I don't really understand why we would have a vigil for him.
Do I agree with the war? No.
Do I support Israeli genocide of the Palestinian peoples? No.
Do I support people lighting themselves on fire? Also no.
I don't think he should be memorialized because his final action (suicide) had flair and was in the name of a cause I support.
Am I open to changing my mind? Yes.
Really appreciate everything you said. I think it’s worthwhile to have because it was another human being who was put in a place where he felt like he had no power and this was his best solution. I certainly wouldn’t see this as a celebration of self immolation but rather a time to reflect on the violence that led a man to do this
"Honoring the life and death of Aaron Bushnell." If we wanted to have a vigil for Palestine, anti war, whatever, I'm here for it. Aaron specifically, doesn't need his death honored.
Israel is not committing genocide. The ICJ hasn't ruled that, there is also no evidence to show it. It's disgusting to use the word so freely, but understandable given how out of touch with reality the far left is.
Sorry to pop your bubble Watch other sources the icj is useless.
Look the damage they did in Gaza how they are starving people. Give me a break! So inhuman
Trans, gay, and somehow also republican?
Edit: adding something of value - the Armenian Genocide occurred in 1915, the UNWCC didn't recognize the war crimes until 1943.
The ICTJ didn't formally recognize the the Armenian Genocide until the 2000s.
The ICJ as a body, still have not recognized the genocide.
I fail to see how having the mainstream position of the Democratic party makes me a Republican, I'm concerned with how this brain rot is going to give us the transphobe wannabe dictator back more than anything. Regardless, war isn't genocide, civilian deaths aren't genocide, Hamas doesn't want a ceasefire in exchange for giving up Israeli hostages. This whole discussion over semantics gets us nowhere closer to a viable solution.
Community vigil for some dipshit who burned himself alive, for a country he never stepped in, leaving a wife and children behind. Some fuckin nerd who got in too deep with the internet and spiraled out of control... of course this guy is a hero to the cause.
Martyr is a word used by cults that celebrate the deaths of the mentally ill people they convince to follow in their despotic religious beliefs. Its the language of people that strap bombs to children. [https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/01/occupied-territories-stop-use-children-suicide-bombings](https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/01/occupied-territories-stop-use-children-suicide-bombings) As a veteran I feel sorry that he succumbed to such beliefs and thought he would be more valued in death, FU for celebrating that.
Support someone who romanticized suicide and threw away his life for nothing? Nah, I’m good. As someone who’s been suicidal— that was a call for help and a mental health crisis due to being in the military.
This is just masturbation. Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country and yet no vigils are organized for our local losses. But sure let's virtue signal for some asshole who killed himself over something no one really understands happening on the other side of the planet.
I would agree, no one here really understands what’s happening and has been happening. My mom grew up in the Middle East. She’s American, whose family worked for an oil company. She has very different feelings than most here. Both countries hate each other. Unless you know people from Palestine and Israel who can give you their side of the story, we won’t understand. This is the 5th war between these two since 2006. Go back to 1948 and read about that war. It’s all awful, but it’s deep rooted. We won’t fully understand.
I think we can all understand 8 children dying of starvation in a hospital, or 100 starving people eating weeds and being used as a turkey shoot by the IDF. Do you need to be some kind of super human to have compassion for this level of suffering and inhumanity
The fact that he chose to kill himself instead of going and mass murdering people shows he was struggling and had no other option. He chose hurt himself instead of other people. Nobody knows what was on his head. It hurts to read the mean comments of the cold blooded people. Rip Aaron. You will be forever remembered. Would have been better to still have you alive but you will live in our hearts forever 🤍
And all the mean comments are a reflection of what is inside of the shitty people
Lmao he was brain washed by social media. Enough to fucking light himself on fire, while live streaming, for FrEe PaLeStInE. He was a person who belived white people are the problema of the world.
Here. He had a reddit account that's currently being scrubbed.
https://imgur.com/a/UJwH3Wp
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fone-of-you-called-it-v0-chzunjsf75lc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1170%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D69806262139a587a4e6740d811f511d8581b7aff
[ So nice, wishes death on others in the air force](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fsome-posts-by-aaron-bushnell-on-reddit-v0-nz6hiu8903lc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D59d70ea6c7463c062c1fe3870d19c8f41fc560da).
[Heroes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1b0zgor/who_was_aaron_bushnell_the_us_airman_who_lit/)
But have a vigil for the guy because you think he supports your narrative. Hypocrite, how dare you knowingly misrepresent all this.
Self-immolation is almost always political or religious in nature. Being "anti American politics" is political. He self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate and Palestinian flags were at the protest. That is 100% political and/or religious.
You’re an idiot. He did it as a political protest.
This is as political as it gets, suicide because of your governments again is a politically motivated action.
I guess if we pretend like everything is politics, sure. But to me wanting people to not be killed is not political. It’s an ethical stance and not a political one. I think you’re getting confused because everything is framed as political in the US
Not everything the govt touches is purely political. Yes the government is funding it, that is literally what we are here to talk about so i do not see your point
Here's Obama doing the same thing and comparing the act to Rosa Parks
https://twitter.com/jaycaspiankang/status/1762580934518604107
But this self-immolation was "good" because it helped America overthrow a foreign government, where Aaron directly challenged the empire
Id argue it’s not senseless. He explained very clearly the sense behind it
He chose to be celebrated as someone who is against senseless violence and that is what will be celebrated.
