The US military is pissed. Zionists are pissed. A US service member just burned himself alive as a martyr for the cause of the Palestinian people, and pro-Israel reactionaries cannot cope with that fact that a US soldier, someone who is supposed to represent the power of the regime and its ideology would go to such lengths to protest the genocide committed by them. They’re blaming echo chambers and anarchism, and trying their best to make it seem like his actions were somehow illogical. Zionist media is even claiming his actions were comparable to a suicide bombing.
I never thought I would see a soldier of the regime go to such lengths to defend the masses of another nation. However it seems this man came to understand imperialism and the evils of the United States while serving in the military. In a way, he did one of the logical things that someone can do when they realize they exist in a way that advances imperialism and human suffering, which is to self-destruct. This man is a comrade, despite what his uniform may have said. Some people may take issue with the fact that he was a soldier for the US, but this seems stubborn. Wouldn’t you want more soldiers to do what this man did? Or something even half as good? If rogue US military soldiers defend Palestine, why would we go against that? In fact, we should encourage more service members to go rogue so the people of this country can have a formation that actually defends their freedom.
All over the web, people are telling this hero to rest in power. The gods will certainly reward someone who sacrificed everything and was willing to physically burn to death for the people of Palestine. This was almost like self-crucifying. We will most likely hear slander and smear campaigns from the propagandists of the regime soon trying to discredit his actions just as did for George Floyd or any person who became a symbol of resistance. However the masses and our comrades cannot be fooled so easily by bourgeois media. The day of judgment will come for the zionists, and they will be made to pay for their crimes.
From the river to the sea!
But isn’t there something better he could have done? This guy clearly had more conviction and will than 99% of us to actually DO SOMETHING. And this is what he chose. It seems like such a waste.
In my view, there was probably nothing “better” he could have done. Lobby politicians? A joke. Spark a revolution? USians are still too comfortable living on the dividends of Imperialism to attempt that. Organize a party? We have a few dozen Communist parties already, and even so he’d have been laughed out of any serious Communist party due to his uniform.
The best thing he could do was get a message out. Agitate and Educate. To do that, you need to break past the barriers of the bourgeois manufactured echo chambers.
He did that. He was the very thing US working class white boys like to praise and idolize as heroes and self sacrificing servants of the good ol’ US of A.
And he publicly burned himself alive, making national news for the entire US to see. The protesters in city halls and on the streets would never have reached the people his death reached. The types of people his death and his message reached are the types of people who spit when they see “”“leftist”“” protests in cities.
To see “one of your own” take up a cause so passionately and so unselfishly will turn heads that otherwise would’ve look away, for sure.
In the US, there isn’t much working class people are capable of yet that’d change anything for Palestinians. To make any meaningful change on an issue of this magnitude, the US working class would need to have already been orders of magnitude more organized and aware than it currently is. Most people have never even heard of a cooperative before, and half of the working class is anti-union.
So, to be honest, I don’t think there was much else someone in his shoes could do if they were as passionate about the plight of Palestinians as he was.
Of course. Setting yourself on fire ultimately hurts you. At best other people, especially inside the military, see his action and start to think for themselves.
But it is so highly LARP behavior to constantly shit on him for doing this. The guy set himself on fire, in front of the Israeli embassy, and died. He saw something wrong, realized he is actively on the wrong side of history and decided to take action. Unfortunately for him, this was what he came up with. An act of pure desperation. ‘He should have sabotaged something! He should have done this, he should have done that!’. Sure. The same can be said about people attending protests doing nothing more than holding signs. For people organizing community kitchens for Palestine. For people asking donations in the street. But let’s not turn all Reddit MCU brain because nothing short of singlehandedly Rambo’ing your way through the IDF HQ will be enough then.
He basically torpedoed the propaganda machine by being a US soldier and burning himself in protest for defense of Palestinians. It may not seem like a lot, but how the news is scrambling to salvage the situation shows just how powerful this was. Yes he could have protested, yes he could have sabotaged the US, but then the masses wouldn’t be hearing about it or discussing it right now as it would be clandestine or the media would be able to ignore it. He did this because he wanted to get the message out and was willing to be literally burned to death to make sure he was heard.
Unfortunately you may be right. Nothing else would have gotten any attention.
Sure there is always something more one can do, and it is always a tragedy for a loss of life. However we need to look at this from his prospective. He could not make it through untill I think I read May was when he got out. He clearly had no organization, and the media attention was only one sided, and at the moment, he was complicit in the genocide. From what he could see he only had one way out, and so he decided to with his way out to make a statement. Lets not attack someone doing everything they could until their dieing moment
I’m not attacking anyone. I’m grieving.
Yes, he could’ve done material damage. But idealist nonsense still lingers in our minds, to a point that martyrdom is prefered than doing actual material damage.
He did what a depressed disillusioned soldier could do. Should we encourage more soldiers to off themselves? They already have been for decades. If one wanted to effective sabatoge for Israeli occupation in particular, he’d have to reinlist but there is no guarantee that he’d be stationed in israel to be in proximity to sabatoge the operation. If he spoke the local languages there is a chance he could try to work with Hamas, but there is a high chance of rejection because this could be a way to inject a spy in the most obvious manner as far as Hamas understands.
Being socially alienated also makes it difficult to coordinate to do a more effective sabatoge. Had he done something less desparate he might have been able to share his millitary insights to improve the protests. He could have worked to be an effective propaganda tool for longer if he could keep his record clean. With that he’d be supported and alive. But he was so alienated that he’d dead now.
I hate that in theory capitalists could wait out left wingers by waiting for dissidents to off themselves. I don’t care that it’s unpopular. I won’t stand by leftists offing themselves. It doesn’t fix anything and it weakens the left.
what you think of as “the left” doesn’t exist in the United States outside of isolated online subcultures. There is no “left” that is “weakened” by Bushnell’s sacrifice. The tragedy here isn’t one fewer potential DSA dipshit phonebanking for Biden to “save democracy”. The tragedy here is that dying in a way that even mildly inconveniences the empire, for all its desperation and futility, will likely produce a greater material impact than nearly everyone here will accomplish in a lifetime of reading, posting, or holding up signs.
Do something better yourself and report back
That’s kind of my point though. This guy has more conviction than I ever will. And suicide was the best answer he could come up with. That’s bleak!