By Eric Le Roy
Content 21+ As I argued recently in a blog about History, there is a difference between explaining and advocating. There is a difference between understanding and justifying. Recently, an American UNC (United Health Care) CEO, Brian Thompson, was shot dead in the streets of New York by an Ivy League college graduate named Liugi Mangione.
A lamentable, but simple, case of murder, right? Lock the offender up, burn some candles for the victim, Merry Christmas. In the United States, murder is as common as a baseball game in July.
Alas, it’s not that easy to dispense with. Amazing as it may seem, there has been a backlash resulting in a great deal of unanticipated support for the murderer. “Jeepers Creepers!” you must be shouting. “What’s America coming to, now that perpetrators of street crimes can be cast as national heroes?” Well, part of the equation is that Americans don’t like insurance companies. Here is a quote taken at random from a post on AOL (a Far Left outfit that regularly red flags my posts – to no avail because I keep hammering away until I get my point across):
“Under Thompson, UnitedHealth Care profits increased by 12% only a year after Thompson took charge by habitually denying claims to seniors who had suffered debilitating falls or strokes. Under Thompson UnitedHealth used an AI system to automate the denial of medical services (90% error rate), resulting in the denial of necessary and covered treatments. Thompson himself was sued for insider trading by a firefighter’s pension fund. None of the above justifies the murder of a human being. By the same token, what justifies the suffering of thousands for corporate profit and individual enrichment?”
I could have chosen one of thousands with basically the same message. There has also been an explosive trial which reached a verdict a couple days ago. At stake was the acquittal or conviction of an ex-marine who came to the rescue of passengers on a New York subway train that were being threatened with death by a lunatic who had boarded the train and started behaving wildly. Everyone was terrified until Daniel Perry intervened and got the perp, one Jordan Neely, in a choke hold. Neely, who was ripped on drugs at the time, died during the encounter. The cops came, interviewed witnesses, and told Perry he was free to go.
But the plot thickens. Perry is white and Neely was black. Now, please try to understand the climate of contemporary America (because I do, having been born there and lived there most of my life). Had these men been of the same color, OR had Neely been the one to ‘kill’ Perry, the ‘case’ would never have come to trial. Ah… but it did. You see, in America these days, everything is about race and gender. So, disregarding the conclusions drawn by the police, a black District of Attorney named Alvin Bragg brought the case to trial in an attempt to convict Perry of murder. Perry was acquitted. Naturally, screams of racism erupted from the Black side of the courtroom and in the streets outside.
A confrontation between a person who happens to be white and one who happens to be black, resulting in a bad outcome for the black individual, must be about racism, correct?
Anyway, Perry was set free by the jury and now is regarded as a national hero by most Americans. By others, he is a vicious racist supported by a racist system. Go on, choose sides, I am not here to argue about that.
What is interesting, however, is the way in which two dramatic examples of what can be labeled ‘vigilante justice’ have emerged. It is pretty clear why a huge majority supported Perry, claiming (and they are right all the way) that his intervention had nothing to do with race. In the New York subway, you don’t see ‘race’. There isn’t enough time. You see danger. A lot of it. Moreover, random, dare I say casual – violence is on the upsweep because the authorities refuse to crack down on it. In this case, a man who knew how to deal with a murder-threatening maniac just happened to be on the scene.
It is almost impossible to imagine this sort of thing happening in Beijing or Shanghai. Or Singapore. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t support Xi (the Chinese leader) or totalitarianism. Not at all. But, as a Ukrainian woman married to a guy in China told me recently, in Shanghai, etc, you can leave your telephone on the table of a fast food joint while you go to the toilet and when you get back it will still be there. Why? Because the kind of street crime that rifles through American cities like gunfire – literally and figuratively – is simply not allowed in China. Cameras are everywhere. Stop it before it starts – that’s apparently the motto. And even if there is great repression of public expression of political opinion – which I deplore – at least the citizens feel safe walking down the street at night. In America this is impossible. Even, as it turns out, in the daytime.
Let’s discuss the murder of Brian Thompson. As a CEO (as the post I quoted accurately states) this man – and others like him – was in the business of securing vast profits for himself and his shareholders at the expense of defenseless American citizens who had been conned into taking out these worthless policies. Why do I say worthless? Because the insurance companies have become experts at denying legitimate claims. Here are some relevant quotes from the McKennon Law Group (Newport Beach, California):
“Insurers make money when you pay in through premiums and copays, and they lose money when they pay out,” said Chuck Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Assn., which supports a Medicare-for-all insurance system. “So they do everything possible to deny claims.”
Try not to lose your cool. The system is designed to wear you down and to weed out the weak from the strong. An insurer has nothing to lose and everything to gain from putting barriers in your path.
Something to keep in mind: Insurers are so unhappy about paying claims that the percentage of premiums received they have to pay back to policyholders is known as the “medical loss ratio.” Seriously. To them, covering your healthcare is considered a financial loss.”
