Rabble Rants: Deny, Defend, Depose
What are we to think of the public's response to United Health CEO Brian Thompson's death?
Cross-posted from our Rabble Rants feed: Hosts Jessa McLean and Santiago Helou Quintero provide a class analysis of the case and the media frenzy around it. They also give insight into just how bad a company United Health is, and what our reactions should be to social murder.
Song credit (end of episode): Jesse Welles, via TikTok
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Transcript
Welcome to Rabble Rants. I'm Santiago Gelo Quintero, and alongside Jess McLean, we're going to unpack
Speaker:the stories that have us most riled up and challenge the narratives around them. Okay, here's the
Speaker:lead in. There's this scene in Batman where Catwoman leans into, whispered into the ear
Speaker:of billionaire Bruce Wayne, and she says something along the lines of, how do you all think that
Speaker:you could live so large while leaving so little? for the rest of us. And I have to tell you,
Speaker:that was the clip that came to my mind when I first heard that CEO of United Health, Brian
Speaker:Thompson, had been shot in New York. I mean, when I first heard it, it could have been anybody
Speaker:at that point. You know, I mean, these people live their own lives, jilted wives, angry business
Speaker:partners, but I think something deep down inside of me knew that it was actually an act of class
Speaker:warfare. I mean, there was no love lost. I think in general, when you look online, the responses
Speaker:ranged from completely indifferent to the man's death to gleeful. And I am not even gonna apologize
Speaker:for those feelings whatsoever. I feel like, you know, when we're coming on to record here
Speaker:and we're wondering how we can convey how we're feeling while still being responsible, and
Speaker:it's a tightrope. It's a tightrope because sure we're talking about an act of violence in broad
Speaker:daylight on a city street and there's like all these reasons where you would want to condemn
Speaker:it. But when you understand the level of violence that this man himself inflicted, when you think
Speaker:of violence as the things that cause harm and death to others, I don't know how you work
Speaker:to condemn that, to be honest. Police have arrested someone. We will unpack the police response
Speaker:in a second. Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania. We're not going to play into
Speaker:any stereotypes, are we? Oh, there's so many fun things. That's not where you're going with
Speaker:this, as it's Santiago. Maybe a little. And they caught him Penn State. He's awaiting extradition
Speaker:to New York right now. And there's... You know, obviously with anything like this, there's
Speaker:the conspiracy theories that float around it. And we're actually going to talk about one
Speaker:of them. The police responded as they do when rich people are murdered, right? There was
Speaker:a manhunt. They there was actually a really funny video of them searching Central Park
Speaker:for evidence. And it's like six cops with their hands in their pockets, like shuffling around
Speaker:in the bushes. One of the older ones, like, picks up a stick like not a searchers. walking
Speaker:stick or anything, just something he found on the ground. He's like poking around in the
Speaker:bushes. And it was I don't even think the cops actually wanted to catch. I mean, not the beat
Speaker:cops. I don't think they even cared to catch this one. The general attitude in New York
Speaker:was like, I didn't see nothing. I mean, that's what it should have been. However, there was
Speaker:a tip turned into police in Pennsylvania and he was arrested at a McDonald's. with apparently
Speaker:a gun ghost on him that was firing the 9mm bullets with casings found at the scene that apparently
Speaker:read, deny, defend, and depose. He was also caught with a manifesto of sorts and some fake
Speaker:ID. This is according to police reports. The fact that we're regurgitating police reports
Speaker:kind of bothers me, but it's just, it's all part of the story, I guess. We usually critique
Speaker:against this, but it's what I've got right now. But we will, we will dive deeper than simply
Speaker:reading it back to you. Santiago, before we started recording, you asked me about conspiracy
Speaker:theories, and I kind of cringed because, you know, I do want to focus on the class analysis
Speaker:of what happened, particularly people's responses to it. But when you went into it, I thought,
Speaker:oh shit, that is a rabbit hole that I don't really want to go down, but it's part and parcel
