“I will no longer be complicit in genocide [in Gaza]. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” the man apparently said before setting himself alight and repeatedly shouting “Free Palestine!”
Law enforcement also drew a gun on the burning man during the incident, according to a report by Task and Purpose.
When you’re a hammer…
I read that and was like “of fucking course they did.” Honestly the next paragraph makes it even worse, IMO.
Authorities were heard asking the man – “May I help you, sir?” – at first but as soon as he was engulfed in flames they started yelling at him to get down on the ground. They even drew their guns on the burning man before someone pushed them to get fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire.
Threats of physical violence are the only tool they have in their toolbox. THE ONLY tool.
Threats of physical violence are the only tool they have in their toolbox. THE ONLY tool.
And actual gun violence. They’re the sniwflakiest and wimpiest of the all, bringing an AK-47 to a civilised discussion and feeling “threatened”.
Let’s escalate everything to death
casually j-walks across a non busy street
casually j-walks across a non busy street
Sheriff’s deputies from Orange County fatally shot the man, 42-year-old Kurt Reinhold, amid an altercation in September in San Clemente, California.
The video, released on Thursday last week, shows two sheriff’s deputies considering whether or not to charge Reinhold with jaywalking, before tackling him to the floor.
Reports say the sheriff’s deputies were on patrol and were assigned to the homeless outreach team, when the shooting took place.
One of the deputies says in the video, “Watch this, he’s going to jaywalk,” before asking Reinhold: "Are you going to stop or are we going to have to make you stop?
"Jaywalking here? That’s ridiculous,” Reinhold adds.
Acab
Maybe they thought he had a pocket full of acorns.
good point, it’s possible we just didn’t see who he was actually aiming at
This would be hilarious if it was satire, but this ain’t the onion.
No, but I’m sure you can get shot by police if you have an onion - that’s basically a biological weapon to assault delicate cop eyes.
You can not make this shit up. Jesus fucking Christ what a world.
It’s a bit of a beleaguered point, but it’s very telling that this will assuredly get almost no coverage on big news networks like abc, cbs, fox, etc. and virtually no coverage in the larger papers like the NYT, sure the press agencies like Reuters and the AP will cover it and then redistributors like your source will publish this, but little thought among the media class/commentariet will be given to the man who decided there was so little hope of being able to do anything through legal/electoral means to stop a genocide that he could no longer stand idly by and had to do something to protest the sheer inhumanity of what’s going on. Barely anyone probably still remembers the person who did the same thing and died in 2022 on earth day protesting inaction on climate change/destruction, that story was absolutely buried. I don’t support any kind of self harm, but doing something as drastic as this requires a pretty compelling reason, most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing, but the same importance was not extended to that person in 2022 and will almost definitely not be extended to this person now. I may end up being wrong, but I expect this to be out of the news cycle/discourse in days at most.
I was listening to BBC World Report this morning. They made quick mention of it along with some other things happening in the conflict, then went on to introduce their “expert” who would illuminate the situation.
Their so called expert was an employee of some Israeli institute of security or whatever, and he talked on for ages with minimal push-back about how the israeli army is doing everything by the book and how “Gaza is safe for civilians, and if it’s not it’s the fault of Hamas”.
That was all the coverage they did.
What a fucking joke.
If anyone would like a bit of an overview about the conflict I found Shaun’s Palestine video interesting (and infuriating). I also thought Shattered Dreams of Peace by Frontline was informative on the further background
(putting it here because the parent is about misinformation and lies)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
but it’s very telling that this will assuredly get almost no coverage on big news networks like abc, cbs, fox, etc.
ABC News - Active-duty airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy, Air Force confirms
Fox News - US service member sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in DC
and virtually no coverage in the larger papers like the NYT
“gee why did he set himself on fire? must just be something people do”
it’s laughable how US media attributes self-immolation in Tibet to what must be CPC oppression, but self-immolation in the US must just be a cute little coincidence due to poor mental health
you managed so thoroughly to miss the point I was making, I’m impressed
“There’s no global warming stuuuuupid, lookit all the snow!”
edit: /s ? do i need an /s here?
