Absolute chef's kiss from one who lives in this shit hole county, which is filled with excellent Americans but our top of the line propaganda/marketing/advertising machine puts a polish on this turd we call a political class. Great job Laura.
"If the victim was black and working class, we’d be told about the time he skipped school and stole a bag of sweets 17 years ago, and anything else that might justify killing him. But he’s rich and white so we hear about his family life." THIS THIS THIS.
I wrote something similar elsewhere recently because it was driving me crazy that they weren't exploring - even a tiny little bit - Brian Thompson's relationship (through insurance policy decisions) to people who might have been hurt or killed by those decisions that he was directly connected to or responsible for. You know, just to supply some background on the victim.
There are approximately 68,500 deaths every year in the US due to not having sufficient health care. Divide that by 365 and you get about 188 human beings killed every day by corporations like Thompson's UnitedHealthCare that denied them health care. I'd like to know what percentage of the 188 daily were killed by UHC and Thompson the day he was gunned down. We start with that list of names and work our way out to all of them eventually. The public should know the names of the human beings that UHC and Thompson murdered.
The algorithm in their customer assessment system would be blamed! Also, the amount of people that die as a result of adverse reactions to prescription drugs is a staggering number. And there are zero repercussions for the large amount of doctors and specialists involved in the prescription of these drugs.
It’s all theatre. Very revealing as to how the justice system, government bodies, and the media work in tandem. There is a lockstep approach from the latter, with the elephant in the room, the arbitrary nature of how the private medical sector operates and denies care for people who have paid into a scheme in good faith,sometimes for decades. The swift bankruptcy that envelopes a family paying in any manner they can to have the relative receive treatment. If mentioned, it is almost as a footnote. It’s an obscene system that denies care to the vulnerable, the defenceless.
I am fortunate to live in a country that has medical care for those unable to pay. The government has taken steps down through the years that have seen our national health system, similar to the one that is in the process of being privatised in the UK, morph into a semi private, convoluted, heavily subsidised each year by government shambles, in comparison to what it was like even 10 years ago. And even at that, it’s a million miles away from the set up in the states. It appears that the sick in America have only their pocket as a friend.
The system is even sicker that you describe. The insurance companies deny payouts to protect their bottom lines, for sure. However, the whole set up of society in the US and UK is to keep us dependent on a health care system in the first place. It is purposefully designed to keep us unhealthy. It's created to keep us fat, sick and on drugs.
Fintan o Tooles book, Ship of fools, about the shenanigans across the financial districts of the western world leading up to that crash has some very juicy revelations about the recklessness that was allowed to happen. I highly recommend it. Matt Damon’s narrated documentary is good. As Germany and France watch their economies fall off a cliff, with the Green parties policies being implemented being a major factor in the steep cost of living surge, I genuinely fear for European nation states near future.
That’s only part of the story about the 08 crash. If the whole truth of what went down was revealed, whole governments would end up in the rivers. The money owed by nation states across Europe will never be paid back entirely. The suns are too large. And the countries owed the money cannot afford to bankrupt the ones that owe them billions as they don’t want the EU to fail, and rely on those states as places they export to.
The amount owed in the derivatives market back then pales in comparison to what is currently on the books in the very same Ponzi scheme that is operating today. 4 times the amount owed then. When it pops next time, 08 will look like a hiccup in comparison.
He stopped a mass murderer? Are you mad? He will just be replaced by another, Luigi (first name terms!) hasn't 'stopped' anything at all. He's killed someone's loved one as a statement.
"Someone's loved one" That's a variation of the media talking point "a family man." The thousands who suffered and died due to "the loved one's" directives were all someone's loved ones. And witnessing the drop in stock values, plus the already changes in deny-policies, Luigi didn't merely stop a very real bad guy, but has saved the lives of people who would have otherwise fallen victims to the legally criminal deny policies. I wonder what our prison population would look like if all those in jail who were loved by somebody were set free.
The support for the misplaced and ultimate revenge on an individual for policies that his and thousands of other companies use, which do not break the law, is shocking to me. Why not kill the senate or whoever it is who makes laws? Why not kill the share-holders, whose investment allowed this to happen in the first place?
Such twisted logic. The narrative is that violence pays then? That if we want to change policy we can kill a loved, human being (unless you're denying that he was either). Changes in 'deny-policy'. Really? Until they just change back. Decrease in stocks, until they inevitably go up again.
