In Grim Twist, Some See Suspect in C.E.O. Killing as Hero or Heartthrob
In Grim Twist, Some See Suspect in C.E.O. Killing as Hero or Heartthrob
A grainy image of his face drew comparisons to Hollywood heartthrobs. A jacket similar to the one he’s wearing on wanted posters is reportedly flying off the shelves. And the words written on the bullets he used to kill a man in cold blood on a sidewalk on Wednesday have become, for some people, a rallying cry.
Four days after a gunman assassinated a top health insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan and vanished, the unidentified suspect has, in some quarters, been venerated as something approaching a folk hero.
In grim twist, corporate media tries to guilt people out of having hope
Media is there to make owners feel good so they are doing just that.
Issue is that working class is not accepting this narrative.
A dead corporate executive is the most unified people have ever been in a generation.
I don't think extra security can save them when entire country wants you dead
Three incident in the last 4 years where billionaires owned media got caught lying. Covid, Gaza, and now this. In all of these they didnt gave shit about innocent people dying, finding excuses and twisting words to gaslight people.
What's grim about it? Of course people are gonna look kindly upon someone who kills a mass murderer.
I have a right-wing neighbor who voted Trump three times, says climate change is a hoax, and hates me for sometimes wearing a tie-dye jacket, but he says with a grin all over his face, "Did you hear about that insurance CEO who got shot dead?" and he laughs and laughs and gives me a thumbs-up.
America stands united.
Funnily enough the death of a United Health Care CEO has United Americans in a feeling of well deserved schadenfreude.
My trump-loving in-laws are the same. Voted 3 times for shitler, but they're thrilled about this. It's one thing in the news that we can discuss.
A few more of these and we'll all really see how much we actually agree with one another, and how much the split and hate is manufactured.
I see that the corporate owned media is sweating bullets.
Good.
Yeah theyre really crawling for appeal but that means they are afraid. I was really against violent actions like this but after seeing how effective it isni guess im also a radical leftist now instead of just a leftist. If they take the power away from thw people you have to take it back violently.
I don't condone murder, but I also dont feel sad about a mass murderer being gunned down.
That's pretty much what condone means. From MW:
To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure. synonym: forgive.
From Cambridge:
to ignore or accept behavior that some people consider wrong
So you're perhaps not encouraging it?
It's not without protest though. The protest is.. was this guy a mass murderer? Yes? Well ok then
Someone killing thousands through corporate policies: Not grim.
Someone killing that person: Grim.
/s
Yeah fuck the title of this article. What a shit way to introduce bias.
In a report this week, the institute found that of the top 10 most-engaged posts on X about the shooting on Wednesday, six “either expressed explicit or implicit support for the killing or denigrated the victim.” The dynamic is similar to the discourse that often emerges after a mass shooting on websites like 4chan and 8chan, where perpetrators of extreme violence become memes themselves, Mr. Goldenberg said, “but what’s disturbing about this is it’s mainstream.”
Get fucked neo-liberal media. What an isane gaslighting comparision. This was a targeted assasination. Are you now afraid that people direct their anger at the sources of it, rather than the peasants killing each other?
What were the four other posts? CEOs going "Actually, murdering me would be bad."?
Grim? WTF? The dude is a hero.
We need a French solution to the oligarchy problem and this guy moved us in the right direction.
He's a god damn hero.
May I remind you Trump got re-elected? The US chose for more money to mega corps and the ultra rich. There is no dictatorship in the US (yet), this system is by choice. Anyone who wanted to create a more social support system including better healthcare is painted as a communist, a nazi and as corrupt and en masse people vote for the person to make a fucked up system even worse. The US doesn't need a French solution, the US needs to vote differently when they don't like this shit. When you vote for oligarchs, you get oligarchs.
Trump got elected because the richest man in the world spent a quarter of a billion dollars on his campaign, and that has tangible results.
For some but for a lot, they are racist and sexist. Most people don't even understand what their candidate stands for.
He didn't get reelected by people who support the rich, he got reelected by people who want to push people who they feel are below themselves further down. They think Trump will do that for them, not to them. They think he is simultaneously rich and in their side. They are willing to ignore any evidence to the contract because 'he just needs to act that way as part of his plan, in the end he's secretly on our side'... As the wolf openly eats the sheep to 'keep up appearances'.
lol you guys don’t have a non oligarch option, so I don’t really understand how voting would save you guys at this point.
The only grim aspect is how much time, resources, and energy the NYPD has wasted trying to solve this. Statistically, there have been other murders since this one. They should move on and add this to their "unsolved" pile.
"We don't care when they're poor." -NYPD
Clearly they need to make an "example" out of him or others may follow his lead.
The public should mount pressure on them to drop the case. Make it clear we want him to walk free.
Make me think, how many regular cops are actually OK with this? Sure cops are a privileged class, but they still have family and friends who suffer in the hands of private health insurance.
I don't know why they don't just add it to the unsolved pile like all the other murders they see?
Is it a twist if nobody is surprised?
Perhaps this should actually read "in grim reality, most see suspect in C.E.O. Killing as Hero or Heartthrob".
