They needed three author to write the smear stuff. : chapotraphouse

[-] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 111 points 7 months ago

When you scramble this many ghouls to check every single detail of a person's life history, you can make even the most well-adjusted person seem like a complete fringe lunatic. This is a concerted effort to make this guy seem as deranged as possible, just a wild crazy man, or a poor victim of online radicalization, depending on what tone you want for your think piece.

You can turn the ultimate protest into a cautionary tale about the seductive rhetoric of the violent online left or a mental health awareness month-style unheard cry for help.

[-] zifnab25@hexbear.net 52 points 7 months ago

When you scramble this many ghouls to check every single detail of a person's life history, you can make even the most well-adjusted person seem like a complete fringe lunatic.

Or just drag the truth out like taffy - a visit to a music festival becomes "attended orgies regularly" while enrollment in a university becomes "taught by Marxist professors". Or outright lie.

This is a concerted effort to make this guy seem as deranged as possible

Curious to see they've lost all the pictures of him in a military uniform. I've never seen the media describe a soldier's death with so few pictures in full dress.

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[-] EelBolshevikism@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Every detail I’ve heard about this man makes him seem more reasonable and relatable. I don’t mean that it isn’t an effective way to silence him, just that even under piles of selective bias he still sounds cool

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[-] dead@hexbear.net 103 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I was looking at his reddit account yesterday and the posts of the reddit account match the information of the article. Maybe the intent of the article is to smear him. I don't think that him being an anarchist or previously a radical christian devalues his action.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/26/israeli-embassy-airman-fire-death-gaza/
https://archive.ph/flTlp

His username on twitch was lillyanarkitty when he streamed himself self-immolating. It was found that he had previously changed the name from "acebush1" using twitch moderator tools. I tried to use the tool and it said I had to buy a subscription. I'm posting the link anyway. If you have a subscription, you can see it. https://twitch-tools.lolarchiver.com/username_changelog?name=lillyanarkitty

The username acebush1 matches his real name. Aaron BUSHnell. AceBUSH1

On instagram, the account for acebush1 has 0 photos, 28 friends, and says "Aaron Bushnell" on the profile page. https://www.instagram.com/acebush1/

On soundcloud, an account called acebush1 uploaded a single audio track 10 years ago. It says like: Hi I'm aaron bushnell welcome to my podcast. https://soundcloud.com/acebush1

Based on all of that information. I believe that this was his reddit account. https://old.reddit.com/user/acebush1/

acebush1 posted in many anarchist subreddits, posted in airforce subreddits, etc.
2-3 years ago he posted about being a radical christian, which aligns with the headline of the article.
He posted about hating Marxist-Leninists a few times.
He has many posts in the airforce subreddit telling people that airforce members should be able to use their airforce healthcare for gender affirming care, ie gender transitioning. Some people on hexbear and twitter were suggesting that he might be interested in transitioning based on the username lillyanarkitty. I don't know.
He has many posts on different fantasy series subreddits, such as LoTR. I'm mentioning this because the WAPO article also says that he loved LOTR.
He also had posts saying that he had read anarchist literature, so he probably didn't become an anarchist from reading memes.

Is the washington post article trying to smear him? maybe. probably yes.

Was Aaron Bushnel an anarchist? based on his twitch username that he streamed himself being named "lillyanarkitty" and his alleged reddit account. I would say he was an anarchist.

Does this devalue his message at all? No. He is correct about Gaza.

edit / It looks like reddit has deleted all his posts or shadowbanned him or something. You can still see the posts on the profile but if you click "permalink" on any of his comments, it says deleted.

[-] Sickos@hexbear.net 82 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Repeating stuff I've posted elsewhere, but it's relevant. Here are my own observations from the account.

Looks like he lost a job during early COVID and joined the military because people gotta eat. Nobody is immune to propaganda.

His turn toward leftism was rooted in his Christianity; it appears to have started with getting properly acquainted with the real MLK.

The works of MLK pushed him further into theory, and the hatred of the military hierarchy they were forced into cemented them as an anarchist. Some of their more recent posting history was trying to educate other enlisted on getting conscientious objector status.

I didn't particularly get the vibe that he was an egg (from anything other than the twitch handle), but he definitely was a loud supporter of trans rights. I assume that that led to a lot of disillusionment with his faith.

Also, his posting history makes it clear that he has fairly recently realized his childhood was abusive.

