Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 12, 2024 at 12:10 am
In his 1975 book, The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Modern-day America, British historian Robert Payne warned that the predatory rich would not change their behavior:
“Like the tyrant who lives in a world wholly remote from the world of the people, shielded and protected from all possible influences, the rich are usually the last to observe the social pressures rising from below, and when these social pressures reach flashpoint, it is too late to call in the police or the army.”
Robert Payne
There are signs that millions of Americans are seeing themselves not on a racially-conscious basis but on a class-conscious one.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Democrats expected to retain control of the White House through the loyalty of groups that had traditionally voted Democratic: Blacks, Hispanics, women, those under 30.
Yet Vice President Kamala Harris fared badly with all of these groups.
According to a November 12, 2024 story on National Public Radio, “Why high prices toppled Democrats—and other governments around the world”:
“This year’s election results made one thing clear: People really don’t like paying more for everyday expenses….
“A survey by the Associated Press found high prices were the number one concern for about half of all Trump voters.”
Donald Trump
Hispanics, for example, ignored Donald Trump’s incessant attacks and threats to deport 11 million of them—because they were upset by the high price of eggs.
And according to a December 3 story published in Right on Time, Gen Z voters—those voters between 18–24 years old—turned Right “because of economic factors, like the desire for a whopping salary, according to a new survey.
“Financial services company Empower surveyed more than 2,200 Americans, and respondents born between 1997 and 2012 declared they’d need to make $587,000 a year to be ‘financially successful.’”
In short: Most of those who voted for Trump wanted to move from a lower financial class to a higher one. And they’re dangerously angry at their inability to improve their living conditions.
The latest evidence of this occurred on the morning of December 4: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was shot in the back while walking to an investor conference in Manhattan.
Brian Thompson
The accused shooter—Luigi Mangione—left behind shell casings with “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them.
The phrase has been adopted by critics of the healthcare industry to describe how insurance companies delay paying claims, deny valid claims in whole or part, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation.
The phrase was popularized in the 2010 book, Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, by Jay M. Feinman.
Feinman, an expert in insurance law and professor emeritus at Rutgers University, wrote the book to be “an expose of insurance injustice and a plan for consumers and lawmakers to fight back.”
Apparently, Mangione, the accused gunman, decided to “fight back” in a more direct and lethal way.
For the executives of America’s $1.6 trillion (in 2022) individual health insurance industry, online reactions to the clearly targeted assassination of Brian Thompson must be chilling.
Many comments ranged from unfeeling to outright hostility toward health insurance companies and the executives who run them.
UnitedHealthcare, as the largest private insurer in the United States, has been the primary target of those attacks:
“When you shoot one man in the street it’s murder. When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment, you’re an entrepreneur.”
“An innocent victim was gunned down in cold blood. Have a heart regardless of your health insurance.”
“Can’t find the room to care over my daughter’s $60,000 cancer treatment. Thoughts and prayers.”
“My copay for thoughts and prayers is $100,000; I heard his condition was pre-existing; My ability to care was denied; My sympathy requires a referral; Submitted claim for condolences was denied.”
“My empathy is out of network.”
“Thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
“Today…we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”
“Now the norms of violence are spreading into the commercial sector,” said Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago’s project on security and threats.
“What I think we’re really experiencing as a country is the erosion against norms. That means, basically, seeing violence as the more normal tool, or acceptable tool, to resolve what should be straightforward civil disputes resolved in nonviolent ways.”
Incoming President Donald Trump has picked at least 11 billionaires and millionaires for his Cabinet. In some cases, they will have the power to cut spending on public services that are used by the most poor and vulnerable.
Trump has also threatened to ignite a tariff war with America’s biggest trading partners—Canada, Mexico and China. This will cause prices for life’s necessities to spiral out of control for millions of Americans.
At that point, Walter Scheidel’s 2017 book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, may become required reading for overpaid corporate executives throughout the country.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 11, 2024 at 12:19 am
The gap between rich and poor in the United States has never been greater.
The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for the last 30 years to counter rising inequality. Its September 21, 2023 report stated:
- In 2022, CEOs were paid 344 times as much as a typical worker.