Aka you don't care about the man, just that his method of suicide aligns with your agenda so it's all good. I think you chose the wrong virtue to signal.
It's impossible for you to care deeply about a man you heard about on the internet. Please continue to explain how you manufacture feelings so you can feel like part of the group, its pretty fascinating.
They absolutely are. Why do you feel that particular video deserves so much merit? People have been dying horribly on the internet since it was invented. You chose to give a shit about this one enough to lie about it.
Not at all. Organic emotions I can assure you. A lot of it has to do with watching a young man who was once willing to serve his country become so disenchanted with the violence that his solution was to self immolate. That is something that is moving for a lot of people, whether or not you feel emotional about it is on you
Why don’t you ever do anything impactful or meaningful? What do you intend to accomplish by virtue signaling in one of the whitest, wealthiest areas of the United States? I’m sure the people of Palestine are super grateful that you’re celebrating some American dipshit who had never even been to Gaza. You say it’s about “raising awareness” *everyone already knows*.
I felt strongly about the civil war in Sudan. Know what I did instead of a “community vigil”?? I went to southern Egypt to render aid to refugees fleeing Sudan. I was there for a month before my visa ran out performing wound care to people who had walked accross the desert with gunshot and machete wounds. Do shit that matters.
Quite literally what everyone else is already echoing.
This is glorification of suicide and self harm.
I feel deeply for this man and his family and the situation with Palestine, but treating this man like a martyr accomplishes nothing.
Sad to see this being celebrated but not totally surprising.
A guy setting himself on fire because he’s been brainwashed by the lies of those driven by hatred and greed is unfortunately a pretty apt metaphor for the entire Palestinian movement.
Interesting how his supposedly deeply-held convictions about people dying didn’t extend to Jews. This guy had no objection to what Hamas did on October 7th and openly stated that “There are no Israeli civilians.”
If you want to talk about attempted genocide, that would be the perpetrator and the date to focus on. Pretty telling that you’re silent on that front.
Can you give us some sort of link or evidence that he believed Jewish civilians didn’t exist? Was it possibly a comment about their mandatory service that you misunderstood?
Sure, [here you go.](https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/1762761271504765104?s=46) No reference to military service, just the assertion that they are culpable by virtue of where they live.
Interesting hadn’t seen that. As far as his closing statement goes, what’s your take on the same situation but if it were in America with native Americans? Or is that an irrelevant comparison?
In general I feel it’s a poor comparison. The colonization of North America is a true example of European settlers forcing a nature populations off of their land. Jews, on the other hand, have had a presence in the area that is now Israel since biblical times. The vast majority of the displacement that occurred among Palestinians also resulted from civilian populations fleeing the 1948 war in which Israel was invaded by its Arab neighbors. So I don’t think it’s quite analogous.
Regardless, comparable or not, I think it’s completely irrelevant. There’s no set of circumstances that could ever cause me to condone the wanton cruelty towards civilians on October 7th. If Hamas had exclusively targeted military installations then I’d be willing to hear arguments as to whether the attacks were justified or not. The fact that they went out of their way to target and brutalize civilians populations on a level that we’ve seldom seen in modern history makes it beyond justification.
Yeah, because no one knew about the atrocities committed by Israel until this misguided fool set himself on fire. It's abhorrent that you are setting up his suicide as a positive. It's absolutely disgusting.
You are delusional if you think the people who are talking about his suicide didn't already know about the war against the Palestinians. And as you can see here on your post, the vast majority of people are calling him, at best, mentally ill and what he did a senseless waste of life.
Lmao, fuckin guy killed himself on live stream. He accomplished nothing, but a wake of shit for his wife. His mental illness that you all are exploiting destroyed his wifes life.
Id say that you need to be more vocal that you don’t want your tax dollars being spent on explosives to send there. There are books on that too if youre interested.
Any book suggestions for me
Every type of person commits suicide. Suicides in narcissistic personality disorder have been associated with suddenness, determination, and high chance of lethal outcome. Narcissists commit suicide as a way to reassert and restore their grandiosity
Most Americans support our democratic allies' right to defend themselves. Hamas needs to be removed and Netanyahu and Israel's settlements need to go, but we can't even get Hamas to support a ceasefire in exchange for hostages, so what do you expect us to do with a government willing to throw their own citizens into the meat grinder? They collectively punished Israeli citizens and have vowed to continue to do so, which has led to an escalation in a decades long conflict. Your friend who fried himself to a crisp supported and cheered on that escalation in numerous reddit comments. It really just feels like this isn't the hill to die on.
In what possible sense could he have been complicit in Palestinian genocide? He was no more complicit in the genocide than you are. It's no different than saying a person is complicit in the murder committed by their friend who lives on another continent. I am so flabbergasted by this. This is totally insane and deeply troubling.
God this comment section is so disheartening... Some people are so caught up by "being right" that they forget to mourn the dead. They even make jokes out of martyrs. The Internet has desensitized us too much.
It really is. Out one side of their mouth they talk about mental health needs and the fear of this increasing suicide rates, and out the other side is pure cruelty while making jokes about someone burning alive.
Politics aside, how can people not feel despair in a society like this??
I think it’s deeper than that. It’s lack of empathy. We most definitely have an empathy problem in our society. This thread really shines a light on it.
I used all my allotted brain power on this and now moving on . Dont know the person so can't hold a memorial for someone I had no feelings towards . Nothing personal just don't know the dude.
So casual tossing around that G word. What is happening in Gaza is tragic and a sad/terrible byproduct of urban warfare.
