To pick up from chat.

Obviously this is far from a perfect robin hood, in practice, but as a symbol, this has provided an important opportunity to re-center the conversation on class warfare and wealth disparities, and of course healthcare insurance, in particular.

Yes, I totally meant health "insurance" in chat. But I will say that the insurance problem has had a perverse effect on the provider landscape, obviously. As have other recent GOP decisions. It's the goal. You know this. I know this. But even so, it's wild to see intentionally destructive "populist" sentiments still successfully billed as patriotic. Last sidenote: The fact that the gov't could be about to shut down because Musk told Trump to do it and so Congress abides, with supporting disinformation posted by Musk to X, is exactly the next few years in a nutshell.

Yes, there's better ways to take action than murder. Retail investment tactics, maybe go for their liquidity by everyone refusing to pay their premiums for a couple months or whatever. But telling people "don't buy United healthcare" when the employers buy the healthcare and the "healthcare marketplace" (again, I hate this parlance) is increasingly monopolized, with insurers nowadays beginning to do the vertical integration schtick with providers (pharmacies, doctors), voting with our money or labor choices (oh and unions are mostly still dead) seems like, increasingly, a dead end. The market isn't even so "free", and it's problematic even if it were, with an asset like.. remaining alive. And government has failed to address the problem, though it did try. The dems did, at least, yes. But the issue of cost pervades. Some of that is stuff like subsidizing pharmaceutical R&D for drugs we later get bilked for while selling to Europe on the cheapcheap, but mostly it is the insurance companies. The way it feels is that american healthcare is the wealthy telling the peasants to go get the pitchforks. Or so an increasing number of peasants say.

We're still in phases of people realizing what healthcare could and should actually be like here. Probably only because my sister has lived in Melbourne for a decade, only recently is my mother like "wouldn't it be better if healthcare wasn't tied to our employment?". Obviously globalization has wisened us up to how screwed we're getting. Hearthcare's also a pretty neat encapsulation of other market sectors' tendencies as well. Real estate, especially, comes to mind, and the fact that it's also pretty difficult to negotiate (and as we further criminalize homelessness, no less) should not escape us. We know how unstable these levels of wealth inequality are, and the "populist" billionaires... might not deliver for we the people, is what you and I are betting, I think. But yeah like I said, I think one response tactic from the ruling class when the plebs get uppity, as when inspired by a hot Italian-American vigilante, perhaps, will be to stoke mass paranoia. Like "drones" [edit: you will be pleased to hear that social media posts reportedly have AI generating how-to articles on shooting down drones, but I haven't verified this]. I'm not sure how conscious of a dynamic that is (yet, at least), but it's such a classic fascist regime thing, just too predictable, really. (and a semi-intentionally botched mass deportation rollout is a really good opportunity create crisis and stoke paranoia, but I digress)

I'm not inclined to debate Brian Johnson's actual culpability in the grand scheme of things, that's not where I think I should be focusing my attention. Now, as we debut a New York state CEO thoughts and prayers hotline, and one charge of terrorism for Mangione later (seems to also be a generally New York state-prosecuted thing, but only for mass shooters, from my cursory research, though interestingly not for the guy who killed 10 black americans upstate in a grocery store), what matters is that we nobodies understand that vigilante justice when punching upwards is despicable (downwards or racistly is totally fine), and/or that class traitorship among the wealthy-middle class is unacceptable*. I know you do not watch e.g. Fox, and of course the message is coded in a way to avoid any opportunity of class consciousness, but that's been pretty much the angle across even most MSNBC shows. Again, it's not like the liberals don't have leadership deep into the roots of it all, corporate american financing.

It's been made clear that meaningful discussions of this in our media will not be permitted. So.. I dunno, it really sucks when there's any infighting between people working towards the same ends, ultimately. And when I like both of those people a lot. I hope spencer comes back.

*yeah I grabbed a screencap of a WaPo article where the headline and accompanying subheader were, as follows, below this paragraph. Firstly: we might have to to do this nowadays, like in a spot check, distributed amongst many people, who each do a little bit periodically, etc., because often I'll find things re-touched up when a few days have passed and it's only in the archives and out of active readership. Sure enough, I went and googled just now and found that the article title is the same:

Before shooting, Brian Thompson worried about UnitedHealth's negative image

However, the subheader has changed from this, on my camera reel:

Anger directed at the company played a role on Dec. 4, authorities said, when a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate allegedly gunned down the executive in midtown Manhattan.

to this:

UnitedHealthcare CEO is described as unpretentious but driven, working his way from Iowa farm to the top echelons of business.

So make of that what you will. I think the first one is funny, for "played a role", but maybe the naked misdirection towards a classic MAGA target (the Ivies) was too obvious of an alliance. The alignment of establishment media (edit2: or even "independents" like TYT, apparently) into support of this regime for maintaining this wealth distribution will be pretty much near total, I think is what to expect.

edit3 (i'm sorry): interestingly, it's quite difficult to overstate the disconnect between the fox news literary articles I can find about daniel penny (guy from the only article linked above) generated after his recent acquittal and the way the TV programming portrayed him. Yes, the online footprint is overwhelmingly positive, but the TV discussions are absolutely drooling, fawning, tripping over their adorations of a guy who obviously should have known, and maybe did indeed know, that he was killing someone for the uncharged crime of making threats or whatever. It's not even performative, this stuff, the anchors are truly in thrall to a victim of their own brainwashings. Judging from what he's said, though, and also the ways he said it, daniel penny is a guy who wants to be good, wants to be moral, but has now been fast-tracked to Rittenhouse 2. Shame. Penny is your echo of a vigilante past, but that isn't scratching the same itch some people got from Mangione, and for many, it's an exciting and new itch.