Love that the entire internet, left, right, authoritarian, liberal, and everyone in-between came out to say “lol, get rekt, oligarch.” Nothing I’ve ever seen has been as unifying as this. Running for office under the banner of beheading CEOs might sincerely get you elected.
I think the powers that be underestimate our thirst for justice. This is the closest thing to justice for the rich we’ve seen in - maybe our lives?
I don’t want to live in a world of vigilante justice but this kind of thing is inevitable when the system fails us for as long as it has.
As a Brazilian living in Rio de Janeiro (golden handcuff effect), I highly agree. My country sucessfully improved human rights but as a collateral effect, gov’t refuses to build more jails so jail overcrowding resulted in de facto decriminalization of theft, and police releasing criminals just a pair of hours they get caught - and nowadays cops can’t even slap a scumbag in the face because our more important TV channel witch-hunts anyone who does anything that remotely resembles a potentially mild human rights violantion without even making questions to the parts involved, so we who live in the part of the city controlled by the government sometimes try to bring some vigilante justice… out of despair!
As someone that could probably best be described as center-left (guillotine oligarchs yes, UBI yes, abolition of private property and free markets no), I do dare say that not a single common person on the right likes the billionaires either. It’s just that their side of the political isle has been co-opted by the billionaires even worse than the “left” side because being anti-tax and anti-regulation is more useful to billionaires than pro-tax and pro-regulation.
guillotine oligarchs yes, UBI yes
That’s called center left now? I thought that was far left.
Center left is what we used to have after WWII.
Far left is what we worked for during the labour movement. Or so I thought.
If you aren’t working towards the establishment of Socialism, you can hardly be called “far left.”
Getting rid of the oligarchs and implementing UBI would be the first step before you nationalize key industries and introduce worker co-ops.
Imo both above is what I call far left without the whole flip the game board and starting again, in my experience saying that really scares people.
Capitalists can’t be ousted by asking nicely, that happens with revolutionary pressure. Since you can’t do step 1, UBI would only come alongside austerity measures as a way to “simplify government” and erode social programs. You also can’t translate that to nationalizing key industries either, let alone worker coops. We have hundreds of years of history telling us this.
Secondly, revolution isn’t “flipping the gane board and starting again,” it’s a wresting of control from Capitalists and establishing a new state owned and run by the working class, in its interests. Industry must be preserved and carried forward, and that doesn’t include immediately siezing all industry but doing so with respect to the degree that sectors and entities have developed and established effective internal planning, making markets less efficient vectors for growth and public ownership and central planning superceding it.
You also can’t translate that to nationalizing key industries either, let alone worker coops. We have hundreds of years of history telling us this.
I don’t agree with this. Worker coops exists in many places in Europe, and in said continent, some key industries are heavily controlled by the government.
In my country, Canada, we socialized healthcare without any revolution.
Down south, they had the labour movement that gave us the 40 hour week, the weekend and labour laws all throughout unionization and putting pressure on the capitalist class without “revolutionary pressure”, unless unionization is what you mean by revolutionary pressure. If so, then I agree.
You’re ignoring that these advancements in labor movements came as concessions from the bourgeoisie in the context of trying to prevent what happened in Russia from happening in Canada and the US.
You’re thinking eu not us. Overton window shifts in the us
There’s a funny hodgepodge of ideology here… “Guillotine oligarchs” sounds pretty cool, invokes the French Revolution, which was radical left, at the time. But then the unwillingness to abolish private property is either an erroneous conflation of “private” and “personal” or an unwillingness to actually change the system that produces the oligarchs.
It’s like bailing out the boat but when someone says “patch the hole” your like “but we need the hole!”
No, it’s more like I know we are not ready to have the patch the hole conversation.
I rather bail out the boat and during that time, when people slowly realize that these solutions work and have merit, and when people stop being scared of the word socialism, then it would be pragmatic to talk about patching the hole.
Before that, talking about patching the hole might actually be counter productive as most people don’t have critical thinking and would be turned off by “radical” solutions.
The biggest issue with implementing socialism today imo is people not realizing the solutions can be beneficial. I rather focus on socialists solutions that are “low hanging fruit” so people warm up to the idea.