These are not quotes plucked out of a pile of pro and con statements. They represent the view of the vast majority of the American public who, by way, are equally outraged by the astronomical price of pharmaceuticals, another rapacious bunch of scoundrels who maximize profits above all else. A third object of the hatred of many Americans are banks.
All three of these corporations used to be ‘people-friendly’. When I was a college student in America, the banks treated you like royalty when you opened an account. YOU were the customer and it was up to THEM to make you happy. For years and years and years, I had no complaints about the services I received. In those days, when you got a decent job with a company which was investing in you long term (people did not flip-flop from job to job in those days), a family insurance policy was always available: you paid half, the company paid half. Dental care (for reasons I have never understood) was more. But if you needed help, the insurance companies played ball with you. And in those days, before the hoodlums and dopers came along to ruin everything, doctors would prescribe the medicine you needed. In other words, an old woman with chronic and agonizing back pain or arthritis could receive the pain medication she needed without some fucking shakedown being administered to see if she was an addict. Moreover, the prices were reasonable.
OKOKOK, we live in a more complicated world now. There is plenty of insurance fraud – people who fake injuries, stupid juries which award incredible sums for frivolous reasons, and the fact that the costs of medicine have gone up, up, up. Yes, we have more sophisticated and expensive technology. And yes, banking is a different industry than in the past – much more complicated, apparently.
But, while making allowances for all that, there must be reasons why so many people, especially in capitalist set-ups like the USA and the UK now loathe and despise these corporations. Shall we take a little litmus test? Let me say a few words – simple words – and let’s see how you react, positive or negative. OK, here goes: Freedom (Applause). Happiness (applause). Immigration (Hmmmm….mixed response). Motherhood (Hmmmmmmmm…..in the past this would have gained universal applause but now it is not so popular among certain feminists. Sexism, Racism, Fascism (Boooooo ! Nobody supports that.
Banks. Pharmaceuticals, Insurance companies. (Boooooooooooooooo! Hisssssssss! $&%^#%(^@ !!!!!
Everybody I know detests them. Maybe people are wrong; maybe the public just doesn;t get it. But maybe they do. Americans are so infuriated by these money-grubbing, heartless, mendacious corporations that they are now even ready to applaud murder in certain cases.
And that is a true shame. It is a shame when there is such a violent disconnect between the people and the organizations that are supposed to be there to help them. And what is worse is that, while they are taking your money – while banks nickel and dime you to death for simple services that were part of basic customer service in the past when they welcomed you as a valued customer; when your family doctor treated you as a friend, as opposed to today’s medical facilities where you are confronted with blank faces and lab coats and ‘physicians’ who walk in with a chart containing your info instead of actually looking at you; when universal automation has almost completely replaced the polite and helpful switchboard operator; when even in joints like McDonald’s the automated menu is replacing the kids and losers behind the counter; when everywhere you turn you are confronted not only with a world that DOESN’T CARE but with a world that very aggressively and unapologetically rubs it in your face that it doesn’t care….well guess what? Every now and then, as throughout history, the Peasants Revolt.
And then bigwigs cry foul and start screeching about the Rule of Law.
The world was never any good. But it is worse now in the dismissive and arrogant way people treat each other. Even in sports. As a lifelong fan, I have seen the big athletes go from polite sportsmen and women who treated their opponents with respect to a bunch of attention grabbing imbeciles who will do or say Anything just to increase the gate. And fill their own pockets.
Of all the things that have changed in the modern world – many, many, many of them for the good – the bad thing that stands out to me now, as an older man, is the snot-nosed, in-your-face, Fuck You arrogance with which corporations treat people. Nobody advocates violence and murder – at least I don’t. But I can put up with it, because this is the world that presents itself to me.
Daniel Penny is a hero. Liugi Mangione is now a murderer who has thrown his life away, but to some he is an ‘anti-hero’. Jordan Neely was a person whose family, now hoping to win a lawsuit in civil court, did not care enough about him to give him a home, yet now scream racism. Brian Thompson was collateral damage: a man, husband, and father who did not deserve to be slaughtered in the street – but a symbol nevertheless of a corrupt system that increasingly invites violent reprisal, even though such mayhem succeeds at nothing but further diminishing an already tarnished world of misery and greed.
I personally am not interested in being some kind of official advocate or influencer. I write blogs that express my opinion. But the main point I wish to get across today goes right back to where I started. Explaining is not Advocating. And Understanding is not Justifying.
Let the politicians and corporate apologists make their self-servicing yelps of dismay when things upset the applecart. As for me, I do nothing more than hold up a mirror.That’s what any real artist does: they don’t pontificate; they don’t advocate; they don’t seek to indoctrinate.
They hold aloft a mirror. A mirror to the world.
