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When you remember when “pre-existing conditions” was a thing until Obama stopped it and the fear that it will be allowed again, you absolutely are not going to shed a damn tear. If you really want to be depressed, watch Sicko by Michael Moore. Things have changed a little bit since then, but the attitude of the insurance and big pharma have absolutely not. The no surprises act that went in this year was another step forward, but who knows how long it will stick. People still go to other countries to get medical procedures and medication. People still go bankrupt from medical bills. People still have to spend hours on the phone begging some underpaid drone to get them healthcare because what your doctor says you need is overriden by a fucking corporation.
Some comments from Michael Moore yesterday: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/12/16/michael-moore-response-united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione/77020835007/
I think it’s more about class warfare than healthcare specifically. All my European friends are cheering him on too despite not experiencing hardship with healthcare
Everyone in Canada here loves him too. It’s absolutely about class warfare.
I mean…that doesn’t count. Canada loves EVERYODY. It’s the Mr Rodgers of countries. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’m just saying it carrys about as much weight as your grandma pinching your cheek and saying you’re the MOST handsome boy.
Lol you should ask Indians how they are being treated in Canada right now
Which Indians, the answer would probably be the same though.
We refer to first nations as indigenous in canada
See Starlight Tours for an insight into friendly Canadian police :/
You should pay more attention to history. Specifically the wars we have been in…
lol we don’t love everyone. Ask a Canadian how they feel about Americans.
Aside from the fact that you just offered a stereotype as an argument, you didn’t even get the stereotype right. Canadians don’t love everyone. Canadians are nice. That’s the stereotype.
…stereotype?
And we aren’t even nice. We are just spineless and struggle with honesty. It’s all just for show
I’ve now lived long enough to actually meet a couple of Canadian assholes. They exist.
Are you saying I’m not nice :(
My girlfriend was very much in the club of “murder is bad no matter what” until I explained exactly why a health insurance CEO would be targeted.
I’ve been really wrestling with my own anti-violence and the now-obvious fact that violence gets results.
Violence, bribery and blackmail.
Europeans are famously derisive of the American healthcare system though, so for whatever reason they seem to care specifically about his impact on that. I think in general America looms large around the world, economically, militarily, culturally. And certainly online. Having something to feel superior about seems to provide a channel for pent up frustration or resentment. Because believe me there’s no other reason for Europeans to care as much as they do about how much my healthcare costs.
the American
healthcarewealthcare system
No shit… The gaping hole is the fact rich fucks are all we have to vote for. The President that recently won is the biggest example of undeserved wealth and power ever.
Tell ya what. I’m struggling to make rent right now. Working 6 days a week, living alone, just keeping my head above water.
2028, everybody vote for me, and I’ll run on the platform of giving rich people the middle finger.
Like Robin Hood…except vulgar.
Eh, feels very populist and single issue. What’s your plan for healthcare like?
Give it to the people who need it.
Tbf whatever they come up with will most likely be better than whats currently happening.
You could invent a better political system by tattooing every political idea onto your skin and passing whichever words get zits into law, so obviously it goes without saying
Robin Fucking Hood? RFH!!! It has s ring! Sure I’ll vote for you!
If someone ran for governor of NY on a platform of giving Luigi a full pardon, they would win in a landslide.
You are delusional if you think that elections are not just a horse race for the rich and that common people have any power. If common people interests were what drives elections you would have had free healthcare, free education, worker right and more like a century ago.
In theory, couldn’t Luigi run for president from jail?
In theory, yes!
You have my vote
And my axe!
I’d vote for you. Especially if by middle finger you mean 90% top marginal tax rate.
You can’t afford to even run. You gonna start a gofundme?
you had me at “gaping hole”
We need to bring back “No taxation without representation” because rich fucks sure as hell can’t fairly represent the rest of us.
Well you see the problem is that its ‘no taxation for the represented’ oops.
Yeah this may be a bit of a clumsy comparison but he’s giving me John Brown vibes.