Speaker:with what we talk about on Blueprints. And it actually is pertinent to a couple of the episodes
Speaker:that we've done. I don't like being distracted by conspiracy theories in this, but like, whenever
Speaker:you have someone of this status who is murdered, it does. make you see like how the police respond
Speaker:differently to these situations versus other situations when it's like the people that they
Speaker:actually want to protect versus like, you know, a poor person they couldn't give less shits
Speaker:about. And then like just like the way that they caught him, like brings up some interesting
Speaker:questions, right? Like, I don't know if he wanted to be caught. I don't, I can't say anything
Speaker:for certain. But like, the low probability nests of. this occurring, right? Because you can't
Speaker:imagine that this guy was like, it had only been how many days? Like three, three days
Speaker:later, he's still carrying around the murder weapon. Three days. So like, even if you go
Speaker:to a different McDonald's twice a day, for those three days, that's still like six times that
Speaker:you've gone out for food. And given how little clear footage there were. about this, like
Speaker:the odds of being recognized by someone who even would give a shit enough about that. Like,
Speaker:I gotta be honest, like at my workplace, I'll have like people who come in the day after
Speaker:having been there, and I'm pretty good at facial recognition, and I won't recognize them because
Speaker:I've been working so much that like my brain has completely erased that memory. It made
Speaker:me wonder, okay, like how did they really catch this guy and whether or not police are using
Speaker:technology which is not within the awareness of the public that they have, that they maybe
Speaker:haven't gotten the legal approval to use that may be outside of certain laws. And given the
Speaker:fact that it was like this customer who told the workers at McDonald's supposedly, hey,
Speaker:that looks like that guy who killed that CEO in New York, that did bring up like, okay,
Speaker:so this guy... who was the person to recognize has completely disappeared and no one knows
Speaker:who they are. Am I really gonna act here, like sit here and think like, that's the likely
Speaker:story? And let's say, let's say everyone was glued to their fucking screens. Like as we
Speaker:saw the images that they did provide, okay? There wasn't many, but you know, there was
Speaker:inconsistencies in them anyway, but let's say there were tips coming in. How did they filter
Speaker:through that tip so damn quickly? Here, I'm gonna kind of connect the dots a little bit
Speaker:because we did an episode back with the anarchist collective unicorn riot and they had done an
Speaker:article on France and the increase in surveillance technology that they implemented for the Olympics.
Speaker:It was like huge breach of security. I mean, like they were going to basically connect CCTV
Speaker:cameras, all kinds of modes of surveillance together into a database to be able to filter
Speaker:through it. very quickly for all kinds of different facial recognition, patterns recognition. It
Speaker:was promised to be temporary and even within the legislation it was worded that it wasn't
Speaker:arrestable evidence that's being collected. I may not be using the right terminology here,
Speaker:but to explain you could help figure out what was going on. It could help shape your case
Speaker:in a way, but the evidence that is gathered through that technology can't be used to convict
Speaker:or just imply wrongdoing. It was just to be an added tool to police. So what I think, well,
Speaker:what Santiago is implying is that police have this level of technology that would be able
Speaker:to filter through and use facial recognition on different cameras throughout the United
Speaker:States to find an individual. But they couldn't then just arrest him themselves at McDonald's.
Speaker:They would need to have it appear as though it came in from the public just by chance,
Speaker:right? To avoid anybody asking about any technology that they should or should not be using. And
Speaker:this, like I said, this isn't this isn't a dreamscape. This is a technology we know got approval in
Speaker:France. albeit for a small amount of time, if you want to believe that they would actually
Speaker:remove all of that technology from their possession and all of that knowledge that they gained
Speaker:after the Olympics. I mean, that's up to the French people to decide, but it's not a stretch
Speaker:to think that US authorities have done this and that's how they were able to fight him.