I'm not saying the system isn't totally corrupt. The system continues just fine.
This is similar illogic to people who say that environmental activists who endanger life by blocking the M25 (even though the elites are flying over it in helicopters, not driving along it) should be given lighter sentences or allowed to get away with. They should be allowed to do this with impunity because of the danger to so many lives from the climate crisis. That so many lives could be saved with climate action that even if a couple die today, it's worth it.
I disagree. You kill someone you do the time. Otherwise it's lawless chaos and those with the biggest guns are in charge.
Yes, the neoliberal system gets away with genocide, species extinction and destroying the planet to favour the mostly white top 10%. That includes many of us on substack. But killing, or supporting the killing of those who personally have been the most successful out of this system, which will continue unabated, is just a spiteful.
Mangione's act of desperation, much like the Anarchists of yore is a sure sign of societal breakdown but hopefully, a prelude to revolution but unfortunately, it's more likely to be increased repression by the state just like here in the UK. Rise up you starvlings, rise up!
I'll check it out. Well, violence, non-violence? Can you really see the US state surrendering without violence? Judging by its acts without being under threat, a very unlikely scenario.
Undoubtedly, you prop up the hegemon but as you say, you're not the ones who are starving, are you, so when push comes to shove, you'll have to decide which side you're on.
What's your problem? You know nothing about me, yet you lay down the law and make crass, juvenile judgements about me. I have no idea what you support, neither have I passed judgement on you or your views. Get a life Jo Waller.
Brilliant Laura. Not a line I don't suck my breath in for and gasp at the purposefully brutal rapier point going in, jab after job. Not quite numerically a ‘thousand cut’ death but a decent and meaningful body count. Posted on Bluesky to try and get some US traction as it speaks to their situation more directly. Glad I subscribe. Worth every penny.
Sure let's murder all those who benefit from ruthless profiteering. All those who work for big pharma, in animal testing, factory farming, banking and insurance. Let's take the law into our own hands. It's OK to ruthlessly murder ruthless murderers.
I do not call it business when the rich do it. I call it ruthless murder. I call it ruthless murder when ‘poor’ people (though he wasn’t one) do it as well. Stop confusing the party line propaganda. which everyone, both inside and outside of media and politics, knows is bollocks with the the reality of the world.
‘Poor’ people standing up by getting themselves put into prison for murdering people’s fathers, mothers, sons and daughters will not trouble the status quo. The status quo is happy to think that something is being done, that someone is finally standing up, because they know it’s totally ineffectual and doesn’t address the dismantling of the system.
Why don't the CEOs just learn to do drills like US school kids? Here's a handy video though it does include the caveat "What some researchers say is missing are studies that say these drills help save lives. They argue there isn't enough school shooting data to get reliable results."
It's just the recycled Atomic Bomb drills of the 1950s. I begin to think that those in power feel establishing fear in young Kids in school is a good idea instead of eliminating the reason for the fear.
It’s great financing and arming a genocide, but killing a ruthless, murdering CEO is just not on. Someone please explain, please. My tiny brain cannot work this one out.
Of course, they are both 'wrong'. Genocide is of course not Ok. Neither is going around shooting people, whatever you think they've indirectly done (not all medical procedures are helpful- many drugs actually make things worse: sometimes when doctors go on strike the death rate goes down).
Though my great gran was in service in Scotland and my grandparents lived in a tiny terrace in North London, I do have a string of treasured family pearls, though, unlike your characterisation, i don't clutch at them.
Even if I didn't have another way to 'fight back' it doesn't mean that shooting people is any kind of viable option.
However, I do have a way. It involves boycotting Amazon and Macdonalds. It involves supporting each other's local businesses. It involves growing and eating fresh fruit and veg so that we don't have to hardly ever need their bloody health insurance.
He wasn’t a poor person though was he? And how is murdering CEOs going to stop another CEO taking their place? It’s the system that we’re all under, not the people.
Good luck in your revolution where anyone who is rich can be shot, though you have no leaders, no cohesion, no organisation of ‘poor’ people to replace the system with. Straight into the Reign of Terror.
Luigi Mangione is a dead man walking. Money takes care of its own and the fact that one of them has been assassinated must be addressed with extreme prejudice. Class room full of kids just die quietly and the rich send their thoughts and prayers, but when one of them is struck down vengeance will be swift and brutal as a deterrent to any copycat vigilantes waiting in the shadows. But I predict this won't be the last assassination of this kind. In a land where guns are commonplace and the value of prols cheap, there is simply nothing to lose
"The US has a hierarchy of life with the richest at the top and you at the bottom, working in an Amazon warehouse until you drop dead from a treatable illness."
