3 ms·

"This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal"

11 points by aspenmayer 3y ago

aspenmayer 3y ago
This is a serious post, and I think it belongs on HN, due to its timeliness, and also because it is the first time that I can think of that Twitch has been used to livestream this kind of protest, if it's fair to call it that. I'm not making light of this, nor am I making any kind of value statement or judgment on the actions of anyone, but this event is concerning for many reasons, among them being mental health of service members as well as national security. > On Sunday, February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself Aaron Bushnell. > It read, >> Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The below links should take you to a livestream and recorded footage of the event, which will be highly disturbing. I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on. There is more to the post, and I would advise all who are able to do so to read it. Original title edited for length: “This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal” : On Aaron Bushnell’s Action in Solidarity with Gaza https://web.archive.org/web/20240226154129/https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/26/this-is-what-our-ruling-class-has-decided-will-be-normal-on-aaron-bushnells-action-in-solidarity-with-gaza https://web.archive.org/web/20240226154129/https://crimethin... https://archive.is/mDd8i https://archive.is/mDd8i
- megous 3y ago
  Other thing is that he was a devops engineer and a web developer. So one would think that maybe at least american ITs would care why one of "them" would self-immolate in a form of protest, or have a passing note of sympathy or at least recognition. But nope. All they'll ever do for him would be to flag the post about him if this ever gets voted high enough to be close to the first page.
bradley13 3y ago
The Israel/Palestine situation is ugly. Really ugly. I see both sides. Skipping decades of history: - Israel: After the last attack, Israel is all done being randomly bombarded and attacked. They are gong to hunt down and eliminate Hamas. - Palestine. The vast majority of the civilians are innocent. They didn't attack anyone. Hamas just uses them as human shields. Given the hardened and ingrained hatreds on all sides, there is no solution here.
- megous 3y ago
  You don't see both sides, that's pretty clear from your descrition. And the original event is about an IT/devops engineer for the air force not wanting to be even this remotely part of Israeli mass attrocities/genocide/whatever you want to call starvation to death/murder/massacring of millions of people so that he demonstratively killed himself. So one side is this man and his moral compass, and the other is US air foce and US gov. supplying Israel with a huge amount of weapons and support for the massacres. This website netizens tend to blab sometimes about morality and taking a stand against bad/marginally illegal managerial decisions. Well this one IT engineer made an ultimate stand, and nobody here even upvotes to give visibility to his story. Instead there's more of the same "I got billed too much for using service without fixed rates/billing cap, please help" bullshit getting hundreds of upvotes.
  - bradley13 3y ago
    I think I understand two sides: Israel and the Palestinian civilians. I did not go into why the Gaza strip exists, which is another story entirely, and certainly doesn't fit in a single HN comment. The third side, I suppose, is Hamas. They have a viewpoint: by attacking Israel and then hiding behind civilians, they can create outrage. For that viewpoint, I have zero sympathy.

11 points by aspenmayer 3y ago

This is a serious post, and I think it belongs on HN, due to its timeliness, and also because it is the first time that I can think of that Twitch has been used to livestream this kind of protest, if it's fair to call it that. I'm not making light of this, nor am I making any kind of value statement or judgment on the actions of anyone, but this event is concerning for many reasons, among them being mental health of service members as well as national security. > On Sunday, February 25, we received an email from a person who signed himself Aaron Bushnell. > It read, >> Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people. The below links should take you to a livestream and recorded footage of the event, which will be highly disturbing. I ask that you make sure that the footage is preserved and reported on. There is more to the post, and I would advise all who are able to do so to read it. Original title edited for length: “This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal” : On Aaron Bushnell’s Action in Solidarity with Gaza https://web.archive.org/web/20240226154129/https://crimethinc.com/2024/02/26/this-is-what-our-ruling-class-has-decided-will-be-normal-on-aaron-bushnells-action-in-solidarity-with-gaza https://web.archive.org/web/20240226154129/https://crimethin... https://archive.is/mDd8i https://archive.is/mDd8i

megous 3y ago
Other thing is that he was a devops engineer and a web developer. So one would think that maybe at least american ITs would care why one of "them" would self-immolate in a form of protest, or have a passing note of sympathy or at least recognition. But nope. All they'll ever do for him would be to flag the post about him if this ever gets voted high enough to be close to the first page.

bradley13 3y ago

The Israel/Palestine situation is ugly. Really ugly. I see both sides. Skipping decades of history: - Israel: After the last attack, Israel is all done being randomly bombarded and attacked. They are gong to hunt down and eliminate Hamas. - Palestine. The vast majority of the civilians are innocent. They didn't attack anyone. Hamas just uses them as human shields. Given the hardened and ingrained hatreds on all sides, there is no solution here.

megous 3y ago
You don't see both sides, that's pretty clear from your descrition. And the original event is about an IT/devops engineer for the air force not wanting to be even this remotely part of Israeli mass attrocities/genocide/whatever you want to call starvation to death/murder/massacring of millions of people so that he demonstratively killed himself. So one side is this man and his moral compass, and the other is US air foce and US gov. supplying Israel with a huge amount of weapons and support for the massacres. This website netizens tend to blab sometimes about morality and taking a stand against bad/marginally illegal managerial decisions. Well this one IT engineer made an ultimate stand, and nobody here even upvotes to give visibility to his story. Instead there's more of the same "I got billed too much for using service without fixed rates/billing cap, please help" bullshit getting hundreds of upvotes.
- bradley13 3y ago
  I think I understand two sides: Israel and the Palestinian civilians. I did not go into why the Gaza strip exists, which is another story entirely, and certainly doesn't fit in a single HN comment. The third side, I suppose, is Hamas. They have a viewpoint: by attacking Israel and then hiding behind civilians, they can create outrage. For that viewpoint, I have zero sympathy.