Fear is the Reason for the News Coverage of the UHC CEO Shooting

[citizen blues]

The CEO's, Billionaires, Oligarchs, etc. all know that what Nick Hanuer has warned about is actually true. They're terrified that this is only the first pitchfork with many, many more to come. They're afraid that this one incident could be the spark that ignites the bonfire. I don't wish ill on anyone, but the sad truth of the matter is that they could be right.

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[snot]

1. I realized while listening to BBC journalists interviewing "experts" about this incident...

that the "journalists" questions all seemed to focus on or come from a place of, how did elites lose control of this situation? What did they do wrong, how can we shut this down? ––

instead of focussing on why people in the US hate health care insurance cos. so much and what could be done to fix our broken health care cost system.

I.e., the media as well as the 1% want to focus on bandaid solutions rather than fixing the root causes of our discontent.

I suspect this tendency among journalists may exist w.r.t. other problematic issues as well.

Of course, the shooter was a nut case; but although nut cases can be outliers fixated on their own peculiar issues, they can also represent extreme responses to things that a LOT of us are having problems with (e.g., the increasing economic hardship of a majority even in the richest country in the world).

[bikes and bunnies]

21. How do you know the shooter is "a nut case?"

He hasn't been identified or arrested yet.

[snot]

25. In my personal, humble opinion,

going out of your way to kill another human being who is not personally, immediately threatening actual physical harm to you qualifies you as at least temporarily insane.

[sop]

2. All of us frogs slowly boiling to death in that GOP pot are starting to jump out.

We're having a Howard Beale moment...

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[Attilatheblond]

3. When I ponder the facets of this incident & the root cause of such likely retribution

My brain plays background music: Cell Block Tango from Chicago.

[Metaphorical]

26. Yup

[Baitball Blogger]

4. It's like we're in a parallel universe.

I seriously laugh out loud whenever Trump nominates someone and I discover what his non-credentials are. And now this. I have a question for the Oligarchs: When you fuckers sat back and did nothing when the MAGAs were encouraged to hate and kill minorities and progressives in this country, did you seriously believe it would stop there? Didn't you realize that you all intentionally radicalized, not just your side, but that message you are sending to everyone, that they should handle every grievance with a loaded gun, it was eventually going to be turned against you too.

Fucking idiots.

[Mr.Bill]

10. Without condoning what happened to the insurance company's CEO,

Let me simplify it with a short statement: Eventually, the people that you are shitting on for profit will shoot back. Welcome to the reality you created.

[dalton99a]

5. Our system provides no consequences for insurance CEOs' murder and mayhem

In fact, their behavior is richly rewarded

[ShazamIam]

7. Was the murder of the United Health executive the first pitch fork?

[LakeVermilion]

8. Health care will soon strangle the entire economy.

People will either find ways to afford health care at the expense of non essential goods/services, or forego health care until they need emergency care (at government expense) which leads to fewer non essential goods/services.

When golf courses/bowling alleys and ski resorts start closing for lack of consumers, the slope will just get slipperier.

The next four years will not do anything to reverse this trend. Mr. Hanauer will be able to say, "I told you so."

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. It's been strangling the economy for years.

[Astraea]

9. It looks like the public is restless

I think you're right. It could stem from the current situation, that people feel more and more powerless and disconnected from politics and the economy. Health insurance companies are just considered the worst when it comes to corporate greed. The increasing greedflation, the increasing economic suffering of working people... these are things of concern as well.

I don't condone murder, but the reaction from ordinary people has been beyond anything I've ever seen before.

I haven't bothered looking at corporate media coverage. I know whose interests they serve, who owns them, and what they want people to believe.

Just as an aside -- could Trump's victory have been an expression of public dissatisfaction? Not that it was the right choice or a good reaction, but just an act of protest against "the system"? Since Trump was considered by many to be outside the system, and someone who would shake things up? I don't know. There just seems to be so much anger on that side, much of it misdirected.

[multigraincracker]

11. What did Adam Smith say about regulation of markets in Wealth of Nations.

He was the father of modern Capitalism.....