[-] EelBolshevikism@hexbear.net 46 points 7 months ago

The twitch handle is extremely eggy but they could also have just been extremely based and had good username taste

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 49 points 7 months ago

He posted about hating Marxist-Leninists a few times.

Doing this while being in the airforce is so weird.

I will still support and go to bat for him/her but come the fuck on.

[-] Rom@hexbear.net 53 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

His comments on reddit seem pretty based otherwise. One of his comments wrt ideology:

I would say if I have to work with non-anarchists, I would rather work with less ideologically committed folks than with dogmatic adherents of any hierarchical ideology. The “I just think social services and wealth redistribution is neat” social democrat is better (in some ways at least) than the “THE PROLETARIAT WILL BE SAVED BY THE VICTORY OF MY IDEOLOGICALLY PURE PARTY” ML. By the same token, the casual “I just like reading Lenin” ML can be better than the “Revolution is an immature and uncivilized idea, capitalism is the best system actually and just needs a few tweaks” social democrat. The difference lies in the potential for the less ideologically committed individuals to participate in anarchistic tactics and be radicalized in a libertarian direction.

I think if he had a few more years he would have probably cooled off on the ML hate, even if he wouldn't have become an ML himself. We all figure these things out at our own paces.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 42 points 7 months ago

I just don't particularly understand how you can be part of the strictest hierarchical structure that exists, understand how efficient it is and what we are fighting, and then somehow lambast MLs for wanting a strict hierarchical structure for the revolutionary party because we understand what we're fighting against.

It's just so contradictory.

[-] Sickos@hexbear.net 40 points 7 months ago

This assumes they see it as efficient. They hated it. They chafed under it.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 21 points 7 months ago

Maybe you can think "this isn't efficient" but anyone who thinks about it for a few minutes can see how it's more efficient than nobody taking or giving any orders at all.

Doesn't have to be efficient, just has to be more efficient than the alternatives.

If someone can come up with something more efficient I will immediately switch to it.

[-] CatoPosting@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago

Maybe efficiency isn't everything. Maybe you could try to see how, having grown up under one hierarchical boot, and then working inside of another, they could feel that hierarchy will always be oppressive and therefore should be struggled against.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

Efficiency is everything in a zero-sum war between capitalism and revolutionaries.

You either do shit better than them or you lose. It's really as simple as that. The revolutionary forces need to become strong enough to overcome the defence forces of capitalism.

There are two ways to this:

Building a more efficient revolutionary army than the army of the state.
The army of the state becoming so resource-stretched that it becomes weaker than the revolutionary army.

Or most likely: A combination of the above.

You can try and be completely disorganised and just hope that the state collapses so fucking hard that it can't even fight a leaderless revolution with no hierarchy. But seriously consider that that isn't going to be allowed to happen by foreign capitalists who WILL intervene when the moment of collapse occurs if things get that bad. More likely things wouldn't ever get that bad too, which is why you need the vanguard to begin with, to push things truly over the edge, to place a thumb on the scales.

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[-] mar_k@hexbear.net 24 points 7 months ago

I mean he clearly regretted joining and felt guilty about being part of that structure, considering some of his last words were "I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide"

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[-] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago

Americans really just can’t help themselves but be anti-communist. It’s so deep in their bones

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[-] EelBolshevikism@hexbear.net 43 points 7 months ago

Does this devalue his message at all?

Why even would it?

[-] dead@hexbear.net 52 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Anarchist is a bad word in America. Americans think Anarchist means "chaotic and violent". Usually when the US media calls somebody an Anarchist, they mean that the person is an enemy of the US government, not that they read Kropotkin or something.

The other narrative angle that the media tries to push is that he switched from one "extreme ideology" to another. The headline mentions that he grew up on a christian compound. This terminology "christian compound" is associated with cults. Americans also believe that anarchism is an extreme ideology because they can't imagine a society without the state and they think Anarchy is chaos. The implication of the headline is that he was prone believing extreme ideologies and therefore not a logical actor.

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[-] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 25 points 7 months ago

Great sleuthing, comrade! At times like this it's hard to cut through the mountains of bullshit out there

[-] dead@hexbear.net 28 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I wanted to find out if he had posted on Hexbear. I saw a post where he said that the chapotraphouse podcast were assholes. He had posted some stuff about lemmy when reddit disabled the API last year but I can't figure out if he had a lemmy account.

Reddit is starting to delete his posts or something. This is a screenshot from duckduckgo cache, I blacked out text that was a different redditor. This is the comment where he said that chapo were assholes.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/ye4h8l/what_why_how_and_who_is_the_forward_party_some/itwnwej/

He might have had a lemmy account but I think he probably didn't have a hexbear account because he disliked chapo.