- In 1965 they were paid 21 times as much. In 2021, CEOs made nearly eight times as much as the top 0.1% of wage earners in the U.S.
This would not have been news to Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science. In his masterwork, The Discourses, he observed the human condition as that of constant struggle:
Niccolo Machiavelli
“It was a saying of ancient writers, that men afflict themselves in evil, and become weary of the good, and that both these dispositions produce the same effects.
“For when men are no longer obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition, which passion is so powerful in the hearts of men that it never leaves them, no matter to what height they may rise.
“The reason for this is that nature has created men so that they desire everything, but are unable to attain it. Desire being thus always greater than the faculty of acquiring, discontent with what they have and dissatisfaction with themselves result from it.
“This causes the changes in their fortunes—for as some men desire to have more, while others fear to lose what they have, enmities and war are the consequences. And this brings about the ruin of one province and the elevation of another.”
Author Walter Scheidel, Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University, has also given this subject a great deal of thought. And, like Machiavelli, he has reached some highly disturbing conclusions.
Walter Scheidel
World Economic Forum [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D
He gave voice to these in his 2017 book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. His thesis: Only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout history.
According to the book’s jacket blurb: “Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes.
“Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return.
“The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
“Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality.
“The ‘Four Horsemen’ of leveling—-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich.
“Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century.
“Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.”
Revolutionaries have known the truth of Scheidel’s findings from the gladiators’ revolt of Spartacus (73-71 B.C.) to the French Revolution (1789-1799) to the overthrow of the Czarist Romanov dynasty (1917).
But American politicians serenely ignore that truth. They depend on the mega-rich for millions of dollars in “campaign contributions”—which pay for self-glorifying ads on TV.
Thus, in 2016, American voters had a “choice” between two “love-the-rich” Presidential candidates: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Trump owed his wealth to a $200 million gift from his real estate tycoon father. Clinton owed hers mostly through her husband, Bill, by his writing books, giving speeches, consulting private companies and advising billionaire Ron Burkle.
After leaving the Senate (2001-09) and President Obama’s cabinet (2009-13), she earned $9 million in speaking fees in both 2013 and 2014.
The result was that millions stayed home or voted in protest for third-party candidates who had no chance of winning.
In 2020, American voters got to “choose” between another two “love-the-rich” candidates: Donald Trump and Joseph Biden.
In his 1975 book, The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Modern-day America, British historian Robert Payne warned that the predatory rich would not change their behavior: “Nor is there any likelihood that the rich will plow back their money into services to ensure the general good.
“They have rarely demonstrated social responsibility, and they are much more likely to hold on to their wealth at all costs than to renounce any part of it.
“Like the tyrant who lives in a world wholly remote from the world of the people, shielded and protected from all possible influences, the rich are usually the last to observe the social pressures rising from below, and when these social pressures reach flashpoint, it is too late to call in the police or the army.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 10, 2024 at 12:21 am
Americans are used to Presidential candidates telling lies (euphemistically known as “campaign promises”) to get elected.
But when a candidate actually (and usually accidentally) tells the truth, the results can be electrifying.
A pointed example:
On June 18, 2019, Democratic Presidential candidate and front-runner Joe Biden addressed a roomful of donors in New York. Money is, after all, the lifeblood of all political campaigns, and Biden wanted to guarantee he got more of it than any of his 23 Democratic rivals.
So the former vice president had a message he felt sure would appeal to his well-heeled audience of billionaires: Don’t worry, if I’m elected, your standard of living won’t change.
Joe Biden
Addressing the 100 or so guests at a fundraiser at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City, Biden said that he had taken heat from “some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side” because he had said that rich people were “just as patriotic as poor people.
“The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change,” he said.
And he added: “I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.
“When we have income inequality as large as we have in the United States today, it brews and ferments political discord and basic revolution. Not a joke. Not a joke. It allows demagogues to step in and say the reason where we are is because of the ‘other’….
“You’re not the other. I need you very badly. I hope if I win this nomination, I won’t let you down. I promise you. I have a bad reputation, I always say what I mean. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.”
Biden talked about decreasing income inequality and promoting workers’ rights. But he took a moderate stance when it came to taxation.
Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has attacked the ultra-rich as responsible for the ever-widening gap between themselves and the poor.