According to Adam Smith, markets and trade are, in principle, good things—provided there is competition and a regulatory framework that prevents ruthless selfishness, greed and rapacity from leading to socially harmful outcomes. But competition and market regulations are always in danger of being undermined and circumnavigated, giving way to monopolies that are very comfortable and highly profitable to monopolists and may spell great trouble for many people. In Smith’s view, political economy—as an important, and perhaps even the most important, part of a kind of master political science, encompassing the science of the legislator —has the task to fight superstition and false beliefs in matters of economic policy, to debunk opinions that present individual interests as promoting the general good and to propose changing regulatory frameworks for markets and institutions that help to ward off threats to the security of society as a whole and provide incentives such that self-seeking behaviour has also socially beneficial effects. The paper shows that the ideas of Adam Smith still may resonate and illuminate the problems of today and the theories that try to tackle them.

[dobleremolque]

22. It seems that the key words in that Adam Smith quote are

"socially harmful outcomes." An insurance company, taking the position that it knows better than the attending physician what is medically necessary, seems to me to be at the top of the list of "socially harmful outcomes."

[Attilatheblond]

24. Yep. Now take that insight and apply it to the realities of ever increasing food monopolies in this nation

At some point, hungry people, in a land of more guns than people, will start shopping with the new 'coin of the realm' which is more available than printed currency .

Throw into that equation all the elderly who rely on the systems they paid into for decades, meant to help them survive and eat, people with little time ahead of them, and the violence is just about guaranteed to increase. Don't overlook those who are not yet retired, but are VERY tired and facing no decent future and we will see more people deciding to roll the dice for getting some justice in a system that won't allow same.

Abused people WILL always reach a point where they are willing to do unthinkable things if they are pushed to choose between surviving the day or giving up all the tomorrows.

[orangecrush]

12. Great post

[Buddyzbuddy]

13. The price for bullying.

I don't think they understand our passivity has been voluntary to keep a civilized society. But, we've now been backed into a corner. This is a tiny sample of what happens when you've lost hope. Hope for dialog, for negotiation, for empathy and understanding. I'm sorry for Mr. Thompson's family but maybe his death will serve a bigger purpose. I've read companies are removing their CEO's info from the public. That's recognition of their fear.
To be continued...

[Gaugamela]

14. Wait till they cut Social Security and Medicare and tank the stock market and drive up

grocery prices and rent with tariffs.

Think anyone is gonna lose it?

[sop]

15. There will be blood in the streets.

[yaesu]

18. When government no longer has the power or will to fight fascism shit happens. nt

[yaesu]

17. The 1% are finding a new meaning to its lonely at the top. nt

[EarthFirst]

19. If this is the spark...

…forgive me if I refuse to carry any buckets to extinguish that bonfire.

[OMGWTF]

23. Excellent post!

[yardwork]

27. We got the New Deal because of fear of socialism.

We got Medicare, Medicaid, and the Civil Rights Acts because of feet of communism.

It's the nature of bullies to amass money and power and then bully others. People take it for a while and they get restless. Apparently, electing Trump is one manifestation of that restlessness. When (not if) that doesn't work, people will get madder.

Our history shows that when that happens, the billionaires give up a little, in order to hold onto their power. But what if the system tips right over? History shows what happens then and it's terrible. Not good at all.

I hope the billionaires give back some. I'm not confident they will because they're a bunch of immature sociopaths. Elon Musk could literally cause WWIII. He's that stupid and reckless.

[Metaphorical]

28. The historical record is actually not quite so cut and dried

Typically, moneyed interests usually run afoul of the law, make the wrong bet, or get taken out by business competitors or jealous spouses. Something like this has typically been rare, though like everything else Trump has normalized this kind of reaction. In the last fifty years, it's typically dictators who get targeted by the opposition, as happened today with Al-Bashir in Syria.

The French Revolution was actually a coup attempt by the aristocrats against the King, but they made the mistake of trying to use the populace as their tool. It ... backfired, and it would take Napolean nearly a decade before a semblance of order was restored, and only by turning the anger of the populace into war with Britain and much of Europe to do it.

Our own revolution was more in the nature of a colonial uprising, and we didn't so much win it (we lost most of the battles of the Revolutionary War) as made it too expensive for England to continue to wage war while simultaneously battling the Europeans.