My insurance company just sent me a completely coincidental survey about my views towards them. I’m looking forward to going off on them when I have a moment. I’m sure it won’t do much but at least it should be cathartic.
“How do you feel about our service, with 10 being the highest?”
doesn’t circle 1-10, instead writes in “I have a gun”
Just don’t talk to any police that may call or show up. Because even suggesting that you’re angry at them is enough to give them protection.
See, cops are trained, in basic training to believe that EVERY civilian IS a threat to them. The original idea I’m sure was meant to be more like “every civilian CAN BE a threat to you”. Which is actually true. It’s meant to be more like danger on the streets can come at any time. Instead, it’s now taught as in every single cop IS being targeted by every single civilian with death threats. Which just factually is not true.
But my brain has an overactive imagination. MY brain likes to take absurd concepts and flesh them out to their realistic natural conclusions. What WOULD happen if every civilian wanted to kill every cop? And the answer all depends how far the government wants to go to protect cops. Because without military intervention, the end result is a lot of dead civilians, but also EVERY cop being killed too. And if that happens, or even threatens to realistically happen, do the military get called in to keep the people in line? And how do they handle it?
And there are three outcomes.
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Military says fuck this, and doesn’t get involved.
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Military gets involved, but gets swallowed by the vast overwhelming numbers of civilians. Without a military in place, the USA falls to another power. Maybe even a new internal one.
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The military treats the usa as a police state, and goes to war on itself. I’m talking full WWIII levels of violence. Atomic bombs, flame throwers, drones, they basically go scorched earth on itself.
And all of this can be completely sidetracked if the police don’t treat the people who’ve done nothing wrong as active threats.
What the shit, dude
My head is a very dark place where realism doesn’t die to protect the sugar coated mature of society.
Also, you don’t even WANT to know how life would turn out if cats suddenly gained the ability to talk. It would start would gender clashes among the poverty stricken, and would eventually turn into a world where chickens outnumber humans 100,000 to 1, but they’re just the pawns in the food wars. Shit gets real.
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I need deets on the chicken thing, NGL
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Should we be talking about this while we have unidentified drones in the sky??
Edit- well, I was told I didn’t need /s on lemmy. Just highlighting the media is already moving forward, we’ll hear less and less about the case and it’ll fade to time.
Despite the outrage at Fox News, nothing unusual is happening with Drones. There are some new, very recently FAA approved, flying vehicles being tested by several startups and there is some drone activity above military bases that the military doesn’t acknowledge the existence of because that is how you get court martialed.
Yeah, we can talk about more things than one. Besides, drones don’t bother me as much as getting healthcare.
Given the USA spends more on its military than the rest of the planet combined—no, you can be happy in the knowledge that your government decided it wasn’t worrying enough to obliterate
Technically not the truth… The USA was responsible for about 37% of total global spending on military in 2023, and is the largest single spender (in US$ equivalent) globally. However, as a percentage of GDP the USA doesn’t even make the top 15. (and if you’re talking about a nation’s spending priorities then the percentage matters more than the $ value)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures
$916 billion = US military budget, in 2023.
Just think of all the good that could be done with that money…
Poverty-reduction, environment-restoration, water-health, high-speed trains, global-aid…
When will we be angelic?
Not for at least 4 more years
I personally think the Pentagon and any agency who regularly works with contractors needs to be forced to pass audits. That way, we can decrease spending without weakening military.
Especially if Trump tries to withdraw from NATO again, we could lose a fourth of our military strength (in the assumption that annual $$$ = strength of military) and still free up none of that budget.
Its probably just as likely the drones are coming from the military base and theyre running tests/trainings at night so no one can get a clear image of what they actually are.
Yeah, the Military Base says officially nothing is happening. Fox News took this as “You Don’t Know?! WE DON’T KNOW WHOSE DRONES THESE ARE?! AND BIDEN IS DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT??!”
You’d think those anchors would be frothing at the mouth with how stupid and angry they pretend to be.
We can talk about more than one thing.