There you got it. The rich are the only ones that matter. They can murder as many of us as they like, but we're not allowed to return the favor. Hence, Luigi has become a folk hero for his courage.
The "collateral damage" of the thousands of victims of the insurance refusals and medical debt are the real tragedies of the actions of CEOs like Thompson. Killing is wrong and individual terrorism is not supportable. But treating ordinary people as accidental victims of healthcare denials is the ongoing crime of for profit healthcare. MEDICARE 4 ALL!!!
ELIMINATE THE CAP ON Social Seurity and medicare taxes.
Those Social Security and Medicare taxes are a bluff. Taxes don't pay for anything at the Federal level. Modern Monetary Theory MMT explains why this is so. You can find it on The Rogue Scholar, Real Progressives, Macro'n Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube. Stephanie Kelton also has several great videos on YouTube about it.
Please learn how the US monetary system really works.
' We’ve worked so hard to make peaceful revolution impossible, the last thing we want is to make violent revolution inevitable'
Well said 👏🏼 another great piece .
I flippin’ love everything you write, but this is *chef’s kiss*.
Absolute chef's kiss from one who lives in this shit hole county, which is filled with excellent Americans but our top of the line propaganda/marketing/advertising machine puts a polish on this turd we call a political class. Great job Laura.
"If the victim was black and working class, we’d be told about the time he skipped school and stole a bag of sweets 17 years ago, and anything else that might justify killing him. But he’s rich and white so we hear about his family life." THIS THIS THIS.
I wrote something similar elsewhere recently because it was driving me crazy that they weren't exploring - even a tiny little bit - Brian Thompson's relationship (through insurance policy decisions) to people who might have been hurt or killed by those decisions that he was directly connected to or responsible for. You know, just to supply some background on the victim.
The list of people and families harmed by Thompson and his staff, and its AI decision making process, would be a lengthy one.
The publishing of which would cause more uproar than Thompsons death. I think. I would like to think that that, would be the case.
There are approximately 68,500 deaths every year in the US due to not having sufficient health care. Divide that by 365 and you get about 188 human beings killed every day by corporations like Thompson's UnitedHealthCare that denied them health care. I'd like to know what percentage of the 188 daily were killed by UHC and Thompson the day he was gunned down. We start with that list of names and work our way out to all of them eventually. The public should know the names of the human beings that UHC and Thompson murdered.
The algorithm in their customer assessment system would be blamed! Also, the amount of people that die as a result of adverse reactions to prescription drugs is a staggering number. And there are zero repercussions for the large amount of doctors and specialists involved in the prescription of these drugs.
Oh absolutely!! The death penalty? How insane. Ppl kill other’s and get 10yrs. What a joke!!
It’s all theatre. Very revealing as to how the justice system, government bodies, and the media work in tandem. There is a lockstep approach from the latter, with the elephant in the room, the arbitrary nature of how the private medical sector operates and denies care for people who have paid into a scheme in good faith,sometimes for decades. The swift bankruptcy that envelopes a family paying in any manner they can to have the relative receive treatment. If mentioned, it is almost as a footnote. It’s an obscene system that denies care to the vulnerable, the defenceless.
I am fortunate to live in a country that has medical care for those unable to pay. The government has taken steps down through the years that have seen our national health system, similar to the one that is in the process of being privatised in the UK, morph into a semi private, convoluted, heavily subsidised each year by government shambles, in comparison to what it was like even 10 years ago. And even at that, it’s a million miles away from the set up in the states. It appears that the sick in America have only their pocket as a friend.
The system is even sicker that you describe. The insurance companies deny payouts to protect their bottom lines, for sure. However, the whole set up of society in the US and UK is to keep us dependent on a health care system in the first place. It is purposefully designed to keep us unhealthy. It's created to keep us fat, sick and on drugs.
Please watch the documentary The Con about the bank fraud that created the 2007-2008 housing crisis.
Fintan o Tooles book, Ship of fools, about the shenanigans across the financial districts of the western world leading up to that crash has some very juicy revelations about the recklessness that was allowed to happen. I highly recommend it. Matt Damon’s narrated documentary is good. As Germany and France watch their economies fall off a cliff, with the Green parties policies being implemented being a major factor in the steep cost of living surge, I genuinely fear for European nation states near future.
