#remember aaron bushnell

[ladychlo]

Literally an active-duty soldier in the US Armed Forces (Aaron Bushnell, may he rest in peace) has committed self-immolation as an act of protest against genocide in Palestine. X

He's last words were : "Today in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."

As much as the media wants you to believe that you have become desensitised to the suffering of others, Aaron's protest should spark outrage. Free Palestine.

#aaron bushnell #self immolation #made me remember how the Arab Spring started Mohamed Bouazizi’s self immolation as an act of heroic protest #sparked a whole revolution #free palestine #gaza

[thesunwillshineonusagain757]

Seeing people try to label Aaron as mentally unstable, just makes me rage! It's like they can't handle the sheer force of his actions, so they resort to calling him insane. But you know what? That's just a cop-out so they don’t have to deal with the questions and indignations that come from his act!

I dove into Aaron's social media after everything went down, and let me tell you, he was an amazing human being someone, I would’ve loved to know personally. He cared deeply about those who were ignored or pushed aside by society. And anyone trying to water down his message or paint him as some kind of mentally ill person has clearly forgotten what it means to be human.

Rest in power, Aaron. Your legacy is one of courage and selflessness. And to those who want to chalk up his actions to mental illness, let me drop some truth bombs on you: Serving in the military is about sacrificing everything for a cause you believe in. Aaron, being in the Air Force, knew exactly what he was doing. So let's not play the double standard card here, okay? Makes you look dumb as fuck - not that you aren’t but still…

AARON BUSHNELL, YOU'LL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED FOR YOUR SACRIFICE. FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

#from brazil 🇧🇷 I scream free palestine 🇵🇸 #aaron bushnell #remember his name ! #fuck zionists #fuck zionism #free palestine #rest in power #free gaza #free free palestine

[pan-anarcho]

a reminder to please don't let the media paint Aaron Bushnell's death as a "cause of mental illness" self-immolation is AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN an extreme form of protest & choosing death over being complaisant of a literal genocide is an act of martyrdom.

#aaron bushnell #free palestine #gaza #rafah #SAY & REMEMBER HIS NAME

[alihartwrites]

Sacrifice or Suicide?

I don’t see Lilly’s self-immolation as an act of suicide but moreso as sacrificial and symbolic.

Bushnell didn’t show any signs of suicidality - if so she would’ve been discharged out of the military held in a VA psych ward. Especially with a security clearance as high as hers.

Lilly was incredibly methodical about her self-immolation it was to symbolize and force the globe to see what’s happening in Palestine.

Bushnell wouldn’t have wanted copycats and I do not condone anyone to self-immolate whatsoever.

Yet, I still think it is important to understand and remember these people for who they were based on their own accounts rather than mainstream media accounts which already hate anarchists like us.

PSA: If you or anyone you know are feeling suicidal, please reach out for help!

Call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

Text HOME to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line

Call, text, or chat with The Trevor Project https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-help/

Link to full list of posts about Lilly (Aaron) Bushnell > https://www.tumblr.com/alihartwrites/745361994322984960/list-of-posts-about-aaronlilly-bushnell

#sacrifice #self immolation #suicide #suicide or sacrifice #cw suicide #tw suicide #lilly bushnell #remember lilly #lillyanarkitty #the sacred feminine #free palestine #palestine #free gaza #bushnell #aaron bushnell #alihartwrites #oc #highlight

[whycantwegivellove]

a man set himself on fire in front of the israeli embassy building to protest the genocide in palestine and the police officers pointed their guns at his flaming body (instead of, you know, getting a fire extinguisher or doing literally anything to help). i'm sick to my stomach.

#from the bottom of my heart fuck this country #my rambles #aaron bushnell your sacrifice will not go unrecognized #even though the media will say nothing #we will remember

[jordanlovesalexg]

i disgust myself every time i am silent

#free palestine #global strike for palestine #ceasefire for palestine #ceasefire #free gaza #ceasefire for gaza #aaron bushnell #rip aaron bushnell #his name and work in justice will forever be remembered

[bloghrexach]

🫶🏽 — Oriental artist remembers and honors Aaronbushnell — graphic paintings!! — 🫶🏽 @hrexach

#dr rex equality news information education #graphic source #graphic #graphics #hortyrex © #horty #quote #it is what it is #graphic art #honor #remember #aaron bushnell #immolation #oriental art

[2tsuuuun2]

#free palestine #remember their names #especially Rachel Corrie #Her name was being pushed under the rug #she is also the first before Aaron #Bushnell #And shes alive if my memory serves right