Speaker:And like I said, it's definitely part of what we talk about in terms of police tactics and
Speaker:how they'll be used. I mean, to catch a murder suspect most of the time will be like, okay,
Speaker:you know, that's a good use of police resources if there are any. This time though, I'm not
Speaker:so sure. You saw memes coming from very unlikely sources this time around. You were talking
Speaker:about the comment section on a Ben Shapiro video where it was just clear that on both sides
Speaker:of the aisle, you know, politically speaking, or both left and right wingers. looked at this
Speaker:and were like, meh. Like at the very least, there was not an outpouring of grief coming
Speaker:from the far right either. I mean, the talking heads and the rich folks might have tried to
Speaker:generate some, but they weren't having it. So I found a sense of, I don't know what the word
Speaker:is, but satisfaction seeing that folks were identifying on a class basis. it was sort of
Speaker:like a temperature check of the room, right? Like what would you do if, and everyone was
Speaker:like, we wouldn't do shit. I ain't see nothing. Actually, we, no, we would, we're actually
Speaker:gonna start talking about this healthcare system. No one's talking about Brian or his family,
Speaker:and I'm not going to. Now, when you search every, even on CTV article I pulled up to, you know,
Speaker:the basic facts of the case include a couple paragraphs on just how bad United Health is
Speaker:as a company. So even as like mainstream news are trying to report on this, they can't help
Speaker:but include the fact that these companies are killing millions of people every year. Yeah,
Speaker:it's and literally like they are killing them. Like it is social murder. Like and everyone's
Speaker:been affected by it. Like everyone in the States knows someone who's been affected by it. Like
Speaker:expecting people to be sympathetic is it's ridiculous. And it shows how out of touch. a lot of these
Speaker:right wing shitheads are with their base. One thing that came to mind to me by the way, just
Speaker:like the day that it happened, right? It's
Speaker:my birthday on December 4th as well and it's also the anniversary of the assassination of
Speaker:Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, who was famously assassinated
Speaker:by the police because of his... successful class organizing beyond all racial barriers and anything
Speaker:else. Like you would just a prolific organizer killed at 21 years old. Right. And so when
Speaker:I, when I think about Fred Hampton and I think about this CEO, you know, the same day, it's
Speaker:like, yeah, I'm not gonna like, I'm supposed to give a shit about this guy's murder. I don't
Speaker:know. Um, and even here in Canada where, I mean, we still have private healthcare insurance
Speaker:companies and people are still denied coverage in different ways. I mean, you'll get life-saving
Speaker:care if you need it, but let's not pretend like we're that much better. But we don't have the
Speaker:same shared experience in the same way as they have in the States. But even here, like everything
Speaker:I've seen in Canada has been pretty much the identical response of people in the United
Speaker:States. It was funny. I was at a restaurant yesterday.
Speaker:the table next to me, a group of like eight people talking about this. And, and, and they
Speaker:were laughing about it. And one of them was like, Oh, but you know, this, this was a murder.
Speaker:It's not right. You know? And everyone else was like, you know, how many people this guy
Speaker:has, has. Murdered essentially. Do you know how many deaths that this CEO has led to? Like,
Speaker:I'm not like, I don't feel bad about this at all. Let's talk about just how bad UnitedHealth
Speaker:is. Like the US health system, I think most Canadians know, because we love to pit ourselves
Speaker:against it. It's like one thing that sets us apart. So we like to think. But to give you
Speaker:an idea, the US, out of all the high income countries, they spend more on their health
Speaker:care than anyone else. Twice as much as we do. Yes. But they have the lowest life expectancy
Speaker:amongst those same countries. They have more sick people and they still even have more individuals
Speaker:struggling with medical debt. And that's because these US insurance companies for the most part,
Speaker:they love to, what is it, deny, defend and depose. What those words meant were first denials.
Speaker:So like United Health is one of the worst healthcare companies out there in terms of denials. They're
Speaker:about 33%. And that is just from figures from 2022. Healthcare providers described in 2023
Speaker:that a switch was flipped, that even more life-saving devices and treatments were just completely
Speaker:being denied. And there is an appeal system and typically they just reaffirm their ruling.
