Veterans Burn Their Uniforms at Vigil for US Airman Aaron Bushnell

As an Air Force veteran this all is all hitting home so hard. I joined the Air Force right out of high school because my dad was in the Air Force and my grandfather was in the Army Air Corp, so of course I bought everything they were selling. We always made jokes about turning the Middle East into glass, or said little slogans like, “When it absolutely has to be destroyed overnight, call the Air Force.” I wish I could chalk that up to being young and dumb, but the leadership perpetuated these things and after 9/11 it really dehumanized what we were doing. I felt proud knowing that bombs I loaded on a plane were not there when it came back. I never once questioned why they attacked us in the first place. And I certainly didn’t learn about global politics with my high school education from Texas.
After I got out, and got educated, and started seeing the world through a larger lens, it shifted my point of view. I’ve gone from hardcore republican who voted for George W Bush, to voting for Bernie Sanders. I feel ashamed of how I used to think and act. I am very anti-war on all fronts. No one should ever have to lay down their life for some shithead politician.
With that said, I made the horrible decision to go to the Air Force subreddit to see what they were saying about these recent events. And it hurt me to see them all spouting the same shit I would have said 20 years ago. Crap about how the middle east has been fighting each other for 1,000 years, so we should just let them all kill themselves. And they strongly pushed the Aaron Bushnell was just some crazy radical anarchist. Or people saying his leadership failed him, or how did he have a security clearance, etc. There was not one single mention of how what was going on over there is beyond fucked up.
So, seeing other veterans stand up for this makes me feel a little better and gives me hope. I just hope that is makes it’s way down the ranks and into the young service members and recruits.
- I feel ashamed of how I used to think and act.
  Hey friend, I would like to offer you a reframing of this situation. Despite being exposed to some of the strongest cultural indoctrination into warmongering and the military, you made it out and embraced empathy and learning. That's huge. I'm proud of you, that's a positive change most people never make. You should be proud of it.
  I just hope that is makes it’s way down the ranks
  You have a powerful and important story. Sharing it like you did just now helps more than hopes can. Keep sharing it, you never know who might be reading it and encouraged to question the lessons they were taught.
  
  Thanks. It definitely helps to hear someone reframe it like that. It was actually cathartic just typing that all out. The hope that it could encourage others is even better.
- Cringing and being disappointed in our previous selves is a good thing. It shows growth and learning. Don't be too hard on yourself
- I’m 100% with you. The deprogramming took years. It feels like I wasted so much of my life, and I’m still trying to figure out where I fit in. What’s almost worse than knowing so many vets are still so brainwashed is watching people who didn’t go through the same programming shill even harder for regressive destruction. I work on a construction site and have to listen to these overconfident fascist blowhards rant all day.
  
  I feel you. Luckily I don't have to deal with it at work because I work remotely and refuse to discuss politics with my colleagues (although I'm sure most of them know which way I lean). But I do have family to deal with. I'd say 90% of my extended family are either Trump supporters or just hate Democrats so much, that they will vote for Trump. Some have gone so far as to call me unpatriotic for things like supporting BLM, not liking Trump, and calling the people who entered the capital on Jan 6th terrorists. The most ironic part is not a single one of them served in the military. I am the only living veteran in my family, and I'm seen as the crazy left-wing guy.
- Thanks for sharing your story. I hope you continue to tell it. Your point about high school education is important.
  At the time the Iraq war was kicking off, I happened to have a history teacher that made us spend every Friday discussing current events. She made it clear to us that the premise of WMDs in Iraq was a lie and that the war would turn out like Vietnam. All these years later these ideas are not controversial, but way back then she said it when many people were saying the opposite. Needless to say, it kept me out of the military and helped me understand what was going on. Critical thinking is so important and we need capable public educators who can encourage young people to think for themselves. It can have a major impact on the life paths people choose.
  
  That's awesome that you had a teacher who did that. That is one of the main reasons I'm planning on moving out of Texas. I want my kids to get educated by teachers who are not under constant threat from the state.
- crazy radical anarchist
  Yeah because setting ourselves on fire is just something us "crazy radical anarchists" do on a regular basis.
- Lmao i love how stupid you people are with joining the military and then realizing you were brainwashed.
  
  Someone who is stupid would stay brainwashed but clearly this individual woke up. If you're taught something from the day you were born then it is ingrained into you and quite hard to change. Thankfully many of the youth have started seeing the bullshit sooner but there are still people being bred into this ideology that need a chance to see the world and form their own opinions lest they be stuck in their parents ways.

In case you haven't seen it there's a great documentary from 2005 about the anti-war movement within the ranks of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War.
Sir! No Sir! on Vimeo.
Sir! No Sir on YouTube.
- Weeeelllll back in the day we called soldiers "baby killers" and then after 9/11 we had to jerk every military member off we saw and repeat "thank you for your service" with a handful of dick.
  
  "Oh you hide under your bed everytime a firecracker goes off? You should do ~~heroin~~ oxycodone for that"
  -Post 9-11 VA.
  
  To be fair they actually were killing babies
- Just watched that documentary earlier this week. Really good documentary and highly recommend it.

I’m not sure how to feel about the level of support shown for Bushnell, when previous self-immolators have been thoroughly ignored.
Part of me is glad that his death is not in vain, and his friends and family can take some solace in that fact.
But part of me is terrified that 20 more people are going to try similar stunts and achieve… less-than-nothing.
There are already too many martyrs. We need agitators. You can’t agitate if you’re dead or otherwise removed.
Please: If you’re considering Aaron Bushnell an inspiration, be inspired by the fact that he did something unusual, not that he did something self-destructive. Go throw some soup on a Van Gogh instead.
- You are correct... Bushnell isn't even the first USian to self-immolate as a form of protest this decade - the others barely made the news.
  While I can't bring myself to criticise people like Bushnell (for obvious reasons), I also cannot endorse it. I don't want to die for a cause - I want to make the fascists die for theirs.
  
