Disagree. Riot, voice of the unheard or not, is a mistake, a bad tactic, self defeating. You "can only push people so far?" Apologies to Dr. King, he was mistaken.
This article is stunning, for sure, and so is the subject matter.
I’m going to continue with my Christmas cookie baking for neighborhood gifts of love. And I’m going to keep on hoping and praying that at least in my little part of the world, people feel the love of Jesus.
"A governor had a catastrophic nursing home policy during Covid? A pharma executive helped set in train the opioid crisis? A defense official authorized an operation that went disastrously wrong? A Boeing official made terrible mistakes?"
If egregious enough, anyone of these could precipitate a reckoning in a court of law or a court martial. That is how it's supposed to work. Looking at people like the Sacklers, it does make one wonder whether the "civilized" solution is working as intended.
Dear God, it never ends, does it? "Breaking News: Teacher and Student Are Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Police Say Officials revised the death toll to three, including the shooter, who they identified as a teenage student. At least six others were injured."
This is excellent Charlie. If we expect the Right to police it's side, the least we can ask of the Left is to do the same. The rationalization of the murder of Brian Thompson seen on the Left will only strengthen the Trumpers and help them with their illiberal project. What I fear the Left still has not learned is the way to combat Trumpism is with moderation not the Left’s version of MAGA.
Charlie you have to understand that Capitalism's days are numbered and we are entering the final stage. The huge transfer of wealth is starting to become apparent to the rubes and they are fed up. Trump is but a symptom of our own sickness as a society. Shapiro labelling Luigi a coward is a hoot. Luigi was courageous and did what he thought he had to do. He threw his life away in order to do what he thought was right. That takes guts I would say. When the rule of law can't even take down the arch criminal Trump then what recourse do the people have? Fact is we have 300 million guns in the US and any attempt to suppress people for any length of time will be met with violence. The US was founded on violence, why are we all surprised? Climate change will push us over the edge when the rubes wake up and understand they have been hoodwinked by the elites and our elected cowards.
Mangione may have been “inspired” by the Unabomber, but, America has elevated a totally amoral egomaniac to a position of power in this country. We have elevated a man who said publicly at his political rallies that he wanted violence against his perceived enemies and he boasted he would pay the legal legal bills of anyone who attacked his enemies. Has djt paid a legal bill for anyone he sent to the U.S. Capitol, perpetrated violence and was brought to justice? NO. And he never will. Play his game at your own expense.
Don't take this the wrong way, jane, but I consider this precisely the wrong sort of reply to make your point (as I understand it). Coming out with a cliché, media-generated whine about Donald Trump, full of claptrap falsehoods ("iNSuRreCtiOn! oh noes") completely guts your tentative disapproval of Mangione's actions. Donald Trump is not the subject here, and neither is the rubbish that CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, etc., etc., have generated about him.
Take a look at the actual subject at hand, and not some distracting shadows on the wall of your cave. I too am not sure what to think about that subject, but I try not to substitute irrelevant deflection for difficult thought.
I am astonished at the "What do you expect?" defenses ("I'm not defending it, I'm just considering 'root causes'!") of this murder. Apparently almost no one is immune to the need to find _someone_ deserving of killing.
We should agree that murder is crossing a line. We should also agree that the denying people the health insurance they paid for, profiting health care company CEOs and shareholders, and ultimately causing patients to die, is also murder. Slower, more nuanced, perhaps, but still cold blooded murder. Just murder for profit, and in America we seem delighted by that. So spare me the handwringing. We shouldn’t gun down perpetrators in the street, but we shouldn’t shower them with money and the expense of the lives of others either. Help us get government provided universal health care or get out of the way.
No one should want to live in a country that doesn’t adhere to its own laws. No one should want to live in a country that allows a convicted felon to run for office, any office including the highest one in the land. No one should want to live in a country where one human is above the law and the rest of us look on in disbelief after being told repeatedly that no one is above the law. This kind of gaslighting makes people crazy enough to engage in behavior they may not otherwise.
Every time there is a school shooting, there is hooting and hollering for gun control / gun safety / pick your euphemism in the midst of the public grief of the families and coverage of the many funerals and the response is that now is NOT the time to shamelessly exploit a terrible tragedy for political gain.
Now we have a shooting of a health insurance CEO and there is hooting and hollering for healthcare system reform and the response that now is NOT the time to shamelessly exploit a terrible tragedy for political gain.
I must have a complicated personality; I feel the first is completely justified and the second is a descent into barbarism.
