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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: UnitedHealthcare executive killed in Manhattan in targeted attack

I think 99% of people choose non-violence because you come back from it.

I think 99.9% choose bitching about it on the Internet rather than doing something.

I think "fuck yeah someone shot a bitch" serves to satisfy the urge to do something, so the suppression is feeling smug about a stranger getting shot in the back instead of going to a town hall meeting.

More than that, I think that the people most directly impacted by health insurance shenanigans are so busy dealing with health insurance shenanigans that they don't waste their time being mad on the Internet. They're the ones - like me - raising the issue with the insurance commissioner, who found her inability to do anything an impetus to run for fucking governor.

I want to say "I honestly don't see what's so hard about this" but that would be a lie. What's so hard about this is you don't get to clutch an AR and scream 'wolverines!' like it will accomplish something.





OftenBen  ·  4 days ago  ·  link  ·  

To ask the question a different way, what are some examples of recent progressive wins accomplished by the preferred methods?

kleinbl00  ·  4 days ago  ·  link  ·  

'member that time when they cut childhood poverty in half?

'member the most sweeping reforms against monopolies since FDR?

'member that $2t dems-only package that spared the US economy the worst of COVID economic malaise?

Of course you don't. They're boring. But 'member when the libs went "maybe they'll get used to doing something"

Naaaah you don't remember that either.

OftenBen  ·  20 hours ago  ·  link  ·  

Which of these are going to survive the coming purges?

kleinbl00  ·  37 minutes ago  ·  link  ·  

Did you know that if you constantly move the goalposts you can assure that there's never any touchdowns?

OftenBen  ·  4 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So, you don't think that the suppression of nonviolent methods of reform influences the decision between violence and nonviolence?

I understand your point. The ideal solutions are nonviolent ones.

kleinbl00  ·  4 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll go one further: violent solutions must be effective.

A TALE OF TWO TOWERS

Ramzi Youssef set off a fertilizer bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993. It killed 6 people, injured a thousand and broke a lot of glass. The FBI totes knew about it. One of the towers was closed for a few weeks. Some TV stations lost their over-the-air broadcast towers for a few weeks. A couple d00ds went to jail forever.

On the other hand, Osama Bin Laden, world-renowned insurance CEO, had some d00ds fly jetliners into the WTC and the Pentagon. It killed thousands, injured thousands more and radically reshaped American domestic and foreign policy. Ultimately it launched two forever wars, destabilized at least five regimes in the Middle East and reshaped global politics for a generation at least.

Any MFer worth his salt will acknowledge that violent solutions can be effective. Just ask the Mossad. Just ask Zelenski. We're in UR tenements, bombing UR Birdscooters. My argument is that the death of United's CEO at the hand of a privileged TESCREAL dipshit isn't just ineffective it's counterproductive. Further, my argument is that it's fucking pointless to single out a single anonymous bureaucrat when the villain in the movie is a conglomerate of faceless multinational corporations. Brian Thompson - dude who presided over board meetings. Igor Kirrilov? Putin's direct report in charge of unconventional warfare.

There are absolutely CEOs whose assassination would shape the narrative. Elon Musk, obviously. Sam Altman. Mark Zuckerberg. I'll go one further and argue that this is the most target-rich corporate environment since the era of Robber Barons; prior to Zuck I don't know that there would have been a point in killing anyone other than Jack Welch. You have to look at it with a gimlet eye and not just fucking assume that random stochastic violence will accomplish anything.

"I feel like hitting something" is a useless feeling. "I feel like hitting Prof. Plumb in the forehead with the lead pipe" is a plan. "I feel like hitting Ismael Haniyah in the middle of Tehran with a planted bomb" is a useful plan.

Marioluigi had a useless plan that is being bouyed up by useless feelings.