Seriously though, don’t do violence.
It goes to show how morally bankrupt these people are that it takes the fear of death being out into them to get them to do something even remotely good/ethical.
It also unfortunately proves, once more, that violence can absolutely be the solution.
Violence against the powerful begets fascism. Did violence work for Native Americans? Did it work for Palestinians? Did it work for the original antifa (you know, the ones who died in concentration camps)? Violence only works if you have more guns than the other side. If you don’t, stop and figure something else.
Worked for the IRA, OG Rednecks, and Zapatistas. The fact of the matter is that you dont need more guns only more intelligence and a willingness to make the ones you are targeting bleed far more than you ever could.
Worked for the IRA, OG Rednecks, and Zapatistas.
Give me a specific example of how violence worked for any of these. I’m not sure what you’re referring to with OG rednecks, but the IRA (as of 1997) abandoned violence because it failed to reach their goals and just angered the people they were supposed to be fighting for. EZLN only took up armed rebellion for a brief moment and never really tried to engage in battle, focusining on peaceful activity since the mid-90s.
a willingness to make the ones you are targeting bleed far more than you ever could.
The problem there is that the ones being targeted make a ton of money for what they’re doing, and can avoid this sort of problem by just being a little more careful. Meanwhile, there’s not that many people willing to risk prison and death to express their disdain for corporate healthcare.
When I said OG Rednecks I was referring to those who fought in the Unions and County wars, Blair mountain, and towards the tail end volunteered in Catalonia. Anyways they more or less got what they wanted, high union membership and getting the companies to the negotiating table, only took a couple decades of violence to get the point across.
Yes im aware about of the 97 change of policy from the IRA, but they also fractured towards the end of the Troubles so im not even sure I should consider the IRA of 1997 as the same organization as in 1977. Also my point reiterated they did violence until they got negotiated with.
Yes I know about the Zapatistas using violence sparringly. Look at my two previous points.
Violence is a tool like any other, one must know where to apply it and with how much pressure. You do not use a blowtorch to hammer in a nail nor do you use a sledgehammer for a picture frame nail. All I was trying to point out is that violence has been used to great effect, the make them bleed more comment while holding some truth was also me being somewhat hot blooded.
Frankly speaking the best way to fuck with these large corporations is to attack their infrastructure. Destroy servers, vehicles, buildings, etc. Killing the CEO will eventually result in either hiding of the CEO or moving the power to a new position.
Because the IRA didn’t truly give up violence. They had Sinn Fein for that.
MLK was ignored, and the Black Panthers showed what could happen if you ignore them.
Gandhi wasn’t recognised by the British until the terrorist acts and rebellions in India.
The violence isn’t the “solution”, it is the response to the negotiations being ignored. Its the “good cop/bad cop” in all these situations. There are plently of peaceful groups who have been working towards better healthcare, but made no progress. This is the point where they can start saying
Either you work with us, or deal with them 🤷♀️
And it’s exactly how the IRA got the negotiations going. It may take a while but its the same pattern.
The legislature and violence monopoly are there to ensure all people have legal recourse instead of needing to turn to violence. If you corrupt that system and use it to oppress the masses, they become violent.
I neither agree with, nor condone violence, but it does not surprise me at all. Just surprised that it took so long.
Violence from the masses requires the masses to feel like they are starving, sick, and dying with no way out except death. We have been slowly accelerating towards that violence for a while now.
Watch for an increase for those CEO’s, (at least insurance and pharmaceutical CEOs), to have much increased budget for private security measures. Both in surveillance and personnel. I think we will start to see more ‘black limo caravans’ like the the POTUS moves around in. And being surrounded by people in black suits with guns openly visible. They will do whatever it takes to stay alive and be evil.
The next question is: how long before politicians start becoming targets?
Seriously though, don’t do violence.
Why not? It’s a perfectly fair response to the violence perpetuated upon millions of “customers” annually, made “legitimate” by paid off lawmakers. Why should we not be allowed to respond in kind when they’re allowed to kill us - just because it’s in a more roundabout method? Fuck 'em. I’ve never been a gun type, but right-wingers have really been getting me to rethink that stance.
Violence is clearly justified. There’s only a question of it being the most effective means.
I’m currently reading “Why Civil Resistance Works”, which strongly suggests that non-violent means of protest are far, far more effective.
The opposition to the south african apartheid did a campaign of sabotage because it wanted to reduce casualties. I would say it was very effective.