Yes you have to consider who you’re talking to but I think a lot of us are ready to talk about patching the hole.
As a radical leftist I’m certainly not against bailing the boat, I just acknowledge that this is a temporary solution. Like, minimum wage needs to be high enough that people can work a reasonable number of hours, afford rent, and still have time to read Marx.
The minimum wage hike is still important, it’s just not the end game. If you’re saying you’re not interested in patching the hole, that sounds like a problem. If you’re saying “this hole won’t be patched for a while, but some day we’ll get there. In the meantime, bail like hell.” then, we are comrades.
Private property ≠ personal property. Private property is mostly owned by businesses and corporations, not a person.
As we can see in the US, housing should never be private property, since the number of units that have sat empty for at least 12 months outnumbers our homeless population by a factor of over 70:1 counting all residential types (apartments, condos, duplexes.) If you only count single family detached homes, those still outnumber the homeless population by a factor of 30:1
The left is not pro “all private property abolished”. Only " all private property of the means of production "
Or, when someone says “abolish private property” they’re not talking about your toothbrush.
In this context, private property is the stuff you can use to generate capital. Personal property is your toothbrush, your phone, clothes, furniture, bike, car, house etc.
If you own a second house for rental income, that’s private property. The house you just live in is personal property.
Not all second homes are private property necessarily. If you work out of it then it’s personal property, like if you’re using it as a vacation rental and doing all the cleaning and maintenance yourself. If you hire someone else to do the work for you then it becomes private property. My preferred way of explaining the distinction is that private property is akin to absentee ownership, while personal property is stuff that is in active use by you personally.
if you’re using it as a vacation rental and doing all the cleaning and maintenance yourself. If you hire someone else to do the work for you then it becomes private property
Do you guys even listen to yourself? This makes zero sense.
How can I better explain it to you in a way you will understand?
Yes, they are. Because by destroying the market, you also destroy the toothbrush making machines, and kill the toothbrush makers. Have fun eating the rich, but don’t complain when they end up stuck between your theeth.
When you have no idea what you’re talking about, you should simply say nothing.
I commented on a politics@lemmy.world post about a bunch of CEOs of publicly traded companies endorsing Kamala Harris saying that it hurts her campaign more than it helps and I got downvoted and had people replying to me saying “um, actually most people look up to CEOs, you’re the one out of touch.” I’m feeling pretty vindicated rn.
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree with you.
Same goes for the Cheney support thing. Felt pretty out of touch to me and I’m not even an American so idk how I get it and the presidential candidate who 1) is American and 2) has a truckload of money being used for voter research, did not.
He’s not even an oligarch. He’s the oligarchs’ toadie.
If this reaches the real oligarchs, we might see some change—and backlash but backlash is inevitable if before real change.
“Running for office under the banner of beheading CEOs might sincerely get you elected.”
Found my quote of the year.
I couldn’t agree more, every Trump supporter I’ve seen or talked to is just gleeful about this. Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Oldschool, it doesn’t matter, everyone in the 99% loves this. The day Brian Thompson was shot put a smile on the face of America.
That’s the one enemy everyone has in common. We need more like those.
It could be the one thing that heals the country.
What? The politics of right / liberal free market capitalism creates those! Did anyone read Marx and Piketty?
Everyone except the sh.itjust.works mods who keep tripping over themselves to blabber about how he was such a great man and should be respected for his hard work and stuff.
Ninja edit: wrong instance
I’ve spent 10 minutes searching and came up empty. Any links?
Never mind I got my instances mixed up. https://sh.itjust.works/u/imaqtpie
Dude’s just a communist, and I mean that literally, trying to reconcile the world as it currently is with the way they want it to be. They blame the system, not the man. And there’s definitely an argument to be made there, but I’m too busy reveling
Except the CEOs would have you beheaded first.
Wow I think this is the first time I’ve seen this meme template used so appropriately.
Are people losing their minds, though? I thought the reaction was pretty muted. There was some celebration, to be sure, but I think that is a pretty rational response.
People seem to be losing their minds in a very positive way
Over 100 Americans have died from diabetes since this guy was shot. Where are the headlines for all of them? Does the fact that they were murdered by a system instead of an individual make their deaths less noteworthy?
