While it’s very unlikely that someone has a definitive answer, this question popped into my head after the assassination of the UHC CEO and it’s been bothering me that I can’t shake off this feeling that more is likely to happen (maybe not in higher frequency but potential).
Usually I could provide counter-arguments to myself in a realism/(should I buy apples or oranges comparison) kind-of sense but this one I feel more unsure about.
I wish I had more diverse exp in systems analysis as these kinds of questions that linger in my head really irritates my OCD brain as I just want to know what’s the most likely answer.
Hopefully
As John F Kennedy said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
Either we fix this peacefully through the democratic process, or people are gonna riot.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
I’m a fan of this belief because it provides hope in that with the increase of peace and harmony, humanity could course-correct towards a realized utopia.
The publicized hope of increased violence is a scary indicator that we’re approaching closer to commonly associated fiction-based dystopias🫠
The publicized hope of increased violence is a scary indicator that we’re approaching closer to commonly associated fiction-based dystopias🫠
Honestly, I realized a few months ago that we’re already way into dystopia territory. It clicked for me when I read a news story explaining how there are people in Los Angeles that make it their business to rent old, beat up vans and RVs parked on the street for homeless people to live in, for several hundreds of dollars a month. I did a search and found another article about it, linked below. How much more dystopic can things get? In fact, any of the massive homeless encampments we’ve been seeing are already plenty dystopic.
Edit: oops, it seems I had left out the link - https://abc7.com/los-angeles-vanlords-rv-renters-rvs/13322319/
John F Kennedy said that at a time when the majority of Americans weren’t overweight, undereducated, overworked, utterly dependant on their cars (which need the roads maintained by the government to work), and addicted to their phones. I don’t think Americans have the physical or mental capability to wage an effective protest like what happened in the 20th century.
Considering the US (and most modern militaries) struggle against insurgencies and irregular militia (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam) there’s no reason to doubt the american public.
Much of the Vietcong were uneducated, underfed, impoverished rural farmers but they were a devastating force to GIs.
Give it a decade and people might become a lot leaner and a lot stronger though, I hope. Admittedly I don’t have a lot of faith in my compatriots but it could happen.
Luckily for us we’ve set things in motion to destroy most of the benefits that allowed us to live such a sheltered existence, so it doesn’t look like most of us are going to have much of a choice about it. This isn’t self sabotage, it’s a training montage.
Feels too good to be true. It’s only one shooting.
Now if some second evil CEO were unfortunately victimized, I might be tempted to call it a trend…
two is just a mere coincidence; but three would be the start a pattern or trend.
And if there were FIVE evil CEO’s suddenly victimized, why we could have a movement!
Are there even five evil ceos out there? Come on, be real.
spoiler
/insert_meme_about_making_question_too_easy
Well, there was that guy who took a pot shot at Trump, so if you count that, we’re already at two…
You make it sound like he didn’t successfully shoot him. Honestly if trump wasn’t so goddamn fidgety on stage I think he would be dead right now.
successful
Even your second sentence implies that he wasn’t. Not in his goal anyway.
It happened in Europe during the “years of lead”, mostly in Italia, France and Germany.
Skimming through [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_(Italy)#:~:text=The_Years_of_Lead_(Italian,political_terrorism_and_violent_clashes.), most of the attacks seemed to focus on politicians, police, and (disproportionately) members of the public.
A lot of the glee about the CEO murder is that his company’s actions are indefensible, and, as CEO he is responsible for them. It’s very difficult to say the same of the victims of the Years of Lead - many seem to be police, random members of the public, or other members of the same group. With the possible exception of some politicians, it’s hard to see how the victims were responsible for much.
Absolutely right. The aim at large was to free the masses from the grip of modern capitalism. The actual targets were mostly unlucky blokes.
I feel like victimized is the wrong word for someone reaching the find out part of fucking around.
It was tongue-in-cheek, along with “unfortunately”
But is it? This same year a kid was an inch or two away from making a bullet enter Trumps brain.
