Is the US a dystopia?

Obviously it's not the same. I just don't know that I could be happy about anyone being killed like this. There has to be another way or solution. I agree with everything you said I just don't get being happy about it. Idk. I'm probably being dumb it's been a long week.

I think being disturbed by violence is probably good on the whole. I am just not bothered by this because my caring is all being spent on people who don't make $10m a year by profiting from systemic violence

what was the movie where the kids invite horrible people to dinner and then kill them? But Ron Perlman plays an awful shock-jock they wanna kill but at dinner he turns out to me more complicated and nuanced?

I don't know why I thought of that

i am numb to violence now, I live in the USA

My dystopic moment of the week was interviewing the CEO of the Vonnegut Library and Museum about Slaughterhouse-Five being pulled from the shelves in all our local school libraries. (Because of a new state law, books are being yanked across the state.)

My son read Slaughterhouse-Five for 9th grade English in the same school district, and that was just two years ago. Just nuts how fast all of this is hapening.

If true then well,,

BREAKING: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield calls off decision to cap anesthesia for surgical patientshttps://t.co/cG6H5Jf3Qi

— Axios (@axios) December 5, 2024

i'm not happy when anyone gets murdered but on the other hand the very rich are way too comfortable in this country. they wear hundred thousand dollar watches. in public! i just want their watches to get stolen. and their cars defaced. something. anything. but i think the people who would fight back against the super-rich are too comfortable themselves. they don't want to start a civil war. they have too much to lose. so, what do you do? one day of pussy hats didn't change anything. it made people feel better, i guess. occupy wall street, wto protests...did they have an effect? or is it that these kinds of protests have to go on for years? i think they do. and nobody wants to sit in a tree that long. there were protesters outside planned parenthood in philly when i lived there for YEARS. week in and week out. decades. i can't imagine anyone i know doing anything like that. the dedication. the fire. the anger. there were so many bombs going off in the 70s. i don't think people want that. and i don't know if it helped anything anyway. i dunno. there is no easy answer to anything in this place.

one of my favorite musicals by Sondheim, Assassins, establishes that assassinations are a symptom of a society that has festering wounds that nobody is willing to acknowledge. While on the individual level, you might not condone the action a specific assassin took or fully understand their motives, collectively these things happen because citizens are being harmed on a large scale, and desperation to be heard and understood is what leads to these assassinations. The targets are chosen for symbolic reasons moreso than strategic ones.

In the musical, when asked why he went for President-Elect Roosevelt instead of then-lame duck President Hoover, Zangara responds "You think I care who I kill? I no care who I kill, Long as it's King!"

A doctor being killed for merely doing their job and being blamed for not being able to save a patient is simply a murder - they're just trying to get by and do their job like everyone else. They're harmed by the same machine we are. That's a tragedy.

United Healthcare, a major player in the insurance industry, has been found guilty of manipulating reasonable and customary charges and passing the cost onto patients, 900,00 violations of California's Unfair Insurance Practices Act, systemic compliance problems leading to Medicare denials/delays resulting in a 2.5 million dollar fine, and were sued for improperly denying $5 million in behavioral health treatment claims. These are cherry-picked examples, there's a lot more that they've been sued/fined for, nevermind the things that they've done to people on an individual level in the name of profit. That is, as in orbit mentions, intentional and systemic harm performed upon millions of people - many of their actions resulted in the death, permanent disability, bankruptcy, etc of untold numbers of people.

So United is basically the symbol of violence and corruption against the common man - their CEO is the figurehead for that symbol. it's understandable why he's a target. Was he a good person? Probably not - few CEOS are. He was responsible for much of the same shit UHC had been doing for decades, many of which were mentioned in this thread, but his administration resulted in the increase of prior authorization denials, predominantly amongst the elderly and disabled who relied on Medicare Advantage plans. so he wasn't one of the good guys, he was an equal contributor to their rot.

but it's irrelevant anyway - whether or not he was a good guy running a bad company or a bad guy helping the company stay bad, he's the face of the company and hence why he's the target.

*900,000

I think being disturbed by violence is probably good on the whole. I am just not bothered by this because my caring is all being spent on people who don't make $10m a year by profiting from systemic violence

he was making about $10M a year. source: unh's proxy statement https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000110465924050055/tm2332959d4_def14a.htm

Just bought a copy of Bryan Burrough's 2015 book Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence on eBay. The paperback has a great Seventies cover.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71wrWIdFPkL._SL1200_.jpg

Years, decades ago, I was stuck somewhere without a book to read, and I found an old paperback novel that portrayed a Black revolutionary armed struggle with US forces (police?) which I now understand was either actually a fictionalization of the MOVE bombing or meant to evoke it. Can't find it now and the results of searching for the possible keywords are not things I want to click on at work.

Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman?

While I personally neither celebrate nor promote the assassination of even the super-rich, I completely understand why people might opt for such an approach in a world where the elites exist like a tribe of diseased apes who wantonly destroy the lives of multitudes while suffering precisely zero substantive consequence. And I ain't gonna lose the teensiest wink of sleep over it.

xp I don't think so from the plot summary but thanks for trying!

Days of Lead American Style

I imagine that the reaction might not be as intense if it hadn’t come after a month of the most evil pieces of shit alive celebrating their plans to strip the country for parts and dismantle the safety net. When the possibility of anything improving for the vast majority of people has been closed off indefinitely, bad things happening to bad people is the closest thing to good news out there.

i mean, pretend it was trump who got capped. or musk.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 5 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

That would be the real talk.

xp yeah and Musk is set to make $56 billion for no work at all, except for a hazy plan to turn the nation into a massive 99 cent store (on its last day of business)

he was making about $10M a year. source: unh's proxy statement https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000110465924050055/tm2332959d4_def14a.htm

― 龜

Thanks, I guess he only makes $10m because there are several people in the organization making much more than him.

William McGuire made $124.8m as CEO of the parent company, UHG, back in 2005.

that could just be his salary too

TV has taught me that only cat burglars and teenage hackers are lovable

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel)

maia arson crimew taught me that teenage catgirl hacker burglars are also loveable

If you want to get creative. Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry For The Future has that chapter about drone swarms bringing down 300 jets all at once - only now the Russia-Ukraine War has driven the cost of such an operation down to GoFundMe levels.

ok back to discoursing for me

The kind of person who owns a pistol with a silencer and plans the assassination of a CEO on a NY city street in the daytime is unlikely to be the kind of impeccable character we might hope he'd be.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

actually gonna agree with aimless on this one

i will cheer the death of this detestable human being just as much as the rest of you. doesn't mean i'm a supporter of people who think the best solution to systemic injustice is to go travis bickle on someone.

-

All I have to add to this discussion is that maybe it's not a bad thing to instill a little fear in billionaires that live cushy lives by pressing their boots down on the faces of the poor and powerless.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. mostly i just find it interesting. if people think the shooter was justified in killing this dude, to me that suggests that the state no longer has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. now, if i was a member of the in-group the law protected but did not bind, rather than a member of one of the increasingly numerous out-groups the law binds but does not protect, i'd be pretty concerned by this.

as it happens, i'm a member of one of the out-groups. vigilantes shooting down ceos on the streets? i'm pretty afraid of that kind of thing becoming normalized, quite honestly. at the same time, since the law doesn't protect me, since the law protects people like _him_ at the expense of the rest of us...

well, me personally, i _do_ have respect for the rule of law. i do fundamentally respect that the government of the united states of america has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, even if that legitimacy is vested in the hands of the NYPD. i guess not everybody sees it that way. these folks who are cheering on a vigilante killer, i strongly disagree with them, but i'm not gonna say i can't see where they're coming from.

I just keep thinking of a line from the movie Grosse Pointe Blank: "If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there."

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

ok, now read that line to me in dan white's voice.

i'm a fucking faggot, y'all. legitimizing vigilante killings ain't exactly in my best interest.

Wow. Per @JohnMillerCNN, among the interviews law enforcement has been conducting, they spoke to a female employee at the hostel who said, at one point, she asked the then-masked man to lower his mask while flirting with him, which is when this photo released by NYPD today was… pic.twitter.com/elHa7r70N7

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) December 6, 2024

i do fundamentally respect that the government of the united states of america has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, even if that legitimacy is vested in the hands of the NYPD

I used to think that. These days I'm not so sure.

legitimizing vigilante killings ain't exactly in my best interest

Yeah, but... vigilante killings aimed at minorities/out-groups have been going on for centuries and are already plenty legitimized (de facto if not de jure). Pushback in the opposite direction (at least in the US) is a comparative rarity, and a few more gestures in that direction might actually be a benefit to society in the long run, following the logic that bullies are cowards. If someone was to roll a grenade into the crowd picketing an abortion clinic, maybe there would be fewer anti-abortion protests the next week.

Related but maybe not: I don't currently own a gun. I have been considering buying one. (Or having my gun-loving brother mail me various pieces of metal that I can assemble in my own home.) But in the meantime, I have more respect for someone on the political left, or a member of a minority group, who chooses to arm up, than I do for your typical Montana bro who feels the need to wear a Glock to the grocery store.

“If someone was to roll a grenade into the crowd picketing an abortion clinic, maybe there would be fewer anti-abortion protests the next week.”