That’s only part of the story about the 08 crash. If the whole truth of what went down was revealed, whole governments would end up in the rivers. The money owed by nation states across Europe will never be paid back entirely. The suns are too large. And the countries owed the money cannot afford to bankrupt the ones that owe them billions as they don’t want the EU to fail, and rely on those states as places they export to.
The amount owed in the derivatives market back then pales in comparison to what is currently on the books in the very same Ponzi scheme that is operating today. 4 times the amount owed then. When it pops next time, 08 will look like a hiccup in comparison.
Did you ever watch the documentary?
Which country is this?
Bravo, Laura! Luigi stopped a mass murderer and the people who send bombs to supply a genocide are very upset at the quick and painless way he did it.
He stopped a mass murderer? Are you mad? He will just be replaced by another, Luigi (first name terms!) hasn't 'stopped' anything at all. He's killed someone's loved one as a statement.
"Someone's loved one" That's a variation of the media talking point "a family man." The thousands who suffered and died due to "the loved one's" directives were all someone's loved ones. And witnessing the drop in stock values, plus the already changes in deny-policies, Luigi didn't merely stop a very real bad guy, but has saved the lives of people who would have otherwise fallen victims to the legally criminal deny policies. I wonder what our prison population would look like if all those in jail who were loved by somebody were set free.
The support for the misplaced and ultimate revenge on an individual for policies that his and thousands of other companies use, which do not break the law, is shocking to me. Why not kill the senate or whoever it is who makes laws? Why not kill the share-holders, whose investment allowed this to happen in the first place?
Such twisted logic. The narrative is that violence pays then? That if we want to change policy we can kill a loved, human being (unless you're denying that he was either). Changes in 'deny-policy'. Really? Until they just change back. Decrease in stocks, until they inevitably go up again.
I'm not saying the system isn't totally corrupt. The system continues just fine.
This is similar illogic to people who say that environmental activists who endanger life by blocking the M25 (even though the elites are flying over it in helicopters, not driving along it) should be given lighter sentences or allowed to get away with. They should be allowed to do this with impunity because of the danger to so many lives from the climate crisis. That so many lives could be saved with climate action that even if a couple die today, it's worth it.
I disagree. You kill someone you do the time. Otherwise it's lawless chaos and those with the biggest guns are in charge.
Yes, the neoliberal system gets away with genocide, species extinction and destroying the planet to favour the mostly white top 10%. That includes many of us on substack. But killing, or supporting the killing of those who personally have been the most successful out of this system, which will continue unabated, is just a spiteful.
Mangione's act of desperation, much like the Anarchists of yore is a sure sign of societal breakdown but hopefully, a prelude to revolution but unfortunately, it's more likely to be increased repression by the state just like here in the UK. Rise up you starvlings, rise up!
Brits are in an even worse spot, still paying billions for a nonce Royal Family.
Please read From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr Gene Sharp
I'll check it out. Well, violence, non-violence? Can you really see the US state surrendering without violence? Judging by its acts without being under threat, a very unlikely scenario.
Are we, the mostly retired, superannuated, middle class, well fed, well educated substackers the stravlings?
Undoubtedly, you prop up the hegemon but as you say, you're not the ones who are starving, are you, so when push comes to shove, you'll have to decide which side you're on.
Are you starving William?
No but I know which side I'm on.
Great way to ‘other’ me and create division where there is none William. You’re doing their work for them.
So we’re both well-off, through no fault of our own. We both see huge problems with the capitalistic system, though we’ve both benefitted from it.
You support shooting people’s sons and fathers as I way to end this system. I do not. I don’t think it’ll help, apart from to let off steam.
Therefore you think I support the hegemon and we’re on opposing sides.
Job done.
What's your problem? You know nothing about me, yet you lay down the law and make crass, juvenile judgements about me. I have no idea what you support, neither have I passed judgement on you or your views. Get a life Jo Waller.
Brilliant Laura. Not a line I don't suck my breath in for and gasp at the purposefully brutal rapier point going in, jab after job. Not quite numerically a ‘thousand cut’ death but a decent and meaningful body count. Posted on Bluesky to try and get some US traction as it speaks to their situation more directly. Glad I subscribe. Worth every penny.
