Is the US a dystopia?

please god don't make us "gotta hand it" to the NYPD because they half-ass the investigation

"we are unclear how he left New York. We told the suspect that the border was 'off-limits' to him"

https://bsky.app/profile/edsbs.bsky.social/post/3lco4n4idpk2y

do i think this man's death was good? do i celebrate this man's death? on consideration, yeah. yeah, i do. i think that's an appropriate response, all things considered. am i personally going to enact violence to try and change an unjust system? no. no, i am not going to do that.

pretty much my take here, thx Kate and io and Daniel and rob for the good posts

A discarded water bottle and a discarded cell phone, both allegedly used by the suspect, were sent to the city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Friday to see if the items may contain viable DNA evidence, including skin cells, CNN reported citing a senior law enforcement official.

They received these items from Oscar the Snitch

At least the scolds didn't post this.

i wonder how the manson family murders would go down on twitter

— John Ganz (@lionel_trolling) December 6, 2024

interesting how the media focus has quickly shifted from "CEO killed in NYC" to "Americans' Palpable Rage at Insurance Companies"

I don't condone violence, but the dude helped open a conversation

I do condone violence and the dude helped open a conversation.

I don't condone violence

I do

the dude helped open a conversation

and this is why

lol jinx w/milo

I personally would like to see a LOT more of this, ASAP

also rooting for people to be completely unrepentant firebrands if arrested, use the platform to spread the good word

There’s certainly an element of “if this isn’t the world you want to live in, stop taking EVERYTHING” to all of this, which you would think Americans would have baked into their DNA a bit more given how the country started, but a) this is what happens when you devalue history and b) I continue to be wary of how this “oh we could just murder them” epiphany is going to somehow come back to impact my upper middle-class Black family

that's true, I don't mean to diminish the cautionary posts and thoughts itt with my own feelings of "finally some payback"

there are some good anarchist writings on this issue in the Mother Earth anthology but I can't find them in an initial google search, I have been thinking a lot about what people like Bakunin and Goldman and De Cleyre have said on the subject

what do you do when there is no way to stop wholesale greed and corporate looting in a country? and that greed kills people. and your government can't or won't stop it because they are complicit in that looting. what are the options?

How One of the World’s Richest Men Is Avoiding $8 Billion in Taxes

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/business/nvidia-jensen-huang-estate-taxes.html

i will take your answers to that question off the air. great show, everyone. good job. big fan.

who knows if this'll have any lasting effect but it does seem like some powerful people were spooked by this, especially if the guy actually gets away with it. I mean it can't be good to see the country at large just shrug their shoulders and go "yeah, makes sense" when you get assassinated on the streets

The powers that be can always up their security details. A unifying class-consciousness coming to the fore.... can't just hire goons to make that go away

what do you do when there is no way to stop wholesale greed and corporate looting in a country? and that greed kills people. and your government can't or won't stop it because they are complicit in that looting. what are the options?

*How One of the World’s Richest Men Is Avoiding $8 Billion in Taxes*

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/business/nvidia-jensen-huang-estate-taxes.html🕸

Also, there seems no good reason why there can’t be limits on how much margin a company providing necessities can make. Thinking utilities, energy, various types of insurance — all of which have been denationalized / privatized in my country (Canada/Alberta) in my lifetime, and healthcare is next on the auction block.

Conservative pols argued, and people believed, and some still do somehow, that selling off the phone company and opening up the market to private business would reduce prices for consumers. Fuck, man, it’s the fucking phone company, any Joe on the street can’t just build an interprovincial infrastructure to provide a service like that, so it’s basically a pretend market competition where one, maybe 2 companies have the physical infrastructure (which was built with taxpayers’ money) which they charge other companies discounted rates for bulk use of, and then those fake-ass companies turn around and sell it to us at maybe slimmer margins, it’s all a shell game — but if the actual providers can sell it cheap to those bullshit telecom companies they could sell it to us for the same rate or less, but they don’t. But they could if they were a government service instead of a for-profit publicly traded company. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m currently paying about 4x more for electricity than I was 5 years ago because, welp, shrug, that’s the market. (5y ago we had a government-mandated rate cap but the cons got in and removed it, with predictable results.)

But 5y ago the electricity company — oh, sorry, “companies” — wasn’t going bankrupt, it’s just now in the deregulated environment they’re swimming like Scrooge McDuck in profits. Yippee if you’re a shareholder, I guess, but everyone I know is suffering because of it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So ok, you don’t want to nationalize your necessities because you don’t want to catch the socializz, but THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW and so on. Not too long ago that wasn’t a radical idea, now if you suggest there would be any limits to capital’s rapaciousness you’re the radical left. You tell me this while we’re sharing a can of beans we’re baking over a fire in a barrel.

Here are some more ppl who love the taste of the boot.