Speaker:So that's the defend part. They defend their denials. And all this time, The person insured
Speaker:is getting sicker and sicker. On average, Americans pay $650 a month for single coverage. That's
Speaker:like almost $8,000 a year. If you have children, spouses, more. You're already sick, more. You're
Speaker:old when you buy the insurance, more. You live somewhere in a poor neighborhood, more. There's
Speaker:a litany of reasons that you would pay even more than that and still face the same denial
Speaker:rate. And even after Brian's death and the reasons given for it, whether you think they're justified
Speaker:or not, you've got his boss getting on a Zoom call or whatever, broadcasting himself to the
Speaker:rest of the company. This guy says he vows to continue the legacy of Brian Thompson to combat
Speaker:unnecessary care. He says for sustainability reasons. And Elon Musk, he doubles down as
Speaker:well. He says the left-wingers are just so out of touch, they don't understand that these
Speaker:CEOs have a moral duty to turn profits for their shareholders, no matter how ruthless. So here
Speaker:you are, you have your oligarch standing up there telling us that we deserve to die so
Speaker:they can turn a profit for their shareholders. And they don't expect any blowback for this.
Speaker:That shocks me. I think they are getting a real... reality check here when they are looking at
Speaker:the public's response to this. I mean, I hope they are because it's unfathomable to me that
Speaker:they can think that they can continue this behavior following this. I mean, we've seen, well, they're
Speaker:scrubbing their websites of exec bios first. They're hiring more security, but we've actually
Speaker:seen some reversals in a few policies that got a lot of press, a lot of bad press. They retracted
Speaker:some of them. I mean, like those are just little tiny. morsels to feed the public to try to
Speaker:calm them down. But really people are worked up about this, this healthcare system and rightly
Speaker:so. This fucker headed United Health, they are like the eighth largest company in the world
Speaker:and made almost $300 billion in profits, in the medical field, right? Where we shouldn't
Speaker:have profits at all, this one company. by with a 33% denial rate, made $300 billion. And that's
Speaker:kind of been steady for them. This isn't like a banner year. They regularly pull in that
Speaker:kind of money. And this narrative around unnecessary care, because CEOs are repeating it, it was
Speaker:part of the mantra of UnitedHealth. That's what they tell healthcare providers, why they're
Speaker:implementing all these checks and balances. So you go to the doctor now, the doctor needs
Speaker:to basically get all of your care approved beforehand or else you'll go broke, because if you find
Speaker:out it's not going to be covered and it's too late. But that used to be experimental stuff,
Speaker:stuff they weren't sure would be covered. Now it's almost everything. And they say it's to
Speaker:prevent unnecessary care, which is similar to like the welfare scam narrative that like you
Speaker:can point to one or two individuals or whatever. They create this this... vision that a lot
Speaker:of people are getting welfare when they don't need it. But it's worse, it's medical care.
Speaker:Who the fuck is getting medical care they don't need? You can't, you have to drag people to
Speaker:the doctor. Nobody wants needles and medical treatment they don't need. And so it's, they
Speaker:get to justify all of this, all of these delays in treatment. So even if it is provided and
Speaker:approved, so for the 66% that are approved, days or weeks go by while you wait for this
Speaker:treatment. 49 million Americans are insured by UnitedHealth. So 49 million people, 33%
Speaker:of them have been denied by Brian Thompson are looking at this event going, well, I don't
Speaker:know what to tell you. Yeah, no. I mean, I don't have my facts all in order here, but I did
Speaker:read something about how they implemented an AI software to automatically deny people that
Speaker:was shown to be inaccurate. And yet, even after that, they continued. to use this software.
Speaker:That statement by Elon Musk, it really shows like how disconnected, like that we don't understand
Speaker:it. No, we understand perfectly. And that's why we say that there's no room for profit
Speaker:in healthcare. All of the measurements that you can use here show that the United States
Speaker:is not giving adequate care. And it also like, there's so much in healthcare that goes beyond
Speaker:just treating things when they become a problem, right? Like you need to be, giving preventative
Speaker:care. You know, you have to be identifying risk factors and in doing so that will actually
Speaker:save money from the healthcare system. And when that is so frequently denied, like you end
Speaker:up actually putting such a larger financial burden on the health of an economy. Like having
Speaker:people not be healthy, not have access to get care, to become healthy. from their stupid
Speaker:fucking fiscal conservative standpoint, which I always refer back to show how idiotic their
Speaker:own ideal, how incoherent their own ideological beliefs is. This is not healthy for an economy.