I don’t see the military worrying about it, so its not foreign military or aliens.
New Jersey also have eyesight problems and commonly misidentify planes as drones.
Love it
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman? No, it’s a drone!
Obsess away as long as it leads to more billionaires in the guillotine.
Hopefully inspired by.
Hopefully he’s the first of hundreds.
DDD
DDD
444
Out of curiosity I looked up “444” and there’s a bunch of links saying it means a guardian angel. Appropriate?
4 is avoided in Chinese and Japanese. Although contextually its not too far off the mark in this case.
in JP, 4 sounds like ‘shi’, meaning death. 43 sounds like the word for ‘stillbirth’. (‘shi’ also means particle, or also emoticon) In China, 4 = ‘death’, 14 = ‘must die’, 24 = ‘easy to die’
Yes, but for reasons I don’t remember at the moment, “444” is considered joyful laughter, not danger. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
So we have guardian angel, “death”, and “joyful laughter” associated with 444, that all fits.
I’m from Australia and I’m quite obsessed with this, so it’s a pretty global feeling.
I’m not from Australia, but every Australian I’ve ever interacted with has been good people.
…so I don’t think your username is apt.
You can be a dumbass and a good person! Cheers for the compliment, but it’s a pretty apt description of me a lot of the time lol.
Am from Germany. I want them to know this is what happens if they ever take our health care away. Pry it from my cold dead hands and all that. Luigi is a hero!
I think for those of us who have universal healthcare, it still has the David vs Goliath appeal.
It won’t last longer than another week!
Shower thought with no evidence:
Perhaps some big news will come out that distracts us from this soon. It’ll have to be pretty wild to distract us, so buckle up.
They’re already on to drones.
If you can spell “DDD” you can help keep it going.
Reminder that Luigi didn’t do it
Oh you know who did?
That’s conceptually backward to how our justice system (on paper) determines guilt. It has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Luigi did it. Nobody else needs to be convicted or even accused for Luigi to be determined to be innocent.
And there are some good reasons to doubt from what we’ve seen as the public. The cops said they found his backpack in NY but then also found him with his backpack. The pictures don’t quite match. It doesn’t make sense for him to keep incriminating evidence on him in a McDonald’s. There’s a lot about it that stinks.
I’m still waiting for his bullet proof alibi to emerge. So far, the closest I’ve gotten is some mumbling about a false flag and “big news coming, watch this space”.
Feels like the “Luigi is a fall guy” folks stumbled half drunk out of a “Sandy Hook Was Crisis Actors” convention.
Even if you have irrefutable evidence it was him, it wasn’t him.
We support him, even if he’s innocent.
Luigis can’t melt steel beams?
the bullet etchings alone make it a work of art. He picked out the absolute most unloved plutocrat in america. Its very much a masterwork execution at a time when everybody wanted a reprieve from the trump media circus.
Timing: 10/10
Execution: 9/10
Target 10/10
Style: 10/10
We live in a country this happens every day I would take a CEO death over a Sandy Hook every time. I wish shootings weren’t as common but it is what it is.
the absolute most unloved plutocrat in america.
Too bad that’s not trump :(
I don’t know. Trump is special. I’m hoping more "divine smiting’ for him. For a man that so seems to have the Devil’s charisma behind him, what more fitting end could there be than to die by lightning strike?
Him being forced to actually work at McDonald’s to pay for his own rent and food.
But I will accept prison the rest of his life as a consolation prize.
Walking the plank or hanged by the city wall maybe?
I’d like to see him kerb stomped for about 35 minutes. If anyone is taking requests.
With my limited view from Germany, thank God that it is not Trump. Presidents come and go, Democrats and Republicans swap places every now and then, but at the end, the US stays an oligarchy. By killing Trump you don’t change much, you might create a public outrage, but it’s like popping a pimple without addressing the acne. It might lead to an even bigger divide within the working class - those who were fooled into voting for Trump vs Democrats vs disappointed, disillusioned Democrats. One of the problems of the election was that not enough left leaning people saw the Democrats as much different from the Republicans, and they are right. Killing a politician would just distract from the problem even more. Just think of how much momentum Trump (and his movement) gained from the assassination attempt.
