On Sunday, February 25, 2024, a U.S. Air Force technician named Aaron Bushnell stood before the zionist embassy in Washington D.C., doused himself in gasoline, shouted “I will no longer be complicit in genocide! FREE PALESTINE!” and lit himself on fire. Engulfed in flames, a D.C. police officer drew his pistol and watched Aaron burn while an EMT shouted at him to get a fire extinguisher. Aaron was taken to the hospital where he died on Sunday night. Mossad operators have already begun to call him an idiot on the internet.
We have posted the video he recorded below; he wanted it to be seen. Be warned that it is extremely graphic.
The world is revolting against the imperial U.S. order and its expression in Palestine. For a long time, U.S. propagandists were able to control the narrative about U.S. funding for exploitation and murder all over the world. That is no longer the case; the democratization of media through hand-held television studios has prepared the international working class to challenge the words of the panegyrists. Even the New York Times, so recently calling for a full-throated annihilation of the Palestinian people, has been forced to reassess its connection with the zionist warmongers it employs, like Anat Schwartz, whose reporting fueled the western mediasphere’s bloodlust for an IOF operation in Gaza in the wake of October 7, 2023. The imperialists are chained to this genocide, and they’re willing to bring down the entire edifice of their “respectability” with it.
But we should also be clear that Aaron’s tragic sacrifice was informed just as much by the failures of the liberation movement in the West as it was by the imperialist genocide in Gaza. As long as capitalism persists, these wars of extermination will persist. It is our duty, as those who profess to fight for liberation, to provide a meaningful outlet for the kind of rage and desperation that led Aaron to this last, desperate act. The fact is that, despite months of protests and a growing awareness in the West of the depravity of the zionist (and U.S.) regime, there is still no meaningful domestic opposition to the genocide. The Democratic Party that currently governs the U.S. Empire has categorically refused to address the actions of its zionist client-state, and in fact has been sending munitions, money, and assistance ever since this reckless campaign of race-hate was unleashed by Netanyahu and his cabinet of monsters in Tel Aviv.
Make no mistake: although we can and should mourn Aaron Bushnell and the course of events that led up to his decision, we must not duplicate it. Horribly, his death is unlikely to move the needle in any significant fashion. The way forward is not for individual acts of tragedy, which can never compound into something large enough to topple or even threaten the order of the U.S. Empire, but rather in concerted, collective action. It has become clear that marches and solidarity chants are insufficient to stop the zionist aggression — that the U.S. political caste sees too much at risk, too much money at stake, and believes there is too much to lose with regard to its ability to project armed power into West Asia to be swayed by simple demonstrations.
We must remember that every demonstration should be a warning and a promise: give in, or else. A demonstration is not a parade, but a weapon, primed and ready. In order to be an effective weapon, it must be wielded by a self-conscious and self-knowing class that is prepared to act. Building that class-consciousness, pursuing the proper and principled aims of liberation, and ultimately organizing the working class into a cohesive political and decision-making structure — a working-class organization of organizations — is what is required.
So, we mourn Aaron. And the work continues.
