About the UnitedHealthcare CEO who was shot.
All I know about this story is that someone shot the CEO of an insurance company. I haven’t yet read the story beyond the headlines. I don’t know anything about the CEO, I don’t know anything about the shooter. I don’t know the motives. I don’t know if the CEO was a good person or a piece of shit. By being someone who shot someone else, I can say that the shooter was an asshole.
I’ve heard from friends that the insurance company was not a nice company, and they had a history of denying claims at much higher rates than other comparable companies, I certainly don’t know if the dead CEO was directly responsible for his company’s behaviors.
And yet, even then, no part of me believes shooting this CEO was the right thing to do.
No, I do not in any way shape or form condone the flat-out execution of another human, no matter how well they fit in as a proxy for our collective anger against what is our true enemy: the structures – the SYSTEMS – that generate and perpetuate the injustice and inequality – the despair – people face every day.
PEOPLE are not our enemies.
SYSTEMS are our enemies.
The systems that corrupt. Systems that allow for corruption. Systems that protect white supremacists and institutional racism. Systems that let capital owners walk free. Systems that incarcerate minorities at alarming rates.
Do not misunderstand me: all these systems need to go. They must be demolished. And I do believe that violence will be necessary to destroy them. No part of me thinks these systems won’t go down without a fight.
BUT…
SYSTEMS are not PEOPLE.
SYSTEMS need to be destroyed, not people.
SYSTEMS will be destroyed with violence, not people.
As I said before, I don’t know enough at this moment about this healthcare insurance company and the CEO to make a kind of opinion.
So all I know is what was mentioned by my friend about the company and its business practices.
And given those practices, based solely on those practices I would say yes, burn the company to the ground and burn to the ground the system that enables this behavior. And hell, do it violently.
But don’t think for one second that singling out a human being from that company, and shooting them as a proxy for your desire to burn the system to the ground will accomplish anything. All the shooter did was murder a human being; someone, like all humans, with the intrinsic capability to change.
Given the right circumstances and the right systems in place, that person could have had the chance to do something right, good, to help society and the world.
Instead, that person is dead, and the horrific exploitation of capitalism continues.