The direction of society lately

[bigbill]

With the murder of the insurance CEO, there were some who praised the shooter and justified his actions (if proven guilty). It seems that we have grown numb to wanting someone dead over what they represent versus what they did. Leaving personal feelings out of it, did the CEO do anything that warranted his death? After the Trump assassination attempt where he was wounded, some, including media and celebrities were lamenting that the shooter wasn't more accurate. I don't like Trump, but I certainly wouldn't want a presidential candidate to be assassinated because I don't like him/her. How did we get to the point where people believe it's okay to commit violence against someone they don't like. Trump is a turd, but what action did he do that made it okay for someone to attempt a headshot at a rally? Daniel Penny (the Marine in the subway) was found not guilty, but the narrative immediately after the verdict was that an all-white jury let him off, and the verdict was an example of white supremacy. In that case, I'm concerned that racist accusations are getting used so often that people stop listening, and when an actual racist event event occurs, people ignore it.

I don't mean to roll a grenade, but I think some good conversations could happen around the current state of society and to a great extent, social media.

[j44ke]

I don't think we just got there. I think we've always been there. Assassination has been elemental to our history.

[takashi]

'Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was?'

[bigbill]

Assassination is not new, but how do you all feel about the reaction in social media to the shooter. How many people rejoiced when JFK, RFK, and MLK were killed? How many people thought their killing was justified.

[rwsaunders]

In the case of the United Healthcare CEO perp, I don’t think that the perp is at all well which is sad, but it certainly doesn’t warrant what he did to the victim. We had an employee post about the event on LinkedIn in terms of justifying the shooting and of course, we had to give him the option of pulling the post or ceasing his employment with us as we pay for his LinkedIn subscription. My call to him essentially revolved around the fact that this was a life that was taken and to place himself and his family in the victim’s shoes. Whether it resonated or not is another story. Political and religious viewpoints and beliefs are used to rationalize assassinations every day, right?

[bigbill]

In the case of the United Healthcare CEO perp, I don’t think that the perp is at all well which is sad, but it certainly doesn’t warrant what he did to the victim. We had an employee post about the event on LinkedIn in terms of justifying the shooting and of course, we had to give him the option of pulling the post or ceasing his employment with us as we pay for his LinkedIn subscription. My call to him essentially revolved around the fact that this was a life that was taken and to place himself and his family in the victim’s shoes. Whether it resonated or not is another story. Political and religious viewpoints and beliefs are used to rationalize assassinations every day, right?

I get it about religious viewpoints and beliefs, but this is the U.S., where we should have a certain expectation that we're not going to be killed for our views. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc, your opposing views can get you killed. With the Taliban and ISIS, a woman not covering her head or a person mishandling the Quran would be killed in a public manner. But this was a CEO and I think we, as a society have normalized and given attention to people who spout opposing views that most civilized people would find abhorrent. I'm not sure if people want attention or actually understand what they're supporting.

[Ras72]

I don't think we just got there. I think we've always been there. Assassination has been elemental to our history.

This. We have always been there.

The only difference between then and now is the attention social media can generate on a given subject, action, thought, feeling, etc. Once you have a collective of like minded people - good, bad, or indifferent - this allows for justification of said subject, action, thought, feeling, etc. People then tend to lose sight of rights and wrongs. Jan 6 Capital attacks is an easy example but MANY come to mind. There were people that celebrated the assassination of JFK. They were just behind closed doors and/or small gatherings. They didn't have the megaphone we know as social media.

Since the election, I have unplugged from many news outlets and social medias. For the love of all that's holy, I'm asking myself why this took me so long.

[Tom]

This was the first speech given at the Nobel Banquet. If nothing else gave me something to think about, this sure did.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/ph...hinton/speech/

I know it is not directly related to the original subject but in some sense it is.

[BBB]

A thought provoking topic for sure.

Unfortunately capitalism, or turbo capitalism, has wrought great inequity.

When that same system works its way into essential services, in the current example, health care, or in other areas such as drug production or the provision of food or the cost of housing, then the gap between those at the top of the system and those at the bottom, becomes stark, often painfully so.

Australia is a modern, well heeled western nation, yet we are, like in lots of places, suffering from a cost of living crisis. It was reported in the media the other day that 10,000 people per month were experiencing homelessness, which is up 22% in three years - see here - https://www.theguardian.com/society/...rs-report-says

Yet this is a wealthy country. How can this be? Interest rates are up. Prices are up across the board, including the price of food. If you can't afford to own your own home, renting is astronomically expensive. People are getting left behind. Even if interest rates came off the boil and the cost of living pressures dropped away, the structural problems would remain. Housing would still be expensive, certain segments of society (including politicians) would still have their portfolio of property, and people would still be facing the prospect of homelessness. In a doff of the lid to the recent comments on the 2025 racing thread, we pay the providers of essential services (paramedics, police etc) a pittance and revel in the sportsman getting paid large sums of money to kick a funny shaped red leather ball.

We do however have universal health care in this country. Granted the system is far from perfect, but people don't face a choice between bankruptcy or foregoing life saving medical care.

Either we as a people accept reforms to our capitalist system to make it fairer across the board and provide people who need it a leg up, or we gun down a CEO of a health insurance company in the street. Or worse. Sadly, it will probably take more of the former before we get the later.