[elizabro]

please consider how you engage with aaron bushnell's death. you may react to it as you will, but it's crucial to remember that his death was specifically a call to action. it was not meant solely to shock but to draw attention to a vast moral hypocrisy: that to many, a soldier dying in a campaign backed by the U.S. government is noble, even if the soldier kills innocents to do so, even if the cause is morally bankrupt--but this? this is insanity. a man taking his own life, on his own terms, in an attempt to help others while hurting nobody else, is somehow less rational and more horrifying than the mass killing of civilians.

of course aaron's death was horrific. but as he said beforehand, it is realistically no more horrific than what's happening in gaza. if we can't stomach this, then why can we stomach children being bombed? thousands being starved? for all that self immolation is, it brings death in a matter of minutes. it is a fraction of the amount of pain, fear, and grief that people in gaza are experiencing. it's just that we are able to quantify it. and this tiny, quantifiable sliver of horror is still so unbelievably awful. how can anyone bear to think about anything else when this horror is happening a millionfold in palestine? this is the question aaron bushnell was asking. and he wanted you to face it, head-on, watching him burn to death.

I've been seeing people make fanart. minimalist graphics to sell on t-shirts. to commodify his death, to mythologize it not a day afterwards, is not only in poor taste but a hindrance to his message. the answer is not commodification, nor is it defeatism, nor is it rejoicing in his death. if you want to honor aaron's legacy, take action. channel your horror and your outrage into making a material change. this wasn't about him. this was about palestine. remember that it was always about palestine.

#aaron bushnell #I didn't want to make another post about this but #watching that video changed me irrevocably. #there have been many instances during this genocide that I've felt that way. and today is another one of those days. #I have been radicalized permanently by these events. #people speak to aaron's death as a result of hopelessness #but I see it as him having profound hope. he had hope that his death would change things. #and it is up to those still alive to ensure that happens. #free palestine

[frecklenog]

“self immolation as a form of extreme political protest has a long history all over the world, and aaron bushnell’s death should not be discussed solely as a suicide”

and

“people who are already hurting and vulnerable can do more to help while they are still alive than they could in death, and should not repeat aaron bushnell’s actions”

are statements that can and must coexist, actually.

he felt that he was complicit in genocide as an active duty us service member, and, to an extent, he was. but also as an active duty service member, he was legally not allowed to quit his job as a member of the military.

his final act was to take drastic measures to draw attention to a genocide that many people in this country are turning a blind eye towards, and i commend him for his sacrifice. it should be honored and remembered.

that doesn’t mean i want anyone to feel that they should follow in his footsteps.

he should not have been made, by nature of his employment, to feel that he was complicit in genocide, because those in power should not be funding and supporting it in the first place. but they are doing so, and he made it clear that did feel that way. we can’t change that. that doesn’t give us the right to dismiss and ignore his actions.

“this [genocide] is what our ruling class has decided is normal.” and it shouldn’t be.

keep bushnell’s message in mind as you organize. protest, fundraise, call your representatives. these are actions that have a tangible effect. and they do far more to help than dying.

but i’m not going to condemn him, just as i’m not going to condemn the likes of thích quảng đức. i’m not going to say that his death was worthless, because it brought undeniable attention to the matter at hand, despite attempts by american media to gloss over why he did what he did.

i understand where people are coming from — self immolation is a deeply disturbing thing to witness, even blurred. i was very deeply affected by the video. but that’s exactly why he did it; to get through to people that this matters.

i don’t want anyone else to die, either. but remembering aaron bushnell and what he died for is not synonymous with encouraging suicide.

his last words were “free palestine” and, as people living in countries that are funding extermination, it is our job to carry on that cry until palestine is free.

that means living to see it through. ensure that he did not die in vain.

#aaron bushnell #shut up emrys

[paper-mario-wiki]

Been spending all morning thinking about Aaron Bushnell, specifically after seeing a timeline of his life that said "1999-2024".

That timeline is shorter than mine, which is "1998-2024". Mine started earlier, but gets to keep going while his does not. How unfair for him. How terrifying.

After that, I thought about the timelines of the tens of thousands of murdered Palestinian children, whose timelines were made much shorter. They would look something like "2014-2023", "2019-2024", "2023-2024", cutoff shorter than mine, or Aaron's, or yours. I'm sure that's something Aaron was thinking about too.

But ours gets to keep going. How unfair to them. How terrifying.

That's why the living cannot stop talking about them. Because each of those timelines represents a life that created love for others and was loved in turn, and it illustrates the many years that were robbed from them.

Much as we must hold their anger in our hearts, we must remember in carrying out the change they didn't get to see that we do so because we protect what we love, not because we choose to destroy what we hate.

#text #occurrence #palestine

[colorisbyshe]

I just came across a tweet saying that Aaron Bushnell--the man who burned himself to death while yelling Free Palestine until he couldn't anymore--will be "in the history books" and that phrase has been coming up a lot. And it chafes me every time I read it, every time I hear it.