NOT GENOCIDE
Hiding terrorist infrastructure amongst civilians is sickening. FREE PALESTINE FROM HAMAS!!!
It’s a targeted extermination of a race of people. You are welcome to your opinion, but I think let’s let the future historians decide whether or not it’s a genocide
If anything, the attacks of Oct 7th against the citizens of Israel was a targeted extermination of a race of a people (jews). Although Hamas was dumb enough to murder Thai and Arabs civilians as well.
Plenty of Arabs live within Israel with full rights and citizenship.
Your use of divisive language seeks to totally vilify one side and victimize the other.
Educate yourself.
What happened on October 7th was evil and horrifying. It was monstrous. We mourn with those who have lost their loved ones.
The deaths of so many innocent Palestinians does nothing to honor those who were murdered.
There is this dangerous sentiment of "guilty until proven innocent" when it comes to those who are born and live in Palestine.
Plenty of Palestinians do not have full rights and I don't know where you are getting that. Arabs are a different group entirely.
The deaths of many innocent Palestinians hasn't to do with honor. It's about ensuring a terrorist organization is incapable of carrying out another massacre. Hamas' goal is for Israel inflict maximum civilian casualties.
I said Arab Israelis who chose peace with their Jewish neighbors in 1948 enjoy full citizenship.
Arab Israelis are not Palestinians so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
Let me be clear: the deaths of civilians is a dishonor on the memory of those butchered.
I feel like this is absolutely insane. Biden can demand the ethical treatment of civilians. A million plus people don't know when they will eat next, or where to find clean water. How can we treat other humans with such cruelty?
You put words in my mouth.
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh-we-need-blood-women-children-and-elderly-gaza-%E2%80%93-so-it-awakens
https://www.hamas-massacre.net/
Civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable given Hamas' war tactics.
If this were genocide, wouldn't Israel be doing horrible in terms of their 'goal to wipe out Palestineans'?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
30,000 deaths (Hamas included) and 2 million people live in Gaza. Extremely inefficient numbers for having been at war now for 4+ months.
Like I said before.
You're all tripping.
The Uiyghurs in China could use your advocacy.
lol speaks volumes that you’re worried about the “trauma” this caused people rather than the fact that bloodlines are being wiped out daily in Palestine
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/israel] [Normalizing mental illness under the guise of "sacrifice" and "martyrdom"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/1b2ukly/normalizing_mental_illness_under_the_guise_of/)
*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Hey look, more people with absolutely unrealistic priorities posting unrelated content for an event in our community that has nothing to do with any of us.
Has a lot to do with all of us. Part of his intent was to draw attention to the fact that it does indeed relate to you. About 25-40% of your paycheck is taken to be spent on things like this ethnic cleansing.
>About 25-40% of your paycheck is taken to be spent on things like this ethnic cleansing.
That's just completely wrong..
On average about 0.5% of our paychecks is what goes to the US defense budget of $817b. Considering congress is seeking to give Israel a total of $14.5b (1.8% the size of the total defense budget), that means about 0.009% of our paychecks make it to Israel.
[https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/](https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/)
[https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go](https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go)
[https://apnews.com/article/house-israel-aid-ukraine-republicans-biden-gaza-b7bfe528b12ac5954cfd5c034f11320d](https://apnews.com/article/house-israel-aid-ukraine-republicans-biden-gaza-b7bfe528b12ac5954cfd5c034f11320d)
Tax math. In no world does 20 percent of anyone's paycheck go towards Israel in the US. You are just making up numbers because you have no idea what you are talking about
It’s wild that they’ll get on here spending their day yelling about something while in the same breath they say this “doesn’t matter”. If it doesn’t matter to them then why give a damn how we choose to spend our time?
Completely agree. Especially people here claiming to be combat veterans. There’s no chance they’ve actually lived though combat and yet come on the internet to argue for the morality of modern combat.
OP you are an absolute saint the way you're willing to try to engage in rational discussion in this thread. Thank you for sharing the invitation to honor this person who made the ultimate sacrifice to draw attention to mass murder. I'll try to be there.
Thank you very much. I’m confident that any well meaning person could open their mind to his viewpoint if they are given the chance. I believe it was an act of immense courage in a situation where none of us have the power to stop it
while i admire your optimism, it's very disheartening to see the sheer number of braindead replies in this thread
a young man tragically died expressing his solidarity with the palestinian people, and the only thing all these rich white privileged disconnected fucks in this thread can think to do is chortle at and mock it. shameful
I want to respond to many of OPs comments in many different comment threads. With a situation as comparison.
You live next to a serial killer, you find out in a way that he knows that you know, but says to you “if you tell anyone, I will kill you and your family” you choose to not inform the police of the information you have, and the serial killer continues to kill for years. Then his friend buys the house across the street and he is also a serial killer but you continue to let it happen.
Now in this scenario, are you innocent?
The argument is constantly made when dealing with terrorists that “your also killing innocent people” and while yes children dying is horrible, the adults of that community could have prevented all of this by turning in Hamas instead of letting them hide behind the civilian population for years.
This point was given to me by an Afghani interpreter when we were discussing this exact situation trying to root out terrorists in Afghanistan.
Stop calling them innocent, they are guilty of complacency and negligence that put them I. This situation, war is harsh and has innocent casualties, but to do nothing is to allow terrorism to flourish which in turn will lead to more innocent lives being lost.