Yes, someone who worked at the state department wouldn’t have any motive to push for “civil” protest.
I’m currently reading “Why Civil Resistance Works”, which strongly suggests that non-violent means of protest are far, far more effective.
Oh yeah all the peace marches ended slavery. All the peaceful sit-ins that took down the Nazis. I remember all of those… never happening.
Kill your masters and oppressors. Full stop.
This Run the Jewels is
Murder, mayhem, melodic music.
Violence towards the evil power can be good. See the French Revolution.
The French Revolution ate the nobles, sure, but then it ate itself, then went on to try to eat the rest of Europe. It was a loooong time before it had positive results.
For the most part, the French revolution really only took down the royal family. A large portion of land owners and business people made it out perfectly fine with both their assets and heads.
Is it weird that I’m ok with people in the $50 mill range? Like yeah, they’re stupid rich. But they’re still closer to us than to people with $100 billion. And also, a lot of them just inherited it. Which is also bullshit, but they may not have done any evil to become that rich, necessarily. The question is whether or not they keep up with the evil. Bezos ex wife is a great example as she has spent tons of money on charitable organizations that opposed her ex husbands bullshit. There’s a handful of good, rich people out there, but they’re few, and far between.
We can put a number on the difference between “rich” and “filthy rich”. It’s about $10M.
I say this with regard to the Trinity Study, which backtested a retirement portfolio to see how long it would take for a given withdrawal rate (and adjusting for inflation each year) to fail. It went all the way back to 1925, which means it would have seen boom and bust, high inflation and low. What it comes out saying is that if you withdrawal 2.5% per year of a balanced portfolio, you can live on that indefinitely.
2.5% of $10M is $250k. That’s enough to live very comfortably anywhere you want. Yes, even Manhattan and San Fransisco–lookup median household income for those areas and you’ll see that $250k is far above it. Also, you can live basically anywhere if you do this, so maybe don’t live in a high cost of living area. There’s plenty of nice places to live that are cheaper. That said, if something is keeping you there, you can do it and still live pretty well.
So that’s the limit. Anything above that is just hoarding wealth.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
But dead nobles were positive results
I agree is justified in many situations, the French revolution ain’t a good example for that, namely that it didn’t work in the long run with all the Napoleon-ing. The people most adept at violence, who will be most empowered by violence as normalized political tactic mostly don’t promote the interests of most people if they get into power. Napoleon and such
also every time there’s been prominent “propaganda of the deed” it’s backfired by inciting a HUGE state crackdown, Tsar Alexander II and William Mckinley come to mind
though both were relative reformers, which would make this about target selection and not alienating potential allies rather than the use of the tactic in general
murder is in general bad, fed-posting is inadvisable
also there’s a broader boring argument about the dangers of violence being normalized as means of political change, but those arguments are boring
Self-defense (or defense of others) is not murder.
Brian Thompson killed thousands, and contributed to the suffering of millions more. The judicial system was both unwilling and unable to stop him.
What choice was there? What alternative to stop him?
False dichotomy is a common tactic used to radicalize people and instigate violence.
Brian Thompson was the head executive of a corporation. He likely spent his days looking at spreadsheets and BI reports, going to meetings where he was held accountable for making a profit for the shareholders and playing golf. If he is responsible for deaths related to the 30-something percent of claims that the company he ran denied, then he is equally responsible for any lives saved by the 60-something percent of claims they approved.
I’m not mourning the guy, but I know his friends and family are. If his murder was justified, is mine justified for not feeling bad he died? Is my daughter’s murder by a Palestinian justified because I pay taxes that buy bombs my government sells to Israel?
There are lots of alternatives to murder (or whatever euphemism for murder you choose to use). Murder certainly feels easier in the short term, especially when you have no connection to the guy who pulled the trigger. His life is likely ruined now as well.
After digesting your comment some more, I’m thinking it’s either extreme boot licking by someone profoundly propagandized, or you were projecting and feeling your own moral hall pass being challenged.
Which is it? Have you been giving yourself a pass for a morally reprehensible career of indirect harm?