  I don’t want to die for a cause - I want to make the fascists die for theirs.
  Honestly this is one of the best quotables I've found on the internet this year. Permission to steal?
- I worry about this too. I don't like self immolation as a form of protest. Normally I'd say it accomplishes nothing, but in this case it did draw a lot of attention -- that by no means though should be an endorsement for others to do this. We can find better, equally effective ways to organize. There's already enough senseless death going on.
  I appreciate his gesture, but I wish he hadn't done it. I wish he was alive.
- Except for that last part. Don't waste food. And don't destroy unique stuff.(Yes, the van Gogh was protected by glass iirc, but most other paintings aren't) Plenty of ways to get attention without doing irreversible damage to art.
  
  (Yes, the van Gogh was protected by glass iirc, but most other paintings aren’t)
  The van Gogh was chosen specifically because it was protected by glass.
- Always love to see Beau's content linked in the wild. Good stuff.
- previous self-immolators have been thoroughly ignored
  Arguably a self imolator ended the war in Vietnam. He absolutely got the ball rolling.
  
  That happened in 1963. The war only got worse and went on 10 more years.
  
  Arguably a self imolator ended the war in Vietnam.
  No, he fucking didn't. The Vietnamese breaking the US military through the use of force ended the war in Vietnam.
- You're literally calling for domestic terrorism on American soil. You aren't a victim here, bro. No one is trying to take your tendies. Go outside, touch some grass, have a drink, and get yourself a hooker. Some post-nut clarity will do you good.
  
  Ah yes, it's liberals who are the problem. It's liberals who want you to bent to authority, for sure. It's liberals who are supporting the IDF
  
  Liberals, huh?
  What political affiliation is Netanyahu?
  
  No war but class war.
  
  Just how many times you were dropped on your head?
  
  This is why they refer to the cohort as "blue MAGA."
  And they rightly do so.

No tankies, we dont call all left leaning people Tankies, its specifically those of you that suck off Russia and China
- But that means a bunch of GOP Reps and Senators are tankies. They love sucking off Russia!
  
  I see nothing wrong with this definition
- Never said I support either.
  
  Cool, you're not a Tankie then!
- Tankie has become shorthand for anyone who believes in Communism, Russia isn't Communist China is.
  
  I don't know that I'd call them communist honestly. They have a pretty equal blend of capitalism and communism.
  
  Its shorthand for those who suck off Russia and China. If you are a communist who understands that those two countries are the exact opposite of ideals we should shoot for, you are not a Tankie
  
  Fuck Putin.
- Oh look... a liberal who doesn't know what the term tankie means. Do they churn you out in a mould or something?

They're the real veterans "for the truth", unlike these hacks.

Mike Prysner is fucking based.
Most y'all would call him a tankie and shoo him out of here.
- Does he believe in the state using force to kill and brutally suppress its citizens to enforce their rule and limit democratic freedoms?
  Because you can be a leftist and not support that shit by holding positive views of the Soviet Union or China. We don’t call those people tankies, we call tankies tankies.
  
  PSL is ML, so yeah, unfortunately.
  Edit: let's talk for a minute about some really important history here. Leninists have ridden anarchists to victory then turned around and murdered them, starting with Lenin himself. Makhnovists saved the Red Army from being destroyed by the white. The Soviet Revolution was originally an anarchist one until it was betrayed by the Bolsheviks, who murdered anarchists from the beginning.
  Even Trotskyists need to be held accountable for this, since Trotsky himself was responsible for crushing dissent at Kronostat.
  Aaron Bushnell was an anarchist. He was an anarchist service member. MLs honoring his sacrifice need to face the fact that their ideological ancestors did murder people like him for their own resistence.
  MLs try to take over anarchist actions even today. PSL has tried to co-opt actions that my anarchist comrades have organized. They are overwhelmingly ineffective, which is why the feed so much on anarchist energy and appropriate anarchist actions all the time. Tankies use anarchists to get attention for themselves and dispose of us when we become inconvenient.
  And if you can't honestly acknowledge the dissonance between the history of appropriation and oppression of people who you openly acknowledge are on the same side as you, then you don't really want a more free and equitable world, you just want your cult to wear the boots that are on everyone else's neck.
  So yeah, fuck tankies. This is a great action. Don't let them appropriate it.
  
  Because you can be a leftist and not support that shit by holding positive views of the Soviet Union or China.
  To paraphrase Muhammad Ali: "I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me the N-word".
  
  Everyone here who isn't a center right Biden supporter is essentially a tankie according to the majority of users here.
  Anarchists who show a modicum of respect for MLs and don't go along with the center right party line? TANKIES!
  Communists of all sorts who might find themselves somewhere in the middle of Y axis? TANKIES!
  Left unity in face of the center right? TANKIES!
  You don't vote Biden? China or Russian psyop and a tankie!
- Holy shit that is him, he's not even mentioned in the article.
- I only call people tankies if they support tankie shit like killing everyone with a college degree, or glasses
- I don't know much about the guy but, as someone thats perfectly willing to call tankies tankies, he seems like the opposite of one. Just don't do tankie shit and you wont get called one.
- Its genuinely crazy to see how quickly Americans have adopted the idea that "Tankie" is the best way to describe Anti-war advocates, while the Blue Lives Matter crowd are in favor of peaceful coexistence.
  
  I have never seen tankie used outside of using it for far left war mongering