Don’t confuse people whose whole narrative is build on some conspiracy of media suppression with facts.
I guess skipping the term “Lügenpresse” to avoid the obvious link was deemed enough progress to keep that same 100 years old tactic alive…
They said almost no and virtually no coverege. It’s not anti-semitic to point out that western media is heavily skewed towards Israel. You’re completely delusional if you think that’s not the case.
Obviously there were going to be articles about the man who set himself on fire just as there was for the person who did it in 2022 due to the climate crisis. The point is the attention the media places on WHY it happens that is being ignored or heavily downplayed.
The ABC article felt like satire in how much it avoided context or referencing what was said in the video
They didn’t even share his name, either it is something middle eastern sounding or they just want everyone to forget about him.
From lower down in this post, his name is Aaron Bushnell.
There’s already a Wikipedia article about the incident.
From what I recall on Twitter it’s a white dude, but they didn’t want to share his name.
He’s definitely white from the video but they probably want to scrub his social media history before they release his name.
I saw he was an anarchist? Not much info that I saw but yeah I could see him having a hard time in the military. I was an anarchist when I was younger too.
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Few people will remember him, but if any are spurred into action by his act, then it won’t be a completely wasteful loss of life.
Yeah, I’ve seen some discourse that things like this when done by an individual as opposed to a group effort like the Tibetan monks are primarily to take their own life and the message is secondary/additional, but I would like to think that on some level something positive will come out of someone doing something as drastic and sad as this. Dying or taking your own life is not something positive or to be glorified, but when someone feels so hopeless to the point that they turn to this, I hope it’s at least a wake up call for some people to take this seriously and not just ignore/tune out one of the biggest genocides in recent history.
most people remember Tibetan monks doing the same thing
Out of political selfimmolations there were 7 Tibetan cases, but dozens of others including many Americans. I wonder why “most people” remember particularly those. Would it be that US media wasn’t fair to report not only this one here?
It was on a cover of a rage against the machine album.
Lmao that’s what i was talking about, the one on this album cover wasn’t even Tibetan, he was Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese buddhist monk, selfimmolating in Saigon in 1963 as protest against US-backed South Vietnam government persecuting buddhists.
So why people like you think he was Tibetan if not for media misleading you? This was literally the most famous of public selfimmolation and the one that started it all for in XX century.
Yes, my first thought was, “Crikey! Has anyone in the united states self -immolated, before?!”
It’s a horrific way to call attention to a cause. I’m sure after his best possible recovery, his military unit will rally to prosecute to add to his anguish.
:-(
I’m sure after his best possible recovery
I don’t think he’ll recover. (In fact, apparently it is already being reported that he died. But even if he hasn’t yet he will.) He was taking deep lungfuls of flame and smoke to continue his chant. He’ll have destroyed his lungs. He knew going in that he wouldn’t come out of this alive.
What a brave man.
@Maeve i
He died. It’s actually not as uncommon as you’d think.Quite a few US Americans in this list of political self immolations.
Thank you for sharing this list, we should probably be more aware of the sacrifice these people have made. The vast majority of the Americans have done it for honorable causes.
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The first case of an active duty serviceman self immolating in the US. Alice Herz was the first one in the US, but there have been a dozen or two since then.
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Right, which I confirmed. The person you replied to asked if it had ever happened in the US before, without specifying the military service. That’s why I clarified that this is not close to the first US self immolation generally (not even the first in response to the same thing), only for active service members.
That’s right. It says a lot, either way and this thread makes me feel very sad. It says a lot, and not on the actors. It’s rather too much to bang out on social media but it gives one a long pause for deep reflection. It feels about like one little old self confronting the collective unconscious again.
Honestly, the megacorps will only allow this on main TV when pushing regulation against protesting.
Like, "think of how many innocent
moneyslives we would save if we shoot protesters’.I get so tired of this talking point. New York times, Washington Post, and even Fox news each have an article (or multiple) on this event.