I would guarantee you there would be more protests

Fewer anti-abortion protesters maybe

https://gardenscenery.net/p/this-strange-moment

to some points above re: systemic violence vis-a-vis the violence of this assassination—

Thompson would still be alive if we had universal healthcare in the US. The system that he profited from quite literally killed him, as he assisted in killing many desperate people during his time at United.

Frederick Douglass wrote about how the souls of slavers were tainted forever by their misdeeds— in the process of committing violent acts against human beings, people lost their own souls. The violence is never one way, no, but the blame for violence rests with the slavers, and in this case, Thompson, since he was at the helm of a company that has committed unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence against sick and elderly people. It doesn’t matter that he was just working with the system as it is— he was part of it, believed in it, profited from it. His fate is entirely the result of his own actions, and a sign that there is justice in this world every once in a while.

It’s a bit like when they kill the leader of ISIS though, there will just be a new one the next day

In the John Grisham version, the hit was engineered by whoever that next-in-line is, made to look like a left-wing terrorist attack just in time for the Trump administration to crack down on left-wing groups across the country.

(The last part of that is pretty inevitable either way.)

The suspect in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson traveled via Greyhound bus from Atlanta to New York before the shooting, multiple law enforcement sources told CNN.

That bus started its route in Atlanta, the sources said. Authorities do not know whether the suspect boarded in Atlanta or elsewhere, the sources said.

A Greyhound spokesperson said the company is “fully cooperating with authorities on this active investigation,” adding that it can’t give any more details at the moment.

Police believe the gunman arrived in New York City on November 24, 10 days before the shooting, a law enforcement official told CNN. He arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan and then went to the hostel. After that, he appears to move around the city, the official said.

The suspect checked out of the hostel on November 29, the law enforcement official said. He checked back into the hostel on November 30, multiple law enforcement sources previously told CNN.

The suspected gunman paid the hostel in cash, according to the official. He checked into the hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side using a fake New Jersey driver’s license, a law enforcement official previously told CNN.

Police still don’t know where he acquired the e-bike he used to flee the scene.

i don't know whether to be impressed or spooked by how well they already apparently know about his whole route.

i'll go with spooked.

paid the hostel in cash #onethread

If one were to choose to follow in this guy's footsteps, it would be best to plan your getaway and hideout as best you can, but you should assume it would end with your being tracked down anyway. The Surveillance State has advanced pretty far since 9/11.

Feel like he should have invested in some of those clothes that supposedly defeat facial recognition software.

so if they know all of that they must know who he is?

have your getaway and hideout planned out, assume you will be tracked down and found, then tell the cops the CEO pulled something out of his pocket and you feared for your life

Or at least turn your smart phone off and leave it in the hostel. Those things are tracking devices. Between cell tower triangulation, automatic connections to Starbucks WiFi, and "Find My"... just don't even have one. Plus, how did he pay for the Lyft bike? You gotta go completely lo-tech to even have a chance.

Reddit knew the model of forearm and what ammo he used just by the footage alone. Use a more unusual weapon. That stuff has to be traceable. I guess they'll just use that to prove him guilty in trial, though.

use the gun from In the Line of Fire

I will admit...not, I repeat, NOT because I have any desire to crime anytime soon, but I thought through my head about how I'd escape the scene of said crime and it made my head spin thinking about well there might be a street cameras that pick you up or you might wind up in someone's amateur cell phone video taking off your crime clothes, and if you enter into a car, you can't use your own, you don't want your friend to pick you up because he might use technology that is tracked, you can't use Uber, so maybe hope you find a cab on the street and hail it and pay cash oh and if someone did manage to snap a pic of you it's on Twitter within minutes with a bunch of nerds with no lives posting not just what they think your name is but also pasting the Yelp review you wrote about a shitty omelette you had in 2012

The way they caught that psycho who (allegedly but come on) killed those college kids in Idaho showed me the full reach of the law enforcement apparatus.

They couldn’t find this guy even with his name. He had to call them and ask him to come pick him up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_New_York_City_Subway_attack.

I'll try to react to the messages that followed my post, even if a lot of ground has been covered by others (in orbit, ENBB, Alfred). I'm not expecting anyone to mourn his death and I certainly aren't. What I find wrong is to behave as if assassinations / violence is the only justice and recourse left; to shift your morals around heinous crimes according to who the victim is. Generally I find "the rich and powerful deserve to die" very childish, even as a proxy to express general resentment. And I'm sorry but I find it dumb and sad to pretend as if his death is anything to how insurances work - when we all know it isn't so. Imo those are the same line of thinking that breed political movements that are rightly disparaged on this board.

And now a message for rob: how I feel about people jumping under trains is my prerogative. Whether you or I feel much more deeply and humanely about them is certainly not something I have ever wondered. Or maybe you thought the occasion was too good to send an insult in passing ?