Board index › General Discussion › News and Current Events

The assassination of an insurance company CEO

Page 2 of 2 [ 31 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Previous topic | Next topic

MatchboxVagabond
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Mar 2023
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,777

11 Dec 2024, 11:07 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:
Assassinating insurance company CEOs is not the solution to the U.S.A.'s health care crisis.

Acts to inspire class solidarity are a good idea, but I think it would have been much better if Luigi Mangione had used his imagination to come up with some good attention-getting act of nonviolent civil disobedience. Perhaps some clever, imaginative graffiti art on insurance company office buildings?

It's not, although voting hasn't exactly led to leadership that cares to do anything beyond a bit of tinkering around the edges.

I definitely don't support such extrajudicial killings as the answer, however, nobody should be feeling to bad that that pos is dead, there's a very real possibility of a net positive body count on that shooting.

Really, with how many people have given up on voting at all, and the near complete lack of correlation between what the voters are voting for and what we get compared with the near perfectly correlation between what the donors want and what they get, I'm surprised it's taken this long for people to decide that violence is the answer. Most people don't have the money to donate and voting clearly hasn't been working the last 50+ years.



Mona Pereth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Sep 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,310
Location: New York City (Queens)

12 Dec 2024, 5:36 am

peet wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I just hope the class solidarity lasts instead of immediately reverting back to everyone at each other's throats.


Without any organizing to move the momentum forward, I doubt it.

Another thought. It's fascinating to see the different aspects of who's human and who is not, playing out in real time. A ceo with ten-thousands of deaths on his hands get shot to death, is a tragedy. And at the same time Daniel Penny got found not guilty for strangling the black homeless guy to death because he had a mental episode and that scared Daniel Penny, which is understandable?

I don't support either actions. However it nice to see people questioning their society and wanting something else. Something better and finding common ground. Next step is organizing.

Yep. Organizing is what we need. Organization is the primary way that large groups of people without a lot of money can get things done politically.

Here is a list of organizations, here in the U.S.A., that support Medicare for All. Many of these groups are labor unions, and some are organizations for people in specific demographics (e.g. religious groups), but others are general membership organizations that anyone can join, and still others are general lobbying groups (whose influence depends not just on how much money they have, but also on the size of their lists of supporters).

I would encourage every American who cares about this issue to join one or more of these organizations.


_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.


Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 60,867
Location: Stendec

12 Dec 2024, 5:40 am

funeralxempire wrote:
I just hope the class solidarity lasts instead of immediately reverting back to everyone at each other's throats.

Good luck with that.

All it takes is for a small fraction of the united group to either try to make profit for themselves or to try to make trouble for everyone else.


_________________
 
The previous signature line has been cancelled.


funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 29,367
Location: Right over your left shoulder

12 Dec 2024, 7:14 pm


_________________
I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." —Former U.S. Airman (Air Force) Aaron Bushnell


roronoa79
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Jan 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,383
Location: Indiana

12 Dec 2024, 7:58 pm

I'm really appalled at how many people are disrespecting this CEO. People need to stop valuing his life. Mr. Thompson, respectable, decent human that he was, made a career of not valuing human life outside of $ and ¢. By valuing his life, you may as well be spitting on his grave. He's barely even cold in the ground and you start acting like it's some horrendous thing to treat humans as expendable numbers. So much for not speaking I'll of the dead!
Do the decent, socially acceptable thing like him and think of him as an expendable, forgettable number on a spreadsheet.


_________________
Diagnoses: AS, Depression, General & Social Anxiety
I guess I just wasn't made for these times.
- Brian Wilson

Δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν.
Those with power do what their power permits, and the weak can only acquiesce.
- Thucydides


kokopelli
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,905
Location: amid the sunlight and the dust and the wind

12 Dec 2024, 8:21 pm

roronoa79 wrote:
I'm really appalled at how many people are disrespecting this CEO. People need to stop valuing his life. Mr. Thompson, respectable, decent human that he was, made a career of not valuing human life outside of $ and ¢. By valuing his life, you may as well be spitting on his grave. He's barely even cold in the ground and you start acting like it's some horrendous thing to treat humans as expendable numbers. So much for not speaking I'll of the dead!
Do the decent, socially acceptable thing like him and think of him as an expendable, forgettable number on a spreadsheet.


I bet that you would not argue that if someone doesn't think your life valuable, they should feel free to consider you to be an expendable and forgotten number on a spreadsheet.


_________________
[email protected]


enz
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Sep 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,197

12 Dec 2024, 8:36 pm

hope you guys get your healthcare sorted



Mona Pereth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Sep 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,310
Location: New York City (Queens)

Yesterday, 12:30 am

Why the UHC CEO Shooting Matters to the Neurodivergent, on the YouTube channel of Neurodivergent Doctor December 11, 2024:



From the description on YouTube:

Quote:
At 22:20 I explain what to do about this.

Neurodivergent are greatly affected by insurance companies. The recent shooting of the CEO of United Healthcare Brian Thompson has highlighted the anger and frustration many have with health insurance companies and this video covers why this matters to those who are neurodivergent.