OMG THEY HAVE AN ARTICLE OMG THAT WAS TOTALLY MY POINT, I QUITE LITERALLY TALKED ABOUT REDISTRIBUTING THINGS FROM PRESS AGENCIES JFC, HOW CAN YOU READ WHAT I WROTE AND GET TO THIS, IS THERE ANYTHING RESIDING IN BETWEEN YOUR EARS ???
This post smells like mad.
God, an unironic “you mad bro” go back to reddit lmao
I got a notification for it from Washington Post. Reuters and nbc has it on the front page.
as he was engulfed in flames they started yelling at him to get down on the ground. They even drew their guns on the burning man before someone pushed them to get fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire.
Stop killing yourself or I’ll shoot you! lmao
They would shoot at the fire, not the person, duh.
Yeah, suicide is illegal here… But getting killed by cops while you break the law isn’t.
I’m not joking. Both of those things are true.
It highlights the absolute brutality of the regime, that their first instinct was to try and kill a dying man.
Looks like he was an anarchist comrade.
Seems weird that an anarchist was a US soldier. Maybe he joined before he came to the political beliefs he held as he burned, or perhaps he came to these beliefs because of what he saw in the army.
That happens quite a lot when you recruit teenagers with the promise of tech job skills.
This is the 2nd one. The only reason we’re even hearing about this is because he had to foresight to live stream it and also an independent journalist was there with a camera
I had to go looking. Wasn’t DC, was Atlanta. December 1.
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Anyone who still visits reddit, how [deleted] is this story over there?
Edit: I’ve created a torrent for the video if anyone wants to help seed. His sacrifice in bringing attention to the US-sponsored genocide in Palestine must not be forgotten.
Using the word “genocide” bans you in r/politics now
r/washingtondc locked the post
Wait really? Just using genocide gets you banned in politics? What a bunch of shmeggs. I got banned there years ago because the mods simply went through my post history. I’m still shook with how the narrative and mind of users are tilted towards a very skewed viewpoint.
Some people believe the user base of reddit is diverse, and they’re getting a healthy view of the world. Unbewknowest to them they find themselves dumbfounded when the world isn’t conforming to what they believe is the majority opinion
r/politics mods are horrific. In the mod log (at the bottom of the screen) you can see they delete posts just because of different opinions.
So that is what “politically correct” means when we let the far right define it. If it can’t be mentioned, it doesn’t exist.
I can only use one sentence to comment this: when the imposters are sus
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What story?
“law enforcement drew guns at the burning man” 💀
This is so sadly America it’s not funny.
Mirror?
Do a Google search and you can probably find it. I saw more photos on mastadon and reddit.
That’ll be in the history books.
I guess this part of the reactions to this video illustrates the confusion that people have about how it feels to be in that situation. I’m confused that people are unable to imagine it how chaotic the situation might be. We have the benefit of knowing how it unfolded, but what the police officers knew is what they were briefed on that morning (most probably threats against the embassy) and the exact situation they are in.
idk about you but I wouldn’t point a gun at someone who’s on fire in any situation
Seems like a case of reverting to training in a stressful situation.
then this just tells me their training is “point gun at what you don’t understand”
It sure does.
censored video: https://twitter.com/taliaotg/status/1761944158636331247
catbox archived: https://files.catbox.moe/khy3kv.mp4
Couldn’t find uncensored version. Uncensored belowFucking Christ my hearts beating so fast. Goddamn i didn’t want to see that but i watched it cus i thought i owed it to him… Goddamnit.
And also shout out to the “hero” pointing his gun at his smouldering corpse as if it will lunge at him any moment.
Goddamnit
At least one of them went “I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers!”
I read about this and saw the censored version last night. I nearly threw up seeing the uncensored version now. I feel similar to you.
And to all the shitheads on twitter downplaying this as “glorifying mental illness,” fuck the lot of them.
He specifically livestreamed the video and sent links to the livestream and archive to various journalists and anarchist press so that the video would be shared and viewed. Its a disservice for it to be censored and weird that person also watermarked it with their @
Uncensored version: (GRAPHIC VIDEO WARNING) https://x.com/v4p4l/status/1761995206465888567?s=46&t=xtlq_1V7eXJ31HI_SLdE9g It will likely be removed soon so download while you can if you think it deserves to be archived.