Googling "are there more than two people" pic.twitter.com/UJuSZMwxAS

— Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) December 7, 2024

be tempted to think they are bots from a Moscow US Troll Farm or maybe 4real and are looking for some bootlicking acclaim from billionaire overlords. It's unfortunate that arseholes like this really do exist.

Good morning!

Negronis at the hospital ($200)

One for the scolds. Time for a clear out lads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i45Y4Hf_so8

none more PMC^^^

Xp - not a very good example tbh as the context for that was internecine warfare and purges related to petty factionalism

Or if this is actually just a Revolutionary LARP-ing thread, I apologize for not knowing that.

just a bit of internecine warfare and purges lets all be cool

Every take i’ve seen on the UHC Hitman: pic.twitter.com/OMlZZwW2KI

— Grip Bayless✨ (@talleyberrybaby) December 5, 2024

this really made me think...about eating pizza!

https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/469606400_908206661453456_4768270498560659360_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=dpDnHECDIZIQ7kNvgGBKJd0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=A5784hM7dFg3EFrHQlbMY-4&oh=00_AYAyC0MCMkUxYXhcVg-TCfVeJAK0EthVtatNf0wkK9MXsg&oe=675A2E58

I want to thank all those revolutionary larpers, whose incessant posting about gulags and murdering billionaires for the last decade did help make the space for the UHC Hitman to be radicalised in!

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:3vyl2i7k2fuk7lbnmlxh3vof/bafkreie74mkwb6j4fkdsk4xpn27oqgrila56d5pobmdxvlbrtal64gkm4a@jpeg

tracks for anyone who routinely confuses larping with yomping (me)

dawn of the dead...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1GIF6VNipE

dawn of the dead...

📹

cinnabon and orange julius any time you want

Apologies if this has already been shared/inferred

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay,_Deny,_Defend

Apologies if this has already been shared/inferred

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay,_Deny,_Defend🕸

Shooter lookalike contest in Washington sq park

https://bsky.app/profile/taliajane.bsky.social/post/3lcqcvkmffk2i

Xp - not a very good example tbh as the context for that was internecine warfare and purges related to petty factionalism

― sarahell, Saturday, 7 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

What a few ppl have been objecting is an execution of someone bad without the course of justice being followed, or some process of accountability. Nabozo talked about how ilx usually follows other ideologies so its not good.

So I pull this up to say -- kinda like that speech, but ofc not -- its just one person, look at what nature does etc. Don't get so mad.

It depends on your frame of reference. I always find it interesting when Europeans hold up a mirror to Americans to show how we are seen. I am against the death penalty but the criminal justice system executes people all the time.

I think it's difficult to convey how barbaric the American health insurance system is to non-Americans. It really transcends "class" as I believe Europeans understand the latter, although the starving peasants in the French revolution is part of it. I believe this is what DJP and in orbit were saying.

Living in NYC there were occasional mafia hits. We had one in the lobby of the building I lived in on Mulberry Street.

The fact that I am a walking pre-existing condition played no small part in my moving to a country with state-run healthcare.

When I was 21, I was asked to contribute to a study of the particular childhood cancer I had when I was 5 (which I wasn’t supposed to survive) which meant getting an exam at my family doctor, to be sent to the charity commissioning the study. About a year later, someone called my mom in MN, looking for me, and since the female caller said she was my friend, my mom gave her my number in NYC. My ‘friend’ turned out to be some cow in the collections department of my dad’s insurer, because the study exam had somehow been billed to them. Imagine my delight! The study needed my case history and begged me to volunteer, because I was an early treatment success, and at no point were charges mentioned. So I absolutely reamed this woman for lying to my mother, and told her she could go fucking whistle for the payment in question. I also told her that the study needed me more than I needed the study, and she should remember the definition of ‘volunteer’. I slammed the phone down, and the collections department never contacted me again.

Insurers SUCK. Most Americans I know have had no choice but to get really good at arguing about claims, and the hundreds of hours people spend every year managing this relationship is the most pernicious form of emotional labour there is.

the NHS was often absolutely abysmal when my wife was dying of cancer as I vented about frequently on ilx. but I think about the months immediately before B was diagnosed when she went back to the US to look after her mum who'd fallen and broken her leg, and she spent HOURS on the phone arguing with insurers. it was hell. just hours and hours on hold with these cunts trying to find a way to get treatment

oh my god

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:3oh3u4fbev3zlc7vcfdazlas/bafkreicwhh3t5eer4d4cinerxvbopcbbsgxdvyvscpwyk6yzf3y7axdvzi@jpeg

I for one approve of this new William Gibson timeline

How much Monopoly money?? Surely there's a message there too.

The Joker has entered the timeline

I want to thank all those revolutionary larpers, whose incessant posting about gulags and murdering billionaires for the last decade did help make the space for the UHC Hitman to be radicalised in!

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Saturday, December 7, 2024 7:21 AM (ten hours ago)

wait, are you being sarcastic?