Politicians don't help either. Symbolism is easy and seductive - 'Yes we can' is just another way of saying 'Make American Great Again'. In Australia we voted out a dithering and vacuous conservative government in 2022, only for the new government two and a bit years later to flounder in the face of economic head winds, an uncertain political environment at home and abroad, and an electorate that is turning against them. They, like the Democrats, will probably get voted out in the next Federal election (which is due next year). But, you know the PM here managed to recently buy himself a $4.3m house in what was probably a political own goal. He's set. Shame about the homelessness figures per month.

[sk_tle]

This. We have always been there.

The only difference between then and now is the attention social media can generate on a given subject, action, thought, feeling, etc.

This. Everything is now broadcasted and everyone can articulate out loud whatever opinion, as unpopular as it may be, without risk. Even more they will still find an echo chambers and people to validate those opinions.

Trump is a turd, but what action did he do that made it okay for someone to attempt a headshot at a rally?

Given his past track record and the large amount of victims he indirectly killed during Covid time, his own attack on democracy, I could totally see people justifying is murdering as preventive measures. He really did killed and made much more people suffer than Luigi Mangione will ever do in his own lifetime. So how easy is it to judge that?

I am against murder but I also believe that any decent society and democratic system should prevent criminals like Trump to be at the helm of a country and insurances to not behave like UnitedHealthcare. And I am struggling to reconcile the fact that the only difference between revolution and terrorism or tentative coup, is that in the former the actors have been successful and could write the history. Where do one or a society collectively put the cursor where the amount of suffering justify or not a revolt? I am pretty sure that Luigi Mangione action might have been considered acceptable and not considered murder had he not acted as a lonewolf and if millions of people had been in the streets for months to complain about health insurances. Something they would totally do if they were thinking it could lead to a change and were not afraid of being called looters and terrorists.

[sk_tle]

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2...y-health-care/

[Mark Kelly]

On the other hand, if we shipped every billionaire in the world and the CEO of every billion dollar company off to mars and then conveniently lost the communications protocol, the world would indubitably be a better place.





Edited to remove inflammatory language that would obscure the point.

[steve garro]

I don't think we just got there. I think we've always been there. Assassination has been elemental to our history.

"Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell is a great read.

- Garro.

[Bob Ross]

How did we get to the point where people believe it's okay to commit violence against someone they don't like. Trump is a turd, but what action did he do that made it okay for someone to attempt a headshot at a rally?

I had a response to that planned, but Thomas' and Peter's comments in posts 12 and 15 respectively already answered comprehensively and, frankly, with far less unhinged vitriol than I think I would have been able to.

I'm just happy to see VSalon's OT section is discussing politics once again...this is the only forum I've ever visited where folks (even those with opposing viewpoints) can discuss the topic intelligently and respectfully, and I've missed that these past few years!

[72gmc]

On the topic of coal in Wyoming, I still enjoy re-reading John McPhee’s “Coal Train” from time to time.

[Too Tall]

Thanks Bob, I'm glad this is back on top as well.

[bigbill]

I had a response to that planned, but Thomas' and Peter's comments in posts 12 and 15 respectively already answered comprehensively and, frankly, with far less unhinged vitriol than I think I would have been able to.

I'm just happy to see VSalon's OT section is discussing politics once again...this is the only forum I've ever visited where folks (even those with opposing viewpoints) can discuss the topic intelligently and respectfully, and I've missed that these past few years!

Regarding #15 , I responded with the truth regarding Cheney's firing squad in #21 . People want to believe that Trump said Cheney should face a firing squad, but it wasn't true and the journalist that was responsible apologized and made a correction. I appreciate the level of discussion here, but the discussions bring up the misinformation from both sides in the past year that the right and left cling to out of confirmation bias.

I've been out of town for a few days or I would have replied in a more timely manner.

[Bob Ross]

People want to believe that Trump said Cheney should face a firing squad, but it wasn't true

Well, that's the -- ahem -- genius of tRump's exortations: They are always so vague (if not downright nonsensical) that if you take them at face value they are entirely meaningless. So you have to make some assumptions about what he really "meant" because if you simply read the syntax there's nothing there

...except possibility.


tRump's exact quote was “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK. Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Yes, he never said the actual words "firing squad"

...but where else would someone find themselves face to face with only "nine barrels"?

[thollandpe]

I’m with @bigbill in finding the praise of this shooter objectionable. If he killed another man in cold blood, shot him in the back, he is certainly no hero. And if United Heathcare’s actions are objectionable, wrong, or illegal, then they and their CEO should have been confronted in our courts, the legislature, and the press.

Hoping this messed-up infatuation is short-lived, like hot mugshots on the Instagram machine.

But it’s also worth noting what is not happening. The shooter is not being praised by our President and VP. They will not harass and threaten the judge and jury in the case. The shooter will not speak at a Democratic convention.

Contrast that with what happened in the subway choking case, also mentioned in the OP. There is no doubt that one man killed another. The jury deliberated for five days before determining that the defendant was not guilty of criminally negligent homicide. I do not envy them, and trust they did their job. Like the slain CEO, this dead man also deserved better. He was unarmed, and was strangled while others watched and some asked for it to stop. It must have been terrible for his family to hear cheering as the verdict was read.

But the other man is being praised as a hero by the President-elect and VP-elect. Pouring gasoline on a fire.

It is a sad, sad day when one person decides that they have to take another person’s life.

[vertical_doug]

I just think we are all living in the black comedy Network. In the end, we are either Howard Beale ranting, or Faye Dunaway and William Holden as executives exploiting it to improve rantings.

As a wise friend of mine always says 'Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining.'