I mean to be fair we’re all here clicking on this one to cheer at the guy. News organizations are going to run stories that get them clicks. While we may consider his death important and noteworthy, none of us are going to click and read an article about how Joe Random died from his heart failure or diabetes.
Maybe not, but we absolutely click on an article detailing just what the fuck e.g. the government is actually going to do about it.
More Americans die every year because of lack of access to medical care than from all of our wars combined.
We have people like the Joker who give us philosophical questions about our civilization but we’ve yet to see a billionaire use their infinite money and resources to dress up in a suit and mask, fight crime and build a fancy car or jet with exotic weapons to fight real life villains.
we’ve yet to see a billionaire use their infinite money and resources to dress up in a suit and mask, fight crime and build a fancy car or jet with exotic weapons to fight real life villains.
That’s a good thing, though. They may make for great movie and comic book fodder, but in real life, superheroes are pretty much just cops with fewer rules: rather than doing anything about the underlying causes of crime, they just beat up symptoms and theoretical bogeymen.
With his vast resources, Bruce Wayne could reduce crime by 75%+ by investing in prevention, but he prefers beating up people, most of whom are low level goons who probably turned to crime out of desperation, a lack of better options, or varying levels of coercion if not downright brainwashing by the main villains and their middle managers.
Batman would TOTALLY beat up a ton of entry level employees who AREN’T at fault as well as the CEO if insurance profiteering was illegal.
bruce wayne does in fact fight crime with money too. But it’s not enough, so he also needs to be the batman.
Yeah? What exactly does he spend on that diminishes the underlying causes of crime?
Does he provide housing for the unhoused?
Does he provide food for the food insecure?
Does his company provide a livable wage and reasonable benefits for every employee?
Does the hospital his dad worked at provide care that is free at the point of service?
Does he provide for schools with no cops to initiate the middle school to prison pipeline?
Does he pay for high quality pro bono legal aid for those who would otherwise be steamrolled by representatives of a system that incentivizes convictions regardless of guilt?
Or does he just cut a check to a Dickensian orphanage once in a while?
Um in the cartoon yes he was a huge philanthropist iirc.
yes to all of those…
I’m gonna have to insist on sources for it all if I’m gonna believe you…
That’s what I’ve been saying. Or they could at least hire and outfit someone to do it. These people don’t have any imagination at all.
To be fair, the Joker was a psychopathic murderer. He wasn’t just laying out deep questions.
“the Joker was a psychopathic murderer”
So a CEO then.
No one is losing their minds. Most are quite satisfied with the news
Tell that to the police who decided they actually are going to try this time to find the killer. Tell that to the news juicing the story. They care and they will use your money to do something about it.
Good thing they are out of practice then /s
deleted by creator
Then I advise you stop watching their bullshit news network and find other sources for news. Maybe more grassroots media.
Pretending people don’t watch or shouldn’t watch mainstream media doesn’t change what I said. Also, alot of presumptions to assume I don’t have good trustable news sources (not these guys for sure).
Point is, people watch it and they are being fed a juiced up story and worth recognizing that so that you can continue to operate on the same reality as everyone else. At least enough to not be surprised.
One death is a tragedy, 16m deaths is a statistic.
One ceo death is a targeted assassination. Multiple ceo deaths is a revolution.
16m deaths is a profit margin
16M deathllars
Good job he died really innit, cos those medical bills would’ve been a bit pricey!
I’d be willing to bet his health package was mostly paid for as part of his compensation.
Only mostly?
Repeat after me: healthcare should not be profit driven…
Healthcare should not be profit driven.
You asked me to.
I’m glad that I live in a country with socialized healthcare.
I’m glad for you too. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if my parents had stayed in one of three countries we lived in before settling in the US.
Insurance is just a bad model for healthcare.
I don’t have any problem with hospital workers being fairly compensated. They have difficult jobs, and doctors are highly skilled and have expensive student loans to pay off. But the cost of care in the US is astronomical compared to any other industrialized nation.
deleted by creator
Kamala bragged on the campaign trail about how many CEO endorsements she had. That worked great!
deleted by creator
Yes, she made it very clear that she was the institutional favorite.
