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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: September 6th, 2024

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  • They voted for Trump, but not because they actually wanted a bunch of asshole CEOs in power. The electorate wanted real transformative change; they’re looking for anyone who can offer even a hope of some bold transformative change. The only party offering real change right now is the Republicans. Democrats just want to offer a few piddly means-tested tax credits like they usually do, while doing absolutely nothing to actually rein in corporate wealth and power. Kamala’s flagship domestic policy was a $25k home tax credit that only a sliver of the populace would be eligible for; and it would only serve to bid up housing prices.

    Like it or not, the Republicans did actually have answers for people. They aren’t good or noble answers, but they were answers. Democrats were too chickenshit to run on a platform of “CEOS are ruining your life, we need to come down like the hammer of God on the greedy oligarchs.” The Republicans in turn ran on a platform of, “the reason your life sucks is a bunch of DEI programs are putting unqualified people ahead of you. We’ll end that. Illegal immigrants are taking your job opportunities, and we’ll deport them all. House prices are too high, so we’ll deport 20 million immigrants and lower them!”

    Those are abominable answers to the problems we face, but they actually had an answer, however evil and ultimately unproductive. Yes, obviously deporting millions of immigrants won’t actually help people, but it doesn’t matter. The Republicans actually had an answer to the question, “what transformative change will you do to improve the lives of Americans?”

    Democrats had no answer. And for that, they lost.

    People are hungry for dramatic change. They feel the system is rigged, and they are right. Democrats were too cowardly to take up that message and push for change against the corporate class, and that left Republicans as the only party offering any real change.

    You don’t need to radically transform society to want change; the country already clearly wants change. The fundamental problem is the only ones offering change are the Republicans.






  • The example I prefer is Bin Ladin. The United CEO killed more people than Bin Ladin. Bin Ladin was just a drama queen and made his killings a lot flashier. Does someone care so much for the rule of law, on such a deep principled level, that they objected to Bin Ladin’s extrajudicial execution? If there is such a rare and gentle soul that they were willing to be offended that even Bin Ladin didn’t get a fair trial, then I will be willing to listen to that person’s objections to celebrating a murderous CEO’s death.

    Personally, I am not that good a person. And I am glad that both Bin Ladin and this CEO are out of the picture.


  • What I’ve been asking people is - “did you weep for Bin Ladin?” If anyone is hand wringing about people mocking the insurance CEO, you should ask them if they wept for Bin Ladin.

    This CEO killed far more people than Bin Ladin. And he didn’t even do it out of some misguided religion - at least Bin Ladin thought he was making the world a better place. This guy just killed thousands of people for the money. Yes, the insurance guy never got a fair trial in court, but neither did Bin Ladin - OBL was killed in an extrajudicial assassination by armed US government agents. Now, in Bin Ladin’s case, capture wasn’t really an option. But with the UHC CEO, it’s not like there was any other way to bring him to justice either.

    If someone really just is that principled that they actually wept for Bin Ladin being killed without trial, then I will take their hand wringing about this guy being shot seriously. Otherwise, I’ll have to believe that the person only objects because it was a wealthy and powerful American that was killed.






  • I mean they’ll do an investigation. The most likely thing is a protest/revenge killing, but there are other possibilities. One I thought of - what if someone actually wanted him killed for reasons completely unrelated to him being an insurance executive? For a hypothetical example (which I have zero evidence to believe to be true), what if the wife wanted him killed for the insurance money? Maybe he was as cruel to her as he was to his customers. Maybe the wife hires a hit man to take the guy out. That hit sure looked pretty professional. Again, I have no evidence to suspect this is true. But what if? Anyone who had a motive to have the guy killed could easily try to make it look like a protest killing. And you rarely get to that level of corporate power without having a few skeletons in the closet.





  • We have a justice system so that we don’t need to use vigilante violence. Make no mistake, this man was a mass murderer. He was personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. But because of our corrupt legal and justice system, he was able to get away with it.

    We no longer have any legal method of holding the wealthy and powerful to account for their crimes. The courts are crooked and the politicians bought and paid for. Again, we implemented courts and a justice system so that we didn’t have to use vigilante violence. In olden times, if someone killed your loved one, it was perfectly acceptable to kill them in revenge. We in time implemented a formal legal system to prevent this kind of retributive vigilante violence.

    Well, what do you think happens when you break that legal system so thoroughly that the wealthy can no longer be held to account? At that point, your society goes right back to the law of might makes right.

    It’s actually very similar to the violence that occurs between gangs. If you’re a drug dealing mafioso, and someone cheats you in a drug deal, you can’t turn to the courts for relief. So instead, you have to use violence.

    The people no longer have any real way of holding the wealthy responsible, even for literally murdering innocent people. We’re going to see a lot more such attacks in the future. And it will not end until we reinstate the old peace treaty that is our justice system.