He’s not the CEO of a healthcare company, but he’s certainly at the helm of many companies, and will soon be president of the states.
Honestly, even if 100 CEOs or similar were mowed down I don’t know that I would think that meant we were headed any particular direction as a society, if they’re all done by a single person or group. Now, if many different unaffiliated people start making billionaire swiss cheese, even if it’s only 3 or 4, then I think we start to see a pattern at a societal level.
Of course, if that were to happen, they’ll take all the guns and start throwing people in reeducation camps and probably publicly executing sympathizers. Remember, the police exist with the main purpose of protecting that class. Any kind of class war is going to be met with overwhelming force that would rival any military conflict, and that’s before they start bringing in actual military if it got to that point.
Y’know, this comment started off trying to be playfully optimistic, and now I’m sad :(
You also have to keep in mind that both the police and military are “outsiders” to capitalists. They are often poor, and can side with the public. Capitalists rely on total obedience of the military and police, if that breaks, they’re done.
The whole “seizing guns” thing is a red herring. One general strike and no amount of guns will matter, capitalists need constant, increasing wealth. To not just lower their money but stop incoming money is death to them. Imagine every port, airport, train station, service industry business, etc, all with no workers.
They can call all the cops and infantry they want, those same people will constantly be asked to kill friends and family. The ones willing to do so will decrease in number until the inevitable toppling of the governing body.
A (former) leader of Japan was killed with a makeshift weapon. Imagine CEOs trying to dine out when any person in the kitchen staff could poison them.
Look to history for some answers.
The Denver Post had a opinion piece that talked about how America has seen something like this before.
The Gilded Age, the tumultuous period between roughly 1870 and 1900, was also a time of rapid technological change, of mass immigration, of spectacular wealth and enormous inequality. The era got its name from a Mark Twain novel: gilded, rather than golden, to signify a thin, shiny surface layer. Below it lay the corruption and greed that engulfed the country after the Civil War.
The era survives in the public imagination through still resonant names, including J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt; through their mansions, which now greet awestruck tourists; and through TV shows with extravagant interiors and lavish gowns. Less well remembered is the brutality that underlay that wealth — the tens of thousands of workers, by some calculations, who lost their lives to industrial accidents, or the bloody repercussions they met when they tried to organize for better working conditions.
Also less well remembered is the intensity of political violence that erupted. The vast inequities of the era fueled political movements that targeted corporate titans, politicians, judges and others for violence. In 1892, an anarchist tried to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick after a drawn-out conflict between Pinkerton security guards and workers. In 1901, an anarchist sympathizer assassinated President William McKinley. And so on.
As historian Jon Grinspan wrote about the years between 1865 and 1915, “the nation experienced one impeachment, two presidential elections ‘won’ by the loser of the popular vote and three presidential assassinations.” And neither political party, he added, seemed “capable of tackling the systemic issues disrupting Americans’ lives.” No, not an identical situation, but the description does resonate with how a great many people feel about the direction of the country today.
It’s not hard to see how, during the Gilded Age, armed political resistance could find many eager recruits and even more numerous sympathetic observers. And it’s not hard to imagine how the United States could enter another such cycle.
as an outsider I would think no. you don’t have much political force to cultivate this sentiment. democrats are already acting shocked and devastated for their buddies. they’re on the side of ceos, don’t forget. insider trading party can hardly pretend to give a shit about the average person. they will wait for the flame to burn out. return to business as usual: protecting the rich, losing elections and all that.
I’m honestly just glad it brought the left and the right together! 🥰Give more CEOs bunnies, get more unity? Working class solidarity, ya’ll. 🥳
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
And that’s how you get fascism!
Edit: from the backlash, I guess my contribution was misunderstood :-/. I meant that the top trying to hold on to its power against an increasly conscious base is how you get fascism. I’ll try to make myself clearer next time
From my point of view; death at the top of the pyramid is more of a symptom/resultant of fascism rather than it being the source.