Speaker:It's not healthy for a society. It could be that one point in US politics, perhaps. Maybe
Speaker:it would be unique here because of the circumstances. that could unite both sides of the working
Speaker:class. There are no two sides of the working class, just like there's some folks that aren't,
Speaker:they don't understand. That really is the just of it. And I truly believe that now because
Speaker:there's just this tweet that kind of went viral. And it originally was a post by someone who
Speaker:had put up their kids' homework. And they were really, really concerned because what it did,
Speaker:it was like a table of political ideologies, right? So the right and the left. and it just
Speaker:listed some of the tenets of these things. Like, I'm just gonna give you some examples. The
Speaker:left believes that humans are naturally good and the right believes that humans are naturally
Speaker:competitive or flawed. The left believe, this is probably one of the better examples. The
Speaker:left believes in equality of outcome. The right believes equality of opportunity. Left has
Speaker:a preference typically for larger government or governance, and the right has a preference
Speaker:for smaller government. Anyway, it wasn't all that controversial, but the conservatives were
Speaker:worked up because they thought it demonized them. But it's because they actually looked
Speaker:at the tenets of what they're espousing, and they realized it was bad. They looked and could
Speaker:see that it was all good things in the left
Speaker:And when it's really laid out that simply for people, it's clear. I mean, obviously the folks
Speaker:that were worked up weren't kind of getting that connection, right? They just felt like
Speaker:they were being insulted, but they couldn't point to any one of those tenants of their
Speaker:ideology that was untrue to them, right? But perhaps like we talk about tenant organizing,
Speaker:like 30% of Canadians are tenants. So if you could organize around tenant rights. I mean,
Speaker:that is a huge bulk of the population and a very specific class, right, of renters. And
Speaker:so the same goes for, I think, the medical insurance, because the ultra wealthy in the United States,
Speaker:they get denied a claim, they can pay it. I mean, when we're talking about the ultra wealthy,
Speaker:it's not a problem. But for almost everybody else, it is. And even, I think, surveys show
Speaker:that 50% of Americans have been denied. at one point in their life or another. And then you
Speaker:have folks who can't even get health insurance because of preexisting conditions. Even all
Speaker:the changes to Obamacare have still resulted in what you're seeing right now. So it's, yeah,
Speaker:like we're not advocating for violence here, but I can see how people got there. I can definitely
Speaker:see how people got there and how it's appealing to both sides because it's just laid bare.
Speaker:Like you're showing a man that is just defiantly denying people life-saving care and explicitly
Speaker:for the reasons that he needs to make rich people more money and will say it out loud. It's like
Speaker:that clip you played from the Nestle guy. Yeah. Or about the Nestle guy. Yeah. It was the time
Speaker:that Bill Burr was joking about how like there's a guy from Nestle, like the CEO of Nestle,
Speaker:who doesn't believe that water should be a human right and that guy should be hunt down and
Speaker:shot. Right? Like, I mean, when you're denying people these things that they need to live,
Speaker:it is a form of inflicting violence. I mean, there's a very simple term for it, which is
Speaker:social murder. Right? We talk about that a lot on this show. Like whenever you're taking essential
Speaker:needs away from people, it is going to lead to people dying. It is in a way killing them.