Maybe its because murdering a school room full of children victims in the first case is much more exploitable for the media than is the same number of children dying due to being uninsured or underinsured and the privacy and anonymity of the families' private grief.
But whatever my contradictory emotional responses to what appear to be similar similar situations (even leaving out the additional aspect of turning the perpetrator in both murders into a role model - which might be the actual commonality), I'm becoming interested in the ideas of C.B. Macpherson.
""Possessive individualism" is a political theory, primarily associated with C.B. Macpherson, that describes a social and political perspective where individuals are seen as the sole owners of their abilities and capacities, essentially "owning" themselves and owing nothing to society for their skills or talents; it is often linked to the idea that society is primarily composed of market interactions between individuals who are self-interested proprietors of their own labor and lives."
Health insurance companies are the fall guys for big pharma, for hospital and rehab conglomerates, for medical tech and device companies. It wouldn't occur to a base level self-important reactionary like Mangione that the reason most people need insurance coverage that makes single digit profit margins is the provider industry they're taking all the blowback for has double, triple, and quadruple digit profit margins. If people could afford care we wouldnt need coverage. To the extent this mentally ill privileged maniac (who didn't have UnitedHeath coverage, but did recieve sucessful back surgery which he could apparently easily afford) has nonetheless opened something of a dialougue on healthcare by killing someone, one can at least hope we realize what he did was entirely wanton, wrong, and useless. He did of course raise the amount spent on security for insurance CEOs, passed on to the customers he was supposedly trying to defend. Thanks Luigi.
I think denying valid claims that lead to unnecessary deaths and cold-blooded murder are both wrong, in fact terrible. And I think that is a coherent viewpoint and that is how I read AOC and Warren.
I can’t “like” this post Charlie. I’ve been a big follower since your Bulwark days, you brought me to subscribe there. But your recent turn I can’t support. I guarantee you I’m not happy about what is happening. I thought you were taking some time off to regroup and I’d listen to your podcast again soon. I do hope you are ok. (Alright none of us are great now but…)
Thanks for letting the little wiener give us a moment of relief from the horrors.
Disagree. Riot, voice of the unheard or not, is a mistake, a bad tactic, self defeating. You "can only push people so far?" Apologies to Dr. King, he was mistaken.
This article is stunning, for sure, and so is the subject matter.
I’m going to continue with my Christmas cookie baking for neighborhood gifts of love. And I’m going to keep on hoping and praying that at least in my little part of the world, people feel the love of Jesus.
Worth reading:
https://open.substack.com/pub/freddiedeboer/p/our-healthcare-system-a-reign-of?r=3ynoe&utm_medium=ios
"A governor had a catastrophic nursing home policy during Covid? A pharma executive helped set in train the opioid crisis? A defense official authorized an operation that went disastrously wrong? A Boeing official made terrible mistakes?"
If egregious enough, anyone of these could precipitate a reckoning in a court of law or a court martial. That is how it's supposed to work. Looking at people like the Sacklers, it does make one wonder whether the "civilized" solution is working as intended.
Dear God, it never ends, does it? "Breaking News: Teacher and Student Are Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Police Say Officials revised the death toll to three, including the shooter, who they identified as a teenage student. At least six others were injured."
This is excellent Charlie. If we expect the Right to police it's side, the least we can ask of the Left is to do the same. The rationalization of the murder of Brian Thompson seen on the Left will only strengthen the Trumpers and help them with their illiberal project. What I fear the Left still has not learned is the way to combat Trumpism is with moderation not the Left’s version of MAGA.
Charlie you have to understand that Capitalism's days are numbered and we are entering the final stage. The huge transfer of wealth is starting to become apparent to the rubes and they are fed up. Trump is but a symptom of our own sickness as a society. Shapiro labelling Luigi a coward is a hoot. Luigi was courageous and did what he thought he had to do. He threw his life away in order to do what he thought was right. That takes guts I would say. When the rule of law can't even take down the arch criminal Trump then what recourse do the people have? Fact is we have 300 million guns in the US and any attempt to suppress people for any length of time will be met with violence. The US was founded on violence, why are we all surprised? Climate change will push us over the edge when the rubes wake up and understand they have been hoodwinked by the elites and our elected cowards.
