Worth mentioning (even though yes the post asks specifically about deaths) - the harm caused is far greater than just the deaths that needn’t have happened.

The amount of chaos and misery inflicted on the suffering as they and their families have to fight the insurance companies while trying to fight whatever illness…these companies make the worst moments of people’s lives much, much worse. The deaths are just the tip of the iceberg, truly.

Ha, you’re right, and our countries are of course more closely linked than maybe I realize. Hope it didn’t sound like I was diminishing your struggles. Cheers and best wishes!

Well, I don’t really mean this as a positive per se, but it’s entirely possible the incoming administration tosses a few crumbs to keep things just simmering (while of course further dismantling everything of any real value). That’s been the playbook for the power brokers for some time. I didn’t mean there was some possibility there’d be any actual good. The incoming folks are essentially the most predatory version of that class of people, I’m under no illusions.

Edit to add: I tentatively reject the idea that your country is not far behind, respectfully. That’s my point. I am fairly sure the differences are bigger than you realize.

It’s been real popular to knock Americans around these parts for a while, I’ve noticed, and we certainly earn our share of it. But I get the sense Europeans don’t quite understand how bad things have gotten here and how truly cornered and out of options many of us feel. Folks are being squeezed past their breaking point.

Impossible to guess exactly when that’ll be true for enough people to cause something dramatic, but any populace has its limit and we seem to be approaching it. I really hope we start heading the other direction soon, but this incoming administration does not make that look likely.

Thompson managed kind of a spinning…well fall, as he fell, does The Adjustor get to incorporate that now?!

I bet that guy is finding sleep elusive.

Hear, hear! There’s nothing* holding the worst back any more, they’ve practically rubbed our fucking faces in it by now. Culminating in the Supreme Court ruling in favor of literal immunity for any presidential action? For real? How is anyone supposed to read that?

Look there’s been a goddamn parade of degradations over the years, but boy. The weird inhuman parasite class sure couldn’t help but take it too far, could they? Couldn’t even just sacrifice one of their own to keep some plausible deniability on normalcy? Well, of course not, they wouldn’t be what they are otherwise, I guess.

* Well. Not nothing…

A critically important piece of our history, yes! The notion of gun control practically at all in this country actually came about because black people organized. Not only did the Black Panthers openly carry while carefully witnessing / observing law enforcement in their community, they also ran many aid programs and focused on the need for education and self-reliance.

And that had to be stopped, and it was.

Sure thing! It was certainly eye opening, I’d stop short of calling it a page-turner myself, but I think it’s important to give myself a better education about our history than our classrooms were able to.

Also, as a sometimes-neurotic reader, in case this is useful - nonfiction especially you can just choose which bits to read if that makes a difference for ya. It’s got a flow and a narrative of course, so you’ll lose a bit that way, but I’ve had struggles with other nonfiction books and needed to just try to get to the meat and forgive myself for that, lol. Turns out it’s totally allowed, no one even says anything!

I strongly recommend a book called The Sword and The Shield, about the dual roles Malcom X and King played in the civil rights era. King very well understood the need for a credible threat of violence, and actually he grew closer to Malcolm X’s beliefs as time went on, and that is why he was killed.

At our worst moments, when all else fails, violence is the only answer and everyone, deep down, knows that.

Edit to add: washing King’s legacy via history so he appears as purely nonviolent is, I believe, a very deliberate strategy to make us easier to pacify. You’ll notice that no high school curricula (barring I’m sure some notable exceptions) have ever taught Malcolm X. Only King, and only his nonviolence! Civil rights safely defanged.

This is fantastic, thank you. Going to hammer this home to anyone who makes even a whiff of disapproval over that bastard’s killing.

Hmm, fair point.

Really? Have you watched the uninterrupted start-to-finish footage? I struggled to find emotion of any kind. The way he walks toward Thompson after shooting him, clearing his pistol’s misfire, is so unhurried and casual - it’s what I look like putting my earbuds back in their case as I walk. The dude does not look emotional or even remotely stressed that he just shot someone in full view of another person.

Eh, maybe, as long as wrong guy doesn’t get arrested and harassed and / or martyred for the sake of closing the case.

Huh, weird! It’s almost like they see some value in trying to rehab the least sympathetic crime victim of maybe our whole lives!

They damn sure aren’t telling stories people want to hear, we’ve echoed pretty loudly, from about every corner of the Internet, something to the tune of “lmao fuck that guy”.

And the thing is, the “trade” they inflict is just so amazingly unreasonable. The incredible misery they cause, replicated over so many people, and for truly no greater purpose than keeping up with the perverse status symbol competition amongst their hideous peers. Absolutely wild, unhinged, clearly malignant behavior.

Fuck yeah. This is what the Internet is for, this stuff should be the easiest thing. Cheers!

Ya know, I feel the “every day” is a little overblown (hell maybe it isn’t, I don’t need receipts lol)…but yeah the way you phrased the rest of that is exactly what was itching in the back of my brain but that I couldn’t put together quite yet and needed to hear. I’ll get moved over somewhere else, thanks for the nudge.

My friend. Between this and the book links above, you are dropping the hits out here lol. Thank you!

If you feel like going for a hat trick - happen to have a link to a straight forward and non-“newsy” copy of the video?