it’s insane watching the video of Aaron Bushnell because after self immolating one of the first things that happens is a cop comes and trains a gun on him and then does not take the gun off him for the entirety of the fucking video. as if he’s going anywhere. as if he’s not completely incapacitated already. as if he’s not already dying. there are shouts “GET ON THE GROUND, GET ON THE GROUND” at him, as if that’s even remotely helpful in the situation. you clearly hear another officer(?) shouting “I DON’T NEED GUNS, I NEED FIRE EXTINGUISHERS!” in obvious frustration. it’s insane that an officer’s reaction to a suicide is to pull a gun on that person and shout at them. Aaron Bushnell couldn’t have foreseen that he would be live-streaming such a stark example of the utter uselessness and brutality of cops, who are trained to point guns first, regardless of the situation. but like he says in the video before he sets himself on fire, “this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” how long has this been normal? as long as this police state has existed. fuck the police. free palestine.
edit: about 15 minutes after originally posting this i reblogged it to amend that yeah according to sources it looks like the person shouting for fire extinguishers was an EMT, but then that version of the post got buried in the notes so i’m just putting it here. the person actually trying to do something about it was an EMT, not a cop.
a man self immolated in front of the israeli embassy in washington dc yesterday. not just any man. an active member of the us air force. he live streamed his death, and said that he refused to be complicit in a genocide any longer. he said that compared to what palestinians were facing every day, setting himself alight was nothing.
let me reiterate. an active duty air force member burned himself alive because he was so disgusted by what the us government was openly supporting. he live-streamed his own suicide, so the whole world could bear witness as a man in his military uniform set himself on fire to protest his government’s complicity in the horrors that we have all been forced to watch happen in real time. he became a new horror. footage of the immolation blurs him out the moment the fire catches, but you can hear him. it is over in seconds, really, but you can hear him screaming. he shouts “free palestine” until his body physically cannot make any sounds other than guttural screams of agony. and then he falls silent. a police officer arrives and points a gun at his still burning body, shouting at him to get down on the ground. and it is over.
his name was Aaron Bushnell. he was twenty five years old. and he isn’t here anymore because the political ruling class has decided that genocide is perfectly fine as long as it preserves imperialism. in the coming days, people will try to discredit him. to say that he was mentally unstable. they will try to bury his actions to save face and defend israel’s propaganda. do not let them. aaron knew what he was doing. he knew what he was doing when he put on his military uniform, set up his twitch stream, and made his final walk up to the embassy. he knew what would happen to him when he flicked that lighter. do not let them forget. aaron’s blood is on the hands of the political ruling class.
Today, Jordan airdropped food for Gaza. Most of it landed in the sea as fisherman went by boat to grab the bags. The food was sealed and everything was packed tightly for the possibility of it dropping in the sea so the food was edible but this is not enough. 4 planes for 2.1 million people is not enough. We need a ceasefire now and for the thousands of trucks that are blocked at the border to enter before this catastrophe continues to take lives.
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