Cause, a. no, a lot of this won't be in the American history books. American atrocities, especially those overseas but even those against American people (especially American people of color), don't go in the literal history books. Or the figurative ones. Most American atrocities are wiped from the collective memory... sometimes as soon as they happen. They go unreported (like the first person to self immolate to protest this genocide), they go erased, they go whitewashed, they go falsely recontextualized, and they get twisted into pro-America sentiment--we were right for those atrocities, we were wrong for them but we learned, we didn't learn from it but we felt bad about it and should be comforted for that soreness.

And b. is harder to verbalize but I'm gonna try. It feels... performative in the literal sense. Like we only value what is happening today out of deference for how people in the future will perceive it. We aren't doing anything to change anything NOW, to care about other people NOW, but so that one day... we'll be remembered a caring. Like this man killed himself as gesture, as a move for his legacy.

And I see this phrase--"this will be remembered in the history books"--whipped out in extremely horrific contexts. A child's dead body hanging off a wall, "oh, this will be in the history books." What does that even mean? Was her death worth the historical context? Was it necessary to embellish the horror of it all?

Would the people reading these hypothetical history books not get the wrongness of the genocide without the death of a little girl that you're using as... window dressing?

It just seems so weirdly self satisfied. Like you're eager to note you just witnessed a real moment that people will remember decades from now. When... a lot of people won't which is what is so tragic. A lot of people don't even know it's happening right now.

Because, again, it's not being reported. And when it is being reported it's not being reported honestly.

I'm not saying this well but it just feels like such a gross reaction to things we're seeing in real time.

Why does it have to matter later to matter now? Why is the hypothetical reaction of a history book reader the thing you think about?

A lot of people won't live to read those "history books" because people, right now, aren't doing anything to help them.

#idk it feels like people want to pat themselves on the back #for witnessing an 'important' moment

[hametsukaishi]

I just watched a man burn himself screaming Free Palestine.

He was an active soldier. He said "compared to what the people in Palestine are facing, this is not extreme at all". I can't believe I just watched him die. Just one second there, the next one gone. One moment he was screaming free palestine, words coming out of his mouth all rushed because he was in agony, then he was just screaming, THEN he screamed free palestine one last time.

Is Biden going to say he protects all americans again? When there was another guy with a gun ready to shoot him in case he survived?

I don't know how to say, how to react, but I will remember his name like I carry all the others. He was a victim of his own country. Of his own government. Aaron Bushnell.

Free Palestine.

#free palestine #palestine #free gaza #gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #israel is a terrorist state #current events #israel #i stand with palestine #aaron bushnell

[icedsodapop]

So... I saw this post that screenshot the discourse between two Black women on Twitter over the usage of "Rest in Power" for Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation is appopriate. As non-Black leftists, I don't think we have a right to wade into the discourse among Black leftists in regards to this. However, I am disappointed and unsettled by some of the notes left on the post by non-Black users:

Black culture, AAVE in this case, has already has been appropriated for a long time, and the term, "Rest in Power" has been co-opted to hell and back by non-Black people. Black people on Twitter have said that they were being harassed for their criticism over using "Rest in Power" for Aaron Bushnell:

It is important for us as supporters of Palestinian liberation to acknowledge and honor Aaron Bushnell, I also believe that for non-Black allies of Palestinian liberation, we can do that in a way that do not co-opt the language of Black radical movements and definitely does not dismiss the concerns and critiques of our fellow Black allies. Please remember that we always have to be aware of perpetuating antiblackness within the Free Palestine movement. Are we being inclusive in our activism or are we just being performative?

Here are some tweets by Black Twitter users on this:

#aaron bushnell #free palestine #antiblackness #cultural appropriation #performative allyship #racism

[alihartwrites]

Screaming inside, why isn’t the world seeing Bushnell for the entire person she was? It’s so obvious when looking through her post/comment history - she was clearly queer, even if she hadn’t made that public.

#lilly bushnell #Bushnell #aaron bushnell #free palestine #remember Lilly #oc

[youdontknowwhotfiamm]

You will forever be remembered. Rest in peace Aaron Bushnell.

#free palestine 🇵🇸 #free palestine #i stand with palestine 🇵🇸 #israel is a genocidal state #israel is committing genocide #palestine #palestine will be free #free gaza 🇵🇸 #israel is a terrorist state #gaza genocide #aaron bushnell #united states #israelis are terrorists #israel is a war criminal #israel is an apartheid state #israel is evil #fuck israel #boycott israel #israhell #isnotreal #jews for palestine #🇵🇸 #from the river to the sea 🇵🇸 #filistin 🇵🇸 #فلسطين 🇵🇸 #news on gaza #gazaunderfire #stand with gaza #war on gaza #free gaza