Bernie Sanders
Palácio do Planalto from Brasilia, Brasil, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“I love Bernie, but I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble,” Biden said in March, 2019.
Instead, he proposed expanding tax credits for the poor and middle class, and making the tax code less friendly to rich investors.
Robert Payne, the distinguished British historian, had a different—and darker—view of the rich.
Payne authored more than 110 books. Among his subjects were Adolf Hitler, Ivan the Terrible, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, William Shakespeare and Leon Trotsky.
In 1975, he published The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Present-Day America. It proved a summary of many of his previous works.
Among the epochs it covered were the civilizations of ancient Greece, Rome and China; Nazi Germany; the Soviet Union; and Watergate-era America. And the massive corruption each of those epochs had spawned.
In his chapter, “A View of the Uncorrupted Society,” Payne warned: Power and wealth are the main sources of corruption.
“The rich, simply by being rich, are infected with corruption. Their overwhelming desire is to grow richer, but they can do this only at the expense of those who are poorer than themselves.
”Their interests conflict with those of the overall society. They live sheltered from the constant anxieties of the poor, and thus cannot understand them. Nor do they try to.
“They see the poor as alien from themselves, and thus come to fear and despise them. And their wealth and influence enables them to buy politicians—who, in turn, write legislation that protects the rich from the poor.”
But Payne foresaw an even greater danger from the rich and powerful than their mere isolation from the rest of society: “The mere presence of the rich is corrupting. Their habits, their moral codes, their delight in conspicuous consumption are permanent affronts to the rest of humanity. Vast inequalities of wealth are intolerable in any decent society.”
Writing in 1975, Payne noted that a third of the private wealth was possessed by less than five percent of the population—while about a fifth of the populace lived at the poverty level. By 2000, he predicted, about five percent of the population would possess two-thirds of America’s wealth. And more than half the population would be near or below the starvation level.
Payne has proven to be an uncanny prophet.
On October 8, 2024, Fortune magazine noted that “over the past 30 years, the U.S.’s top 1% got richer, and now hold nearly a third of the nation’s wealth.“
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organizations, focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942. On January 16, 2023, it noted:
“The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population.”
But this situation need not remain permanent.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.
Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview on July 17, 2015. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Really?
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
- Drug traffickers and alien smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States—as they are now doing.
There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret and illegal program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.
(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(4) CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.
CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
(5) The Government should stop automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation.
(6) The United States Government—from the President on down—should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
First Lady Michelle Obama—accompanied by Margarita Zavala, the wife of then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon—was visiting a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Maryland.
A second-grade girl said: “My Mom, she says says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.”
Replied Mrs. Obama: “Yeah, well, that’s something that we have to work on right?”
The girl then said: “But my mom doesn’t have any….”
Obama: “Well, we’ll have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens.”
The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws.
The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.
(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language—English.
In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish.
Throughout the United States, millions of Spanish-speaking illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.
This is an English-speaking country. If immigrants don’t want to learn its national language, they should remain in their own nations.
(8) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unfavorably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 6, 2024 at 12:10 am
In Stalingrad, a 1993 German-made war movie, a platoon of German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.
Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.
A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.
He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”
“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”
Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:
- Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
- Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
- Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.
“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”
Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.
Donald Trump
Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.
According to Homeland Security officials, 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access; 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America. Eighty-one people who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.
Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.
Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:
“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”
Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.
Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.
The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.
The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.
Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”
“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.
He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”
The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.
But she did not force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.
* * * * *
On November 5, 75 million ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans re-elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.
Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love….
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”
There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:
- His facing 91 criminal counts in four cases;
- His threats against his political opponents and Justice Department prosecutors;
- His conviction for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
- His continued lying about winning the 2020 Presidential election;
- His conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records;
- His unjustified attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
Those who voted for Trump will now learn the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.” Those who voted against him knew this already.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 5, 2024 at 12:32 am
When historians—-and ordinary citizens—think about the Third Reich, the name of Werner Willikens doesn’t immediately spring to mind.
Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann—yes.
But Werner Willikens? Why him?
Ian Kershaw has unearthed the reason.
Ian Kershaw is a British historian and author who has written extensively about the Third Reich. He is best-known for his monumental, two-volume biography, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000).
