VIOLENCE
Violence (n): actions that are intended or likely to cause harm to people or damage to property. extreme force.
- Cambridge Dictionary
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By Gregg Wall 12-21-2024
America may not recognize it yet, but December 4… the day Luigi Mangione was alleged to have shot United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson… may become a national holiday, not unlike other popular commemorations, Labor Day and May Day. On that day, December 4th, Luigi, allegedly, lashed out at the systemic injustice and violence of the American healthcare system. A healthcare system that is based on placing profits first, before the health and lives of the American people. An American healthcare system beset with a bewildering maze of private insurance contracts, copays, deductibles, sky-high premiums… and most formidable of all for the American people, unconscionable and unprecedented greed (and the expectations from shareholders for higher and higher returns, most often generated by sacrificing American lives). An American healthcare system that costs double, per capita, versus most peer nations, a repugnant U.S. healthcare model that denies & delays routine care, and/or payment for care, provided by universal payer systems afforded in every Western democracy… a murderous system that is said to cost 68,000 American lives per annum. This is why Mr. Mangione allegedly fired three bullets with the inscription: deny, defend, & depose.
So, it’s entirely understandable why Mr. Mangione acted in the manner that he did, given the failure of the president and congress to respond to the highly reasonable requests and pleas of essential Americans. To wit, that the U.S., too, adopt the single-payer model and rein in Big Pharma greed. The majority of Americans support Medicare for All, and yet, our highly corrupt congress and president insist that our greed-based model is non-negotiable and sacrosanct. Most revealing has been the public’s reaction to Mr. Mangione, allegedly, dispatching the serial killer, Mr. Thompson. A concentrated and startling number of Americans have expressed support for Mr. Mangione, some going as far as to call him a hero, while many others express sympathy… so much so that the prosecutors of Luigi are worried about finding a jury to convict, so desperate is the establishment, monied interests, and the state to make an example of him. Meanwhile, a higher percentage of the nation’s youth support Luigi, versus the deceased.
To anyone paying attention, none of this should surprise anyone. America’s economy, government, and MSM are exceptionally violent and are supportive of great violence, often directed at the American people and the world. Violence is approved and sanctioned by corporations, government, and oligarchs (in many instances, simply as a cost of doing business & in the service of perpetuating a failed, inhumane status quo, concentrated wealth & power, in continuance of the greed-first paradigm, multinationals, profits, war contractors, and Wall St.). State and federal governments most overtly demonstrate this violence in the forms of law enforcement and the military (and via funding of same and the austerity and the lack of public services that follows). Elites fund a police & security state rather than address the systemic failure w/in the economy, government, and political process that makes an army of cops necessary for the preservation of a dying economic order … and this violence is, of course, condoned, fully supported, and rarely, if ever, challenged by America’s mainstream media. The misogyny, racism, and violence itself… they all go hand in hand within the necroeconomy… commodified and ultimately serving to compel compliance, demoralize, earn profits, oppress, and strike fear within citizens and humanity. The violence is not only physical in nature… but comes directly from economic dogma, the economy, foreign policy, from public policy… in which labor, lives, wages, and wealth are continuously transferred into the hands of bankers, billionaires, multinationals. Far more violence, on a far larger scale is executed with the stroke of a pen by well-dressed men and women… say, by a healthcare CEO… than by any single cop, soldier, or deranged school shooter with a gun.
What on earth are you talking about? Well, think about it. Essential Americans are beset from all sides, starting at birth, where the average expense to bring a child into this world is said to cost $18,000 and that’s with outrageously priced health insurance and zero complications (prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care). America, expectedly, has the most expensive baby delivery system in the world. And the grave? Funerals and planting someone in the ground can cost close to $10,000. In between, in the span of a lifetime, Americans face monopolies and monopsonies… which not only increasingly dominate entire sectors of the economy, but demonstrate totalitarian control over: employees, who gets employed, who stays employed, the wages and benefits (healthcare) employees receive, as well as, hold considerable sway over the government their employees are confronted with, economic & public policy, and the candidates Americans are allowed to vote for. Then there’s the control these enterprises & Wall St. exercise over the general public… and increasingly, college students, campuses, and universities, and what students – potential future employees – learn, think, say, protest, and do. The free surveillance corporations consume, on social media, as a way of exerting control, domination, and protecting & preserving our ultra-violent economy & system of government. The U.S. economy and the private sector can make or break an employee and their family, fire them, and destroy their reputation on the way out the door. Price or wage discovery, a free market for labor to move about freely and work for the highest bidder, in many industries no longer exists and maybe contractually forbidden. (This is all what? VIOLENCE. Actions that are intended or likely to cause bodily harm or damage to the future earnings capacity & property of others… and for the bottom half and the youth, the greatest asset & property they often possess is their health, labor, their potential, and ability to earn a living wage.) America’s economy is singular in its violence directed at essential Americans, versus comparable peer nations. And don’t get trapped in America’s criminal justice industrial complex, where slavery is allowed under the 13th Amendment. And Americans wonder why the ‘land of the free’ has the world’s largest mass incarceration state. Exploited prisoners, inflows of immigrant labor, ultimately, serve Wall St and help suppress the earnings & negotiating power of the labor force as a whole.
