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.
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.
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.
As an Air Force veteran this all is all hitting home so hard. I joined the Air Force right out of high school because my dad was in the Air Force and my grandfather was in the Army Air Corp, so of course I bought everything they were selling. We always made jokes about turning the Middle East into glass, or said little slogans like, “When it absolutely has to be destroyed overnight, call the Air Force.” I wish I could chalk that up to being young and dumb, but the leadership perpetuated these things and after 9/11 it really dehumanized what we were doing. I felt proud knowing that bombs I loaded on a plane were not there when it came back. I never once questioned why they attacked us in the first place. And I certainly didn’t learn about global politics with my high school education from Texas.
After I got out, and got educated, and started seeing the world through a larger lens, it shifted my point of view. I’ve gone from hardcore republican who voted for George W Bush, to voting for Bernie Sanders. I feel ashamed of how I used to think and act. I am very anti-war on all fronts. No one should ever have to lay down their life for some shithead politician.
With that said, I made the horrible decision to go to the Air Force subreddit to see what they were saying about these recent events. And it hurt me to see them all spouting the same shit I would have said 20 years ago. Crap about how the middle east has been fighting each other for 1,000 years, so we should just let them all kill themselves. And they strongly pushed the Aaron Bushnell was just some crazy radical anarchist. Or people saying his leadership failed him, or how did he have a security clearance, etc. There was not one single mention of how what was going on over there is beyond fucked up.
So, seeing other veterans stand up for this makes me feel a little better and gives me hope. I just hope that is makes it’s way down the ranks and into the young service members and recruits.
Hey friend, I would like to offer you a reframing of this situation. Despite being exposed to some of the strongest cultural indoctrination into warmongering and the military, you made it out and embraced empathy and learning. That's huge. I'm proud of you, that's a positive change most people never make. You should be proud of it.
I just hope that is makes it’s way down the ranks
You have a powerful and important story. Sharing it like you did just now helps more than hopes can. Keep sharing it, you never know who might be reading it and encouraged to question the lessons they were taught.
Thanks. It definitely helps to hear someone reframe it like that. It was actually cathartic just typing that all out. The hope that it could encourage others is even better.
I’m 100% with you. The deprogramming took years. It feels like I wasted so much of my life, and I’m still trying to figure out where I fit in. What’s almost worse than knowing so many vets are still so brainwashed is watching people who didn’t go through the same programming shill even harder for regressive destruction. I work on a construction site and have to listen to these overconfident fascist blowhards rant all day.
In case you haven't seen it there's a great documentary from 2005 about the anti-war movement within the ranks of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War.
Does he believe in the state using force to kill and brutally suppress its citizens to enforce their rule and limit democratic freedoms?
Because you can be a leftist and not support that shit by holding positive views of the Soviet Union or China. We don’t call those people tankies, we call tankies tankies.
Edit: let's talk for a minute about some really important history here. Leninists have ridden anarchists to victory then turned around and murdered them, starting with Lenin himself. Makhnovists saved the Red Army from being destroyed by the white. The Soviet Revolution was originally an anarchist one until it was betrayed by the Bolsheviks, who murdered anarchists from the beginning.
Even Trotskyists need to be held accountable for this, since Trotsky himself was responsible for crushing dissent at Kronostat.
Aaron Bushnell was an anarchist. He was an anarchist service member. MLs honoring his sacrifice need to face the fact that their ideological ancestors did murder people like him for their own resistence.
MLs try to take over anarchist actions even today. PSL has tried to co-opt actions that my anarchist comrades have organized. They are overwhelmingly ineffective, which is why the feed so much on anarchist energy and appropriate anarchist actions all the time. Tankies use anarchists to get attention for themselves and dispose of us when we become inconvenient.
And if you can't honestly acknowledge the dissonance between the history of appropriation and oppression of people who you openly acknowledge are on the same side as you, then you don't really want a more free and equitable world, you just want your cult to wear the boots that are on everyone else's neck.
So yeah, fuck tankies. This is a great action. Don't let them appropriate it.
Give me a fucking break, no self respecting leftist would give Biden their vote. The vast majority here is liberals cosplaying as leftists to undermine actual left unity.
The majority of users on Lemmy are leftists liberals, so I doubt that immensely.
ftfy. At least on lemmy.world. And no being a liberal doesn't make you a leftist, nor even necessarily left of center, depending on what brand of liberalism you subscribe to.