Ian Kershaw
Willikens, State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, gave a speech on February 21, 1934 that casts new light on how Hitler came to exercise vast authority over Nazi Germany:
“Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fuhrer can hardly dictate from above everything he intends to realize sooner or later.
“On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, worked towards the Fuhrer….
“In fact, it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Fuhrer along the lines he would wish. Anyone who makes mistakes will notice it soon enough.
“But anyone who really works towards the Fuhrer along his lines and towards his goal will certainly both now and in the future one day have the finest reward in the form of the sudden legal confirmation of his work.”
Volker Ullrich, bestselling author of Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939, summed up the results of this interplay between Hitler and his subjects:
“Kershaw tried to show that in many instances Hitler didn’t need to do very much at all since German society–everyone from the underlings surrounding him to ordinary people on the street—-were increasingly inclined to anticipate and fulfill the Fuhrer’s every wish, ‘working towards him.’
“…Kershaw did not minimize the historical role played by Hitler and his insane, ideological fixations, but he did illustrate that without the readiness of many people to work for the man in charge, there would have been no way he could have achieved his murderous aims.
“Kershaw’s main thesis was that the dynamics of the Nazi regime arose from the interplay of Hitler’s intentions with activism emanating from subordinate individuals and institutions. The results were ever more radical ‘solutions.'”
With the Third Reich dying in the flames of Berlin, at about 3:30 p.m. on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler simultaneously bit on a cyanide capsule and fired a pistol shot into his right temple.
The concept of “working towards the Fuhrer” seemed to have come to a literally fiery end.
Fast forward almost 72 years later–to 4:42 p.m. on January 27, 2017.
Newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order that:
- Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
- Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely; and
- Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Trump’s executive order read as follows: “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles.
“The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law.”
President Donald Trump
But that statement excluded three extremely troubling facts.
First: Over the previous four decades, there had been no fatal attacks within the United States by immigrants from any of those seven banned countries.
Second, approximately 3,000 Americans had been killed by immigrants from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey. Most of those victims died during the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
In fact, 15 of the 19 highjackers who took part in those attacks came from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks, was himself a Saudi from a wealthy family with strong ties to the Saudi Royal Family.
Third, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey were all countries where Trump had close business ties. His properties included two luxury towers in Turkey and golf courses in the United Arab Emirates.
Trump listed companies on his FEC filing possibly related to a development project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city, located outside Mecca: DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager LLC, DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager Member Corp., THC Jeddah Hotel Manager LLC and THC Jeddah Hotel Manager Member Corp.
Trump listed two companies on his FEC filing possibly related to business in Egypt: Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC.
The full dimensions of Trump’s holdings throughout the Middle East aren’t known because he has refused to release his tax returns.
On January 11, 2017, Trump said that:
- He would resign from his positions at the Trump Organization but that he would not divest his ownership.
- The organization would be managed by his sons Eric and Don Jr. and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
- The organization would terminate pending deals and not seek new international business.
Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics, said that these measures did not resolve the President’s conflict-of-interest problems and called them “meaningless.”
It was after Trump signed his executive order that the true consequences of “working towards the Fuhrer”—or President—were fully revealed.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 4, 2024 at 12:11 am
During the 2024 Presidential election, the two most important issues—for voters—were immigration and inflation.
In short: “Get rid of the spics!” and “Give us cheaper eggs!”
Repeatedly, Vice President Kamala Harris warned that Donald Trump’s return to the Presidency would result in a Fascistic dictatorship:
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly [Trump’s former chief of staff] would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions….
“He wants a military who will be loyal to him, personally, one that will obey his orders, even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”
Reputable media warned that he intended to turn the FBI into his private Gestapo and use the Justice Department to attack his political rivals.
Kamala Harris
But Americans didn’t care.
Instead, 76.9 million voters chose to overturn the democratic traditions that had guided American life since 1788, when the United States Constitution was ratified.
Appeals to their hatred, racism and greed proved far more seductive.
Throughout Trump’s Presidency—2017 to 2021—those who opposed his agenda took solace in a series of expected saviors.
- On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for daring to investigate his proven ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then appointed Robert Meuller as special counsel to investigate that firing—and Trump’s ties to Russia.
