Editorial Board
The people’s struggle needs more men with the courage and discipline of Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who set himself ablaze in protest of genocide at the gate of the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC this weekend. But it does not need the tactic employed by Bushnell.
The first order of analysis in regard to Bushnell’s protest is denouncing the narrative of the Zionists and certain sections of the US ruling class-owned monopoly media. The New Yorker called it an “act of political despair.” Far right outlet New York Post attempted to frame Bushnell as mentally ill. They wrote, “for some on the left … there is a chance to weaponize mental health to push an agenda they agree with—so much so that they’re evidently willing to exploit and glorify a suicide.” Zionist media outlet Jerusalem Post wrote that, “20% of American’s suffer mental illness” in a report on Bushnell. The Jerusalem Post has no scruples about exploiting the idea of mental illness as the root cause of politics to whip up fears. Their headline claims that Bushnell’s action, and how some others understand it, “puts the U.S. closer to suicide bombings.” However, there is a critical difference in the fact that suicide bombings are carried out organizationally as a tactical part of war.
The political act of self-immolation in protest is not a sign of an individual’s mental health, and this much anyone can see from the amount of control exhibited in the video of the act which Bushnell carried out and live streamed for the world to see. The mouthpieces of imperialism and Zionism have a long tradition of attempting to convince the public that the politics they oppose are the result of insanity, and this of course is all chalked up to the devil instead of the conditions which drive men to act in manners similar to Bushnell.
Progressives are willing to accept or honor even the most extreme pacifist actions, provided that they are not capable of attacking the enemy with organized force. Presidential candidate and veteran civil rights activist Cornell West remarked on Bushnell’s “extraordinary courage and commitment.” These traits are worth recognizing, but they are traits which those who subscribe to the ideology represented by men like West would typically never extend to the organized armed resistance taking place in Palestine.
Bushnell’s “extraordinary courage and commitment” cannot be denied. He shows no fear and proceeds with full understanding that his action will result in his death; this is not the same as desperate suicide as a means of escape. It took him numerous tries to start the fire, and people of less character would have yielded to the stress involved.
It speaks volumes that the initial response of the police on the scene was to draw their guns and order the man engulfed in flames to “get down on the ground.” This is the crude way in which US police confront most crisis situations.
Why did Bushnell choose this action? In his own words, “I am an active duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people in Palestine have been experiencing at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has declared will be normal.” He is correct on many accounts. Nevertheless, the fact that individuals are forced to extremes and individual extremes become commonplace does not award these the status of correct, let alone revolutionary, action.
According to Bushnell’s social media activity he followed the extreme individualist ideology of anarchism. Anarchists cannot be accused of lacking courage when they go to “extremes” but these “extremes” are nonetheless an obstruction to mass action. Some on the left consider the fact that his protest, having taken place in the context of a worldwide mass movement, means that it is not disconnected from the masses. This is a bourgeois individualist view. Communists in formation have the duty to provide organizational form for the masses who clamor for organized rebellion, the masses who cry out for leadership. The less organized the rebellion is, the more individual actions will be common. It must be said, without denouncing his merits, that Bushnell would have made a good servant of the people had he not ended his life at 25, but spent the rest of his life organizing to raise the consciousness of the masses and act as a lever in the popular movements. We need agitators and propagandists in for the long haul more than we need the propaganda of the funeral. Anarchism cannot but inspire individualist actions—precisely because it is disconnected from the masses.
The very way in which the act was carried out demonstrated its disconnection from the masses. Bushnell did not count on the masses, nor did he express hope for any definite action or support of the masses. It can be argued that such actions are the most that “one person can do.” The thing is to remember what one person can do as part of an organized force of the people, how “one person” can be many people. While Bushnell’s protest was disconnected from the masses, the active masses have not ignored it. There have been hundreds to gather in vigil. Much more than individual acts of protest are required to turn hundreds into a force of hundreds of millions, and hundreds of millions are desperately needed.
Bushnell’s protest was the second case of self-immolation in the US since October 7th. It has made a larger impact because it resulted in death and because it was the act of a member of the military carried out in uniform. It exposes two things: first, the contradiction existing in the US armed forces which creates a growing unwillingness to accept the role of complicity in genocide, and second, the individualist impulses that are not suitable to strategic victory. These both prove the communist position that the existing contradictions call for better organization which can divert individual action into mass action. Disorganization is the internal enemy and Zionism is but one manifestation of the external enemy.
The contradiction at the heart of the US armed forces comes down to this: the military preys upon vulnerable children of the working classes. It becomes an option for the poorest youth in US society who have no economic prospects. This fact ensures that in spite of the most concerted efforts at ideological indoctrination, many of those who serve in the armed forces will never be fully committed. Those like Bushnell, who joined on the basis of poverty, will increasingly come to the realization of their mistake and act upon it in various ways.
The world watched a brave soldier die for a cause, one who represented integrity and self-sacrifice but who lacked the consciousness needed to become a realized revolutionary. This is the reality of Bushnell’s protest. We owe to his sacrifice, to his courageous example, not to follow his individualist path, but rather to become the best organizers, who like him are willing to die, but also to live, to live tirelessly organizing work for the best among us, fighting for and shaping a much better world than this one. Revolutionaries must challenge the storms of our times and accomplish their goals among the people, who alone are the makers of history.
photo: Still from livestream video of Bushnell self-immolating
