Death Wish
Stockton Rush, founder of the company that owns the missing submersible craft that was on its way to view the Titanic wreckage, has said safety is “pure waste.”
“I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything,” Rush said in a 2022 podcast with CBS reporter David Pogue. “At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question.”
That mindset is now coming into focus as rescuers race to find the Titan, which has Rush and four other passengers on board and is likely running out of oxygen, with estimates of about 16 hours left. Ocean scientists and at least one former employee of Rush’s company, OceanGate Inc., have been sounding alarms about its safety procedures for at least five years.
- Titanic Tour Leader Loved Risk and Called Safety a ‘Pure Waste’ - Bloomberg
By Gregg Wall (6-24-2023)
America received sort of a Sicilian message or wakeup call this week. Stockton Rush, with four passengers on board his submarine, Titan, sleeps with the fishes. And along with Mr. Rush, and likely his company OceanGate Inc., rests laissez-faire, a reckless disregard for the safety and lives of others, and America’s deregulatory state at the bottom of the Atlantic.
It’s not just libertarianism that took another hit this week, neoliberalism and laissez-faire are continuously being bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer … but the myth that billionaires and high-net-worth individuals are so much brighter than the rest of us mere mortals also lies in a watery grave. Likely, not for the last time. The intrepid Mr. Rush and four tourists… apparently, w/out doing their due diligence or homework on OceanGate’s complete contempt for safety and regulatory review… went down to roughly 12,000 feet below sea level before the submarine was said to implode. The Atlantic swallowed the five into complete darkness, unimaginable ocean pressure, and Davey Jones’ locker. The debris field mere yards away from a mass grave, the Titanic. The catastrophe, probably, entirely preventable if OceanGate spent more time on safety. So close and yet so far.
The MSM ate it up, of course. Days spent counting down the oxygen supply of the sub, governments giving grave assurances that no expense would be spared to rescue the brave – wealthy – explorers… only to learn later, that the Navy thought they heard the sub crumple in the depths days earlier. Extraordinary sums of money spent by Canada, the EU, and America on the precious billionaire cargo, off on a joy ride, a kiddie ride to the Titanic. While in Europe, off the coast of Greece, hundreds and hundreds of immigrants drowned at sea. Apparently, allegedly, with the Greek coastguard standing idly by for hours, as the immigrant death ship floundered at sea and sank? No expense spared for five people exhibiting crazed behavior, perhaps a death wish… versus malign neglect for hundreds of immigrants lost at sea looking for the chance at a better life and fleeing what exactly? Were the immigrants fleeing Western colonialism, economies imploding under the crushing weight of IMF austerity and Western debt… or perhaps, they were escaping another dictator propped up by the West, maybe they were fleeing a failed state? The point of embarkation for the doomed vessel was Libya. Or perhaps, these brave souls were merely attempting to escape the catastrophic heat and the climate crisis, caused by the West’s fossil fuels addiction and greed?
Western media, corporate media couldn’t dump the immigrant story or the Biden crime family stories fast enough for the submarine story.
The money spent by Western governments on gifting and perpetuating obscene wealth, while essential workers & citizens suffer endless abuse and austerity, is repugnant. The only thing more depraved is the manner in which Western governments come running every time a - government hating - libertarian needs another bailout or rescue. And make no mistake about it, this week’s quest to save a sub, the Navy most likely knew had already crumpled, was little more than yet another backdoor bailout for the fatuous rich.
As I’ve written many times on these blog pages, capitalism has been reduced to little more than privatized profits for a few insiders, endless state welfare for a few insiders, while the disenfranchised pick up the known costs, expense, socialism for the rich, taxes, and the unintended consequences.
The great mass of humanity carrying billionaires - sitting on ornate, rococo thrones - upon their backs. What possesses such men, these libertarians… the sun sets and rises on their shoulders, they believe they are the center of the universe (because their sycophants have told them so). These masters of the universe truly believe their good fortune is entirely due to their singular efforts. And all the libertarians deliver is endless pain and suffering. The world is increasingly a hellish place, and these men and their failed ideology are entirely responsible… they and the politicians they own. To distract from their libertarian crimes, these wealthy monsters support far-right politicians, divide and conquer politics, endless culture wars, and co-opt and control all sources of power (to the complete detriment of children, essential labor, families, minorities, the planet, and women). As societal class, they are toddlers: endlessly discovering their id, endlessly pushing ‘me, me, me’ to the next level, with zero regard for the limitless collateral damage left in their wake.
But there’s something more, these individuals appear to exhibit what Freud called a death wish or a death drive (one of the father of psychoanalysis' most controversial theories). And seemingly, the billionaire class really doesn’t care who or what gets crushed, as they take excessive risk (whether it be, gambling with taxpayer money, kiddie rocket rides into space - paid for by the taxpayer, running the planet into the ground, or lobbying government for endless, for - profit wars, etc.). They are complete nihilists, except for the worship of their own egos, thrill seeking, and money.
Their perceived glories, their failed religion - neoliberalism - burning on a funeral pyre of hypocrisy and lies… and as a direct result, humanity drowning under the crushing pressure of elite failures, beneath the waves at the bottom of the sea. Which begs the question, when will science discover the genetic defect in such men and eliminate it entirely from humanity, before it is too late?
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023
