Will shooting them all stop these corps stealing from the 99%?
I’m writing a dystopian novel called The Power Trip about 4 Stanford undergrads that build a MMORPS game where PLAYERS manipulate other players — MARKS — to do what they ‘suggest.’
In one scene, the fictional CEO of fictional HealthNet is shot to death on a street in San Francisco by a social activist who lost his parents in the Nipah outbreak of ’36 due to poor care at Stanford Hospital. I wrote this scene a decade ago, enraged by our healthcare system in the U.S.A., and was reviewing it as it played out in real life last Wednesday on a street in New York City with the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
And I’d like to tell you that I feel bad for his family that he was gunned down on a public street in broad daylight, but…
I really am conflicted on this one. Brian Thompson, the real life (though now dead) UnitedHealthcare CEO was not a benefit to society. He headed up an insurance company that kills people every day by limiting doctor care, drug pushing for big pharma, and denying claims with no foundation other than pure greed, destroying lives daily. He was a father, which makes him particularly dangerous because more like him in this country, on this planet will not help humanity thrive, but hurts our survival.
American’s have a SHORTER LIFE SPAN than China, Greece, United Arab Emirates, and 51 other nations on this planet. We are 55th in life expectancy because of the poor quality of our FOR PROFIT ‘healthcare’ system.
Was there another way to stop this CEO from hurting people than murdering him?
Not that I know of. And while I’m not an advocate of murder, unless you run a Power Trip on him to commit suicide, Brian Thompson wasn’t going to change his marauding ways.
Can’t sue him. Sue any major corp, and their stable of lawyers will tie you up in court until you or your organization can no longer afford representation for your case.
Can’t talk to him, convince him to do right by the patients who pay for his family, his lifestyle, and the politicians UnitedHealthcare supports. He exhibited his relentless greed, and clearly didn’t care about anyone outside his personal sphere.
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations are people too. In doing so, they expanded corporate rights to donate as much money, resources (lawyers), and lobbyists to whatever cause, and political agenda they wanted. Corporations control the politicians of this country. We are NOT “by the people, for the people.” The U.S. was started by oligarchs who convinced the rabble to fight their battle to avoid paying taxes to Britain.
The U.S.A. is now and likely has always been a totalitarian society ruled by oligarchs and the super wealthy who will do anything to get rich and stay rich. Brian Thompson’s estimated net worth at death was close to $50 million, which he made saving money for UnitedHealthcare by killing off patients. That $50M is public facing, not how much he likely had hidden in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
So, do we kill all the oligarchs wrecking this country?
- We can’t get rid of them legally. Our govt protects corporations and the executives who work for them, not the 99% of the rest of us in this country.
- We can’t convince them to become moral people who care about someone beyond themselves.
- We can’t elect politicians that will be ‘by the people, for the people’ when the oligarchs and wealthy corps are paying our representatives to create laws that divests them of all culpability to keep them rich and in power.
What to do with the greedy oligarchs like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Charles Koch, Harold Hamm, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Warren Buffet, and CEO’s like Dave Brown (CEO Xfinity), Gail Boudreaux (CEO of Anthem/Blue Cross), Patti Poppe (CEO of PG&E), Sarah Chavarria (CEO of Delta Dental), Michael L. Tipsord (CEO of State Farm Insurance), Thomas J. Wilson (CEO of Allstate Insurance), Gregory Adams (CEO Kaiser Permanente), David Cordani (CEO Cigna Health), Jason Hollar (CEO Cardinal Health), Mike Slubowski (CEO Trinity Health)…etc?
Would shooting them all stop these corporations from stealing from the 99% of the rest of us?
If it would lead to a more equitable system of government — ‘by the [majority of] people, for the [majority of] people,’ — is it then the ‘right thing to do’ to murder these people to change a corrupt system controlled by the greedy 1%?
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