Speaker:I feel like in 2024, you know, Um, it's a very large ask from these powerful figureheads to
Speaker:like, try and like make a moral argument here about murder. You know, like when you've just
Speaker:spent over a year talking about like how it's necessary to murder children to get rid of
Speaker:Hamas. You know, like when you, when you've justified away all kinds of murder to then
Speaker:point at this and be like, wait, but this one, this one's not okay. It's a really big ass
Speaker:for people. You know, like you've just spent a lot of time legitimizing different forms
Speaker:of murder. That's why I don't like that social murder term anymore so much. I feel like it's
Speaker:like a softer version when it's actually more drawn out and cruel most of the time, you know
Speaker:what I mean? And it's not any less direct. They do it with the complete knowledge that it'll
Speaker:end in death. You know, closing warming centers when it's going to, you know, you're in a town
Speaker:in Alberta that's going to see minus 20 on the regular and not having a warming center. Like
Speaker:that's happening. That's not just social murder. They know that is actual death that they're
Speaker:causing. It's just like, I feel like it's letting them off the hook. It's kind of similar to
Speaker:like the, I don't know, the use of like the term like cultural genocide or something where
Speaker:like, people are like, okay, well, then it's genocide, but it's not that big a deal. You
Speaker:know? Yeah, especially if you love a good old melting pot, right? You're like, what's that
Speaker:big deal? But no, it's deliberate. It's deliberate. But I wanna kind of get to the point that some
Speaker:people are probably maybe feeling uncomfortable with all this talk of justifying what Luigi
Speaker:did or didn't do. I mean, as far as I know, he was in the studio with us from 6 a.m. to
Speaker:6 p.m. on December 4th, celebrating Santiago's birthday. But... In reality, you know, we can't
Speaker:sit here and advocate for violence. That's not going to be a solution. We don't want people
Speaker:walking around Toronto or, you know, gunning down CEOs. But you do have to look back at
Speaker:this situation and ask how we got there. And if you don't like what you saw, you have to
Speaker:answer, well, then where do people go? Where do people go to address the injustice of a
Speaker:specific... class of folks that are openly killing them to profit, right, to just have more stuff
Speaker:at their fingertips. Where do you go? Where can people go to address that? I'm going to
Speaker:read a quote by Nelson Mandela that lays it out far better than I could. With all the complications
Speaker:of Nelson Mandela aside, this speaks to the use of violence. specifically and it's from
Speaker:his memoir, The Long Walk to Freedom. He said, the lesson I took away from the campaign was,
Speaker:which to end apartheid in South Africa, was that in the end, we had no alternative to armed
Speaker:and violent resistance. Over and over again, we had used all of the nonviolent weapons in
Speaker:our arsenal, speeches, deputations, threats, marches, strikes. stayaways, voluntary imprisonment,
Speaker:all to no avail. For whatever we did was met by an iron hand. A freedom fighter learns the
Speaker:hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed
Speaker:is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain
Speaker:point, One can only fight fire with fire. That's what it is. When you have taken away every
Speaker:possible opportunity, like we don't, we've talked about it, we don't live in a democracy. Like
Speaker:we've been trying so fucking hard and everything that we do is met with just absolute oppression,
Speaker:absolute resistance. Like we, there was just no way to get victory. What do you expect people
Speaker:to do? Like genuinely? What is expected here? Like when these CEOs show such disregard for
Speaker:people's lives, why should they have the expectation that their lives are regarded as important
Speaker:by the same people that they have no problem sentencing to death? In a country with a death
Speaker:penalty, presumably New York does not, but Luigi will face quote unquote justice according to
Speaker:the system. Right? The murder he may or may not have committed will be avenged in a way.
Speaker:Yes? This is why folks advocate for many other reasons for a justice system because it provides
Speaker:a resolution from a crime. Right? Maybe restitution, maybe rehabilitation, whatever it is, it's
Speaker:addressed. But all of these crimes that we describe, that folks can call social murder, they aren't
Speaker:addressed anywhere. They're flaunted and praised. They end up on the cover of Forbes Magazine.