Here, for once in months, when we see tiktoks or other clips from the public, we cannot even tell immediately where they lean politically - we just see that everyone is fed up with the same crap. Now both left and right, united, experience how the media lies to them and tells a skewed narrative. This is amazing. I sincerely hope it will not die, I hope this will grow and continue to spread like a cancer through society.
It is sad that it took the murder of a person and a young man’s freedom for this.
No no, I didn’t say I wish for him to be shot - that’s for separate discussion - I just wish he was the most unloved. Daydreaming…
The key is to publicly wish for his death in a way that no person could actually carry out. Then it’s not a death threat. Wish for him to get cancer. Wish for him to have a heart attack. Wish for him to die from auto-erotic asphyxiation. Wish for him to be struck by lightning. Wish for a giant sinkhole to open up directly beneath his feet, swallow him whole, and close up behind him, as if Hell itself reached up to finally claim him, the Devil finally collecting on some contract signed long ago.
It’s not a death threat if you ask God or the Devil to do the dirty work for you!
I wish 10,000 dolphins dived into his asshole and he exploded with his entrails covering all of congress.
Exactly!
Don’t give up hope. He’s had 3 attempts already, hoping #4 is a better shot
Personally I would appreciate the irony of school shooters instead going after gun manufacturer executives. I like my justice delivered ironically.
If we were the principled society we pretend to others that we are, we would prefer 100 ceos to 1 Sandy Hook. CEO’s would be all for it as well.
But capitalism doesnt breed a lot of impulses to sacrifice for the greater good. “eff those peasants” is practically explicitely baked into it.Execution: 9/10
Apart from the fact that he was caught by sitting in a public place and getting recognized, rather than laying low and staying out of public view for a while.
Assuming it’s actually Luigi. Not sure there’s even definitive proof yet.
I doubt this, just keep McDonald’s open and people will soon forget
You ever have a boil lanced?
Most definitely, he isn’t the unibomber largely indiscriminately killing people based on some ideological manifesto, he targeted someone in charge of driving many families into bankruptcy if not outright murdering patients with denials, and targeted a problem that many know to be true. They may be trying to rewrite the legacy of the CEO, but he was not “one of the good guys”.
Although there is some crossover to the unibomber’s manifesto, in the sense that where this would have been the breaking point in societies of the past waiting for a revolution, the new means of control and technology is being used to keep it under control, from all sides, even and specially those that abused social networks to put Trump in power. Can’t have the status quo of “[I can] stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody [but not you]” challenged.
Yes and, board members are the ones enabling the CEOs. They need to be targeted as well.
There’s a lot of overlap.
In recent years, around 30% of newly appointed board members in the S&P 500 have been active or retired CEOs.
And:
CEOs and directors with financial backgrounds constitute 59% of the incoming class of S&P 500 directors…
Source, for whatever it’s worth. I admittedly just did a cursory Google search out of curiosity and that’s what popped up, but I had a feeling it’d be a significant percentage.
Most definitely, he isn’t the unibomber largely indiscriminately killing people based on some ideological manifesto, he targeted someone in charge of driving many families into bankruptcy if not outright murdering patients with denials, and targeted a problem that many know to be true.
By my math, Brian Robert Thompson killed 40,000 people.
This will probably be taken down, but psychology is what I do so here it is. This is not endorsement this is an explanation as to why there’s different sentiment for this shooting.
This was stated in Trevor Noah’s latest podcast in open discussion. Josh Johnson raises the point. Most gun violence stories on the news, people personally feel threatened. Outraged that they or theirs could be at a music festival, a movie, at school. Most assholes with a gun are killing innocent people, never mind all the other bits. And most are clearly a little “crazy.”
This was targeted, killer on killer, no collateral (death/injury) damage. The CEO had kids that’s the collateral damage. There’s even a lady with coffee who walks on scene then nopes out unharmed.
