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The case of Luigi Mangione puts people in a bind.
It doesn’t put media in a bind; the media’s covering CEO ass as fast as it can. About Brian Thompson, Ken Klippenstein writes, “The coverage seems more like a knighthood than journalism.”
Our government is covering CEO butt with both hands as well. In a tweet with nearly 2 million views, Luke Goldstein notes this about the state of New York’s response:
From the linked Politico article:
State officials want to calm the nerves of New York City’s business elite after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson sent shockwaves through the corporate world.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will broker a virtual meeting Tuesday with state law enforcement officials and about 175 corporate representatives to discuss sharing security resources.
I wonder how many denied claimants Ms. Hochul has calmed. There are so many, I’m sure she’s talked to a few.
About “shar[ed] security resources,” here’s what that means:
[Kathy] Wylde [Partnership for New York City president and the business world’s contact person for this effort] told Playbook that the discussion will include the State Police as well as state Homeland Security and counterterrorism officials to show how intelligence can be shared with corporate security.
Homeland Security. For a lone gunman murder with no terror affiliations. It seems we have a home-grown federal police and its full force will be at their disposal — nice for the CEO class to be so cared about.
It Really Is Class War
But this piece isn’t about the hypocrisy of the state:
Kathy Hochul has failed to keep New Yorkers safe, CEOs or otherwise. pic.twitter.com/zgSAGyn6Z5
— Reza Chowdhury (@RezaC1) December 14, 2024
It’s about how right the state is to take this man’s death seriously.
Protecting the Opulent Minority
Bare fact: The US was founded on class war. By “founded on,” I mean from the start. James Madison:
In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. [The Senate] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.
The country has since suffered under the war of the classes (or the “orders,” as Madison called them). Jeffersonian democracy was opposed to the elitism of the Federalists. Over the next decades, the franchise was gradually extended, peacefully or not, until after the great Civil War (whose gains for Southern Blacks were soon reversed), the very rich became the great dominant class.
But for a brief hiatus caused by the national pain of the Great Depression and its happier aftermath, the rich have held sway ever since.
"What the Hell are they so Angry About?!"
Exhibit B:
Here we take a look at the average American's wages, in real terms (inflation-adjusted)Wages have been falling, relentlessly, for decades https://t.co/E63zOa4tIi pic.twitter.com/pNGtDHAe2o
— infra 🏛️⌛️ (@infraa_) December 8, 2024
What’s worse, their power is unlikely to be taken away. Money controls our politics and our laws, more so every day. And the benefits of that control are, well, opulent.
So yes, of course, the CEOs should accept the cover and protection of a state that enables them and which they control. I strongly advise more of it. They should, in fact, have armed guards everywhere.
Why I’m in Favor of Billionaire Protection
There are two reasons to advocate seeing billionaires and their CEO operatives ostentatiously and aggressively protected.
First, each American can decide for her or himself whether murder is wrong or not. That decision comes with a catch, however:
- If you support social murder — death at a distance executed by corporate greed — you also have to be fine with retaliation. Justifying one type of murder justifies both.
- If you think all murder is wrong, you should then be strongly opposed to state-sanctioned death, including by corporate bodies who turn death into profit.
You can’t support corporate killing and oppose its deadly response. I myself oppose murder of all kinds. So I want our billionaires and their deadly corporate consiglieri very well guarded. Visibly, grandly, over-ambitiously guarded.
Why? For the second reason.
I want people to see with their eyes who their rulers are, to know without anyone having to launch into speech or explanation. To know by looking and feeling. To know in their bones.
Because class consciousness, folks. Or truth in advertising.
Published with the permission of Thomas Neuburger. A version of this piece originally appeared in his newsletter God’s Spies.