Speaker:They have people that will follow in their footsteps, continuing their legacy of social murder proudly,
Speaker:and they can afford the security to do so. I'm just saying. When you have, like if you have
Speaker:like a beloved family member who dies because they were denied life-saving healthcare, this
Speaker:kind of thing becomes very understandable for many people, you know? Like this idea that
Speaker:you can just keep doing this and like just live a life free from any fear where you can wander
Speaker:the streets just without any concern is unrealistic to me. I honestly... My reaction to this has
Speaker:long been, I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. From people who
Speaker:have had everything taken away. And I mean, we haven't talked too much. I mean, we're half
Speaker:an hour in here. We haven't talked too much about Luigi himself, right? His motivations
Speaker:to certain extents still remain unclear, but it seems like he did have certain health problems
Speaker:in his back. I'm not sure to what extent, you know, he... apparently disappeared for several
Speaker:months before this. Because this was a someone who he came from a certain amount of wealth,
Speaker:you know, went to prestigious prep schools, was valedictorian, you know, had a master's,
Speaker:you know, well educated, you know, and then it seems like something outside of his control,
Speaker:some health problem took a lot of that away from him. That's a story that gets repeated
Speaker:a lot. I mean, this is someone who isn't even coming from poverty. Someone who is set up
Speaker:to be a part of that ruling class. There's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker:more good than bad came from this. And I know that is such a horrible way to look at like
Speaker:life and death. But if the discussions that have opened up not just about health care,
Speaker:you got Marjorie Taylor Green, she says she's convinced this act is going to reopen the possibility
Speaker:of single payer medical coverage for Americans. She says like it's a bad thing. Anyway, I'm
Speaker:not sure if you'll get there, but one, it created a discussion point that needed something to
Speaker:reignite it. Right? Because the fact that so many people are experiencing these denials
Speaker:and these medical travesties is preventable deaths and injuries and whatnot. It is surprising
Speaker:that we haven't gotten here sooner. But I always say that much of the battle that is ahead of
Speaker:us. is having people understand who the real enemy is. We have the resources to launch a
Speaker:class war back, but we don't realize we're in it sometimes. They know they're in it. The
Speaker:ruling class know that they engage in class warfare. They do it daily. They structure their
Speaker:lives around it and their budgets. It's meticulously planned and executed. We are a mess. We are
Speaker:fighting amongst ourselves on the right and the left as the working class goes. And a lot
Speaker:of us are punching down, even those who know better, are still looking around for all these
Speaker:other sources of blame and not directly at capital. Some of them are still wasting their time even
Speaker:with politicians, knowing that Galen Weston and his friends here in Canada have a lot more
Speaker:say in what policies end up on the table than any of our politicians do individually. And
Speaker:so seeing folks just recognizing as a mass that there are villains amongst us, not really amongst
Speaker:us, but it's not, we say capital and capital doesn't have a face, but they do. The reality
Speaker:is there is a ruling class that we need to deal with. Every revolution has to have an answer
Speaker:for. What do you do with the ruling class? And that's not really a discussion I wanna unpack
Speaker:here in this episode fully, because it requires a lot of kind of reflection and it's a difficult
Speaker:conversation to have. But throughout history, we have examples of revolutions not adequately
Speaker:dealing with the ruling class and the battle is ultimately lost in the end. So responsibly,
Speaker:when we go in and we try to smash these systems and rebuild something new, we have to address
Speaker:that. We have to have an answer for that and ask ourselves, you know, individually, how
Speaker:do you feel about what you do about that? But our historical examples are all over the place.