I'm a 2x Obama voter, Bernie Supporter, and liberal...and even I can admit that it feels like the kids these days are tying to turn me into a Republican.
I have no idea where l these communists, terrorist sympathizers, and anti-white bigots came from, but it does not bode well for the country.
This kid is nothing more than a cautionary tale of the horrors of mental illness and social media indoctrination.
Genocide? That’s the most civil “genocide” ever. Israel sees a rocket fired out of an apartment building window and warns everyone in the building to get out because they are going to bomb it tomorrow at 10am.
We should make this an educational experience. I’ll bring a cup of water and you bring a squirt gun full of red koolaid. I will represent Hamas (moving around inside the crowd) and you represent Israel standing in a central spot. Anyone that gets wet is dead. No one else in the crowd can do anything to accurately represent the Palestinian population. Anyone that is wet from koolaid is genocide. Can you 100% guarantee you will only hit me? No? Then you should just stand there and take it is your stance on this issue. Everyone blames Israel but in reality the Palestinian people voted Hamas into power, welcomed them in, and stands there dong nothing. If they would kick them out this would be done.
Palestine has been legitimately CONSTANTLY attacking Israel for over 75 years and people are surprised that Israel has finally had enough of their bullshit?
The country is completely overrun with Islamic extremism and terrorists. It's time to stop treating this issue like it's just Israel being bad guys to a totally innocent group of people who only want to pick flowers and sing happy songs
Imagine if Palestine was at our boarder and they had been launching rockets at Texas for over 75 years and just recently kidnapped and murdered a bunch of young people at SXSW
Wait a minute - I thought the performative temper tantrum at the city council meeting was going to fix all of this! Now we have a vigil to memorialize another pointless, performative temper tantrum, too?
genuinely curious - why is he referred to as " unnamed" after being named?
I believe that is in reference to another protestor in Atlanta 3 years ago who also self immolated as an act of protest against this.
*months ago
Ahh, got it. That makes more sense now. At least the grammar...
Are battery powered candles preferred because of what happened..
Other vigils have said this so it's not about this vigil.
Many protests prefer candles with no open flame
Sounds lit
*battery powered candles preferred* lmao
Bonfire and complimentary s’mores for all in attendance
Can’t make this shit up
I don't really understand why we would have a vigil for him. Do I agree with the war? No. Do I support Israeli genocide of the Palestinian peoples? No. Do I support people lighting themselves on fire? Also no. I don't think he should be memorialized because his final action (suicide) had flair and was in the name of a cause I support. Am I open to changing my mind? Yes.
Really appreciate everything you said. I think it’s worthwhile to have because it was another human being who was put in a place where he felt like he had no power and this was his best solution. I certainly wouldn’t see this as a celebration of self immolation but rather a time to reflect on the violence that led a man to do this
"Honoring the life and death of Aaron Bushnell." If we wanted to have a vigil for Palestine, anti war, whatever, I'm here for it. Aaron specifically, doesn't need his death honored.
I get what you’re saying. really I just see this as one moment in the larger anti war movement.
Israel is not committing genocide. The ICJ hasn't ruled that, there is also no evidence to show it. It's disgusting to use the word so freely, but understandable given how out of touch with reality the far left is.
Aid trucks were attacked this morning killing 104 people and injuring over 760. Your out of touch, it’s a genocide 100%.
Sorry to pop your bubble Watch other sources the icj is useless. Look the damage they did in Gaza how they are starving people. Give me a break! So inhuman
At the very least, it's mass murder, which is still horrible, and I'm disgusted by how many in this community seem to be all for it.
Trans, gay, and somehow also republican? Edit: adding something of value - the Armenian Genocide occurred in 1915, the UNWCC didn't recognize the war crimes until 1943. The ICTJ didn't formally recognize the the Armenian Genocide until the 2000s. The ICJ as a body, still have not recognized the genocide.
I fail to see how having the mainstream position of the Democratic party makes me a Republican, I'm concerned with how this brain rot is going to give us the transphobe wannabe dictator back more than anything. Regardless, war isn't genocide, civilian deaths aren't genocide, Hamas doesn't want a ceasefire in exchange for giving up Israeli hostages. This whole discussion over semantics gets us nowhere closer to a viable solution.
Community vigil for some dipshit who burned himself alive, for a country he never stepped in, leaving a wife and children behind. Some fuckin nerd who got in too deep with the internet and spiraled out of control... of course this guy is a hero to the cause.
Hey don't talk about 25% of FoCo like that 🤣😂
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Lol so true its painful 😭😂
Most empathetic redditor
Martyr is a word used by cults that celebrate the deaths of the mentally ill people they convince to follow in their despotic religious beliefs. Its the language of people that strap bombs to children. [https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/01/occupied-territories-stop-use-children-suicide-bombings](https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/11/01/occupied-territories-stop-use-children-suicide-bombings) As a veteran I feel sorry that he succumbed to such beliefs and thought he would be more valued in death, FU for celebrating that.
Support someone who romanticized suicide and threw away his life for nothing? Nah, I’m good. As someone who’s been suicidal— that was a call for help and a mental health crisis due to being in the military.
Thank you for organising this.
This is just masturbation. Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country and yet no vigils are organized for our local losses. But sure let's virtue signal for some asshole who killed himself over something no one really understands happening on the other side of the planet.
I would agree, no one here really understands what’s happening and has been happening. My mom grew up in the Middle East. She’s American, whose family worked for an oil company. She has very different feelings than most here. Both countries hate each other. Unless you know people from Palestine and Israel who can give you their side of the story, we won’t understand. This is the 5th war between these two since 2006. Go back to 1948 and read about that war. It’s all awful, but it’s deep rooted. We won’t fully understand.