This isn’t endorsement. This WHY the public as a whole doesn’t seem to mind. The guy who died killed thousands. That solves the innocent part. The killer doesn’t feel threatening to any of us. Because he’s not. That solves the threat. As for sanity, gun arguments aside, the manifesto isn’t unhinged.
And so we find ourselves in an unusual space. Understandably so. This is new.
No I didn’t read the article.
The CEO had kids that’s the collateral damage.
Given his falling out with his ex-wife and penchant for alcoholism, they’re arguably better off without him, assuming he wasn’t already a deadbeat dad.
Sure. Can you explain why this guy gets charged with terrorism, but school shooters and Jan 6ers don’t?
Perception management, probably. I thought terrorism applied to upsetting state entities not private ones. How, by any stretch of the imagination, is a private health insurance company part of the United States government? It’s bizarre. Jan 6 would fall under that umbrella for sure.
What do you think?
My thoughts is they’re making an example of him because he went after the true ruling class - CEOs. And the Jan 6 ers went after “the help” so the cops don’t care. Just like when the children of the masses are gunned down in schools. Get a school shooter at the private academy the president’s kids all attend and suddenly the ruling class will care.
“The help”. That deserves more attention.
The killer is not threatening to you until semeone decides that you deserve to be killed.
Yes, exactly. I don’t think there is anyone in the world who knows me and believes that I, specifically, deserve to be killed. I think almost every person feels the same way. The rare exception being someone who has intentionally profoundly harmed or killed people.
If the person you’re replying to was a health insurance CEO I would be extremely supportive of that.
semeone decides
I would simply not deny Luigi his health care. And I’d sleep easy.
Someone else may decide to kill you for a different reason.
That’s a pretty dumb argument, this was a targeted killing. You’d be supportive of killing a major terrorist right? Most would, because the terrorist is evil and kills thousands of Innocents… Well it’s literally no different here. They can be against murder and yet still support killing a terrorist, which is what a Healthcare CEO is.
That’s already true though. Anyone can kill anyone. It just costs the killer their freedom or their life.
That’s a risk we’ve always lived with.
So you’re upset that we killed Osama Bin Ladin then?
From what I can tell, Osama bin Laden was killed legally.
Someone, maybe, a fair point. It will probably happen at work if at all given the boring, “helper” life I lead.
But not this guy. That’s the salient point.
You mean someone like Brian Thompson?
You mean Brian Robert Thompson?
It’s a long standing tradition to refer to serial killers by their full name. Think John Wayne Gacy. It seems appropriate here.
I haven’t killed tens of thousands of sick people so I’m safe.
Someone might decide that something else you did is wrong.
That could happen any day but how is that fact relevant?
Do you want to live in a society where anyone can kill you because they think you’re a bad person?
Any idiot in a car can kill me at any time, because he’s getting road rage. I’m living in Europe, grew up in the 80s where nuclear war was a very real danger that could break out any moment, vaporizing all the cities. Even though we were allies of the US, highways were prepared to be outfitted with nuclear mines so the Russians couldn’t roll all over Western Europe. We have a war right now next to our countries which could turn into WW3 at any time. A close friend of mine is Bosnian, she has seen the fighting in the Balkans few years agom
People kill each other all the time, because they consider each other bad persons. I just refuse to live in fear.
And the longer I live, the more I believe in violence as a legitimate defense. If someone shot Putin tomorrow, I would be happy. If someone had shot Hitler in the 30s the would would probably have been a better place.
So where is the line that divides killing someone is a good thing vs a bad thing? I used to believe it is always evil, but I can’t anymore.
No, but I don’t want to live in a society where people in power just let people in need die
I would absolutely love to live in a different world where everything is marijuana, video games and puppies. But we don’t live there, which is why the work class must remain armed no matter the pretext.
I could get shot in a school shooting that wasnt prevented because despite the outrage of the Democratic party no one wanted to impliment perimeter fences, check points, metal detectors, or building a police station next door or inside every school of the nation. It would still be true that the working class must remain armed.