Neither. I’m actually pretty well aware of the harms caused by places I’ve worked, including in the US military. I’ve even left places when I couldn’t square that circle. I figured the comment would get some heavy down voting because I know how most of the world is looking at the scenario. I felt some schadenfreude watching the guy get gunned down, too. My perspective is that I see the left committing a lot of the same logical fallacies typically committed by the right in this scenario. It feels a little too close to “well, the cops wouldn’t have shot him in the back if he just complied” or “Palestinians elected terrorists so they’re all terrorists and gldeserve whatever they get” arguments to me. I try to practice the Principal of Charity, and I don’t have any good evidence that this man was cackling with glee while personally slamming a big red “DENIED” stamp on grannies chemo medicine claims. If he’d approved every claim, he would be fired, and they’d bring someone else in to deny the claims. I’m not defending the insurance industry or capitalism for-profit healthcare, but I worry more generally about society normalizing or celebrating violence.l and where that’s moght take us.
I’m not defending the insurance industry or capitalism for-profit healthcare, but I worry more generally about society normalizing or celebrating violence.l and where that’s moght take us.
society already normalizes and celebrates violence plenty. it just doesn’t tend to normalize it or celebrate it against the people who actually deserve it, pretty much apparently until a couple days ago when everyone sort of collectively seems to have realized that they all agree.
Hiding behind a desk and ordering others to commit your crimes for you does not make them any less disgusting. Not for Brian Thompson. Not for Netanyahu. No one. We will not give anyone a pass for murdering people indirectly.
Is his family going to return the blood money?
I didn’t make any arguements about this specific situation? Murder in general is bad
The problem is that there’s no clear endpoint of that thought process. The number of people that exact thought process applies to would require a level of violence that I doubt anybody sane wants.
Edit: to be more precise here. I’m leery about trying to apply the logic of individual self-defense to broader questions about social murder. The entire system is complicit, but if we go to burn the system down without a replacement ready we’ll end up sorrounded by nothing but ash and corpses
You’ve been propagandized to hell. Both in defense of systemic violence, and the belief that these systems would cease to exist without a financial class to absorb profit from them.
You need to wake the fuck up.
Wow very convincing. thank you, directly calling me an idiot without addressing the core of my argument really has brought me over to your way of thinking
I very deliberately said “in general”, i did not say “in all cases whatsoever”.
For health insurance there is a replacement ready, the answer is to have Medicare do everything.
Didn’t call you an idiot. Just propagandized.
So then expand on your comment about burning systems down without a replacement. What systems do you believe will cease to function without a layer of financial class to soak up the profits?
I dont care about the difference between “propagandized” and “idiot”. You attacked me instead of my argument.
Its not the hypothetical removal of the evil and waste of a system, it’d about the process of removing the undesired elements. The problem wasnt just with Brian Johnson was an interchangable empty suit, the problem is with the entire culture and system of incentives. Killing one bad person doesn’t do enough to fix things, targeting enough people to make the change that’s really needed will need a bureaucratic structure to actually get done, target selection, weapons supply, training, validation, paperwork. Very rare for breaucratically enabled violence to ever be good.
For healthcare in particular is pretty much is just as simple as nationalizating health insurance and have everything done by medicare (or state/local govt health plan) But targeted assassination doesn’t automatically translate into an act of congress.
I’m mostly saying it because I don’t know the mods on this sub or if/when they’re gonna start nuking posts and comments like the News mods did. But also, I don’t want to be responsible (or at least feel responsible) in the unlikely event that an unhinged person sees this and does something stupid.
Like…look, am I weeping because a man who profited by denying people healthcare is dead? No. Am I happy to see billionaires suddenly afraid of the people they’re exploiting? Yes. But does that mean I want people who see this meme to start gunning people down in the street? In all seriousness, no, don’t take this as a call to violence.
I know there’s some hypocrisy in that statement, but that’s kinda the point I was getting at with the post: “I can’t condone this action, but damn, it appears to have been very effective at enacting change.”
I couldn’t have said it better, tho we have yet to see if it’s effective at change. It’s really too early to tell.
- If you are USA citizen, you have the right to bear arms in case goverment turns evil
- While yiur giv turned incompeten/insensitive instead, it also soldd itself out to corporations.
- Thus, corporations = gov
- Thus, you have right to bear arms in case corporations turn evil
The intent of the 2nd amendment was for states to maintain a military force that could be easily called on. George Washington used the national guard to put down rebellion of American citizens. It was never about government oversight.
Yeah, and the Supreme Court was never intended to solve Constitutional conflicts, either. The purpose of things changes over time, and I’m pretty sure the hero who brought this CEO to justice didn’t ask whether doing so was really what the founding fathers meant when they said ‘a right to bear arms’.
you have the right to bear arms in case goverment turns evil
I didn’t say it, man, you did. Just letting you know that’s misinformation.
