Protestors attend vigil for Air Force airman who set himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 I'm Richard Hall. I'm here at the vigil for US Air Force member Aaron Bushnell,
00:04 who committed an act of self-immolation outside of the Israeli embassy on February 24th, 2024.
00:10 He was frustrated, just like we all are. He was just frustrated. Nothing was changing.
00:14 There hasn't been a ceasefire. There hasn't been any negotiations for an immediate ceasefire,
00:19 at least. He did not want to take part in the genocide. He did not want to take part in the
00:23 killing of innocent men, women and children. It reminds me that all of us here in the US
00:28 as taxpayers are complicit in this genocide, and that our taxes literally fund the war machine that
00:35 is currently killing our people. And as a Palestinian living here, that's profoundly
00:40 difficult. And that's why we're here to say that enough is enough. You'll see here a list of
00:46 every single name that we have of the dead in Gaza. And that list just goes on for meters and
00:56 meters, over 30,000 people. The people of this country have a duty to stand up and criticize
01:03 our elected officials. And I think we have been conditioned to think that there's something wrong
01:07 with that. But it is not only something we should be doing, but it's something that all of us can be
01:14 doing. The pain and the agony that he must have suffered in order to take such a drastic and
01:20 dramatic action, we are feeling as well. And it's the least we can do is pay homage to him and to
01:28 his courage. Who have witnessed this for over four months and feeling complicit and helpless as to
01:36 change our government and to intervene and stop this slaughter is almost unbearable. Aaron's
01:45 sacrifice says it all. It's such a desperate, desperate act in a young life. I refuse to vote
01:53 for the lesser of two evils. And I just think the whole world sees what's happening now. And I stand
02:01 ashamed, ashamed of my country. I applaud everybody who comes out here and let us raise our voices.
02:10 I don't want to be silent and complicit any longer.
02:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]