We live in the shitter multiverse, and it is not a good place to be. Accept this fact of life.
That’s today. That’s our current reality. That’s the society that I already live in, because I’m a horrible, nasty, evil person who rides a bicycle to get places.
I’m in Madison, Wisconsin, too, so it’s rather fresh in my mind that anyone can kill me just randomly out of the blue.
That’s all of human history and will never change.
However, now that the untouchable monsters that run things are getting a taste, things are just a tiny bit better.
We already do. You can already buy a gun, get it the same day, and straight up shoot someone with minimal barriers. What are you on about? Children are sacrificed every day and now that a CEO is dead its a huge problem?
Found the CEO!
That’s the point. “WHY” did they decide it had to be you.
You watch yourself on that slippery slope now.
Have you killed thousands of people through insurance denials to make a quick buck? No?
Then you’re fine.
I see you getting downvoted but a lot of doctors get death threats too, and while everyone seems to have a horror story about a doctor they didn’t like, I’m pretty sure most are the scapegoats of a broken system. So yeah, while Luigi’s target was well-chosen, I don’t trust every vigilante to be as smart.
a lot of doctors get death threats too
I gotta wonder at the folks who have bombed (or threatened to bomb) abortion clinics and been lionized by pro-Life advocates. Even granted clemency by ultra-right wing Republican governors.
None of them seem particularly enthusiastic about this slaying, though.
So yeah, while Luigi’s target was well-chosen, I don’t trust every vigilante to be as smart.
The starkest comparison I’ve seen is Daniel Perry - who strangled a man to death on the subway - getting box seats with the President/VP and a full throated cheer from folks on the right.
Meanwhile, Luigi has enormous mainstream appeal, but enjoys virtually no positive coverage among liberals on the left.
The division is stark. It’s very obvious that vigilantism is encouraged by the state when it targets certain people. CEOs just aren’t on the approved list.
That’s why I think we should have a crowd funding campaign to build a big bronze statue of the guy. You know, those aren’t as expensive as you might think. Some searching suggests they can be built for $25k-250k. That seems well within the range of a crowd funding campaign. And unlike copy cat attacks or making death threats, there’s nothing illegal about building a statue to someone. At the same time, imagine what a message it would send if 100,000 people each gave a few dollars to build a statue to Luigi.
As far as location, I can think of two. One would be as close to the shooting site as possible. The other? On a main road outside of United Healthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota. I want ever UHC employee to have to drive past a big statue of Luigi as they go into work each day. A durable reminder of just what we think of them.
And if some vandals destroy the statue? We’ll build it again, but even BIGGER.
I would say that if you find this particular killer’s motives personally threatening, you should probably resign from your day job and move into your bunker.
As for sanity, gun arguments aside, the manifesto isn’t unhinged.
Just curious, what do you mean by “gun arguments aside”?
I’m a gun owner. There is a subset of people who think that alone makes you unhinged as a human being.
Luigi is just crazy enough to do what he did (allegedly). Probably not even a gun owner beyond an engineer guy makes this tool/thing on his printer and then learns how to become proficient using that tool/thing. I don’t think Luigi was LARPing training exercises with an AK, with friends, in the northern MI woods. I think he probably approached it the same way the rest of us would approach learning Linux for our next PC build.
I see, thanks for the clarification! I thought you were referring to the actual manifesto, and I was going to point out that the supposed real one didn’t mention guns at all, but if I recall correctly the fake one did. So never mind me.
Shit, now I’m wondering. I’m talking about the pseudo apologetic one that talks about printing the gun. Not being the best person to decide this, etc.
Oh, I think that’s the real one. Really short, only mentions CAD instead of actually printing the gun, and refers to Moore who can explain things better.
On that note, Moores reaction is interesting.
Having a wife and kids is not a free pass, and is no ethical shield. Fight me. Little Jimmy can cry about it in his nepo baby Ferrari.
