The Fifth Circle

[smokingboot]

Reading reactions across the net to the assassination of Brian Thompson. Bloody hell.

I don't know enough about US Health care to comment on medical insurance and how that works. Personally I'm a believer in healthcare free at the point of use, paid for out of general taxation and national insurance. This can be no surprise given where I live.

Can't realistically comment on a way of life I haven't experienced, but when I think of the worst people in my life, the folk who've done me the most wrong and really hurt or harmed me, I cannot name a single person I would want to see ended by a bullet. There's no-one whose violent death would make me happy. Maybe that's the privilege of a fortunate child.

Someone writes '...If people don't want their death celebrated, they should be better people when they're alive,' I almost asked if they thought Brian Thompson currently cares whether or not his death is celebrated. His kids might be suffering of course, but if that in itself is a cause for celebration, if evil is a thing one becomes by proxy, the angrily joyful stranger is in as much danger as said family. And what makes one a better person than Brian Thompson? I suspect rejoicing on the internet at murder isn't exactly a great indicator.

I recall our Cambodian guide telling us about how folk got past the national horror, and wondered then if this sense of forgiveness, of letting the terrible memories slide downstream, was a way of blanking out a mass trauma. Now I think it is a decision to work, a dedication to make things better. Quite hard I imagine.

'Buddha says not to take revenge,' I can hear his voice and see him smile as he spread his hands out under the flowering bodhi tree. 'Now most Cambodians think they are in paradise.'

But if Paradise waits under a tree in Cambodia, and Death stalks a hotel in Manhattan, Dante knew the landscapes of the internet 700 years before anyone else:

A marsh it makes, which has the name of Styx,
This tristful brooklet, when it has descended
Down to the foot of the malign gray shores.

And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
All of them naked and with angry look.

They smote each other not alone with hands,
But with the head and with the breast and feet,
Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.

Comments

[benicek]

I am now working in an MP’s staffer job in which people have been assassinated previously 😬

I’m not sure a culture of ‘no consequences until judgement day’ is good either, and it was AWFULLY convenient for centuries of very murderous Christian kings and dictators.

[smokingboot]

That does sound like an odd experience. I hope you are all safe.

Re rulers, in a way I get it for someone in a situation where it's kill or be killed. Nice guys lose more than their thrones, poor old Henry VI! Perhaps, if one is born/forced into a vicious situation and doesn't want to die, one becomes vicious. Maybe a case could be made for that, though it strikes me as potentially spurious.

But yes, the arbitrary and unjust use of power is always convenient for someone.

[mallorys_camera]

The American healthcare system is really bad. All Obama's "reforms" did was give people access to healthcare insurance. Which is not the same as access to healthcare.

If the healthcare insurer denies your request for healthcare services—which they frequently do—there is recourse; you can appeal the initial decision, and in a significant number of cases, the initial decision may be overturned. But, of course, the clock is running, & so, many people with serious illnesses die during the appeals process.

This does not justify a cold-blooded murder, of course.

But I understand why the victim isn't getting universal sympathy.

[smokingboot]

That does sound abysmal. I can understand the anger.

Doesn't excuse anything, as you say, but might explain it.

[shimmerwine]

We don't have healthcare as a large part of the world does. We have a system that denies as much as they possibly can, while collecting your exorbitant monthly insurance payments. People become bankrupted and homeless because of the bills. It's beyond wrong.

[smokingboot]

It sounds horrifying, thank you for writing to me about it.

I live in the UK, where the system is very different, so apart from what US friends tell me and the little I have seen on vacation there, I'm very ignorant on the subject. What I don't understand is this:

How come this isn't a national scandal? How come this didn't have a major influence on the election?

We heard talk of the economy, but this doesn't seem to have been singled out, talk of illegal immigration, talk of Harris botching her campaign or just not sitting right with pockets of voters, talk of 'woke' issues. But nothing about this aspect of American life. Why did neither of the candidates pick this up and talk about new policies?

I would like to read your thoughts, but no worries if you lack time or just don't have the head space to reply.

[shimmerwine]

It IS a national scandal, but by weaponizing the Affordable Care Act by calling it "ObamaCare"...they made sure anyone racist and, frankly, ignorant, didn't connect the two. The US is all about money, straight up. We are supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we're really just the land of the greedy. If I can get mine, no matter what happens to you, well good on me. So making people pay for health care, at exorbitant amounts, so that the companies can pay their higher ups megabucks, hey, that's just the way it is. And if people die because our AI says you didn't check all the boxes for this or that service or medication, oh well. Never mind the states that are outright banning healthcare for women in so many ways.

Keep in mind, elections are now side shows, and the dark side brings out everything that the foolish and scared will fall for, and they will scrupulously avoid anything that makes them look bad. The media is party to it, mainly because they are mostly now owned by said dark side. The light side tries to bring these things up, but they get shoved aside by the media. It's really that simple. And Fox News bears a HUGE responsibility for what happened, and they're damned proud of it.

Those of us who pay attention are furious. Beyond furious. And heartbroken. And, to be honest, terrified.

We're fucked.

[smokingboot]

I'm shocked and so sorry to read this, but thank you for giving me more information. There is so much I don't understand about the States. Having only visited twice and never for long enough, the things that struck me were its beauty, the pleasantness of the people, and what seemed like a visceral antipathy towards paying tax. Is it stupid to hope that the Brian Thompson case will force this topic into the headlines and keep it there?

As you write, I can feel the heartbreak and anger. How can this possibly be buried? Is there no movement, no organisation to work towards something better?

[shimmerwine]

At this point, quite honestly, I think we are all so worn down from the relentlessness of the everything since 2015 that it's hard to fight. There are too many issues that need a movement, and it's just all so overwhelming, especially when the incoming powers-that-be are determined to destroy absolutely everything.

[smokingboot]

I'm not surprised you're worn down. It's always hard to say of another country that its system needs changing, especially if one is from the ever-creaking UK, and doubly hard to criticise other nations' choices given that our voters put Johnson and Truss in No. 10. But I hope somehow things improve, and that you all catch a break XX