late stage clapitalism

CEO of Fuck Aroundery Becomes Posterboy of Finding Out

Dec 06, 2024

adam driver is just an uppercase barry keoghan to me
surely this time the pod will save america
getting killed on your way to the “how do we kill for money conference” now that’s RICH
tariffs on podcast equipment when
going to see gladiator 2 and wicked then asking for a refund, call that “getting my glick back”
okay okay most americans read at a 6th-grade level but why do so many “intellectuals” have the emotional maturity of a kindergartener
korean president got hit with the clean uno reverse on totalitarianism, he had to send the “jk ofc lmao” text
attention c-suite: tuck your chains into your izod button-down and walk in pairs tonight
it’s my fault for believing that people who play settlers of catan with no critical thought would understand decolonization, that’s on me
what if the CEO shooter was paid in hawk tuah coin…i’ve said too much
can’t lie to you, I be saying “i understand it now” when I haven’t got a clue what’s going on
this is probably the first time that america’s gun control issue addressed a healthcare issue, fine we’ll call it even just this once
big business is just violence in a patagonia vest if you think about it

“deny the claim, defend the lawsuit, delay the patient”

while sometimes used interchangeably, healthcare providers and insurers are two different things, insurance stands between patients and potential bankruptcy when seeking medical care, essentially becoming necessary to cover even the smallest malady, so both of them take the heat from an unsatisfied consumer base.

cold facts: the United Healthcare CEO named Brian Thompson (who was under investigation for insider trading AND the leader of a company that allegedly uses AI to decide whether people could have access to healthcare or not with a purported 90% error rate, mind you) was killed in broad daylight was attending a company conference in NYC. around 7 am (early af, goddamn), the shooter, considered to be a hitman, shot Thompson in the back and then hit the bricks on an e-bike, and as of this piece dropping, still at large.

the cops don’t have a strong lead, and ain’t NO ONE snitching — Riley Freeman would be proud. the shooter is not only a folk hero to the countless americans who have ever had their lives upturned by a claim that their insurance has denied but he’s also admittedly adorable, the girls are down bad…i know my man is SICK that he can’t capitalize on the thirst, i guess you really can’t have it all.

the internet blew up with a range of emotions — traditional media listed on the side of tragedy whereas social media chose biting unseriousness with some truly hilarious jokes about the death of the CEO. many online highlighted the pain of having to pay deductibles, co-pays, denial of service, being out of network, waiting for pre-authorizations, prioritizing shareholder value, etc. tasteful? distasteful? it’s not for me to say; draw your own conclusion, bucko.

whatever conclusion you draw, just remember to breathe if you plan on enthusiastically sucking off the *checks notes* insurance industry — don’t fall in love, I hear he’s fucking a lot of people. like, a lot a lot.

heehees and hahas aside, what this shooting did do is unify many different sectors of the internet under two truths: healthcare insurance companies are shady and anybody who benefits off of the suffering of others deserves their just desserts. it truly was something to behold — this unification, transcended, race, class, gender, sexuality, and dare i say it, political leaning — it’s almost as if universal healthcare is something that could unify a voting base…(c’mon both got “uni” in the word, this politics shit is easy)

while I don’t like violence as a first resort, to pretend that it isn’t an option when it is exercised upon us in “soft” ways every single day, is not only naïve (other words that make things sound so sophisticated) but also dumb as fuck.
do i want anyone to die? no, duh.
do i understand why a person would target a healthcare CEO given…everything? absolutely.
am i going to cry? no, and i’d wonder if we’d ask a healthcare CEO if they shed any tears when they deny coverage en masse to millions of people to the tune of billions of dollars.

a CEO who works in an industry that is supposed to make living and care easier, actively making living harder at the expense of customers, chasing profits, and then dying? in a literary sense, poetic justice but also literal justice.

not an endorsement, but an understanding given the circumstances, context matters. and who knows maybe this shooting is a wake-up call, it was for anthem blue cross blue shield when they reversed their play to not cover anesthesia a mere 24 hours after they said they were going to stop coverage.

CEOs are not allies to the working class or the poor, full stop — don’t try and make them a marginalized group who need protection.

for people seeking empathy for the Thompson consider the lack of empathy a preexisting condition because we used up our store of it for the last [insert “how could this tragedy happen?” topic here]. empathy for the oligarch class?? we nuh ave that.

it honestly could have been any other health insurance CEO, what matters is his role and what he represents; figurehead and face for a crooked industry that’s denying care to clients while maximizing shareholder value. Brian Thompson is a physical lightning rod for all that his business and position represent more than anything much like when people came together for the death of queen elizabeth and henry kissinger – if you know, you know.

for people surprised that Thompson got clapmatized, thought experiment time. “push this button: you get 10 mil but it kills 10 random people in the world.” familiar? CEOs press that button day after day, victim after victim, and that shit adds up. statistically, it stands to reason that at least one of the victims (or their family or friends) would feel a type of way if they knew who took their loved one from them. it’s the stuff of revenge flick — like killing the dog of a guy named “Johnathan Wick” then being like “oh shit, that John Wick?”