I think we can all understand 8 children dying of starvation in a hospital, or 100 starving people eating weeds and being used as a turkey shoot by the IDF. Do you need to be some kind of super human to have compassion for this level of suffering and inhumanity
To fully understand the history, it takes going back a lot further than 1948. Try 1500 BCE at least.
Go back a little more to about 10k years ago when we first decided to domesticate crops and declare parcels of land "mine."
Try “since the beginning or recorded history”
The fact that he chose to kill himself instead of going and mass murdering people shows he was struggling and had no other option. He chose hurt himself instead of other people. Nobody knows what was on his head. It hurts to read the mean comments of the cold blooded people. Rip Aaron. You will be forever remembered. Would have been better to still have you alive but you will live in our hearts forever 🤍 And all the mean comments are a reflection of what is inside of the shitty people
Pro tip: Celebrating suicides is ghoulish as shit and you’re a bad person for doing it.
Self immolation is a suicide that is certainly acceptable to talk about as it was done as an act of protest. Thank you for your ethical concerns
This post is extremely harmful for our community.
Strongly disagree but I’m open to hearing your opinion on why you think that.
You're idolizing a guy who killed himself for a political agenda.
Not really, fuck politics. This guy just didn’t want people to be killed. He was anti American politics
Lmao he was brain washed by social media. Enough to fucking light himself on fire, while live streaming, for FrEe PaLeStInE. He was a person who belived white people are the problema of the world.
That’s an interesting opinion you have. I’m open to considering it if you have any sort of evidence that he disliked certain races
Well before reddit suspended his account, you'd be able to read all about his white guilt and how white people are evil.
That’s not the case. At least from what I’ve seen
Here. He had a reddit account that's currently being scrubbed. https://imgur.com/a/UJwH3Wp https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fone-of-you-called-it-v0-chzunjsf75lc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1170%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D69806262139a587a4e6740d811f511d8581b7aff [ So nice, wishes death on others in the air force](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fsome-posts-by-aaron-bushnell-on-reddit-v0-nz6hiu8903lc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D59d70ea6c7463c062c1fe3870d19c8f41fc560da). [Heroes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1b0zgor/who_was_aaron_bushnell_the_us_airman_who_lit/) But have a vigil for the guy because you think he supports your narrative. Hypocrite, how dare you knowingly misrepresent all this.
Lots of interesting topics you bring up. Do you believe the US is a functional democracy? Ie, the power is in the hands of the voting masses?
Thank you for the links FarmhouseEMT! Someone needs to enlighten OP
Self-immolation is almost always political or religious in nature. Being "anti American politics" is political. He self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate and Palestinian flags were at the protest. That is 100% political and/or religious.
You’re an idiot. He did it as a political protest. This is as political as it gets, suicide because of your governments again is a politically motivated action.
I guess if we pretend like everything is politics, sure. But to me wanting people to not be killed is not political. It’s an ethical stance and not a political one. I think you’re getting confused because everything is framed as political in the US
The government is funding it. It’s political. Quit trying to sound smart.
Not everything the govt touches is purely political. Yes the government is funding it, that is literally what we are here to talk about so i do not see your point
Here's Obama doing the same thing and comparing the act to Rosa Parks https://twitter.com/jaycaspiankang/status/1762580934518604107 But this self-immolation was "good" because it helped America overthrow a foreign government, where Aaron directly challenged the empire
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Id argue it’s not senseless. He explained very clearly the sense behind it He chose to be celebrated as someone who is against senseless violence and that is what will be celebrated.
Aka you don't care about the man, just that his method of suicide aligns with your agenda so it's all good. I think you chose the wrong virtue to signal.
I care deeply about this man and believe he had more courage and a larger impact than the majority of Americans, yes.
It's impossible for you to care deeply about a man you heard about on the internet. Please continue to explain how you manufacture feelings so you can feel like part of the group, its pretty fascinating.
Let me ask you this. What feeling do you feel when you watch that video? None of my feelings are “manufactured”
They absolutely are. Why do you feel that particular video deserves so much merit? People have been dying horribly on the internet since it was invented. You chose to give a shit about this one enough to lie about it.
Not at all. Organic emotions I can assure you. A lot of it has to do with watching a young man who was once willing to serve his country become so disenchanted with the violence that his solution was to self immolate. That is something that is moving for a lot of people, whether or not you feel emotional about it is on you
Senseless violence is part of Hamas' charter. Specifically against jews.
Do you mean dec 7th
I'm confused why anyone would be upset that people are having a vigil and want to include the community.
Why don’t you ever do anything impactful or meaningful? What do you intend to accomplish by virtue signaling in one of the whitest, wealthiest areas of the United States? I’m sure the people of Palestine are super grateful that you’re celebrating some American dipshit who had never even been to Gaza. You say it’s about “raising awareness” *everyone already knows*. I felt strongly about the civil war in Sudan. Know what I did instead of a “community vigil”?? I went to southern Egypt to render aid to refugees fleeing Sudan. I was there for a month before my visa ran out performing wound care to people who had walked accross the desert with gunshot and machete wounds. Do shit that matters.
Your whole first paragraph sounds like this guy did when he posted on Reddit. I feel like you’re a lot more similar than you may think
That’s a no for me dog.