The number one react on the UHC Facebook announcement about it is the crying laughing emoji. The people have spoken.
Honestly, hero or hearthrob is putting it lighty. If I talked about how I actually felt about this guy, I'm pretty damn sure that would put me on some kind of list.
And I only feel comfortable saying that, because I know we're all thinking it.
Link related: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/16ohFsFviig
He's not only hot; he's making an example out of cruel millionaires .. millionaires who prefer money and let people die, without ANY hesitation. So yeah, it's not like being attracted to Dahmer, it's more like being attracted to Katniss Everdeen.
America is finally united
Corporate response is buy more security
Is the start of the first corpo war?
Cyberpunk main quest activated?
After some recent events I read Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service. It includes bit on how well trained, extremely prepared USSS agents were unable to stop a single practice gunman whose identity they knew. All variables were in their favor and they were far more competent than hired security will be. I’ve included an excerpt at the end.
Corporate security will not stop someone willing to go to jail or die for it, such as someone terminally ill and fucked by their insurance. Media puff pieces overstating security effectiveness— spread through outlets owned by the ultra wealthy— would be far more effective in preventing another event like this. Presumably the more people that know, the more emboldened they would be to repeat this heartbreaking, earth-shattering tragedy. Which would just be terrible. Certainly I would be horrified and thus suggest suppressing this info. We should be spreading how corporate security is infallible to protect heroes like Mr. Thompson’s peers so they can continue to be upstanding members of society.
“In the wake of the Wallace shooting, the Service conducted more frequent and intensive drills on how to handle different kinds of attackers on a rope line. Agents and officers practiced over and over, playing the roles of detail agents and spectators on either side of the line. The drill instructor warned the agents ahead of time that a person in the crowd would play the role of the shooter and approach the principal with a gun. The drill instructor even pointed out who that person was.
“The agents were told who had a weapon,” said one former agent. “And the guys are working the rope line and they’re constantly looking at this guy waiting for the moment when he’s going to pull the gun. They know who it is.”
Agents swiveled their heads back and forth from the spectators in front of them to the mock gunman in the crowd. They tried to anticipate his move and readied themselves for the fastest dive or lunge. No matter how many times they did the drill, the result was the same. “They never once stopped him before two shots,” the former agent said.”
good time to start a career in security as a non-American because these scumbags literally can't trust anyone in their country to not step out of the way at the first opportunity, but I can't see anyone else taking a bullet for them either so ... good luck to them.
Where’s the twist? This is a dumb headline.
Turns out some people can only be pushed so far before they resort to violence.
Cops have long had the Punisher.
Now big Insurance has The Adjuster.
Some? I've yet to find anyone not on his side, the most I can find are people sarcastically saying "Oh no, won't someone please catch him..."
What were the words written on the bullets.
Thing is, if they don't catch him, it will inspire a copycat to repeat his tactics.
And I honestly can't even bring myself to say it's a bad thing; this gunman killed a glorified serial killer, a man who is paid to find people buying his product in order to get help for fatal yet curable illnesses, and kill them in order to save costs.
Violence is wrong and should only be used as a last resort, but well, given the circumstances it's hard for me to lose sleep at night....
I legally cannot and will not advocate violence, I stress this, I AM NOT ADVOCATING VIOLENCE, IF YOU'RE PLANNING YOUR OWN VIOLENT ACT I BEG YOU TO RECONSIDER! Everyone out there has at least one other person who loves them, and most high profile violent acts backfire horribly on the perpetrator.
But I will say this. Some men can only be pushed so far until they're at the edge, then they'll grab onto the person who put them there so at least they fall together... And many MANY men are at the edges.
"Those who make peaceful resolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK
Deny. Defend. Depose.
They did the worst thing. They found him, named him, and published a glamour shot. This should have been the school shooting procedure if they didn't want copycats. Instead of an unnamed killer they can vilify they now have the story of a normal, well educated, young man pushed over the edge. An Anti-Hero. I predict one of two things in the next 1-6 years. The death of health insurance or the death of more health insurance executives.
I'd like to take this time to point out that CEOs are cogs in a machine, important, highly placed cogs, but cogs all the same. They couldn't run the place any other way without their majority shareholders firing them. Those are generally groups like Blackrock and Vanguard, (The largest shareholders in UHC). They have that status in many publicly traded companies. This gives them an outsized say in the board composition of companies across the economy; on issues like food, housing, and yes healthcare. If you're looking for a deep state or shadow government, these guys are close as it gets. They don't directly make the twisted policies but they do fire CEOs that don't make the green line go up in any way possible.
Once Americans figure that out I think the rage is going to be surreal in it's magnitude.
God I hope so
“It’s being framed as some opening blow in a broader class war..."
That's what many of us are hoping for. But this author, and nearly all other mainstream news outlets can't understand that. They can't understand why we would want a class war, why would we want something so disruptive, so destabilizing, so potentially destructive? It baffles and disturbs them, but that's because they can't, or won't, see the harm being done by the current system. They are blind to the harms of late capitalism, willfully.