the bullet casing said “deny defend depose” which are phrases insurers use to avoid paying claims. it’s like John Wick crossed with I Care A Lot in a script written by NoHo Hank
this is objectively one of the hardest shits i’ve ever seen in real life my whole fucking existence. he became excommunicado so quickly except no one wants to help the police find him, what a delicious irony.

the death of Brian Thompson is not an isolated incident; it has plenty of precedent and lead up if we pay attention. gofundme (collective fundraising) is the real healthcare in this country — the reaction makes plenty of sense if people listen to how hard it is to get coverage and the lengths one must go to get “affordable care.” the shooting, while a violent way to go, is, unfortunately, the last resort of people who are tired of being unheard. violence, though made invisible to you through corporate gaslighting, is still violence. some guns have silencers but nothing kills you more quietly than sacrificing your well-being to make the rich richer.

and the people who are so shocked, so devastated, at this act of violence either aren’t listening, don’t care, or dream of being in a similar position. no not dead, but to be a CEO.

“they came for the CEOs and I said nothing—”

white liberalism is a masterclass in indirect conflict — let something get direct, everyone loses their mind.

white liberals have deluded themselves into believing that they are radicals by being able to attribute and digest the language but never enact the language, codify the beliefs, and practice the morals that they believe in. and if they do, it’s by playing the games of empire, attempting to dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools: donations, think tanks, roundtables, petitions, moral posturing, etc. standing on business but not standing on it, standing for it which is infinitely worse imo.

to be clear: white liberalism is a mentality and ideology and not a racial classification. the american dream is a concept built by and for white americans (with everyone else as an afterthought) off the backs of the working class and slave labor — to succeed in this “dream” often means opting in to those oppressive business ideals.
there are Black white liberals, Asian and Latine ones, queer and disabled ones — all seeking a peaceful mediation to violence, small and large, invisible and visceral, to their suffering by adding to the tapestry of the american left by doing it “the ~~white~~ right way.”
whiteness (as well as capitalism) has always engulfed the nearest race to maintain hegemony whether it was the “ethnic whites” like italians and the irish at the beginning of the 20th century or more recently with certain cohorts of the latine population — the alignment with whiteness comes with some comforts but terms and conditions apply.
that conditional love runs out when the condition is “don’t get too loud, no matter how much pain you’re in.”

with each passing day, the political performance of civility becomes less about voting and more about begging for a crumb of a civil liberty. nothing wrong with looking for a seat at the table to make sure your people are heard, but push comes to shove, when you shake the table a little too much, Guess Who Won’t Be Coming To Dinner Anymore?

(guess it’s easier to go to a dinner than to host one, gotta build your own table, organize who’s bringing what – easier to let others do the work and just be a face. negreaux riche, i suppose.)

these attempts at seeking justice (or these days, seeking protections for previously fought for rights more than gaining new ground) galvanize people, organize them, rally them, and rile them up only for any coalition to crumble. why? the moment that a blow is struck to the group, white liberals take a step back into their lives, protected by whiteness and a tier of class privilege, adopt a faux neutrality and wait in fear as injustices mount until they themselves are under the boot of a more elite class.

this false sense of comfort is quickly approaching expiry and there’s not a sufficient plan for collective change and if there is, it is not accessible enough, inclusive enough, or able to be implemented fast enough. we are out of time for more empty promises and yet that’s all that this stage of capitalism has left.

the lies ain’t lying like they used to.

the truth, for the beneficiaries of these lies, is going to hurt.

we live in a fuck around and find out world. a lot of white liberals either ignore or are very quiet about many of the fuck arounds but have plenty to say about a find out. it’s something that we learned after the election in 2016, at every giant uprising since the murder of george floyd, and a mere month ago with the US election.

i’m not here to police people’s behavior!!! get ya jokes off, smoke em if you got em. i only think that there is something to be learned about reactions and responses to events that bring together the public conversation, especially when so many are overwhelmingly unanimous in such divisive times. i guess it depends on your definition of “unanimous” and who gets included in that.

centuries, generations, waves of marginalized and colonized people cry out with tales of their lived realities, fuck around after fuck around, only to be met with a giant “realization” by those who benefit from or are active (or passive) participants in their suffering with one thing: GUILT.

guilt of not knowing. guilt of not seeing. guilt of not doing enough. guilt of not knowing enough. guilt of not being fast enough. guilt, guilt, guilt. cool, bro. but now what? what do we do next? what does action look like? the answers are out there.

elite white liberal class: your guilt and disbelief means nothing anymore, revolution is done knocking at the door. the performance of piety and puritanism is not going to save you and neither will your tokenized marginalized friends. the time to be the change you want to see is now lest you want to be the next person we laugh at.

any black person can tell a story of informing a white counterpart about a fraction of their harrowing reality only to be faced with a new challenge: becoming an emotional doula, bringing them to the light. and chat, not gon hold you…i hate this shit so MUCH; tf you mean your feelings about my reality are being centered?