Mueller had a sterling reputation for integrity as a former prosecutor and FBI director. But he allowed himself to be intimidated by the Presidential aura—and refused to directly interview Trump.
His subsequent official report contained no impeachment-worthy evidence.
- On July 25, 2019, Trump threatened to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine—which faced increasing aggression from Russia—unless its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, did him “a favor”: Investigate 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden. Unless Zelensky found this, the promised aid would be withheld.
The House of Representatives tried Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The evidence against him was overwhelming—including a transcript of the extortionate phone call.
Donald Trump
But the Republican Senate refused to convict.
Had this happened, Trump would have been legally barred from running again for President.
- On January 6, 2021, Trump incited a violent attack on the United States Capitol to stop the counting of Electoral College votes—which would prove that he had lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joseph Biden.
As a result, five people died and 174 police officers were injured. The Capitol Building—the symbol of American democracy—suffered about $2.7 billion in damages.
Evidence of Trump’s guilt was overwhelming—including video of his incitement.
But, once again, the Republican-dominated Senate refused to convict.
Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump’s opponents had placed their hopes in Special Counsel Robert Mueller and (twice) the United States Congress to address the brazen criminality of Donald Trump.
The results: Anger and disappointment.
Yet one last hope remained:
That the 2024 Presidential election would send Joseph Biden, and then, after he dropped out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris—to the White House.
Harris waged what was widely descripted as “a campaign of joy,” promising to be “the President of all Americans,” including those who voted against her. Repeatedly, she warned that, if re-elected, Trump would pursue a vengeance-fueled agenda against anyone who had dared cross him.
Trump ran a campaign based on hatred—of Hispanics, of liberals, of those who had served in his administration and now disowned him. During his single debate with Harris, he falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were “eating the dogs….they’re eating the cats” of local citizens.
On one occasion, he appeared to emulate performing a ‘sex act’ on a microphone stand during a rally after experiencing technical difficulties.
Most ominously, credible news reports circulated that, if Trump were re-elected, he would implement a radical, Right-wing plan—Project 2025—to completely reshape the federal government.
At its heart: The mass firings of politically neutral civil service officials and their replacement with thousands of political hacks.
This would arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
Yet, in the end, none of this mattered.
His supporters included:
- Hispanics: 54%—despite being repeatedly vilified by Trump and slated for mass deportation;
- White women: 52%—despite his destroying abortion rights and being convicted for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll;
- Blacks: 21%—giving Harris fewer votes than they gave Biden in 2020.
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler rose to dictatorial power through backroom intrigues and appointment as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg.
On November 5, 2024, Trump rose to dictatorial power when Americans voted to ignore his past crimes and the ones he boasted he intended to commit.
John Adams predicted this long ago: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2024 at 12:11 am
Elon Musk is currently riding high.
He is—famously—the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $314 billion as of November 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He owns Tesla, Inc. X (formerly Twitter), Space X and xAI, an artificial intelligence startup that he founded in 2023.
And he’s used to getting his way: In a notorious video exchange with Donald Trump, the two men discussed firing striking workers.
Elon Musk
The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump praised Musk for firing workers who went on strike. “You’re the greatest cutter. I look at what you do. You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say, ’That’s OK. You’re all gone.’”
Musk said, “Yeah,” and laughed while Trump was talking.
In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Musk, in a 2018 Twitter tweet, had unlawfully threatened Tesla employees with the loss of stock options if they voted to unionize.
But in October, 2024, the full 5th Circuit later threw out that decision and voted to hear the matter again.
Tesla headquarters
Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
And now, having successfully backed Trump for the Presidency against Vice President Kamala Harris, Musk feels he has achieved the ultimate in success—in business and politics.
But NBC News delivered a warning on November 13: “Elon Musk may already be overstaying his welcome in Trump’s orbit.”
Two sources involved with the Trump transition team said that Musk has been a near-constant presence at Mar-a-Lago in the week since Election Day.
And he’s begun to annoy people in Trump’s inner circle who believe he’s overstepping his role in the transition.
“‘He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” one source said. “And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the President’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the President is indebted to no one.”
Donald Trump
Yet another source said: “He wants to be seen as having a say in everything (even if he doesn’t).”