Food is contaminated with poison, livestock is shot up with steroids, PFAS is in the water and soil, there’s a national obesity epidemic, sperm counts are plummeting… cancer alleys thanks to fossil fuels, chemical, and O&G refineries mete out violence daily… welcome to hell. Manufacturers inside boardrooms and C-suites do lethal cost-benefit-analysis to see how much damage, death, and crippled lives their products and services can cause before it makes financial sense to come clean and do a recall. There’s wage theft, gig work, subcontracted labor, the exploitation of immigrants, sweatshops, temp agencies, and America’s strong affinity for exporting the economy and jobs offshore to make sure Americans have fewer and fewer opportunities for ease of exploitation and economic violence. I’ve just scratched the surface and could write volumes on the violence inherent in the American economy and who pays the price. Who always pays, while the rich profit and hoard. And the rising tide Ronald Reagan spoke of 45 years ago, created by supply-side economics & trickle-down tax policies, never arrived. But don’t expect presidential candidates and senators to talk about this.
And the government? America’s government is not there for you and I but is there to deflect, deny, protect capital & the establishment, sell a failed economic model, and hold up the façade of democracy… and run cover & narratives to distract from the serial criminality, class warfare, and violence waged against the American people every day. America’s failed two-party system is so entirely antagonistic towards democracy, so violently opposed to The People and providing Americans with a leg up, a glimmer of hope, let alone a level playing field… so entirely against change, reforms, or delivering upon popular will… that, arguably, they’ve made violent revolution all but inevitable (borrowing from President Kennedy’s famous quote). And America’s ultra-corrupt judicial system and judiciary… Americans see cops beat and murder citizens daily, most often the disenfranchised and poor, with absolute impunity. We recently were treated to the spectacle of a mother of three, incarcerated with a $100,000 bond, for verbally expressing frustration with a healthcare insurer for denying her claim. The mother had no criminal record, apologized, and expressed immediate remorse. That was not good enough for the psychotic in judicial robes presiding over her hearing.
And congress, to deal with systemic and structural failures throughout the economy and government, provides a socialist paradise, but not for essential Americans, of course, but for corporations, Israel & the Ukraine, and the catastrophically wealthy. It’s no accident that billionaires have seen their net worths exponentially explode with the exponential growth in the national debt. Net worths that are in turn used to buy the U.S. government. In the end, it seems all our congress is capable of… aside from day trading, burning up the clock, and lining their pockets… is providing more welfare for corporations and a private sector continuously on the dole and in need of another bailout (as CEOs and private equity loot corporate balance sheets for immediate gratification). Congress and the Federal Reserve providing a never-ending redistribution of taxpayer wealth & the nation’s credit line to the depraved and the entitled… America’s failed corporate elite and ultra-violent, neoliberal, wartime economy. The sole purpose of the duopoly… Dems & GOP, in practice… is to continue to transfer taxpayer revenue, the nation’s credit line to the least deserving cadre of criminals & violent thugs the world has ever seen: America’s billionaire & political class, and multinationals. In the end, it is nothing more than theft of taxpayer money, leaving the public with an IOU, a depleted, looted nation, & a crime scene.
And the American mainstream media in the final analysis: garbage. The MSM repeating the same exceptionalism, fables, and lies for at least the last fifty years. The framing surrounding the vast majority of news stories, nearly w/out exception, coming from the perspective that corporate rule, our ultra-corrupt congress and two-party system, the courts, the empire, oligarchy, and Wall St rule should neither be questioned too seriously or reformed. That American ways -- at a macro level -- are best. Best for whom? Nearly all of the corporate MSM were, and remain, universal in their condemnation of the alleged “killer” and in their efforts to humanize the true mass murderer, the healthcare CEO. Cheerleaders for empire and imperialism, lie factories for endless state propaganda, half-truths, and omission… simply regurgitating the narratives and spin put forth by public officials, corporate leaders, and politicians in exchange for access. And of course, reporters often subject to the same containment and controls as essential American workers face in their workplace, in an increasingly consolidated news industry. In short, if you want to work here, toe the party line. And toe the party line and issue forth propaganda they do. How sad that if Americans want to learn about the genocide and the violence their country and government are waging against Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, they are better off reading Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and domestically, independent media. Even worse than the papers of record, American network news… home of the feel-good story, infotainment, the party line, coverage of the latest mass shooting, and coming up later, the ubiquitous sports & weather report. No one would ever know the U.S. economy, government, and the ruling class are rife with murder & violence, as a matter of doing business, from watching network news, CNN, and FOX news programming. Conservative/GOP efforts to burn books, dictate the curriculum, dumb down education, and make sure colleges and universities remain out of reach and unaffordable are specifically tailored to make sure America’s children and young adults don’t learn a thing (about the Great American Nightmare and the highly dangerous and violent world they face).
And the greatest disservice of all: No one in elite circles - the private, public, and media centers - seemingly, is interested in educating the public on the world they live in, and how arbitrary, completely gratuitous, and entirely systemic the violence is. That no American has to live like this, in a perpetual sea of hate and violence orchestrated by economic royalists.
Fortunately, Mr. Luigi Mangione and the establishment’s reaction to Mr. Mangione are sparking conversations, education, and fear … on the topic of violence (who wields it and who profits by it) … that is long overdue.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