it’s past making establishment politicians (read “democrats” listen, no matter how much they say they’re for the working class — they will not save us. it’s gonna be about action, or rather, being about that action and the latter is not going to always be pretty. we’ve lost our way — working-class people aren’t able to work for “financial freedom” or “the american dream” and instead are shuttled into aspiring to one day be doing just as well as C-suite executive. some don’t believe in it or care for anything more than stability. but the ones who do, well, they control the narrative and the story is predictable as a mf.

watching America do what America does knowing that America always gonna do what America gonna do because America don’t care about America(ns)

“you can have a little bourgeoisie as a treat”

white neoliberals are more like the CEO than they like to believe. that’s why they’re surprised that people don’t like insurance executives — they want what they have.

white liberal empathy for the CEO comes from a place of desiring their creature comforts — comforts built from harming consumers in service of shareholders as long as there’s sufficient distance between their selfish decisions and their consequences. both aim to be petit bourgeoisie at any cost and will play buddy-buddy and say “everyone here is family” until it’s time to betray you in the most cutthroat way — maya angelou told me to be wary of those people – who am i to argue?

both enact microaggressions to generalized violence upon the marginalized communities in their lives indirectly (and even privately) and yet are surprised when direct conflict comes to their door or by how happy people are when they’re faced with consequences.

dialectics, for those who aren’t reading theory, asks us to not look at issues as individuals but part of and in relation to other social forces. our issues do not exist in isolation they come from somewhere and they intersect with or reflect off of something else — this is as simple as i can make it, go read them russians (marx, hegel, and lenin) if you wanna get deeper.
dialectical materialism is largely interested in looking at labor and its relation to society. while there are texts that go into this further, i want to highlight emotional labor, specifically people who are tired of doing the emotional labor for parties who still “can’t believe” what’s happening today. NIGGAS IS TIRED OF HELPING YOU.
in the words of captain barbossa, “it's time you start believing in class warfare miss turner, you're in it.”

trickle-down economics was and is a massive failure so why is trickle-down justice something believable? i think some are trying to do the work, through whatever means they can, trying to avert violence. but put under the slightest pressure, many of these white liberal-minded people will firmly center themselves and their people.

in my experience, white liberal people spend more time trying to undo their guilt than divesting from white supremacy, diverting from their own creature comforts, and investing in a collective future where we all have these needs met. all of this is easier said than done, but absolutely doable if we’re locked in on the same goals.

universal healthcare.

universal environmental protections.

universal reparations.

universal bodily autonomy.

universal freedom of expression.

universal access, period.

this is all possible if not for the greed of a few people, both way above us and right next to us. decolonizing the aspiration for the titles that this greed allows us to aim for is also necessary for all of us for any semblance of progress.

the “radical left” is derided for wanting to burn it all down – the institutions and the power structures – but those who are cozy enough within those institutions, conservative or neoliberal, are denying the realities of their constituents, defending the decaying political structures crushing the working class and poor, and ultimately delaying justice which will lead to further violent depositions.

i don’t romanticize revolution but i recognize its fomentations — rebellion historically has been violent but only after social stratification built through violence and exploitation has reached an oppressive breaking point. history has taught us this time and time again but you must know the truth of history in order to not repeat it — why else is the department of education under attack?

can’t spell “dickensian” without “dicks”

generations of narrative whitewashing and colonial fanfiction have led us here.

no matter how many times history has tried to sanitize colonization, racial capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacist ideas, the truth rears its head, and the claim is denied, the stratified and fractured status quo is defended, and justice is delayed. what’s left? deposition, but not in any court, with laws built to protect the elite class. it will be in the street with the only law that matters: fuck around and find out.

fuck around and find out, the natural state of things. nature is the house and the house always wins. the more fuck arounds with no find outs or fuck arounds and making someone else find out, the larger the clapback. this shooting may be first of many find outs because a lot of these mfs don’t stop fucking around.

interrupt the natural order of things, continue to put security stop gaps, AI customer service, algorithmic considerations for a human’s care, the find out will only be that much more seismic, that much more gruesome, that much more inevitable.

indirect conflict built over a long time period creates an environment where the perpetrators will eventually find out – whether it’s high-profile abusers with freak offs and casting couches, colonial settlements and military presence on indigenous land, or CEOs who disregard human livelihoods with a click of a keyboard that can be as lethal as the cock of a gun. this narrative beat is unfortunately right on schedule if you’re paying attention to the story instead of ignoring it.

fascism is here and tbh i’m not sure of the average american’s ability recognize it let alone combat it but ignoring it is becoming harder and harder by the day.

the CEO of fucking around (or an industry/system known for rampant fuck aroundery) became the poster boy of finding out. will the system change or will they replace him with a She-EO? a SheaEO?

the shareholder value of United Healthcare jumped 15 points (2%) after their beloved CEO got clapped in broad daylight this wednesday — a king was proven to be a pawn in a corporate game with a burger king crown — it’s safe to say he didn’t have it his way.

organize with people on your level, don’t climb over their bodies to get to the middle where you’ll be kicked unceremoniously from that height to your demise without a second thought.

hustle culture, C-suite goals, and distancing yourself from accountability for your actions will not save you. don’t overestimate your power when it comes from empire, stop playing the game. collectivize.

until then, CEOs die every day b. y’all be safe. ✌🏾

LOOSIES

Discussion about this post