The second source said Musk appeared to be pushing his own agenda, instead of focusing on Trump’s: “Appointing people because they are loyal to Elon doesn’t work.”
Trump is an alpha male who enjoys dominating others. Musk operates his companies in a similar way, Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, told Newsweek.
“Two alphas can probably get along well enough as long as they don’t interfere with each other’s respective domain.
“The big thing that might come between them would be if Musk threatens Trump’s monopoly on American attention. Trump needs to be the center of everybody’s consciousness—and he has pretty much succeeded in accomplishing that extraordinary feat over the past eight years.
“Musk is certainly a narcissist but his self-worth is caught up in what he achieves. He really cares about building electric cars, sending people into space, and so on.
“Trump does not care about anything except himself. His entire self worth depends on others adoring him and fearing him,” McAdams said.
In an October 23 meeting with House Republicans, Trump praised Musk for his time and dedication to the campaign. Trump said Musk set aside his own business interests for the campaign and didn’t ask for anything in return.
Then, in what could have ominous implications for the future, Trump said: “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him.”
The lawmaker sources insisted that Trump was joking.
So “Rocket Man” Musk, now basking in his “co-President” relationship with Trump, no doubt believes he has every reason to feel confident.
But Trump’s choice for Attorney General—Matt Gaetz—should have sent off alarm bells to Musk.
Gaetz made it clear he would do absolutely anything Trump wants. As Attorney General, he would have had the power to investigate and indict anyone Trump dislikes.
Then Gaetz withdrew his name from nomination following increased scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct.
And Pam Bondi, Trump’s replacement for Attorney General after Gaetz withdrew, has proven her own reliability. As Florida Attorney General, she solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump while her office deliberated investigating alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, Trump wrote her a check $25,000 for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
Musk has received billions of dollars in Federal contracts—among them $733.5 million for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and two for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
Any of these is vulnerable to an accusation of corruption—warranted or unwarranted. At the very least, many—if not all—of those contracts could be cancelled. At the worst, Musk could find himself locked in combat with Federal prosecutors for the length of Trump’s term.
Ernst Rohm felt invulnerable at the start of 1934. As January 20, 2025, rapidly approaches, so does Elon Musk.
Like Rohm, Musk may live to regret the devotion he’s lavished on his choice for Fuhrer.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2024 at 12:33 am
On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., (Sturmabteilungor). It was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The Brownshirts (also known as “Storm Troopers”) had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had violently intimidated political opponents (especially Communists) and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, had served as a tough army officer during World War 1. He was one of the few men allowed to use “du,” the personal form of “you” in German, when addressing Hitler.
Rohm urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own undisciplined paramilitary legions as the nation’s defense force.
By 1934, the Storm Troopers numbered approximately three million. By contrast, about 100,000 soldiers served in the Reichswehr, owing to restrictions imposed by the 1919 Versailles Treaty which ended World War 1.
Ernst Rohm
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
Hitler didn’t hesitate. Backed by armed thugs, he stormed into Rohm’s apartment, catching him in bed with a young S.A. Storm Trooper.
Accusing his onetime friend of treasonously plotting to overthrow him, Hitler screamed: “You’re going to be shot!”
Rohm was not plotting a coup. But the generals had the whip hand—and, for Hitler, that was enough to literally sign Rohm’s death warrant.
Hours later, sitting in a prison cell, Rohm was offered a pistol with a single bullet.
“Adolf himself should do the dirty work,” said Rohm, adding: “All revolutions devour their own children.”
One hour later, Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets.
Earlier throughout that day, so had several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies. Many of them yelled “Heil Hitler!” as they stood against barracks walls waiting to be shot.
SS firing squad
Thirteen days later, addressing the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, Hitler justified his purge in a nationally broadcast speech:
“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the Supreme Judge of the German people!
“I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterize down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life.
“Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”
Adolf Hitler addressing parliament
Ninety-one years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faces the same fate under re-elected President Donald J. Trump.
And his Number One victim may turn out to be Elon Musk, the man who played a pivotal role in sending him to the White House.
Musk, the leader of Space X Tesla and X (formerly Twitter), has donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump super PACs, jumped around the stage behind Trump during campaign rallies, and turned X into a Right-wing cheering squad for Trump.
