. . .
K “Takes one back to that timeless question in the first year philosophy class. If a killer has in the past and continues now to issue and execute death warrants against your grandchildren and the legal and political system block and preclude each and every possible means of resistance or redress, are you morally obligated to dispatch the killer?”
J “I agree with the verdict of the Internet.”
. . .
K “I have never seen one issue so unite peoples of all races, colors, creeds, classes and backgrounds so quickly. Every caste except the Ruling Class and their Parvenu PMC errand boys and girls are united.”
J “People have been using the word ‘mandate’ recently. This incident elicited the most resounding mandate in recent years.”
. . .
J “A member of the Silent Majority appears to have used a silencer to silence corporate violence.”
K “They say it only takes one butterfly.”
. . .
J “If a presidential candidate campaigned on a promise to deport all health insurance company executives on the afternoon of January 20, she or he would garner 250,000,000 votes.”
K “In many Native cultures, the sociopaths and the psychopaths are readily identified and banished from the group/tribe/clan. Banishing them is a more tidy way of dispatching a killer.”
J “That would work, but how would it work?”
. . .
K “I presented my appeal to a state court judge with an IQ of 105 dripping wet while standing on his tip toes who seemed to be imposing some type of perverse Chevron deference when he said that a private insurance company exists to tell the public when they should be reimbursed for their necessary medical care. The appellate court used arrogance to hide their ignorance and were hostile when they were not indifferent. The courts have failed. There is no recourse.”
J “And the judge surely has health care coverage with $25 deductible and is able to remind the insurance adjuster that he or she is a judge and expects the claim to be reimbursed in full.”
K “Yup. The judges are part of the problem not part of the solution. One of the adjusters for BC/BS blurted out on the recorded line that she could get fired immediately for saying to me that they are directed to deny all claims and then force the patient to fight back.”
J “You should have said that you are a judge. You have the skills and the talent and the acumen for a judge; most judges do not.”
. . .
K “Are the folks with the pitch forks finally uniting with the people with the burning torches?”
. . .
[See “Murder and Social Murder: The Case of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson” by Yves Smith, the recipient of the Seventh Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2022 (May 9, 2022), in “www.NakedCapitalism.com” dated December 5, 2024.]
[See the e-commentary at Fight Or Flight In The Face Of Fear? A Principled Reaction To Stand (November 30, 2020) and “If I Get Diagnosed With Stage 4 Cancer . . . .” (December 13, 2021).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
“Those who make peaceful revolution [resolution] impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy (Ted could have polished/improved/balanced/cadenced the statement by saying “peaceful resolution” rather than “peaceful revolution”.)
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” Frederick Douglass
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did. It never will.” Frederick Douglass
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? … The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If … if … We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation … We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918 – 1956
“The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them are over. The moment the Men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these Men who wanted to be left alone fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. True terror will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone.” Author Unknown
“I’m starting to think the ppl that got more upset about Oct 7 than the preceding oppression/subsequent genocide of Palestinians, & the ppl who are more upset by the murder of a healthcare CEO than the systematic killing of 10,000s of ppl via denial of healthcare, are the same ppl.” Rohan Grey
e-commentary 