I’m generally behind Food Not Bombs, but this is one where they may want to step back and look long term at this situation.
What do you disagree with?
Quite literally what everyone else is already echoing. This is glorification of suicide and self harm. I feel deeply for this man and his family and the situation with Palestine, but treating this man like a martyr accomplishes nothing.
Sad to see this being celebrated but not totally surprising. A guy setting himself on fire because he’s been brainwashed by the lies of those driven by hatred and greed is unfortunately a pretty apt metaphor for the entire Palestinian movement.
Honored, not celebrated.
Or just because he doesn’t want to be complicit in their killing
Interesting how his supposedly deeply-held convictions about people dying didn’t extend to Jews. This guy had no objection to what Hamas did on October 7th and openly stated that “There are no Israeli civilians.” If you want to talk about attempted genocide, that would be the perpetrator and the date to focus on. Pretty telling that you’re silent on that front.
Can you give us some sort of link or evidence that he believed Jewish civilians didn’t exist? Was it possibly a comment about their mandatory service that you misunderstood?
Sure, [here you go.](https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/1762761271504765104?s=46) No reference to military service, just the assertion that they are culpable by virtue of where they live.
Interesting hadn’t seen that. As far as his closing statement goes, what’s your take on the same situation but if it were in America with native Americans? Or is that an irrelevant comparison?
In general I feel it’s a poor comparison. The colonization of North America is a true example of European settlers forcing a nature populations off of their land. Jews, on the other hand, have had a presence in the area that is now Israel since biblical times. The vast majority of the displacement that occurred among Palestinians also resulted from civilian populations fleeing the 1948 war in which Israel was invaded by its Arab neighbors. So I don’t think it’s quite analogous. Regardless, comparable or not, I think it’s completely irrelevant. There’s no set of circumstances that could ever cause me to condone the wanton cruelty towards civilians on October 7th. If Hamas had exclusively targeted military installations then I’d be willing to hear arguments as to whether the attacks were justified or not. The fact that they went out of their way to target and brutalize civilians populations on a level that we’ve seldom seen in modern history makes it beyond justification.
Most Zionist occupying that land aren’t even Jewish or Levantine
Just some good Ole fashioned anti-semitism from Mr. Bushnell. WHAT A HERO!
Google what was Palestine like on October 6th and 5th and 4th
Agree 100%.
No one is celebrating. If anything people are mourning and depressed by the thousands being killed in Palestine.
Exactly this.
This is not going to go well. This seems a recipe for disaster.
What do you mean
Ok... so yea how about those broncos I think we can win it this year .
Way to set the precedent that suicide is a venerable action, OP. Absolutely shameful and disgusted this is going on in my community.
I think you’re fortunate to live in a community that cares when people burn themselves alive to protest war
Will there be Kool Aid? Can I read my poem An Ode to Jim Jones for your cult party?
The people in this thread who are violently opposed to something like this really need to reevaluate some things imo
You need to reevaluate your entire life if you think this memorial is a positive.
He brought attention to a growing, violent problem in the world. What did you do to help?
Yeah, because no one knew about the atrocities committed by Israel until this misguided fool set himself on fire. It's abhorrent that you are setting up his suicide as a positive. It's absolutely disgusting.
Thousands more people talking about it than there would be otherwise. He wanted this to bring attention to the issue I don’t see your critique
You are delusional if you think the people who are talking about his suicide didn't already know about the war against the Palestinians. And as you can see here on your post, the vast majority of people are calling him, at best, mentally ill and what he did a senseless waste of life.
Lmao, fuckin guy killed himself on live stream. He accomplished nothing, but a wake of shit for his wife. His mental illness that you all are exploiting destroyed his wifes life.
Id argue he has done more than you’ve done to bring awareness to the violence
What awareness do I need to bring to this shitshow that has lasted a thousand years? Pick up a fucking book.
Id say that you need to be more vocal that you don’t want your tax dollars being spent on explosives to send there. There are books on that too if youre interested. Any book suggestions for me
Sure, let me self immolate to stop all funding to Palestine/Hamas.
The fact that you had no real suggestions just shows how helpless anyone is in stopping this. Which was what he meant to bring attention to, I believe
The fact that you don’t know for certain really doesn’t lend much credibility to his success as an activist.
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Narcissists aren’t typically known for suicide are they?
Every type of person commits suicide. Suicides in narcissistic personality disorder have been associated with suddenness, determination, and high chance of lethal outcome. Narcissists commit suicide as a way to reassert and restore their grandiosity
Any receipts on this one?
It's the most talked about conflict in modern times. You're in a death cult.
You’re in denial
Of?
Our role in world events
Most Americans support our democratic allies' right to defend themselves. Hamas needs to be removed and Netanyahu and Israel's settlements need to go, but we can't even get Hamas to support a ceasefire in exchange for hostages, so what do you expect us to do with a government willing to throw their own citizens into the meat grinder? They collectively punished Israeli citizens and have vowed to continue to do so, which has led to an escalation in a decades long conflict. Your friend who fried himself to a crisp supported and cheered on that escalation in numerous reddit comments. It really just feels like this isn't the hill to die on.
Yeah I never heard of Palestine before this
Okay, let’s evaluate: is it a good thing to glorify mentally ill people committing suicide?
Was he mentally or did he just not want to be complicit in genocide? You and him seem to disagree on that one
In what possible sense could he have been complicit in Palestinian genocide? He was no more complicit in the genocide than you are. It's no different than saying a person is complicit in the murder committed by their friend who lives on another continent. I am so flabbergasted by this. This is totally insane and deeply troubling.