Speaker:I mean, they range from guillotines to exile to... a melting pot, you know, just kind of
Speaker:let them stay but take their property and redistribute and you know, that's a larger discussion to
Speaker:talk about the benefits and the downfalls of some of those. Because you know, when you start
Speaker:to commit acts that are of your oppressor, like Mandela said in his quote, how many can you
Speaker:commit before you become an oppressor? before you absorb that mentality and that view on
Speaker:human life and whatnot. It'll reshape you. I'm not comfortable with violence. I've never have
Speaker:been. I don't, it's not something that I ever want to cheer on, like deep down. Because it's,
Speaker:we would like there to be alternatives. We would like there to be other ways. And we talk about
Speaker:other ways, you know, on this show all the time. Like it really is on them, on those oppressors
Speaker:for not allowing people any other means to get change. You know, you're creating these systems,
Speaker:you have the opportunity to create different systems. Will they be as rich and as exorbitantly
Speaker:wealthy? No. If they did that, no, they would have to relinquish a lot of their power to
Speaker:do so. which is why they don't. At the end of the day, this is just some shithead CEO, you
Speaker:know? But CEOs are just figureheads at the end of the day. A CEO that is not making as much
Speaker:money as possible for the shareholders will be replaced by a CEO who will, you know, thus
Speaker:the system of capitalism. And I'm sure that, you know, they've already put, well, we've
Speaker:seen the job ads that they've already put to replace this guy, and there's gonna be someone
Speaker:equally as bad, if not worse, that will be... placed in that position again. And meanwhile,
Speaker:those shareholders, no one knows who their names are. The shareholders who are enabling all
Speaker:of this are out here enabling the same system. And you can guarantee that their shareholders
Speaker:in a bunch of other companies are doing equally as shitty things to everyone. Like at the end
Speaker:of the day, we like to like name names a lot. And we say like, these people, they're like
Speaker:the ones that are responsible for this. But it goes so much beyond. Like those names that
Speaker:are in the public eye, there's so many names that are not in the public eye that are actually
Speaker:the ones that are choosing who to put up into the public eye to be held responsible. Yeah,
Speaker:I understand the figurehead and they will be replaced, but I still hold them responsible
Speaker:as individuals. Yes, no, yes. It's not to take away responsibility, but it's more of just
Speaker:like, we could kill every CEO. and nothing would change. Well, they might hire more security.
Speaker:This is true. It's a systemic issue that has to be addressed in that way. But that is a
Speaker:message to all workers though, watching the reaction of United Health. They honor his legacy,
Speaker:but then immediately seek to replace him and... There's no way they're not collecting on employer
Speaker:life insurance for him. So they actually made money off of his death. If you don't include
Speaker:all the extra security that they're likely. But you know, they knew that there was been
Speaker:threats against them. It's not like they were completely ignorant to the fact that the ways
Speaker:that they are behaving are not just killing people, but angering millions of people as
Speaker:well. And they decided to roll the dice with that. I mean, we wouldn't go out there and
Speaker:harm all of these other people and then strut down Yonge Street to our next appointment,
Speaker:right? Like what kind of world do we live in where these folks think they can walk around
Speaker:with this kind of impunity? Same with the folks committing a genocide right now. I mean, not
Speaker:even just the Benjamin Netanyahu's, I mean, every liberal cabinet minister. How the fuck
Speaker:do they think they can just walk around? I mean, thankfully they can't because you've got like
Speaker:Eve Angler out there and a bunch of other folks just harassing them any time they pop up. But
Speaker:that is that impunity that they think they have. I hope that has been shattered, honestly, because
Speaker:killing Brian Thompson obviously is not going to help one person that is covered by United
Speaker:Health. But I hope it sent a shockwave to the ruling class. And it sent a message to other
Speaker:working class people that there's a fight to be had. You don't want to do it that way? Well,
Speaker:figure out another way then. You know, because pressure points from all different angles will
Speaker:work. It's not one way or another way. That's why we cover so many tactics on this show is
Speaker:because it has to be pressure from all walks, right? From the factories to the streets to,
Speaker:you know, the legislature and beyond. It's going to take all kinds. But if you don't want it
Speaker:to end up in this kind of situation, then... Sitting by idly surely isn't a solution either,
Speaker:because it's just getting worse. The state of healthcare in the United States is on the decline.
Speaker:So they are going to have to address that or assume that there will be no blowback from
Speaker:this. And I don't think that's a safe bet. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints
Speaker:of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank you to the producer of our
Speaker:show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated
Speaker:cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to help us
Speaker:continue disrupting the status quo, please share our content. And if you have the means, consider
Speaker:becoming a patron. Not only does our support come from the progressive community, so does
Speaker:our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until
Speaker:next time, keep disrupting.