Here is a link to a great set of articles on why providers are leaving insurance and are not in network with them.
- Why I Left the Network by Annie Waldman, Maya Miller, Duaa Eldeib and Max Blau, Pro Publica, Aug. 25, 2024.

Below is a link to a letter, (or email or phone call script) you can send to state and federal representatives and senators. If you would like to use mine as a template, go ahead and copy and paste the letter and change it to make it your own.
Letter to Lawmakers about Health Insurance Reform


_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,516
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

Yesterday, 1:51 am

I'm not going to praise the taking of human life, and I extend my sympathy to the victim's loved ones. That said, this murder has brought to light the long simmering hostility Americans have for health insurance they pay into but then denies them coverage when they need it. If any good comes from this, perhaps it'll be the beginning of reform of health care, and possibly someday even nationalized health care like every other industrialized society has.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Gentleman Argentum
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Aug 2019
Age: 54
Gender: Male
Posts: 876
Location: State of Euphoria

Yesterday, 4:03 am

Let's do a thought experiment.

Early on a Monday morning, you are walking in a strange city, planning to go to see a museum, but your bladder is full from all the coffee you drank for breakfast.

You tug on the shoulder of a young woman in order to ask directions to the nearest public bathroom. You have a cellphone in your hand, and in the dim morning light it could be construed to be a little pistol. Unbeknownst to you, the stranger is the manager of the Amazon warehouse, and she has received death threats from anonymous employees trying to unionize. She whips around, pulls out a .357 magnum and shoots you in the heart.

This is the type of society we are getting when acts of violence are legitimate political discourse.

I got banned from a reddit subforum for disagreeing with the reddit majority on the appropriateness of using this murder for political purposes. At first I was saddened. Then I was pleased. It is good to be banned sometimes. Nothing could be more effective to turn me away from reddit and end my budding addiction to it. I like being banned for being against murder. That is the best possible reason.


_________________
My magical motto is Animus facit nobilem. I like to read fantasy and weird fiction. Just a few of my favorite online things: music, chess, and dungeon crawl stone soup.


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,516
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

Yesterday, 5:02 am

Gentleman Argentum wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment.

Early on a Monday morning, you are walking in a strange city, planning to go to see a museum, but your bladder is full from all the coffee you drank for breakfast.

You tug on the shoulder of a young woman in order to ask directions to the nearest public bathroom. You have a cellphone in your hand, and in the dim morning light it could be construed to be a little pistol. Unbeknownst to you, the stranger is the manager of the Amazon warehouse, and she has received death threats from anonymous employees trying to unionize. She whips around, pulls out a .357 magnum and shoots you in the heart.

This is the type of society we are getting when acts of violence are legitimate political discourse.

I got banned from a reddit subforum for disagreeing with the reddit majority on the appropriateness of using this murder for political purposes. At first I was saddened. Then I was pleased. It is good to be banned sometimes. Nothing could be more effective to turn me away from reddit and end my budding addiction to it. I like being banned for being against murder. That is the best possible reason.


Her security detail probably would have popped you. Or at least tackled you, so that you'd lose control of your bladder while you're face down on the pavement with your arms restrained.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Mona Pereth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Sep 2018
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,310
Location: New York City (Queens)

Yesterday, 5:05 am

Gentleman Argentum wrote:
I got banned from a reddit subforum for disagreeing with the reddit majority on the appropriateness of using this murder for political purposes.

What do you mean by "using this murder for political purposes"? For example, do you just mean approval of the murder, or do you mean any use of the incident as a jumping off point for discussion about America's health insurance system, even without approving of the murder itself?

Gentleman Argentum wrote:
You tug on the shoulder of a young woman in order to ask directions to the nearest public bathroom.

Where on Earth do you get the idea that "tugging on the shoulder of" any stranger is socially acceptable behavior? Why not just say something like "Hello, excuse me? Can you direct me to some nearby place with a public bathroom?"


_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.


Last edited by Mona Pereth on 13 Dec 2024, 5:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

kokopelli
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,905
Location: amid the sunlight and the dust and the wind

Yesterday, 5:09 am

Gentleman Argentum wrote:
You tug on the shoulder of a young woman in order to ask directions to the nearest public bathroom.


I was in a big city a few months ago and was trying to find a certain health food store that I hadn't been to in about 20 to 30 years. I tried asking questions of a couple of different people if I was near it. Each of them ignored the question and left as fast as they could.

I finally found it, but it took a while. I couldn't believe how much the area had changed.


_________________
[email protected]


MatchboxVagabond
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Mar 2023
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,777

22 minutes ago

enz wrote:
hope you guys get your healthcare sorted

Probably not any time soon, we didn't get a public option when the ACA was passed because the money was needed for the DoD, so, other countries that we give weapons to can have nice stuff like universal health care and free college, but the taxpayers of the US can't have those things because that money is needed to provide funds to bomb brown people overseas. Or, god forbid, we actually tax the people that benefit the most from society not crumbling into anarchy.



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,516
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

13 minutes ago

Those Republican politicians who wanted to get rid of Obamacare should be thinking twice about their own safety if their machinations go through. If so, in that case it won't just be health care CEO's who would be targeted.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer