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As a photographer I’m wondering why would billionaires give autofocus about poor people…
/s obviously
For the amount of references to people defending CEOS and billionaires, I never actually see any unless I walk by a TV blaring Fox News.
Come to Germany. We had a wealth tax until 1996 and whenever it’s revival is publicly discussed you can see that the majority is against it even when the majority of our people would never have to pay it and would profit from it. It’s mind boggling that the people are still willing to defend our current “don’t tax the rich” policy…
Yeah the whole AfD situation is extremely worrying to me.
It’s not even the AfD. Most of the politic parties don’t or at least didn’t want to touch wealth tax.
Rather than “it’s not even the AfD” it should say “It’s not only the AfD”.
That’s because most of the parties here suck.
That’s silly, a shocking amount of media sources are in cover their ass mode not just fox. LinkedIn has posts. Twitter has posts. Even SNL, shockingly, is a little bit “can we not be cheering a killer on air?”
So…I call bs, this is everywhere.
Cheering for a Killer and defending a CEO are not the only two stances. You can do neither.
the CEO who killed millions via denying healthcare was the true working class hero
A CEO was “murdering” with debts before and after, call me when something actually changes.
To be clear, Brian Thompson was a terrible person and deserved to die, but we as individuals are not his judge. For his execution there should be trial.
Nobody will actually change anything for you, unless you work on it. All of you, all of us collectively. I’m calling you now, do something.
And I will vote for change. And I ask you to do the same.
That’s good, commendable, and necessary. But it might not be enough. I don’t think we are at the point of murder yet, but we are definitely past the point of just voting.
I’ve seen plenty of corpo bootlicking even on Lemmy.
You can see some in this very thread
So they’re in the room with us right now? Can you describe them to us?
Threads on Lemmy are open for everyone to see, isn’t that neat?
Fascinating. Are they there all the time or only when you think about them? Is there a specific trigger that causes you to see them?
Nobody I work with is on the same page as me about this subject, but they also don’t know enough about it to feel comfortable disagreeing with me. I think a lot of people relate more to a CEO than Luigi for the simple fact that they think or feel that it’s more likely for them to be in the CEOs position than a shooter. As delusional as that is, it’s a factor that has always put the working class against themselves.
You don’t have to pick a side. You could just say Brian Thompson deserved to die and that Luigi Mangione should see trial and possibly imprisonment.
My younger brother. He is entirely sold on billionaire philanthropy and believes Elon is a visionary genius that constantly finds ways to upturn the status quo.
He also thinks Jeff Bezos is a nice guy because he’s so nice in interviews.
My dogg ur gonna make me upvote this twice
Which is twice what homie got
2x0 is still 0, bro woulda got more than twice what homie got.
To be fair, that guy looks like his hands are probably grimey. I wouldn’t want to touch them either.
Also, maybe the players are tired and grumpy after the match.
The fans are why they make millions dribbling a ball though. A simple high five is not a lot to ask.
True. But athletes are still people and they are allowed to be themselves.
Closing bell at the guard rail factory.
This is not about defending billionaires, this is about condemning murder as a matter of principle!
Then why murder than happened on same day had no manhunt?
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The principle being complete subservience to a group of wall street military and prison industry profiteers who have used their wealth to hijack our social institutions, our representatives and transformed the vast majority of news media in our country into propaganda dissemination outlets While also enforcing a system that legislates and bureaucratically incentivizes the deaths of poor and working class people including American citizens for profit while denying the reality that this is called social murder and is murder none the less. A principle completely lacking in principle. Id love to know what you consider to be moral with principles such as those.
Username fucking checks out.
Rule utilitarianism states that “an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good”. Murder as a general is right. The reason is that this murder is just a short-term thing that doesn’t undo all the deaths that have happened. The general abidance to rule of law without self-justice is worth way more than any single person dying in nearly all cases.
In the categorical imperativ Kant argues that you should “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” If it became a universal law that you could kill anyone you deemed evil this would end in a worse result for everybody. Thus it cannot be wanted.
The family and friends around him mourn and the new CEO seems like he is not about to roll over and accept every health insurance claim. The death is dividing citizens which believe he is a hero while others believe he is a murderer. The responsibility off of all those unneeded deaths are claimed by not only the CEO but also by legislators who didn’t account for universal healthcare. It is on the sitting government and parties for not supporting change. It is on the employer partly for not buying a higher premium package that includes more things or choosing a different company with a smaller denial rate. It is on the individual employee inside UH denying claims. It is on upper management like Brian Thompson and the people around him who are at fault for making this worse. And then there’s the stakeholders that don’t press on more ethical practices. Then its also on Americans voting against parties that wish to change the healthcare system in a beneficial way for everybody.
As the head of a company Brian Thompson also had the responsibility to steer it in an ethical way which it seems he did not do. His death has sparked public debate which is a good thing. This does not necessarily mean choosing a murder was the right way of doing things that optimizes utility for everybody.
If the universal law became such that those being systematically exploited and ultimately sickened and or killed by systemic injustice could target those benefiting from the injustice then those incentivizing and committing the act of social murder would be incentivized to rethink their approach to profiting off the death and suffering of poor and marginalized people.
We seem to overlook that FDR’s new deal and the Fair Labor Standards act of 1938 was enacted as a compromise to prevent more violent rioting by the frustrated and exploited laborers during the gilded age. It was either the robber barons acquiesced to what was good for those doing the work giving them a fairer deal or those they were exploiting ruthlessly would have dragged them out into the streets and beaten them senseless or worse in front of their wives and children.
I think they way most people see it is that anyone in their right mind has a point where murder is okay. WWII, for example - the vast majority of people understand it was okay to kill Nazis. The context was that the world had no choice but to go to war with them. It was either kill or be killed.
We’re in the same situation here in the United States. Our political system is broken. Politicians are bought and sold by the 1%, and they will continue to kill us en masse no matter how many peaceful protests we join and whoever we vote for.
Not only is it that murder is ok for everyone at a certain point but its that we are conditioned to praise retributive violence and killing so long as the ones being beaten maimed and or killed are marginalized people whom the ultra wealthy see as sub human and their casualty benefit their end goals. Like all the non violent labor and civil rights protestors who have ended up bludgeoned by batons and less than lethal munitions, or targeted by extra judicial unconstitutional surveillance and suppression tactics such as yale used against pro Palestinian demonstrators over the last year. There are too many examples of this double standard to go over without writing a book as thick as the king james Bible.
I believe this is just not true. The US is one country. First-Past-The-Post system sucks but systematic change can happen. Its just… you guys elected Trump. I do not think the majority of Americans wants change bad enough. There is also no defeating the system through these actions. It would take a whole as insurrection, not one murder and I doubt anything good would come of it for the average American.
Im European so I really sympathize with the struggle for a decent healthcare system for you guys. I just don’t think this is the right way.
First-Past-The-Post system sucks but systematic change can happen. Its just… you guys elected Trump.
Systemic change is being made next to impossible due to the rampant legalised bribery and corruption at all levels of the political offices.
How would you even go about going against the corporate oligarchy? Your candidates will get primaried and out-funded, your party colleagues will get bribed to vote against tackling these issues, and that’s all assuming you could get close enough to having enough candidates for all races across the country, you get your messaging picked up by the media and you somehow poll so high that strategic voters won’t split the vote, actively putting the worst party in charge instead.
You’d somehow have to get elected, get enough supreme court justices pushed through and have them repeal Citizens United to even get started. That’s a tall order to ask from a political class that actively benefits from the current situation.
It should probably need to be a public grassroots movement. The public would need to be so outraged about the lack of change that democratically elected officials couldn’t ignore the needs of the public if they want to be taken seriously. Public strikes and protests can work. The media and public need to keep speaking out about this issue. Citizens movements and effective messaging is possible, even if you don’t have the corporate world to back you. And honestly most rich people that are not directly involved in healthcare shouldn’t really care. Like whats the benefit for you as someone wealthy to stop public healthcare if you yourself are not invested? You will still be able to purchase additional insurance if public insurance would ever become reality. You would still be able to pay for special treatments. I don’t see them fighting against this like slave-owners fighting against the abolishment of slavery.
What I didn’t know… Is public healthcare actually made illegal by the supreme court? I’m not too deep into US law and such as I don’t personally live there. What are your thoughts?
Is public healthcare actually made illegal by the supreme court?
No, Citizens United is the effective legalization of public bribery, masked as “political donations”.
The problem is that you’re never going to get that grassroots movement built up. The healthcare companies rake in billions, they’ll happily spend that to ensure they can keep existing. And other billionaire corporations will join in too, because why risk a party willing to deal with healtcare companies getting power? What else will that party do that could harm their precious profits?
They’ll invest billions to primary candidates, buy media coverage, demonize their opponents or even fabricate fake negative PR. That grassroots movement would be stamped out, as you won’t be able to get enough votes. That’ll put a party like the GOP in charge and they will pass as many voter disenfranchisement laws, gerrymandering laws, etc… to ensure you need massive majorities to barely get 50% of the representation.
People are already pissed with the state of healthcare, so much so that they’re collectively cheering for the murder of a CEO. Yet no grassroots campaign is in sight. By the time the next election rolls around American voters will already have forgotten about that CEO and will be more concerned about inflation or migration or whatever-the-fuck the media has decided to focus on.
I think by the time you get enough Americans on board with a grassroots campaign powerful enough to actually make changes, you are at such a high level of public anger a violent revolution is nearly inevitable.
Murder is an unjustified killing. Killing somebody who is socially murdering people is a form of self defence and is thus not murder. Don’t try and change my mind. Not condoning any action though and I would prefer if the CEO got a jail sentence instead (but that would never happen).
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How is that hypocritical? I’m sure most people would want to see the CEO serving life instead, but his ilk are not who the prisons are made for. Slavery and murder can be legal when done with policy, and rather than the state going after these villains it defends them with force.
The difference is self defense. As stated elsewhere in this thread, we should all agree its morally acceptable to kill nazis. With them, it’s either kill or be killed. If we didn’t step up against them in WW2 it would have been disastrous. And with CEOs, billionaires, and other business execs it’s no different. They’re actively killing everyone they can as quickly as they can because it makes them a quick buck.
So ultimately it boils down to self defense.
A state however gets no self defense out of capital punishment. It instead becomes a way to silence political opponents, innocents routinely are executed, and so on. The state cannot be granted the power to kill because it will abuse it. The people eventually need to defend themselves from the state when it is granted this power.
The violence of the oppressed is not the same as the violence of the oppressor.
Opposing capital punishment without a trial != defending millionaires.
so what crime would Thompson be charged with?
oh? no crimes were committed you say?
preposterous! his executive actions were costing thousands of American’s their lives!
that’s not illegal? …because his support group in the DOJ won’t ever make corporations take responsibility for killing people?
well…what do you get when you oppress citizens and ensure they have no legal way to stop you?
Democracy can’t tolerate arbitrary homicide, but hey, whatever. I’m not the one in charge.
Good thing we haven’t been a functioning democratic republic since the 1970s and don’t get a vote on our economy, as both parties are well bribed to protect the sociopathic economy from the citizens it hurts.
Democracy can’t tolerate a lot of things that are actively happening. Most of these things are legal, and frankly, with all of the suffering and murderous actions, concern trolling over the single time the shoe is on the other foot in class warfare is about as dumb as Trump supporters thinking that because Trump was indicted that they’re coming for them next. I felt safer with the murderer abroad. Everyone without gobs of money or perfect health should have.
I find it a bit hypocritical to complain about murders while advocating murder. No problem on my part. It’s not that I care. It’s something that everyone has to debate with their own conscience.
I don’t think it’s hypocritical to want someone committing a 9/11 scale murder yearly while a legal system nods in approval to stop murdering, but from a low power perspective there’s not much to be done about that. The system has been changed from a justice seeking system into a class warfare tool by the elite. Change would be better, but in this system, change comes from above. If the powers within the system are scared, some of them will flee to the moral position to spare themselves the risk. Power that’s brokered through fear is still power, it’s peak liberal to say fear must remain untapped. They would and literally do kill people like us every day, empathy is precious in late stage capitalism, I’ll reserve mine for people who’s suffering isn’t karmic.
Actively killing someone =/= someone dying by an avoidable cause of death
The legal system isn’t created by the rich. Sure they can afford lawyers and have a higher influence in politics. The country is still a democracy but the people have to vote in their best interest to get better healthcare. Systematic change is needed, so the root cause. You could say by killing this guy all you’re doing is trying to treat a symptom of a broken system, even tho I would say his death doesn’t even fully do that. Its just one more death. An avoidable and unnecessary death. I don’t claim his corporate policies but murder like this has no place in a democracy with rule of law to change things. If a CEO started looking out for the best health of the customer it would be against the interest of the shareholder as it would make the company less profitable. A systematic change like unified public healthcare is needed. No private entities. No healthcare shouldn’t be tied to work.
You can’t claim moral superiority while promoting murder.
You’re just drawing lines between social murder and murder, but I disagree that they’re meaningfully different except of course that one is legal and one isn’t. I don’t promote murder, but I do find that if you are consistent that all forms of murder are wrong then this is no different than a sniper on the roof of a stadium taking shots all day long with a pile of ammo behind him getting counter-sniped. Will another sniper take his place? Obviously. That’s why systemic change is the real goal here, but let’s not pretend the sniper going down is some great loss or that we should feel guilty for praising an effective counter-sniper who has offered no evidence that he’d ever aim lower.
Someone died. Even if that’s a billionaire from health insurance, someone dying is usually not a good thing. What is good about this situation is how it has put class consciousness in the public eye in a way that it wasn’t before.
I’m glad he’s dead and I know he’s burning in hell.
As someone who’s also glad, the falsehood that we get what we deserve after we die is a very harmful one.
Justice doesn’t come naturally or in some fairy tale afterlife. Justice came to Brian because someone else saw to it that it did.
The world would be a better place if people weren’t deluded into believing the universe or some imagined deity will make things fair. It’s a very pretty lie, but it has equally ugly consequences.
If we want a just world, we need to make one. It won’t be handled off screen for us. This life is all we get.
Thing is, his death means he cannot kill anymore.
The company and system at large remains the same
So you can applaud that this topic has come to focus of the public without celebrating a murder right?
I agree about the gained consciousness, that’s a good thing. On the other hand, being I’m firmly against death sentence (even with a trial), what I don’t agree with is homicide. That’s not justice. It’s just vengeance. And it’s a very dangerous slippery slope.
Homicide is wrong and it can be a slippery slope.
However, the system for dealing with monopolies/oligopolies is broken. Regulatory capture has occurred. The rich shifted taxes to the poor. And a Fortune 8 company continues to kill thousands of Americans and make massive profits from doing so.
The Paradox of Intolerance tells us that letting this continue will only result in the deaths of thousands more Americans. Tolerating this behavior results in more 1000x more American deaths and inspires others to profit off the pain, misery, and death of our fellow citizens.
So how do you suggest to solve the situation when there are a lot of people who should be in jail or worse but they are rich so the government justice system does not work for them? In the lifetime of one person who’s life was destroyed by the said evil person.
Elect representatives and use non-violent acts to shape public perception so the law is changed. If it is legal and he isn’t actively like murdering/torturing people I don’t think you can really argue he should be imprisoned. Just my take. Also, there are no “good people” and “bad people”. Its not black and white.
How do you elect such a candidate in the US when the whole election system is controlled by the people who are the problem? Bernie was pretty moderate, fairly popular and they still ditched him from the elections twice. And to solve the problem the elected politicians have to be way more progressive than Bernie.
Killing them, of course. /s
Go head, buy a rifle and start your vengeance. Don’t wait for others to do it, if you’re so brave (spoiler: you’re not and you’re just talking out of your ass).
Don’t forget you wouldn’t even be privileged to have this conversation with the billionaires who conspire to rob and then kill us every single day. The coward talking out of their ass is the one who looks at a broken power structure and can only muster a meek, “not like this.” Save your speeches for those doing the real killing.
Yeah, man, whatever. This conversation is not interesting anymore.
People like you are dangerous to those of us actually trying to make a positive change. You’d sell out your fellow man to the elites if push came to shove and we can sense that cowardice in you. Don’t expect us to be stoked about traitors. If you don’t want to help then at least get out of the fucking way.