For many of us, the problems go much deeper than a few greedy and unethical CEOs, it's the system. The inhumanity of health insurance providers is just a very egregious and obvious tip of the iceberg. This CEO wasn't just some exceptionally bad guy, he was a product of the system. He'll be replaced by another one of thousands and thousands of people who come out of our business or economic schools, and who would have run United Healthcare the same way he did. The problem is a system in which the private profits of a relative few are prioritized over all else; over human well being, and over sustainability and environmental protection. Many of us believe that that system must be abolished and replaced. We don't want war, but if war is what's necessary to destroy this unsustainable and inhumane system, then so be it.
I'd say it's grimmer that some people feel sorry for the CEO.
The pearl clutching from the bourgeois is becoming a bit annoying.
You drive people to desperation and this is the result. What the fuck else could anyone expect?
Right?
When your business model is an engine that creates desperate people with nothing to lose, you have to expect something like this.
Reality is grim. The twist is romantic.
If they ever catch the suspect, he's going to have a hell of a defense fund. That's probably why the cops will end up killing him on sight.
Grim twist? Who is pushing this narrative? Sounds like corporate media might not be able to keep this cat in the bag.
"it's being framed as some opening blow in a broader class war"
I mean the guy did hit the nail on the head. The elite have done so much for so long to keep the masses divided to prevent a class war. The sane thing would be for private companies, especially the healthcare insurance industry, to immediately change their policies before it gets worse.
The pressure has been rising for a long time, and something gave a few days ago. Cats already out of the bag.
Engels:
When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.
Start posting this Wikipedia page y’all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder This shit has needed to be taken seriously for ages and this might be the context where that starts taking greater hold.
Google, show me "CEO assassination rule34"
"A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy." ~ Guy Fawkes
I’m a 40 year old straight dude with two kids and a wife. I think that guy is a freaking heartthrob! I mean first look at him, he good looking. I always rate people on how they look first but more importantly how they act second. And just look how this guy acted.
I don’t see assassin as “hero” or “heartthrob”.
Our high trust society has eroded due to massive corruption at the highest level (SCOTUS popularity/trust plummeted) , late stage capitalism and catering to billionaires, and incompetent politicians. The incoming administration will be without a doubt no help in this aspect.
The assassin has unfortunately become “necessary”. I don’t praise his actions but I understand why this person decided to take it into their own hands (ie, family or loved one impacted by “deny, delay, defend” policies).
I am absolutely with you. I understand why someone would resort to this in America's broken for-profit healthcare system, but I also do not think vigilantism should be encouraged. Especially considering all the "internet sleuths" that have ruined innocent people's lives.
Doesn't seem all that Grim to me
Nor a twist
A twist?! Stupid sexy hitman
Ok but I ain’t even gay and I wanna fuck this man.
In an alternate universe, Joker is considered a hero because he killed the criminal and the corrupt while Batman allowed them to live. Joker, a hero against the system, the vigilante who is a vigilante and not just status quo, the vigilante the city needed but not the one it deserved. The Joker movie could set a pretty sweet alternate universe.
Childhood is when you idolize Batman, adulthood is when you realize that cheese is very expensive.
Have you watched the Harley Quinn animated series?
It's been almost a week. And every day they don't catch him the lower their chances. I'm starting to have hope they'll never catch him.
Indeed, this kinda reminds me of Persona 5 where everyone's freaking out about the Phantom Thieves because Kamoshida confessed to his crimes..
Grim twist will be the name of my next murderhobo rpg character
Sounds like a great name for an Assassin Rogue.
I was thinking it would be my first playthrough in bg3 as the durge…. But the insurance ceo might make the better bhaalspawn
somemostGrim isn't the word I would use.
Grim
Grimm
What was written on the bullets?
"Deny, Defend, Depose" is what was "officially" shared, but it's earily similar to the title of a book 'Deny, Delay, Defend' referring to the insurance company policies to avoid making claim payouts.
In any case, the effect is the same.
That's amazing. I'm glad it's clear the reason why, no-one can deny it.
¿Porque no los dos?
Heartthrob maybe going a bit too far considering this guy might be a total loon whether or not you agree with what he did.
But then there are people who propose marriage to serial killers after they've already been incarcerated.
If the disaffected lunatic fringe can be redirected from shooting up schools to targeting CEOs instead, simply by the promise of becoming folk heroes as opposed to villains, that would be a massive improvement.
Sure, but I don't think people should be falling in love with lunatics even if the lunatic does something they like.
And for all we know, this guy is a lunatic. Or has done some horrible thing that has nothing to do with this. He could be a rapist or a pedophile or batters his kids... or he could be a nice guy who couldn't take it anymore.
And until he's caught, we probably won't know.
But apparently people love jumping to conclusions. If this guy turns out to be some sort of horrible person for other reasons, I will not be surprised. Hero-worship of anonymous people is not very smart.
You see that, Lemmings? Your fetishism got us in the news, I hope you're proud of yourselves for getting us all labelled as the people horny for murdering.
Dude, I was at the grocery store and the manager started joking about killing ceos to me. I'd only made a comment about our state not having banned beer yet. This is mainstream, unlike lemmy
