In corporations we trust

The erosion of democracy is one of the leading threats to the survival of humanity globally. Much of the anti-democratic forces and power systems around the world have been backed by the United States, while they sing songs of democracy at home. However, the US is not completely immune to the influence of anti-democratic forces. The latest sad incident of a young college student shooting and killing a CEO of a major healthcare insurance company speaks some disturbing facts about American society, none of which is reported or talked about in the US mainstream media. Will get to that in a moment.

Money plays a major role in politics, which then circles around and enriches that very system that paid that money. In a nutshell, American politics is in the hands of a system, whose wealth may have a limit but whose power and control may not. The fourteenth amendment was added to the US constitution in order to give rights to the freed slaves, but over the years, it has been interpreted, wrongly, to mean that corporations have the same rights as normal human beings with flesh and blood. Their free speech is their limitless cash, which they can use in sponsoring or suppressing legislators, executive, justices, and of course the fourth pillar called the media.

In a puppet show like this, the system is a pretty closed one. People cannot bring about a change through legislation because the politicians are owned by the corporations. When there is a strong feeling of alienation from the system, that humiliation always results in resorting to violence. Ted Kaczynsky, the notorious Unabomber who bombed airlines, universities and other targets, was a product of such a system. The violence changes the entire topic to what men like him usually resort to. But what he said strongly resonates with many today: the rapid industrial growth and corporate greed has had a destabilising impact on human race and its physical and mental health.

Another man named Andrew Joseph Stack III flew a plane into the building of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2010. He did this 9/11 style kamikaze attack because he was extremely angered by how the IRS and the tax code generally took away his savings and his ability to retire peacefully. I would be surprised if you have even heard about this incident because the corporations own the media houses and the print publications as well. While tax breaks are given to billionaires and tax money is given to Israel, Ukraine and others, industrious Americans who spent their entire lives working hard in this country cannot even afford to retire with a roof over their heads and be able to send their children to college. The system is beyond rigged. Again, the act of violence changes the topic to exactly that and away from what compelled the man to do so. The pipes through which this democracy can breathe are clogged with money, power and corporate greed.

Enter Luigi Mangione, the 26 year old bright student who shot and killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO. So far, it seems that he was driven by the anger resulting from the "denial and delay" of health insurance claims. Luigi saw the killing as a "symbolic takedown" of the healthcare industry's "alleged corruption and power games".

Luigi is from a rich and educated family. He himself was the brightest student among his peers. Ted Kaczynsky was a Harvard graduate who later earned a Ph.D. The man who flew the plane into the IRS building was a computer engineer. The mantra of the man who commits terrorism or hate crime is the one who lives in a cave or in his mother's basement is just not always true. The mistake that is deliberately made is to focus on the crime and the criminal. The real criminal are the circumstances that drove them to do this. The system doesn't send corporate greed to the gallows.