What I find fascinating about the response to the healthcare CEO’s murder is that there’s substantial sympathy for the killer, across the political spectrum, which suggests that both left and right recognize that health insurance companies are immoral/evil/should-be-illegal, but there’s not equivalent support for the one actual solution to the problem, socialized medicine. Americans, especially conservatives, have been brainwashed so badly that even when they recognize a problem, they can’t recognize the obvious solution - which means all they can do is be mad about it and lash out. The archetype of the “vigilante hero” who enacts simple solutions is so ingrained in the culture’s fiction, that becomes appealing in reality, but it leaves the problem entirely untouched. And I think that’s part of Trump’s appeal - people see him, perversely, as a vigilante hero, but instead of solving the problem, he actually makes it worse (which just makes people more angry and in turn more likely to vote for Trump or other authoritarians posing as populists).
Yes. They tend think the problem is some greedy, corrupt fat cats, not the existence itself of health insurance. The system just it what it is to them, like water coming out of the tap or roads somehow gwtting fixed and repaved.
And of course, most Muricans know so little about other countries that they have no idea how much worse our Healthcare system is, in large part because of insurance (and of the privatization and financiaization of so much else in that system).
^^^all. of. that.^^^
i don’t know if it is the decline in education, the rise of right wing propaganda broadcasting, or some combination with bad faith actors wanting to see just how far this dystopia can be pushed. you (and @Shuck) have got it right… the magas don’t know what is making them soooo angry, but if the bad faith actors tell them it is “teh libruls”, or you, or me… well, then that’s who “done 'em wrong”.
they won’t know what hit 'em when it - inevitably - crashes down upon all of us!
Just moments ago I checked out the Midnight Pals to see if Luigi had turned up there yet. Alas, no.
That’s it, isn’t it? I make the mistake of assuming the right views the problem the same as the left: as a systemic problem, where people are reduced to lashing out at the symptom due to the inability to address the issue through an uncorrupted, representative government. Instead they think it’s an individual problem, where if only the CEO would settle for slightly less money, it would all be fine - and they completely ignore what a health insurance company is and does, fundamentally. Ugh, it’s just layers of ignorance, each of which seems impenetrable.
Lakeland woman threatens insurance company, says ‘Delay, Deny, Depose’: police
A Lakeland woman was charged Tuesday after police said she ended a call to an insurance company with the words, “Delay, Deny, Depose.”
In an arrest affidavit, the Lakeland Police Department said officers were contacted by the FBI on Tuesday, Dec. 10 regarding an alleged threat made over the phone.
I’m going through a minor kerfuffle over an insurance claim myself. I think I missed my chance to call my ins rep sounding suitably outraged and have it do any good though.
Following President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, AI appears to be the source of some posts that incorrectly claim former presidents also pardoned relatives.
I do not envy historians who, in future years, will try to figure out just what the hell actually went on during this time period.
I sometimes see people from other countries talking about how individualistic America is, but I think they really have no idea, especially with the right wing, just how deep it goes.
To them, everything is done by individuals, success is all about individual merit and failure is all about individual failings. The only time they don’t see individuals is when they see “those people” - the ‘bad’ individuals. They’re not successful, so they have no merit and must be bad and therefore aren’t even worth considering as individuals.
Meanwhile they’ll rant against ‘the wealthy elite’ and yet fawn all over people like Trump and Musk and RFK Jr and so on. Elect them based on promises to tear down the system and eliminate all the agencies and departments that actually get things done and instead replace them with … you guessed it, individuals.
So naturally, to them, if an entire industry is awful, and one company in that industry is especially awful … well, there is no industry, there is no company, it’s that one guy’s fault, the CEO, he’s a ‘bad’ individual.
The left has it’s own weirdness about individuality, but it’s usually much more about personal expression and getting the system to encourage individual empowerment - usually. But the way that so many are cheering this on shines a spotlight on some problems with the left view of individualism too.
Of course, we have a long cultural history of ‘rugged individualist frontiersmen’, celebrities and stars, hero stories. And the way all history is taught is to basically believe that Christopher Columbus went out on a rowboat by himself one day and discovered America all on his own, Lewis and Clark took a walk and explored it by themselves, and Washington marched up and single-handedly defeated the British army.
As if any kind of organization, community, or collectivism is inherently anti-American.
The court came to the conclusion that a former Zurich public prosecutor involved in bringing the case was biased.
[…]
The German lawyer Eckart Seith was accused of economic espionage and violations of banking law because he allegedly obtained internal documents from the Swiss bank J. Safra Sarasin and passed them on to German investigators.
[…]
“The Federal Court has validated the fact that journalists can take certain risks if they pursue a goal of public interest and demonstrate diligence,” said the journalist’s lawyer, Mr. Soussi.
[…]
“Your child still has a lot of difficulty with all autism-related needs,” Optum wrote. “Your child still needs help, but it does not appear that your child will improve enough to end ABA.”
Genius! “It looks like this therapy will not cure your child’s autism. So we are denying it.”
Who invented the light bulb? (I mean, aside from Sir Joseph Swan, Humphry Davy, James Lindsey, John Star, and others, of course.) Why good old Thomas Edison, working completely alone by himself in a backroom workshop, and completely disconnected from anyone else. Other engineers? Building off of the work of other inventors? Why no, of course not – where on Earth would you get such a silly idea? He pulled it all off on his own, simply by lifting himself up by his bootstraps. Oh, and of course he did it without math or any of that other education stuff.
I’m making up the specific words, of course, but that’s pretty much the story I’ve heard my entire life, including from some teachers who should have damn well known better.