Trump has said he will make Musk the head of a new “government efficiency commission” aimed at eliminating inefficiency and waste within the federal bureaucracy.
But some—like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen—have a warning for Musk: “Donald Trump is loyal to one person and one person only…himself.
“The moment Elon steps an inch out of Trump’s line, despite all he might have done for him, Donald will cut him off, disparage and denigrate him. Elon is no different than me or anyone else similarly situated. It’s just a matter of when.”
Cohen speaks from bitter personal experience.
A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”
In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Michael Cohen
By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.
Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.
Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”
Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on November 8, 2024 at 12:11 am
Fox News has spent two years peddling “The Big Lie”—that President Donald J. Trump was cheated of electoral victory in 2020.
But now the truth is coming to light.
On the March 3 edition of The PBS Newshour, political commentators David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart explored the explosive revelations emerging from a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.
Host Amna Nawaz opened:
And, at CPAC today, [Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for President Trump] went after Fox, saying they’re not pro-Trump enough.
But, just this week, we did see a huge admission in that—the latest filings and the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, that admission from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch. He conceded under oath Fox hosts lied about the 2020 election, and he chose not to stop them. What are the implications of that?
David Brooks
New York Times Columnist David Brooks: Rupert Murdoch started a paper called The Australian a long time ago. He was a journalist, an actual journalist. And now he’s gotten to the point where you can lie on camera if—as long as your ratings are OK.
Those people who lied didn’t lie over little things. They lied about the election results of a presidential election, kind of a major deal. And we now know—as we all suspected—they all knew what was happening.
And Murdoch is sitting there atop this organization sort of blithely pretending it’s not really his problem. And so he can say it, and he has power over the corporation today. He owns it. He could fire Tucker [Carlson]. He could fire all the people—all the people who were in on this and whose journalistic integrity has been exposed as zero.
And yet he’s still trying to blithely rise above it. And so it’s amazing that we have a major news organization that is inaccurate about a presidential election.
Jonathan Capehart
Washington Post Associated Editor Jonathan Capehart: Oh, it’s huge. And it was confirmation of something that folks on the left and just folks paying attention kind of suspected: That Fox News, the “news” is in quotes, that they’re out there blatantly telling lies.
But then to see in black and white as part of this case that not only…they would say lies on television, but then, behind the scenes, they knew the truth.
And what that says to me is, Rupert Murdoch and his anchors, those people who are peddling in lies, they are insulated from the effect of the lies that they tell. When you see someone saying, “Oh, our ratings are going down, and that’s going to affect the stock price.” So there’s no concern….
Rupert Murdoch
Hudson Institute, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So that means you’re more concerned about your bottom line than the corrosive impact on our democracy and political discourse in this country. That, to me, was what’s really disturbing.
And what’s even more disturbing is that Fox News isn’t even really covering this lawsuit, which means that their audience, who should know about what’s being said about them and about the programming for them, they will never—they might not ever know….that what they’re being told is just a big bunch of lies.
Amna Nawaz: I go back to the impact again, though, because their audience, which is in the millions, right……if you’re a loyal Fox watcher prone to distrust any other information source anyway, does any of this make an impact?
Jonathan Capehart: Well, that’s the point I was trying to make. We don’t even know if they will even know about this case, as a result. And even if they do find out, either they might not trust it, or maybe they just don’t care. I don’t know.
David Brooks: Well, they’re losing some viewers to the further right, the Bannons of the world. So they are — they are definitely losing viewers.
But my colleague David French made the core point about Fox. If you’re in red America or in rural America, Fox is not just a news organization. It’s your community center. It’s an organization that—that news organization that pays intense attention, that lots of good news stories about cops and soldiers.
A lot of things that happen in red America that don’t get much coverage in the coastal media get a lot of attention in Fox. And so the loyalty there is not only about politics, and it’s not only about news coverage. It’s just about where people see themselves reflected.
* * * * *
A Twitter user recently asked: “Are critical thinkers being vastly outnumbered in the USA because secondary education is just so damn expensive? It’s no wonder Republican states are among the most poorly educated.”
The answer is: No.
You don’t have to accept propaganda.
You can question the official version of any story.
You can seek out multiple sources.