Mangione may have been “inspired” by the Unabomber, but, America has elevated a totally amoral egomaniac to a position of power in this country. We have elevated a man who said publicly at his political rallies that he wanted violence against his perceived enemies and he boasted he would pay the legal legal bills of anyone who attacked his enemies. Has djt paid a legal bill for anyone he sent to the U.S. Capitol, perpetrated violence and was brought to justice? NO. And he never will. Play his game at your own expense.
You are wrong about me, what you read in my comment and about djt.
Don't take this the wrong way, jane, but I consider this precisely the wrong sort of reply to make your point (as I understand it). Coming out with a cliché, media-generated whine about Donald Trump, full of claptrap falsehoods ("iNSuRreCtiOn! oh noes") completely guts your tentative disapproval of Mangione's actions. Donald Trump is not the subject here, and neither is the rubbish that CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, etc., etc., have generated about him.
Take a look at the actual subject at hand, and not some distracting shadows on the wall of your cave. I too am not sure what to think about that subject, but I try not to substitute irrelevant deflection for difficult thought.
I am astonished at the "What do you expect?" defenses ("I'm not defending it, I'm just considering 'root causes'!") of this murder. Apparently almost no one is immune to the need to find _someone_ deserving of killing.
We should agree that murder is crossing a line. We should also agree that the denying people the health insurance they paid for, profiting health care company CEOs and shareholders, and ultimately causing patients to die, is also murder. Slower, more nuanced, perhaps, but still cold blooded murder. Just murder for profit, and in America we seem delighted by that. So spare me the handwringing. We shouldn’t gun down perpetrators in the street, but we shouldn’t shower them with money and the expense of the lives of others either. Help us get government provided universal health care or get out of the way.
No one should want to live in a country that doesn’t adhere to its own laws. No one should want to live in a country that allows a convicted felon to run for office, any office including the highest one in the land. No one should want to live in a country where one human is above the law and the rest of us look on in disbelief after being told repeatedly that no one is above the law. This kind of gaslighting makes people crazy enough to engage in behavior they may not otherwise.
Every time there is a school shooting, there is hooting and hollering for gun control / gun safety / pick your euphemism in the midst of the public grief of the families and coverage of the many funerals and the response is that now is NOT the time to shamelessly exploit a terrible tragedy for political gain.
Now we have a shooting of a health insurance CEO and there is hooting and hollering for healthcare system reform and the response that now is NOT the time to shamelessly exploit a terrible tragedy for political gain.
I must have a complicated personality; I feel the first is completely justified and the second is a descent into barbarism.
Maybe its because murdering a school room full of children victims in the first case is much more exploitable for the media than is the same number of children dying due to being uninsured or underinsured and the privacy and anonymity of the families' private grief.
But whatever my contradictory emotional responses to what appear to be similar similar situations (even leaving out the additional aspect of turning the perpetrator in both murders into a role model - which might be the actual commonality), I'm becoming interested in the ideas of C.B. Macpherson.
""Possessive individualism" is a political theory, primarily associated with C.B. Macpherson, that describes a social and political perspective where individuals are seen as the sole owners of their abilities and capacities, essentially "owning" themselves and owing nothing to society for their skills or talents; it is often linked to the idea that society is primarily composed of market interactions between individuals who are self-interested proprietors of their own labor and lives."
-AI Labs (Google) at Google Search
"what is possessive individualism wiki"
Health insurance companies are the fall guys for big pharma, for hospital and rehab conglomerates, for medical tech and device companies. It wouldn't occur to a base level self-important reactionary like Mangione that the reason most people need insurance coverage that makes single digit profit margins is the provider industry they're taking all the blowback for has double, triple, and quadruple digit profit margins. If people could afford care we wouldnt need coverage. To the extent this mentally ill privileged maniac (who didn't have UnitedHeath coverage, but did recieve sucessful back surgery which he could apparently easily afford) has nonetheless opened something of a dialougue on healthcare by killing someone, one can at least hope we realize what he did was entirely wanton, wrong, and useless. He did of course raise the amount spent on security for insurance CEOs, passed on to the customers he was supposedly trying to defend. Thanks Luigi.
I think denying valid claims that lead to unnecessary deaths and cold-blooded murder are both wrong, in fact terrible. And I think that is a coherent viewpoint and that is how I read AOC and Warren.
I can’t “like” this post Charlie. I’ve been a big follower since your Bulwark days, you brought me to subscribe there. But your recent turn I can’t support. I guarantee you I’m not happy about what is happening. I thought you were taking some time off to regroup and I’d listen to your podcast again soon. I do hope you are ok. (Alright none of us are great now but…)