I could be wrong though
I wouldn’t even say it’s a symptom of fascism, more just a symptom of the same things that give rise to fascism
Robin Hood, famous fascist.
Nuh uh. Oppressing and brutalising the bottom layer of society is how you get fascism. Assasinations of the rich and powerful is how you get freedom.
It’s certainly part of the catabolic stage in the system’s decay. Due to many reasons, both at the input side and the “drowning in waste” side (example: GHGs waste causing climate destabilization), growth is going to falter which means that the “sharing” strategy of the rich, of the oligarchs, is going to stop working. You may know it as “grow the pie” (instead of “share the pie”). The rich get richer, the rest get poorer, and there are going to be a lot of poor people. That means a lot of desperate people and a lot of people with nothing left to lose.
What you have to watch out for is perhaps two strategies that can stop this:
- Scapegoating: vulnerable minorities and more. The rich of a certain ethnicity may become the scapegoats, instead of … you know, ALL of that class. This would be a misdirection of attention.
- Jingoism, chauvinism and various forms of ultra-nationalism. This would be a misdirection of violence… instead of “punching up”, it becomes “punching the foreign threat”, which means war.
- Combined 1 & 2. It’s usually called fascism.
Something to print:
On a related note, I really liked the recent season of “Arcane” (both seasons are great). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11126994/
Don’t eat shit, mulch the rich.
Just curious but are we heading towards an “eat the rich” society?
I guess we should be, but that’s just my personal opinion.
Realistically, no. The people have clearly expressed how dumb they are and what they desire in the November election. They want dumb Republicans, they get asshole CEOs. I don’t see it any other way.
Honestly, I believe voting is the best way to bring change about a society that wants to change. It’s just that I have given up the thought that the US wants to change in the direction that I would go. So no, it’s not gonna happen.
They voted for Trump, but not because they actually wanted a bunch of asshole CEOs in power. The electorate wanted real transformative change; they’re looking for anyone who can offer even a hope of some bold transformative change. The only party offering real change right now is the Republicans. Democrats just want to offer a few piddly means-tested tax credits like they usually do, while doing absolutely nothing to actually rein in corporate wealth and power. Kamala’s flagship domestic policy was a $25k home tax credit that only a sliver of the populace would be eligible for; and it would only serve to bid up housing prices.
Like it or not, the Republicans did actually have answers for people. They aren’t good or noble answers, but they were answers. Democrats were too chickenshit to run on a platform of “CEOS are ruining your life, we need to come down like the hammer of God on the greedy oligarchs.” The Republicans in turn ran on a platform of, “the reason your life sucks is a bunch of DEI programs are putting unqualified people ahead of you. We’ll end that. Illegal immigrants are taking your job opportunities, and we’ll deport them all. House prices are too high, so we’ll deport 20 million immigrants and lower them!”
Those are abominable answers to the problems we face, but they actually had an answer, however evil and ultimately unproductive. Yes, obviously deporting millions of immigrants won’t actually help people, but it doesn’t matter. The Republicans actually had an answer to the question, “what transformative change will you do to improve the lives of Americans?”
Democrats had no answer. And for that, they lost.
People are hungry for dramatic change. They feel the system is rigged, and they are right. Democrats were too cowardly to take up that message and push for change against the corporate class, and that left Republicans as the only party offering any real change.
You don’t need to radically transform society to want change; the country already clearly wants change. The fundamental problem is the only ones offering change are the Republicans.
Thank you for taking the patience to put this into words so nicely! I really appreciate your perspective. Maybe I was being too rude calling Republicans “dumb”, I apologize. I guess I’m just as angry as many other people at seeing the proposed Republican plans (especially “slashing public spending” a.k.a. reducing social welfare) and seeing people actually vote for that.
Yeah, people in the US want change. I’m not sure what would be a productive and viable proposal that doesn’t completely fuck up the country. I’m European and have a non-interference policy for myself when it comes to the internals of the US. In other words, I don’t want to meddle too much with what’s going on in the US.