You don’t have to seek out only those sources that confirm your long-held prejudices.
And you don’t need a college education to do so.
If Right-wingers—who make up the audience for Fox News—are ignorant, it’s because they want to be ignorant.
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THE CORRUPTIONS OF THE RICH ARE STILL WITH YOU ALWAYS: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 12, 2024 at 12:10 amIn his 1975 book, The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Modern-day America, British historian Robert Payne warned that the predatory rich would not change their behavior:
“Like the tyrant who lives in a world wholly remote from the world of the people, shielded and protected from all possible influences, the rich are usually the last to observe the social pressures rising from below, and when these social pressures reach flashpoint, it is too late to call in the police or the army.”
Robert Payne
There are signs that millions of Americans are seeing themselves not on a racially-conscious basis but on a class-conscious one.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Democrats expected to retain control of the White House through the loyalty of groups that had traditionally voted Democratic: Blacks, Hispanics, women, those under 30.
Yet Vice President Kamala Harris fared badly with all of these groups.
According to a November 12, 2024 story on National Public Radio, “Why high prices toppled Democrats—and other governments around the world”:
“This year’s election results made one thing clear: People really don’t like paying more for everyday expenses….
“A survey by the Associated Press found high prices were the number one concern for about half of all Trump voters.”
Donald Trump
Hispanics, for example, ignored Donald Trump’s incessant attacks and threats to deport 11 million of them—because they were upset by the high price of eggs.
And according to a December 3 story published in Right on Time, Gen Z voters—those voters between 18–24 years old—turned Right “because of economic factors, like the desire for a whopping salary, according to a new survey.
“Financial services company Empower surveyed more than 2,200 Americans, and respondents born between 1997 and 2012 declared they’d need to make $587,000 a year to be ‘financially successful.’”
In short: Most of those who voted for Trump wanted to move from a lower financial class to a higher one. And they’re dangerously angry at their inability to improve their living conditions.
The latest evidence of this occurred on the morning of December 4: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was shot in the back while walking to an investor conference in Manhattan.
Brian Thompson
The accused shooter—Luigi Mangione—left behind shell casings with “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them.
The phrase has been adopted by critics of the healthcare industry to describe how insurance companies delay paying claims, deny valid claims in whole or part, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation.
The phrase was popularized in the 2010 book, Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, by Jay M. Feinman.
Feinman, an expert in insurance law and professor emeritus at Rutgers University, wrote the book to be “an expose of insurance injustice and a plan for consumers and lawmakers to fight back.”
Apparently, Mangione, the accused gunman, decided to “fight back” in a more direct and lethal way.
For the executives of America’s $1.6 trillion (in 2022) individual health insurance industry, online reactions to the clearly targeted assassination of Brian Thompson must be chilling.
Many comments ranged from unfeeling to outright hostility toward health insurance companies and the executives who run them.
UnitedHealthcare, as the largest private insurer in the United States, has been the primary target of those attacks:
“When you shoot one man in the street it’s murder. When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment, you’re an entrepreneur.”
“An innocent victim was gunned down in cold blood. Have a heart regardless of your health insurance.”
“Can’t find the room to care over my daughter’s $60,000 cancer treatment. Thoughts and prayers.”
“My copay for thoughts and prayers is $100,000; I heard his condition was pre-existing; My ability to care was denied; My sympathy requires a referral; Submitted claim for condolences was denied.”
“My empathy is out of network.”
“Thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
“Today…we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”
“Now the norms of violence are spreading into the commercial sector,” said Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago’s project on security and threats.
“What I think we’re really experiencing as a country is the erosion against norms. That means, basically, seeing violence as the more normal tool, or acceptable tool, to resolve what should be straightforward civil disputes resolved in nonviolent ways.”
Incoming President Donald Trump has picked at least 11 billionaires and millionaires for his Cabinet. In some cases, they will have the power to cut spending on public services that are used by the most poor and vulnerable.
Trump has also threatened to ignite a tariff war with America’s biggest trading partners—Canada, Mexico and China. This will cause prices for life’s necessities to spiral out of control for millions of Americans.
At that point, Walter Scheidel’s 2017 book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, may become required reading for overpaid corporate executives throughout the country.
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