This world would be better if we were all Luigis
Sure let's murder all those who benefit from ruthless profiteering. All those who work for big pharma, in animal testing, factory farming, banking and insurance. Let's take the law into our own hands. It's OK to ruthlessly murder ruthless murderers.
When the rich do it, it's called business. When the poor do it, it's called ruthless murder.
I do not call it business when the rich do it. I call it ruthless murder. I call it ruthless murder when ‘poor’ people (though he wasn’t one) do it as well. Stop confusing the party line propaganda. which everyone, both inside and outside of media and politics, knows is bollocks with the the reality of the world.
‘Poor’ people standing up by getting themselves put into prison for murdering people’s fathers, mothers, sons and daughters will not trouble the status quo. The status quo is happy to think that something is being done, that someone is finally standing up, because they know it’s totally ineffectual and doesn’t address the dismantling of the system.
Why don't the CEOs just learn to do drills like US school kids? Here's a handy video though it does include the caveat "What some researchers say is missing are studies that say these drills help save lives. They argue there isn't enough school shooting data to get reliable results."
https://youtu.be/vhmRP4Wpzl8?si=8-JS4X97Hj-fut1g
It's just the recycled Atomic Bomb drills of the 1950s. I begin to think that those in power feel establishing fear in young Kids in school is a good idea instead of eliminating the reason for the fear.
It works for Israel.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
👏👏👏👏👏🌈
It was "there isn't *enough* school shooting data" that made me wonder if Laura had written the script.
It’s great financing and arming a genocide, but killing a ruthless, murdering CEO is just not on. Someone please explain, please. My tiny brain cannot work this one out.
Of course, they are both 'wrong'. Genocide is of course not Ok. Neither is going around shooting people, whatever you think they've indirectly done (not all medical procedures are helpful- many drugs actually make things worse: sometimes when doctors go on strike the death rate goes down).
Oh, stop clutching your pearls about these ruthless poor people who are finally standing up and fighting back.
Though my great gran was in service in Scotland and my grandparents lived in a tiny terrace in North London, I do have a string of treasured family pearls, though, unlike your characterisation, i don't clutch at them.
Even if I didn't have another way to 'fight back' it doesn't mean that shooting people is any kind of viable option.
However, I do have a way. It involves boycotting Amazon and Macdonalds. It involves supporting each other's local businesses. It involves growing and eating fresh fruit and veg so that we don't have to hardly ever need their bloody health insurance.
He wasn’t a poor person though was he? And how is murdering CEOs going to stop another CEO taking their place? It’s the system that we’re all under, not the people.
Good luck in your revolution where anyone who is rich can be shot, though you have no leaders, no cohesion, no organisation of ‘poor’ people to replace the system with. Straight into the Reign of Terror.
ABSOLUTELY PERFECT 👌
Free Luigi✊
Great stuff Laura. On the money again! Thanks.
As a member of these dystopian States, I especially like this one. Thanks.
Luigi Mangione is a dead man walking. Money takes care of its own and the fact that one of them has been assassinated must be addressed with extreme prejudice. Class room full of kids just die quietly and the rich send their thoughts and prayers, but when one of them is struck down vengeance will be swift and brutal as a deterrent to any copycat vigilantes waiting in the shadows. But I predict this won't be the last assassination of this kind. In a land where guns are commonplace and the value of prols cheap, there is simply nothing to lose
"The US has a hierarchy of life with the richest at the top and you at the bottom, working in an Amazon warehouse until you drop dead from a treatable illness."
There you got it. The rich are the only ones that matter. They can murder as many of us as they like, but we're not allowed to return the favor. Hence, Luigi has become a folk hero for his courage.
Oh dear. He aint' my hero.
The "collateral damage" of the thousands of victims of the insurance refusals and medical debt are the real tragedies of the actions of CEOs like Thompson. Killing is wrong and individual terrorism is not supportable. But treating ordinary people as accidental victims of healthcare denials is the ongoing crime of for profit healthcare. MEDICARE 4 ALL!!!
ELIMINATE THE CAP ON Social Seurity and medicare taxes.
Those Social Security and Medicare taxes are a bluff. Taxes don't pay for anything at the Federal level. Modern Monetary Theory MMT explains why this is so. You can find it on The Rogue Scholar, Real Progressives, Macro'n Cheese, or MMT Mondays on YouTube. Stephanie Kelton also has several great videos on YouTube about it.
Please learn how the US monetary system really works.