for nothing.
Aaron Bushnell got CNN to say the word Genocide on live TV. Even when talking about marches with 1 million people CNN called it war.
And it will be right back out of the news cycle next week.
The Buddhist monk didn't keep staying in the news for 20 years either. The world moves on. They want new stuff every day.
Global attention for a cause for (more than) a day achieved by a single person absolutely extraordinary.
Oh you mean the monk who set himself on fire in 1963? And totally stopped the Vietnam war by 1973.
I could make CNN say “babaabooey” if I put it in a manifesto prior to setting myself on fire.
They’ve said “genocide” before. This did nothing but silence one voice.
WOW!!! CNN said "genocide"??? Holy fuck pack it up boys, the work is done.
I mean it made you make a comment. Regardless of your opinion, it still did something.