If it works it works. Humans have been using as an effective way to accomplish things for millennia.
The current capitalism overlords may not be happy when it’s used the other way around to what they are used to.
“Violence is a precipitation of two sides unwilling to compromise.”
- Sun Tzu The Art of War
Humans? You mean every living thing that ever existed?
violence is bad
It is bad if used as the first approach.
It is fine when used in self defense or when all peaceful approaches have been exhausted in response to oppression and other malicious actions. It does matter when and why it is used.
Agreed. This happened because both parties are bought and paid for by big corpo. Our vote is only on how to address some of the social issue symptoms, if at all, of our crony capitalist economy, and only if they don’t meaningfully effect corpo profits.
Example “please leftwing Obama, save us from this for profit healthcare hell!” proceeds to further enshrine for profit insurer leeches in a plan made from the heritage foundation because big corpo demand line go up.
The people don’t get a vote on the crony capitalist economy.
When we wish to protest, we’re now sent to designated protest zones out of the eyelines and profit operations of those we protest, making such “protests” as effective as masturbation in creating change.
This is happening because they have made us this desperate,and taken away/castrated our non-violent options. Some are apparently finally realizing that our votes and our protest have been manipulated by the capitalists that know they’re doing us harm into still technically existing, but no longer mattering.
Gotta hand it to them, it’s far more insidious than overt slavery with chains.
Don’t do violence
This wasn’t violent. It was calm and deliberate and it really seems like what Brian wanted with how he led his life. Seems like a lot of other CEOs of insurance companies and other hyper predatory industries are likely a bit jealous of Brian getting the result they all seem to be aiming for with their own calm, deliberate actions in life.
Also, the stock went up, so weird that we aren’t really celebrating the boost to shareholder value - again, this was the endeavor that Brian committed his life to. He’d be overjoyed to have made an additional $7million on paper for man also worth $14 billion in family wealth.
Did you think it was easy for Brian to sign the death warrants of tens/hundreds of thousands of people? Through a lot of indirect action and often while enjoying a very lovely omikase sushi lunch with a different chef flown in from Kyoto each day to prepare? No. It wasn’t easy. But you know what, he rolled his sleeves up and he did it, because that’s just the kind of man he was until he was shot in the back of the head.
Hope you all have a good day at work today with your own decisions, remaining CEOs, board members of predatory industries and random billionaires. We know you’ll stay focused on doing the most valuable thing with your time today
You couldn’t be more wrong. I think he was actually shot in the chest, the rest seems like a solid assessment tho
Ah, good. So the corrupt, evil, and greedy tactics of health insurers are finally mitigated to… checks notes oh, to what they were last week.
You know they’re sitting on a wish list of awful policies while they’re waiting for this to blow over so they can implement them when we aren’t looking. Fuck that.
It’s self-defence.
I’m not saying to track down do what this guy did to huge multi-hundred-billion dollar CEOs, but it’s hard to say that it doesn’t work.
Yeah, that’s about what I’m getting at.
Aggressive negotiations
This is HORRIBLE! Now CEOS might Fear for their LIVES and in Turn make Decisions that HELP US! That’s SICK! We should let them KILL US without Consequence!
Violence is neutral.
Human nature is bad.
When someone is violent to someone else and doesn’t need to be violent, they are bad.
When someone unintentionally wrongs someone, you try to settle the situation without violence in a way that is fair to both parties.
When they don’t settle or they keep wronging people, you need to escalate.
When the person wronging the people is in a place of money and power, and you cannot escalate, there should be consequences.
I’m not a big fan of vigilantism, If the world ran that way, we’d have a lot of innocent deaths. But if the government and laws don’t protect the people, stuff like this happens, or at least it logically should. If anything, I’m kind of shocked this isn’t more commonplace.
violence is neutral
How so?
Killing a rapist mid-act is not wrong. Killing an innocent person because they have the misfortune of being insured by your company is wrong.
It was here before we got here, and good and bad are both words of human origin.
The one hand-wringer downvoting you didn’t see the video of the pregnant zebra watching its unborn fetus ripped from her uterus and eaten, in front of her terrified, defeated, anguished eyes. The hyenas were just surviving, violence wasn’t taking place.
There’s always one in a crowd.
I think what theyre getting at, is that in the assailant’s mind it’s justified, or they wouldn’t have done it.
To most governments and some private citizens, violence is a tool