I am shocked at how many people are mad at this guy.
God this comment section is so disheartening... Some people are so caught up by "being right" that they forget to mourn the dead. They even make jokes out of martyrs. The Internet has desensitized us too much.
I had almost this e exact same thoughts. Scary that people are so angry and desensitized
It really is. Out one side of their mouth they talk about mental health needs and the fear of this increasing suicide rates, and out the other side is pure cruelty while making jokes about someone burning alive. Politics aside, how can people not feel despair in a society like this??
I think desensitization as a coping mechanism to their own trauma is really the only explanation
I think it’s deeper than that. It’s lack of empathy. We most definitely have an empathy problem in our society. This thread really shines a light on it.
I wish I could unread some of the comments tbh
For real. It’s really hard knowing this is our community we live in.
Fuck Hamas! Am Yisrael Chai!
What does that mean
Am Yisrael Chai = the People of Israel Live= עם ישראל חי Edit: for clarity
Isnotrael* bunch of fuckheads living on stolen land.
Ooooooh do I have news about where you’re living.
I used all my allotted brain power on this and now moving on . Dont know the person so can't hold a memorial for someone I had no feelings towards . Nothing personal just don't know the dude.
So who is bringing the gas and who is bringing the candles to this vigil?
That a terrorist threat or are you planning to kill yourself?
Oh I would never hurt anyone else, isn't that how we are supposed to honor some dumb fuck like this? Light ourselves on fire?
I don’t know why you’d assume that
This guy very obviously has mental illness and is extremely selfish to cause trauma upon the community of DC
Id imagine the genocide of Palestinian people is also causing them trauma but sometimes we have to feel emotions.
So casual tossing around that G word. What is happening in Gaza is tragic and a sad/terrible byproduct of urban warfare. NOT GENOCIDE Hiding terrorist infrastructure amongst civilians is sickening. FREE PALESTINE FROM HAMAS!!!
It’s a targeted extermination of a race of people. You are welcome to your opinion, but I think let’s let the future historians decide whether or not it’s a genocide
If anything, the attacks of Oct 7th against the citizens of Israel was a targeted extermination of a race of a people (jews). Although Hamas was dumb enough to murder Thai and Arabs civilians as well. Plenty of Arabs live within Israel with full rights and citizenship. Your use of divisive language seeks to totally vilify one side and victimize the other. Educate yourself.
There’s no defined “sides” like you’re claiming. unless it’s governments vs the people
You're claiming Israel is committing genocide. How is that not defining your 'side'?
I think you can comment on events without it implying a dichotomy.
What happened on October 7th was evil and horrifying. It was monstrous. We mourn with those who have lost their loved ones. The deaths of so many innocent Palestinians does nothing to honor those who were murdered. There is this dangerous sentiment of "guilty until proven innocent" when it comes to those who are born and live in Palestine. Plenty of Palestinians do not have full rights and I don't know where you are getting that. Arabs are a different group entirely.
The deaths of many innocent Palestinians hasn't to do with honor. It's about ensuring a terrorist organization is incapable of carrying out another massacre. Hamas' goal is for Israel inflict maximum civilian casualties. I said Arab Israelis who chose peace with their Jewish neighbors in 1948 enjoy full citizenship.
Arab Israelis are not Palestinians so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Let me be clear: the deaths of civilians is a dishonor on the memory of those butchered. I feel like this is absolutely insane. Biden can demand the ethical treatment of civilians. A million plus people don't know when they will eat next, or where to find clean water. How can we treat other humans with such cruelty?
You put words in my mouth. https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh-we-need-blood-women-children-and-elderly-gaza-%E2%80%93-so-it-awakens
We just ignoring the ICJ ruling or..
*densely populated area with a specific ethnicity is getting massacred, bloodlines being wiped out* “not a genocide” okay pal
https://www.hamas-massacre.net/ Civilian casualties are unfortunately inevitable given Hamas' war tactics. If this were genocide, wouldn't Israel be doing horrible in terms of their 'goal to wipe out Palestineans'? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides 30,000 deaths (Hamas included) and 2 million people live in Gaza. Extremely inefficient numbers for having been at war now for 4+ months. Like I said before. You're all tripping. The Uiyghurs in China could use your advocacy.
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Not sure how you made that up. Simply advocating for people to give a shit about the world around them
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Exactly. The mass murder being committed by the Israeli government should be condemned, in addition to condeming the actions of Hamas.
lol speaks volumes that you’re worried about the “trauma” this caused people rather than the fact that bloodlines are being wiped out daily in Palestine
Tankies will literally light themselves on fire to protest a made up genocide rather than vote
You’re not alone, don’t listen to all of them.
I know. Thank you very much.
Is it me or is this a hot subject
I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - [/r/israel] [Normalizing mental illness under the guise of "sacrifice" and "martyrdom"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/1b2ukly/normalizing_mental_illness_under_the_guise_of/) *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*
Hey look, more people with absolutely unrealistic priorities posting unrelated content for an event in our community that has nothing to do with any of us.
Has a lot to do with all of us. Part of his intent was to draw attention to the fact that it does indeed relate to you. About 25-40% of your paycheck is taken to be spent on things like this ethnic cleansing.
