The murder of a health insurance executive sparked a passionate response. Will it spark something else?
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It seems as though the moment has come for us to have a talk about shooting the CEOs of companies that suck consumers dry in pursuit of even larger profits and bonus payments for executives.
That’s wrong (the shooting, of course, not the profiteering… maximizing profits is just US capitalism at work).
Granted, a lot of Americans don’t feel the same way. Within 24 hours of UnitedHealthcare posting a message about the murder of its CEO Brian Thompson on Facebook, the public’s response was rather one-sided.
More than 37,500 of the 42,000 reactions were “laughing” emojis.
That may just be related to the way health insurers do business. They make money by denying claims, i.e., killing their customers (which is legal in that case).
In fact, in some ways, it might be more appropriate to call them wealth ensurers, in that they make sure that shareholders and executives get rich.
Obviously, violence is not the answer — duct-taping a credit card to your body pre-surgery is.
Still, that’s obviously no reason to kill someone like Thompson. What’s next? Somebody taking a swing at the boss of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield because the insurer announced last month that it would no longer cover the costs of anesthesia for surgical procedures that exceed a certain length?*
Obviously, violence is not the answer — duct-taping a credit card to your body pre-surgery is.
Then again, maybe this rage is not just directed at health insurance companies. After all, they aren’t the only ones leeching Americans dry, depriving them of choices, or treating them as the product rather than the consumer.
Just about everybody is doing that.
And that’s why corporate profits and stock prices are soaring, and why the wealth of America’s billionaires nearly doubled to $5.5 trillion dollars in the four years since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Did the wealth of regular Americans double during that time?
LOL, clearly not.
However, that is no reason to take one of the nation’s 400 million firearms and turn them on one of the captains of industry responsible for this.
We are better than that!
The times when the ultra-rich oppressors of common people were marched to the guillotine while peasants threw spoiled veggies at them (the “laughing” emoji of the French Revolution) have come and gone.
Now, we have better ways of holding them to account than angry mobs.
However, it’s important to remember that, according to the rules that bought-and-paid-for lawmakers, lobbyists, and lawyers have created, killing regulations that protect the health and environment of Americans is perfectly legal, while killing CEOs is not.
Specifically, that means laws, regulations, and the courts.
To be fair, these corporations and billionaires give billions of dollars to political candidates to ensure that the politicians do their bidding. These same aggregators of wealth spend billions of dollars more on lobbyists who help write those laws, and untold sums on top-notch lawyers, just in case all of the above fail and one of those plebeians dares to sue them.
And, as for government regulations, the world’s richest man wants to make sure that those won’t be a problem much longer… and he even got the same plebeians to cheer him on. In fact, deregulation seems to be something that they, corporate executives, and the nation’s billionaires agree on.
However, it’s important to remember that, according to the rules that bought-and-paid-for lawmakers, lobbyists, and lawyers have created, killing regulations that protect the health and environment of Americans is perfectly legal, while killing CEOs is not.
So, holster those guns, Americans, before you do something rash.
The last thing we need right now is for one of those angry young white men who want to become famous and go out in a blaze of glory to think that he would be viewed as a modern-day Robin Hood for offing the head of a greedy company instead of being condemned for shooting up elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, churches, malls, and movie theatres.
He should certainly not pay attention to how Wednesday’s attacker is being celebrated online.
However, we have confidence that Americans won’t try to mete out vigilante justice and go after the corporations and executives that are responsible for making their lives miserable.
Of course, those executives seem to have a bit less faith in the pacific nature of their customers.
According to The New York Times, “Dozens of chief security officers from Fortune 500 corporations around the world joined a video call on Wednesday afternoon … to discuss additional protective measures for executives moving around the area.”
Clearly, putting the fear of death into these executives and billionaires is forcing them to take the appropriate steps: putting people above profits beefing up their security.
Naturally, we hope that Wednesday’s shooting will remain an isolated incident.
The last thing we need at a time when so many Americans are frustrated by their lack of financial security and opportunities is to direct their anger toward the very people who are responsible for the situation.
Because these titans of commerce don’t want to worry about their physical safety. They want to figure out how they can dismantle the remaining safeguards that prevent them from doing whatever they wish and exert even more control over the lives of Americans.
*After this article had been written, Anthem reversed its new policy. It’s unclear whether that’s because its executives are scared.