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[-] VILenin@hexbear.net 65 points 7 months ago

The “journalist” class must be liquidated at the first opportunity

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[-] EelBolshevikism@hexbear.net 57 points 7 months ago

They really think “this person is/was a principled anarchist” is an own somehow

[-] Angel@hexbear.net 30 points 7 months ago

Of course they do, anarchism is an evil, chaotic, and rabidly violent ideology that is centered around its one extremely harmful principle:

NO RULES

Right?

/s

[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 53 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It took three cowards to dare squeak up and voice their worthless thoughts about a hero

Hollow ass ghouls

[-] the_post_of_tom_joad@hexbear.net 51 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

i hope all three of them one day grow to possess 1/10 of the conviction and class this man had, or barring that i just hope their necks grow longer.

His social media post about 'what would you do if x' kept me up last night. it was a lonng, long night of reassessing my own convictions and finding myself lacking

[-] WashedAnus@hexbear.net 31 points 7 months ago

finding myself lacking

Just remember that there were only like two cases of successful adventurism for the hundreds of attempts over the last ~150 years. (Gavrilo Princip and yamagami )

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 31 points 7 months ago

I think we're rapidly approaching a tipping point where a lot of individual adventurism is about to come back into fashion. One ecoterrorist or anti-genocide bomber will spark off an absolute shit tonne of copycats.

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[-] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 51 points 7 months ago

Accidentally filed into "Local Crime & Public Safety" because the internal name for that column is "OOOOOHHHH SCARRRRRY SHIT, BE AFRAAAAAID".

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[-] RyanGosling@hexbear.net 49 points 7 months ago

Israel-Gaza war

It seems that the WaPo has been infiltrated by hamas. Should we send a predator drone to its headquarters?

[-] Hestia@hexbear.net 46 points 7 months ago

Holy fucking shit.

You're telling me that a person who opposes genocide... Has a political perspective that opposes genocide?

meow-anarchist

[-] zifnab25@hexbear.net 41 points 7 months ago

Its so fucking bizarre to see the bylines get longer and longer as the content gets more and more formulaic.

What is this? Author, Editor, and Commissar?

[-] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 40 points 7 months ago

Straight up demons

[-] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 38 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I feel like there's a great "how many Washington Post reporters does it take to screw in a light bulb" joke in here but this really isn't the time comedian

Seriously though, very hard not to fedpost right now joker-che

Self medication is the only way to maintain even a fragile grasp on the last fragment of my sanity society

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[-] HexbearGPT@hexbear.net 37 points 7 months ago

All publicity is good publicity. I would say an article like this is better than his action just immediately being memory holed.

But also yes fuck these journalists trying to smear him.

[-] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago

Look these authors up on muckrack. You'll see the different syndications along with the syndicate author.

I think they are setting it up to attack from the left as a mentally ill person and from the right as someone gone too woke. That's my guess.

[-] lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 7 months ago

Hasbra funds can afford at least 3

[-] NewLeaf@hexbear.net 33 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

distant sound of liberals everywhere breying like literal jackasses and seal clapping

Biden is safe for another news cycle!

[-] JohnBrownsBussy2@hexbear.net 32 points 7 months ago

Gotta break your nephews and nieces into the industry somehow.

[-] poppy_apocalypse@hexbear.net 29 points 7 months ago

Getting that Rachel Corrie treatment liberal edition.

[-] dislocate_expansion@reddthat.com 28 points 7 months ago

All US military branches require strict background checks and a detailed written response for anything "questionable". If they're alluding someone dropped the ball, why not on his superiors?

Is suicide a crime?

[-] tactical_trans_karen@hexbear.net 28 points 7 months ago

All US military branches require strict background checks

Only if you have a clearance. Rank and file will just get a quick check for state or fed warrants and criminal records.

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[-] D61@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

"Strict" is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here. Nobody cares/knows if you read "The Conquest of Bread" once or a book of MLK's writings.

His superiors aren't the ones doing background checks, that happens during enlistment. Once you're in a unit, unless your superiors actively think you're up to something (or want a reason to chapter you out of the military) nobody is pre-emptively investigating you.

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[-] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Why did you flag your account as a bot? Might want to disable that in settings, some people block all bot accounts.

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[-] neroiscariot@hexbear.net 24 points 7 months ago

I am going to need to see dental records if I am really going to pass judgement on this fella.

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