I learned something after the assassination of the United Health Care CEO. For years I had been hearing about the “elites.” You know those elites, the ones in Hollywood, media, corporations, and in our government. Because of my long ago study of journalism during college, some eleven years before the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine by the Reagan administration, I viewed journalists in high regard and saw them as a vital cog in democracy’s engine, sanctioned in the First Amendment.
While I recognized the danger of corporations gobbling up news networks and once respected publications, I didn’t necessarily view all journalists working for those organizations as elites. That all changed after witnessing the pearl clutching and moral lecturing by those in the legacy media and talk show/podcast circles.
I’m not saying I condone or advocate violence, but a journalist’s job is to report the news, and an investigative journalist should be finding out why it happened. But when the overwhelming comments left on social media regarding the murder showed no sympathy for the CEO, those journalists clutched their pearls, showed shock at the public’s response, and some went on to lecture the public to do better.
Their responses showed such a blatant disconnect with what the 99 percenters are dealing with on a daily basis. They are either clueless, willfully ignorant, or intentually gaslighting the public. This is not to advocate violence or condone murder, but I understand how people are feeling and why someone might be pushed to violence. And those at the top 1% are doing the pushing.
Imagine you have a pit bull puppy. When you go to feed the puppy you set the bowl of food down, and after a few minutes snatch it away. He eats just enough to keep growing, but he is always hungry. When you sit down to eat a hamburger or steak he smells the food and begs for some. After all it smells so good, and he is always hungry. But instead of sharing, you give him a good kick.
The puppy matures into an adult dog. He grows tired and frustrated with you always taking his food away, of taunting him with your good smelling food, and those painful kicks. So he attacks. He kills you. While the dog will undoubtably be put down, who is truly to blame for this situation?
Meanwhile, rightwing provocateur Ben Shapiro went on a rant about the evil lefties who showed no sympathy over the CEO, yet he was met with his own followers telling him this was not a left or right situation—it was about up and down.
And then we have our newly almost appointed American Oligarch team of Elon and Vivek gleefully pushing the idea of major cuts to social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran’s benefits.
Like I said in the title, those boys aren’t reading the room.