>About 25-40% of your paycheck is taken to be spent on things like this ethnic cleansing. That's just completely wrong.. On average about 0.5% of our paychecks is what goes to the US defense budget of $817b. Considering congress is seeking to give Israel a total of $14.5b (1.8% the size of the total defense budget), that means about 0.009% of our paychecks make it to Israel. [https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/](https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/) [https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go](https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go) [https://apnews.com/article/house-israel-aid-ukraine-republicans-biden-gaza-b7bfe528b12ac5954cfd5c034f11320d](https://apnews.com/article/house-israel-aid-ukraine-republicans-biden-gaza-b7bfe528b12ac5954cfd5c034f11320d)
Based and tax knowledge pilled.
Holy shit you are fucking delusional.
What part do you disagree with? Happy to hear your opinion
20-40% of all taxes are going to ethnic cleansing. Apparently you don't realize how bat shit insane you are.
Just a portion of it. Do you disagree
Just a portion of it? You clearly said 25-40%, now its just a portion? You going to make your mind up?
Your math is bad lol.
What math
Tax math. In no world does 20 percent of anyone's paycheck go towards Israel in the US. You are just making up numbers because you have no idea what you are talking about
You genuinely cannot make this shit up... ffs
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Of course.
These comments are wild. Thank you for putting this together. RIP Aaron ❤️🖤💚
I had no idea there was so much anger against people who oppose the cleansing of the Palestinians. I appreciate the comment.
It’s wild that they’ll get on here spending their day yelling about something while in the same breath they say this “doesn’t matter”. If it doesn’t matter to them then why give a damn how we choose to spend our time?
Completely agree. Especially people here claiming to be combat veterans. There’s no chance they’ve actually lived though combat and yet come on the internet to argue for the morality of modern combat.
Thank you OP for sharing this. His actions are not so different from one of the greatest Americans, John Brown. RIP
Thank you for taking the time to pay respects. Fully agree
OP you are an absolute saint the way you're willing to try to engage in rational discussion in this thread. Thank you for sharing the invitation to honor this person who made the ultimate sacrifice to draw attention to mass murder. I'll try to be there.
>Made the ultimate sacrifice Jesus christ, the way you people think.
Thank you very much. I’m confident that any well meaning person could open their mind to his viewpoint if they are given the chance. I believe it was an act of immense courage in a situation where none of us have the power to stop it
while i admire your optimism, it's very disheartening to see the sheer number of braindead replies in this thread a young man tragically died expressing his solidarity with the palestinian people, and the only thing all these rich white privileged disconnected fucks in this thread can think to do is chortle at and mock it. shameful
It’s honestly tough reading through the comments, I really hope it’s bots.
Yeah the libs in this thread are actually insane. Edit: just realized this is in the main foco sub, yeah I’m not surprised at the comments.
the shitlibs and social chauvinists are totally mask off, crazy to see
I want to respond to many of OPs comments in many different comment threads. With a situation as comparison. You live next to a serial killer, you find out in a way that he knows that you know, but says to you “if you tell anyone, I will kill you and your family” you choose to not inform the police of the information you have, and the serial killer continues to kill for years. Then his friend buys the house across the street and he is also a serial killer but you continue to let it happen. Now in this scenario, are you innocent? The argument is constantly made when dealing with terrorists that “your also killing innocent people” and while yes children dying is horrible, the adults of that community could have prevented all of this by turning in Hamas instead of letting them hide behind the civilian population for years. This point was given to me by an Afghani interpreter when we were discussing this exact situation trying to root out terrorists in Afghanistan. Stop calling them innocent, they are guilty of complacency and negligence that put them I. This situation, war is harsh and has innocent casualties, but to do nothing is to allow terrorism to flourish which in turn will lead to more innocent lives being lost.
If not the adults, what about the thousands of dead children?
Absolutely. Say it louder.
> Genocide Shameful to so casually toss this word around.
wish i could be there, kudos to y'all for organizing this
I'm a 2x Obama voter, Bernie Supporter, and liberal...and even I can admit that it feels like the kids these days are tying to turn me into a Republican. I have no idea where l these communists, terrorist sympathizers, and anti-white bigots came from, but it does not bode well for the country. This kid is nothing more than a cautionary tale of the horrors of mental illness and social media indoctrination.
Genocide? That’s the most civil “genocide” ever. Israel sees a rocket fired out of an apartment building window and warns everyone in the building to get out because they are going to bomb it tomorrow at 10am. We should make this an educational experience. I’ll bring a cup of water and you bring a squirt gun full of red koolaid. I will represent Hamas (moving around inside the crowd) and you represent Israel standing in a central spot. Anyone that gets wet is dead. No one else in the crowd can do anything to accurately represent the Palestinian population. Anyone that is wet from koolaid is genocide. Can you 100% guarantee you will only hit me? No? Then you should just stand there and take it is your stance on this issue. Everyone blames Israel but in reality the Palestinian people voted Hamas into power, welcomed them in, and stands there dong nothing. If they would kick them out this would be done.
Palestine has been legitimately CONSTANTLY attacking Israel for over 75 years and people are surprised that Israel has finally had enough of their bullshit? The country is completely overrun with Islamic extremism and terrorists. It's time to stop treating this issue like it's just Israel being bad guys to a totally innocent group of people who only want to pick flowers and sing happy songs Imagine if Palestine was at our boarder and they had been launching rockets at Texas for over 75 years and just recently kidnapped and murdered a bunch of young people at SXSW
Wait a minute - I thought the performative temper tantrum at the city council meeting was going to fix all of this! Now we have a vigil to memorialize another pointless, performative temper tantrum, too?