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The Life & Death of Aaron Bushnell: Friend Says Self-Immolation Was a Demand for Justice
www.democracynow.orgIn an act that has captured the attention of the world, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington Sunday to protest Israel’s assault on Gaza and U.S. support for the military campaign. Bushnell, who live-streamed the action, said, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” before lighting himself on fire and repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he was engulfed in the flames. He was pronounced dead in the hospital later that day. Democracy Now! speaks with Bushnell’s friend and conscientious objector Levi Pierpont, who says his friend’s death was not a suicide but was about using his life to send a message for justice. “We have to honor the message that he left,” says Pierpont, who says Bushnell died “to get people’s attention about the genocide that’s happening in Palestine.” Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat, lays out the history of self-immolation to protest war and how Bushnell’s act could impact U.S. policy for the war on Gaza. “It was an act of courage, an act of bravery, to call attention to U.S. policies,” says Wright, who offers support to Pierpont and other veterans advocating for peace live on air.
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?
I was not aware there was presently an armed conflict in Hawaii and that the islands were under military control by the US. Do you mean that they were illegally annexed? Yeah I suppose I am aware that America sponsored a coup there.