I was thinking today that I hate how emotionless I’ve become about this sort of stuff. I wasn’t this way 8 years ago.
Are you confused? CEOs are like the cheerleaders of capitalism, right liberals got to love them?
It’s a good reminder that the people who oppress us have names and addresses.
And we know their names and surnames, especially for CEOs.
Luckily, bullets outnumber evil CEOs.
Today I decided to collect a small mountain of Facebook posts of people who had claims denied by United Healthcare prior to 2024. I’m not shocked but also I am.
Where’s my pitchfork?
Step right up! Pitchforks for sale! Only $79.95 plus shipping and handling. Financing available in three easy payments of $28.17!
(some restrictions may apply, offer not valid in Florida, Texas or Puerto Rico. Pitchfork LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ragebait Incorporated, licenced and incorporated in Delaware. Side affects of pitchforks include insomnia, narcolepsy, vomiting, diarrhea, and CEO death and inprisonment. Pitchfork LLC and Ragebait Incorporated not responsible for shit. Payment plan interest rate 32.7% compounded daily.)
Is it bad that I read that last section in the super fast barely intelligible voice they use in medication ads?
Uhh, correct me if I’m wrong, but the total population of America is 335m. If 16m people are dying DAILY, your entire country will be dead by Christmas.
If a 20th of the population dropped dead overnight, I would like to think that any nation would panic.
They may mean tomorrow in the metaphorical sense. Like “the world of tomorrow” kind of sense.
It also could just be an arbitrary/hyperbole number, to show how little the lives of the many mater to the news in comparison to the ceo.
deleted by creator
The number isn’t really the point though, if it’s the case of a metaphor. The trolly problem is usually set up with 1v5 people, but it’s just as arbitrary and hypothetical. The trolly problem could just as easily be set up as 1v100, because the actual number of people on the tracks is to a degree irrelevant to the morality of the question.
This probably isn’t any different.
150 years from now, 100% of us will die of something.
The post never said 16m will die daily. It just says tomorrow. The 16m is probably the number of customers this guy’s company has and denies coverage.
Even more specifically than that, it’s just telling you tomorrow that 16m with a preventable health issue will die, not when or how.
Not correcting you, just adding a little clarification for how i read it
Yes they are telling you tomorrow.
Shit. Maybe I should stay home tomorrow if there’s going to be a purge.
It’s about 9k a day. That’s just all deaths. Medically treatable and avoidable deaths is 624 a day. According to the only numbers I can find, but it’s wonky, so I’ll grant you it may not be precise, but it’s probably a good ballpark number.
Even if it’s one person a day that dies without necessity of a preventable and treatable cause that universal healthcare would have fixed, that’s a lot of deaths. And it’s more than one CEO who likely thought very seriously about the question ‘‘is curing anyone a good business model?’’
Found the explanation:
https://lemmy.world/comment/13802091
Still slightly hyperbole, but somewhat grounded.
Not dead. Just whatever procedure, prescription, or test that was applied for was rejected.
It’s not hyperbole, it’s just wrong to say they died. 16 million denials is bad enough.
The wording of the meme definition isn’t fully correct, but the spirit of it is.
Nice, this was what I was expecting!
I don’t agree with the post, and I think stretching the stats beyond meaning is more harmful than helpful.
Now, if you were to frame this as 16m people NOT being treated for preventable illnesses that would likely be treated in most western countries, that is a damning statistic. It indicates that people are walking around ill/injured for no reason other than greed, draining hospital resources further. It also indicates a lack of quality in care, since those doctors that could be getting their reps in learning to administer specific drugs or procedures don’t get to because “insurance says no lol”.
Removed by mod
This might be the most accurate version of the original scene done in real life.
Who’s losing their mind? I find this based as hell.
Tim Walz made some gross tweet mourning this guy and calling it a tragic loss. Kinda underlines the whole “Democratic establishment is out of touch” line we’ve been hearing since the election
To be fair, the lead filled CEO was from Walz’s state. He is kind of required to make a statement and he couldnt exactly say “fuck that guy”.
He definitely could have said that. If the party of morons followed that line they would have won the damn election.
