Is the US a dystopia?

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?

The Joker has entered the timeline

― omar little

yeah, The People's Joker

2006: army of neckbeards in guy fawkes masks
2024: army of those same women doing genderfuck joker cosplay. with cat ears for some reason.

It's a particularly ghoulish industry agreed but imo you're unlikely to find a company to be CEO of that isn't morally abhorrent to some degree, tho obv there are gradations.

This is why I would never allow any child of mine to become a CEO.

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

(xp)

The revolution will not be brought to you by Xanax in four sponsored posts
The revolution will not show you pictures of George Santos blowing a femboy
The revolution will not be feminized

This Monopoly money thing is amazing. I thought it was an Onion article at first.

The revolution will not be feminized

― budo jeru

this classic meme:

https://i.redd.it/r28b2ij57c1e1.png

no idea if the embed will work, here's the link if not

https://i.redd.it/r28b2ij57c1e1.png

(god knows why they'd think that force fem exists "outside of the context of feminist politics" mind you)

seeing "The Insurance Adjuster" going around as a nickname, gotta hand it to the people there

https://i.imgur.com/cLAQiBi.png

https://i.imgur.com/Ua76Sii.png

Lol

normal

Kinda lol but mostly normal

Amazon and Blackrock simultaneously posting executive protection VP roles. pic.twitter.com/MixUvGMgrm

— Daniel Boguslaw (@DRBoguslaw) December 8, 2024

good opportunity for anyone that can pass themselves off a a security professional that is looking for some ironic payback

Bezos is quick to sense trends that could affect his wealth and power.

There is apparently uhc assassin fan fic on ao3. They call him “the adjuster”.

https://bsky.app/profile/joolia.bsky.social/post/3lct27wygak2g

seeing "The Insurance Adjuster" going around as a nickname, gotta hand it to the people there

― sleeve, Saturday, December 7, 2024 7:09 PM

xp

Avoiding the is-assassination-good discourse, I will say that it’s weirdly refreshing to have a high-profile shooting that seems like it has a rational motive. Gotten so used to delusional psychopaths obsessed with internet fame that old-fashioned political killing is a nice break.

isnt it that you just agree with the motive here tho

sorry shouldnt just burst in with that;

assassination bad but may at times be good

us not a dystopia but at times may be

what else

The Beatles

I dunno, it's not whether or not I agree with the motive so much as there IS one. Most of our high-profile shootings are just like sad-lonely-mentally-ill, had-a-notebook-of-famous-mass-killings, etc. Stuff Le Carré or Grisham wouldn't touch. This one at least seems to come from a more rational lineage of targeted murders.

yerman who shot at trump

eh, he seemed more like the category of incoherent glory-seekers, like John Hinckley — not a political action per se, even if it had obviously political effects.

Trying to blow up Maggie Thatcher

She's probably already in several pieces

Hinckley Jr.

Squeaky Fromme and Ford is a borderline case. Her heart was in the wrong place… but so was his.

I haven't seen Suburban Fury yet, but Sara Jane Moore possibly to thread.

Take me out to the Congressional ballgame, take me out to the crowd

Amazon has had security for executives for years.

This is a good week to be a corporate security consultant or contractor. CEOs can justify spending as much as they want on security.

The pay on those job listings kind of sucks if that’s the supervisor in charge of hiring people to take a bullet for the head of the Wage Theft Department.

its a good week for assassins to take those jobs

Would love to see the dead peasants insurance policies these companies would collect on, if the hired goons took a bullet for the big boss.

assassination bad but may at times be good

us not a dystopia but at times may be

what else

― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Sunday, 8 December 2024 bookmarkflaglink

You've caught up well done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RSRmQ6WiUU

TikTok kids should make that go viral

Avoiding the is-assassination-good discourse, I will say that it’s weirdly refreshing to have a high-profile shooting that seems like it has a rational motive. Gotten so used to delusional psychopaths obsessed with internet fame that old-fashioned political killing is a nice break.

Again, that dude that offed Shinzo Abe had some pretty solid reasoning.

all of this was predicted by Toto in their 1984 hit song "Stranger in Town"