This is the only correct answer. Billionaires already control the masses.
If people can protest for higher taxes on the wealthy, and ensure that money is spent on social services that would be a great start. I don’t know about other countries, but why the fuck can’t America do a Nordic model of socialism?
Swede here, first of all, we don’t have socialism here, we have a social democratic system here.
Secondly, the words socialism/communism have been tarnished over decades in the US, people have been taught to immediately reject those words regardless of their context.
So if the US can ever get a social democratic system, it needs a rebrand.
It needs something like “The Great America Deal”
“Make America normal again”?
MANA from heaven. But without the god bullshit.
Couldn’t agree more. Socialists with their hammers and sickles and Che Guevara t-shirts are accomplishing nothing. People need to let go of their fantasy of having people they disagree with them someday saying “I was completely wrong about socialism, you were right, I will never doubt you again!”
Though at this point Americans don’t even like the term “New Deal” because they’ve been told the economic policies of FDR (which pulled the country out of the Great Depression) were bad. So “Great America Deal” may not work. Biden tried “Build Back Better” but that was too lame. But yeah, gotta find a phrase people like and put it on a hat.
Hopefully we will move towards a more equitable society, but Fascists also have a track record of exploiting the sort of instability American society has been faced with during this century so far. If we don’t handle this carefully, it could go badly. Which is saying a lot, given the last decade.
Excuse me while I have a good laugh.
The problem is that it hasn’t been happening enough. Don’t get too ahead of yourself.
The rich have exceptional resources to protect themselves. Money is just another form of power.
For instance, even in a doomsday scenario (for them) of the French Revolution, the rich will have personal security guards. These people will be paid very well (relative to the general population), which will keep them loyal enough. They will eat at secure restaurants (similar deal), and enjoy activities in secure locations.
Beyond that, you already see the rich buying private islands (Larry Ellison) and preparing for an uprising (Peter Thiel).
But if you let your imagination run wild, they can even distort the blame, and set up patsies. Owning the media and controlling the narrative (propaganda) is highly effective and already happening in earnest. Plenty of blame is being shifted to immigrants and (because it works, somehow) LGBT+ groups.
I would even say the UHC CEO is himself a fall guy. The buck doesn’t stop at the CEO. There is a step above him. The board of directors is responsible, and they will replace him with another just like him. They are the ones that ultimately choose the direction.
I don’t think the guy making 12 million dollars a year off the suffering of the poor counts as a fall guy.
He’s a willing participant, for sure. But the board and shareholders make even more than that.
It’s hard to defend yourself from guns. Considering Trump, with the resources, intelligence and defense of the entire state still had 2 close calls with assassinations being an example of this.
The second time was in a secure, exclusive, golf resort.
Rifles can reliably hit a target within 200 meters in a single shot with practice. They maintain an effective range from 500 to even 800 meters.
Unless CEOs are okay with living and working in extreme solitude and isolation, there will always remain the possibility of assassination.
It’s mostly irrelevant to your point, but I’m pretty sure the second one at his golf course was an unrelated shooting where someone else got shot. I guess it could be a cover story where they shot the attacker and didn’t want to make it seem like a trend for the media, but I don’t think we have any confirmation that the was indeed a second attempt
200 yards is nothing for a rifle, I shoot at 500 yards on my range for fun. There are schools and ranges for 1mile shots which you can do in a few days learning from long range shooters.
A $1k AR10 or even a 700 will do 750 without breaking the bank.
Small arms are why we have lost basically every war the USA has been in since Vietnam. It’s basically impossible to stop gorilla warfare.
For instance, even in a doomsday scenario (for them) of the French Revolution, the rich will have personal security guards. These people will be paid very well (relative to the general population), which will keep them loyal enough. They will eat at secure restaurants (similar deal), and enjoy activities in secure locations.
In a collapse scenario, their money will be worthless.
Never underestimate the laziness of a disaffected but mostly not quite yet starving population.
tl;dr: Patience, grasshopper.