Twitter is terrible so heres an upload on archive.org that has a torrent and driect download https://archive.org/download/rpreplay-final-1708967255
Because it is censored, more people will see it and more people will get the message so I disagree with you but I see your point.
literally the entire point behind this act is it being explicitly graphic, sharing the uncensored version quite literally goes against that. It’s almost as bad as censoring the message from the get go, except now we’re actively disrespecting his intention.
I think the graphic nature can be shared while also censoring the gore. It’s not like it changes the events in any way.
you can also do what this post and basically every article did, and then post a single frame of the video. No blurring needed, no graphic content explicitly posted.
Uncensored version here https://files.catbox.moe/rez1vs.mp4
I really debated if I wanted to see this, I thought didn’t need to get what he did. Let me tell you watching it made me sick to the stomach and made it much much more real than just knowing what did in text.
I’ve created a torrent for the video if anyone wants to help seed.
I’ve created a torrent for the video if anyone wants to help seed. His sacrifice in bringing attention to the US-sponsored genocide in Palestine must not be forgotten.
Noticed that the MSM is barely touching the story or if they are, with little contextual detail. Am I the only one who has noticed this?
I’m not able to connect to it.
Just leave it open, it’ll find peers eventually.
Link doesn’t work.
It’s a magnet link. Copy the link address and put it in your torrent client.
He was too innocent for this world. I don’t know what to say other than I promise I will never forget him and that I’ll try to spread his message and do everything I can to help free Palestine.
He is the fiery monk of our time. I watched the video below and I will admit after the second “Free Palestine” and the screaming started, I had to turn the sound off until he fell and I suspected the screaming stopped.
He is braver and has more strength than anyone on the Israeli side. I won’t forget that this hero couldn’t stay silent in the face of genocide.
I wish there was another option for him.
We failed to be organized enough.
He’s like the third guy to do this in a year, big money doesn’t want you to know about it
More bravery in this one man than all of the IDF combined. Rest in power!
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having viewed the video now, i initially found myself surprised i was not more horrified. my best guess as to why is this - what seemed most notable to me was his apparent sanity and intentionality in making this choice. he chose the where and when of his death and intended it to matter.
I couldn’t believe how long he stayed on his feet after he could no longer scream. Rest in Power Aaron.
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How is he a terrorist? He didn’t hurt or threaten anyone? He sacrificed himself to bring attention to suffering of innocent people. He is a hero.
And here ladies and gentlemen, is what a terrorist will say
His account is named after a notorious one
Ye you get my point, I see ;)
So edgy
He stopped feeling pain because shock set in about 30 seconds into it, I could get more graphic but that’s about how long it took for his eyes to get to fucked up to close them.
The uncensored video is here as well: https://theworldwatch.com/videos/1616102/shock-us-air-force-airman-sets-himself-on-fire-to-protest-israeli-palestine-war/
The comments on the video are actually more horrifying than the video itself. How can a human watch another human suffer like this and be happy/laugh about it? They’re wishing that others would do the same just because they think differently from them? Do we even have any hope left in humanity anymore?
Holy shit you weren’t kidding. Those comments are horrifying.
Those are the people making America great again!
There are many people that consider themselves left-wing that excuse their government support of genocide. I have no idea how…
Unfortunately no 😔
Israelis blocking aid trucks to Gaza at the Karm Abu Salem crossing, hold a dance party as millions of Palestinians face death, starvation and disease due to lack of food, clean water, and medical supplies and Israel’s relentless military bombardment.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240214-israelis-dance-while-blocking-aid-trucks-to-gaza/
there’s a video
I try not to let myself get affected by crazy anonymous comments on the internet. I definitely avoid thinking that they’re any kind of majority. I figure that those comments come from a minority of people who are either really messed up, have an ulterior motive, or whatever variety of atypical motivation. If nothing else, it’s better for my mental health to think this way.
