@letsbecatstogether / letsbecatstogether.tumblr.com
I love that post going around where people act like conservatives are uniquely vulnerable to agreeing with ideology they're otherwise extremely opposed to as long as it's dressed up in rightist language as though 3/4 of the people here don't fall for extremely reactionary shit polished with progressive talking points every other week
hoping aaron bushnell's sacrifice won't be swept under the rug by politicians/media and forgotten about in another fucking week as the genocide on palestinians continues
Can we PLEASE not glorify suicide? There are so many ways to protest and help without killing yourself. Aaron Bushnell's actions, while perhaps well-intentioned, were clearly the result of a mental illness. He died horrifically, and paint him as some sort of martyr or hero is honestly disrespectful.
I understand the impulse to say things like this, and to be clear there is a certain amount of journalistic caution that is typically (not always) applied to cases like this- pairing coverage with suicide hotlines and resources, for example. Those standards exist not because being without them would be to glorify suicide, but because media sensationalism can inspire copycats, and because you want people in pain to know they aren't alone. However, to claim that this was an act fueled by mental illness is not only disrespectful to Aaron Bushnell's memory and his death, it is deeply, deeply ignorant. Self immolation as the most extreme act of protest has a deeply storied history across the entire globe.
To quote scholar Timothy Dickinson when he spoke about self immolation as protest in 2012: "This isn't insanity. It is a terrible act of reason." Aaron Bushnell was a deeply anguished young man. That anguish didn't come from an unspecified chemical imbalance that he inherited through the genetic lottery. The anguish came from the fact that he was an enlisted airman serving in the US military while the US government actively funds and sends arms to a country committing genocide. That's not mental illness. It's systemic despair. You can't just leave the military. When you enlist, you sign a contract that you have no way of terminating if the government does shit that you don't like. You're property of the state. He was caged and clawing for a way out. As an American Jew I already carry the death of every single Palestinian man, woman, and child with me. The guilt is so heavy- I can't imagine what it must have been like for someone like Aaron Bushnell. It must have felt like he fired every shot with his own two hands. This was not mental illness. It was desperation. It's like you're putting pressure on someone else's bullet wound, screaming for paramedics while people walk past you on the street, never looking over. Sometimes you hear passersby wonder out loud, "Why would someone would make all that noise about a paper cut?" You start asking yourself what you have to do to make someone pay attention. No matter how uncomfortable you are with Aaron Bushnell's suicide, he is a martyr. It is deeply, deeply disrespectful to behave as though Aaron Bushnell was not in complete control of himself and his faculties. It is deeply disrespectful to wave this away as mental illness when that is not the case. I never, ever, ever want anyone to protest in this way. It's so deeply tragic and horrifying, and the suffering compounds for all of those who love you when you go. But that horror doesn't make it not martyrdom. It doesn't make it not a protest. Aaron Bushnell was a very brave, very kind young man. May his memory be a blessing to us all.
Ramadan is coming up and I can’t stress enough how much Palestinians have never got the chance to experience one normal Ramadan for 75years
You may not have been subjected to this, but as a person from an Arabic country, every Ramadan from every year there’s always headlines of Israeli iof soldiers or Israeli extremist settlers attacking Palestinians during Ramadan, especially Palestinian worshipers trying to pray in the al aqsa mosque
It’s happens almost every single year
Ramadan is suppoused to be Muslim people’s month of worship, of Baraka and it is very important to Muslim people
But Palestinians never ever experienced a normal Ramadan because Israel attacks them Viciously
Almost
Every
Single
Fucking
Year
And I will dare and say that Israel does it on purpose, it does it every Ramadan on purpose
And now, this year, with Ramadan being only a few weeks away, I doubt that they’ll have a normal Ramadan, not in the West Bank, and not in Gaza
All what I have to say here is that Israel will still follow this trend, something bad is gonna happen this Ramadan, keep an eye on Palestine during Ramadan
Thinking once again of this absurd shrine to capitalism at wife’s job
Not so fun fact, actually, really disturbing and horrific fact: The list of names was so long, they couldn't even unravel it all the way.
Let that sink in.
I am Jewish. I am an anti-Zionist. I am always and forever pro-Palestine.
My grandmother was born in Palestine before Israel existed. My grandmother, who died less than a decade ago (in her 70s) was already older than the settler colonial state of Israel. Judaism exists without Zionism. Zionism goes against the Jewish religion. Zionism is white supremacy.
From the river to the sea Palestine WILL BE FREE
We are witnessing the grotesque reality of the martyred Palestinians and thousands of their massacred children being written off as mere afterthoughts. The way western media outlets steadfastly refuse to call the Israeli aggression and onslaught for what it is, which is genocide and ethnic cleansing, is just another way of dehumanizing Palestinians.
If you want to help diabetics in Gaza, please donate or boost
Did you see the video where Israeli soldiers dressed up like Muslim women and doctors and stormed the hospital in the West Bank and assassinated 3 young Palestinians?
Did you see the bloody pillow with the bullet hole in it?
THIS IS WHO THEY MURDERED IN THAT BED. A paralyzed CHILD named Bassel.
This video was taken just one day before Israel literally shot him in the face in his bed.
Just when you think they can’t get any lower, they do. I don’t care what lies they tell about this child, it is illegal EVERYWHERE to do what they did.
This kid had nothing to do with October 7th. And anything else he did, you simply aren’t allowed to go into a hospital and murder a paralyzed child.
It’s CRAZY that we even have to say this.
And the White House actually defended this today, but it was before this video was released.
ironically i am working right now so i can’t do a full post on this like i would really prefer to do… but these are the most cartoonishly evil people that you could possibly imagine, even in a society as flawed as the one we’ve built for ourselves. these are bedrock groups devoted to protecting the american worker and consumer. massive huge giant waving red flags 🚩
i am telling you this is going to snowball into something nobody wants to see. the only upside is that this might actually lead to a worker uprising. this is fucking ghoulish.