I’m gonna need to do it your way for sure. Sounds much healthier
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He cares for innocent people that are getting killed in this war. You don’t need love for compassion, just basic human decency.
By being a sane human being for instance. Try empathy.
I wish Israel was actually killing those terrorists you’re speaking of. More than 60% of those are children. They haven’t killed that many Hamas members. This is ethnic cleansing. It’s a genocide. I don’t know why the mod removed this comment. Let people speak their minds so we know who’s an actual human being and who isn’t.
No. No, we dont.
That comments section is such a dumpster fire of what I hope are bots and not actual human beings… Because damn, otherwise, Giant Meteor 2024
Ugh, I hadn’t even noticed the comments until you mentioned it. I avoid the comments sections on most “news” sites because they’re almost universally dumpster fires if they’re not properly moderated.
Edit: although Giant Meteor 2024 definitely sounds like a winning ticket.
I too support the initiatives of Giant Meteor, Comet and Asteroid LLC, and wish them a strikingly good year.
They are angry sounding. I wish there was giant meteor.
Whoever keeps throwing in the shit about law enforcement in these stories, which I think was actually a security officer for the embassy, drawing a gun, is doing a pretty good job of distracting from the main issue of what this guy lit himself on fire and died for. Doing a much better job than all the whinging about how he was mentally ill, and how this won’t change anything, and how there’s no clear cause, that mainstream news outlets are doing when they cover this type of stuff, if they cover it at all.
I would also like to kind of point out here, that “this won’t change anything, this guy was mentally ill, he killed himself for nothing”, is really only true if you decide it to be true. We get to decide whether or not this motivates us to do something or not. We get to decide whether or not we let this affect us. Whether or not we do something, to make sure this doesn’t happen again, you know? And that’s mostly, in my mind, the purpose of this kind of protest.
Maybe it makes the institutions think about what they’re doing, probably not, since, if they were gonna think that, they should’ve probably thought that about the 20,000 or so palestinians that have been killed. This protest is mostly engineered to get you mad, and sad, and to make you, the viewer, think about why this is happening, and think about what you can do to stop it. Not just deflecting immediately to whether or not it was effective, because by doing so, you let it not be as effective.
Brings to mind the discourse against, really any form of protest that I’ve seen. You could take the george floyd protests, for example. So, sure, the government throws in agent provocateurs, in order to turn what would otherwise be peaceful protests, which would shut down any traffic into and out of the city, and would choke off any economic activity (puts pressure on businesses, utilities, puts pressure on local government, which needs to please these people who don’t really care about the protest but want things to go back to normal).
But by doing so, right, by causing those passive forms of damage, but also by causing active forms of damage, say, burning a big box store down, right, the public showcases that, if a certain legal decision to, say, let derek chauvin off, occurs, then there will be potentially more protests and more destruction, which provides great incentive against that decision occurring.
Now, in this case, there’s not as clear of a process, because there’s not as clear of repercussions if they decide to do nothing. About the only thing that might happen is that this might happen again, which, might, by some process of media coverage, put enough pressure on politicians to cause this to stop, if it becomes a political issue. The same thing is happening with mass shootings, which aren’t a greatly impacting issue, by the numbers, right, they’re much less than that of road deaths, heart disease, other forms of gun violence.
But they are so horrifying to the american public and to really anyone of moral conscience, that they should serve as a clear marker that something is wrong, and something needs to change. Serial killers create a similar effect. It’s almost like a kind of terrorism, using that word without judgement, here. That’s the power of these protests. We’ve already seen it spread across a bunch of news media, even though it’s being reported about as poorly as you’d expect.
I’m not particularly sure that repeat incidents would do any good, and I think I’d generally be opposed to that, as should anyone, but, an instance of self-immolation is what caused the arab spring. This sort of thing isn’t ineffective, I think it does a disservice to aaron bushnell to say otherwise.
If you want to stop this sort of thing from occurring in the first place, you should really try to understand why it was happening, instead of brushing it aside.
A rare hero. Not what I expected from the US.
The systems of control didn’t work on him.
