Have seen a few posts popping up recently just straight up calling fo violence barely disguised as memes
Had thought Lemmy had chilled out a bit on that kinda thing for a while but seems to be coming back now
Anyone else noticing the same or just me?
Can you think of anything that happened in the past month or so, perhaps involving US politics, that might have a tendency to radicalize people?
Its not really just Lemmy tho. Its everywhere.
People are just mad these days and that event in NYC ignited their anger they always had.
I think most people are more like saying “LOL” at what happened rather than “Lets kill [insert person name here]”. I mean, nobody really asked for it, nobody gave the pepetrator the “okay” to do it, the person just did it. People aren’t sympathetic because the dead person wasn’t such a nice person.
Remember how people celebrated Bin Laden’s death, this is like that. Different nationality, same killer mindset that they had in common.
how people celebrated Bin Laden’s death
Ouch, some deep introspection is required if you get to a point in life where you, being an insurance CEO and being killed lead to the same kind of mob reactions as Bin Laden’s death.
To be honest, the UHC CEO was probably responsible for more loss of life than Al-Qaeda was.
Also this guy did it without undermining the global vaccine movement. Thanks Obama!
I think most people are more like saying “LOL” at what happened rather than “Lets kill [insert person name here]”.
I’ve definitely seen quite a few memes that were like “Here are the names and faces of a few other health insurance CEOs. No particular reason ;)”. But yeah it’s probably not most.
Count me in the second category. I’ve got a mental list of people I’d love to see offed in similar fashion. I’d do it myself but I have to care for my mother.
I can understand you emotions, even if I can’t directly relate (living in a country with universal healthcare). But I do think it’s a slippery slope. Those kind of “kill the oppressors” movements may hit the “right people” at first, but also have a tendency of going wildly out of control. (Khmer Rouge etc)
Yeah, don’t care. You have no idea what it’s like to live here and how many people are ready to take matters into their own hands. Our government and justice system are a sham. We’ve had decades to do things the right way and we’ve been blocked from all matters of doing things peacefully. Violence it is.
These people killed my father and rendered my mother and I homeless for a short stint. I’ve had a lifetime of trauma dealing with these ghouls. I’d kill them myself if I didn’t have a responsibility to take care of my mom. I’ve wanted to do what the assassin did for the last 13 years. You let these companies deny your family healthcare and watch your loved ones rot and see if you want to take the high road. I and millions more are out for blood.
This was the first shot of many to come. Fuck the elite.
Just be careful you don’t get in the crossfire yourself once the people’s bloodlust takes over and who the elite is shifts. In some cases, wearing glasses was enough.
I’m already visibly queer and have been physically assaulted most of my childhood for it and threatened as an adult too. I don’t give a shit anymore.
Always funny when people are like “yeah but what if you become the target next” as if you haven’t been the target already of not only individuals but also an entire system. Like, that’s why we wanna dismantle it lol
Yeah, I mean, look what happened in the late 1700’s. A bunch of people in the new world did a kind of “kill the oppressors” movement, and then they had to start a whole new country with a new set of ideas - what a pain. Then people in France caught wind of it and decided to start the movement there, too! It was a whole mess for the bourgeoise of the time.
I mean those people in the new world also did a bit of genocide of the native people as a side project and the movement in France included a regime of terror where like 30000 people, including peasants and revolutionaries, were murdered by other revolutionaries. It was hardly just the burgeoisie that suffered. But sure, desperate times may call for desperate measures. It’s not something I’d particularly want to live through though and there’s no guarantee that what comes after will be better.
Correct. Those people, who were doing all that anyway. I’m not saying they were good people, but their revolution had nothing to do with the indigenous genocide. I do know that a lot of people were hurt or killed from “being too apologetic to British forces.” I don’t personally know enough about the French revolution to know about the amount of innocent casualties, but 30,000 doesn’t surprise me.
Things are bad over here, and they’re only getting worse. If I end up being one of the people killed during the - at this point - inevitable uprising, whether from fighting or from being mistaken as being too friendly with the corrupt elite, at least I could be happy that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel for those who do survive.
Those oppressors would just as easily turn around and kill you while profiting off it, why give them a pass?
…
Did you really blame a movement that basically existed for twenty years after relevance through US (and Chinese, interestingly enough) machinations and support, and was actually ousted by the communist Vietnamese, on a ‘kill the oppressors’ view?
Jesus, capitalists will say and do everything to blame the consequences of their actions on everyone else.
IMO. You have no clue what you’re talking about. You’re just parroting any anti-capitalist rhetoric and feeling superior about it. This is based on the fact that you enjoy calling and insinuating people are stupid
Who supported the Khmer Rouge?
Who ended up fighting and ending the genocide?
Who denied a genocide happened until the 80’s, and continued funding the Khmer Rouge until the late 90’s?
These are all simple questions with simple, factual answers. You just don’t like the picture the answers paint, and want to justify the intentional outcome of Kissinger’s designs and blame the outcome on the victims.
It sickens me to see people like the person I was replying to and yourself try and blame the people who were genocided for their genocide and to blame it on a economic ideology that had very little to do with the outcome.
Haha. You’re the one who mentioned said economic ideology. You are just stirring yourself up for the sake of being stirred up. So now I think you just see enemies wherever you go, and really, that is your personal problem.
And if you’re feeling sickened, try some pepto
Real. I don’t think the average American can correctly identify the oligarch culprits in most cases, this is the exception.
Doubt it, but at least your priorities are on track
Don’t doubt it. I have skin in the game, it’s time these CEOs feel our wrath. They left my father to die a horrible death. I want revenge. There’s millions of me.
Agreed, but to say you will murder and actually murdering are two separate things
After my mother is no longer on this earth, don’t doubt me. I’ve had years of rage pent up in me over this. It’s justified. I’d only take out someone like the UHC CEO.
Don’t say that shit here. It’s called the FEDiverse because it’s full of feds.
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I thought that was more noting that the companies were trying to quietly remove those pages and experiencing the Streisand effect in relation to that
I’ve seen both. Example of what I mean
Fair I’m not really on any other forums anymore and I haven’t heard anything about this CEO death until just now
Fascinating. Are you in the US?
I could not have avoided knowing about it. Even if I were to stay off the internet completely, it has been a major conversation topic in real life with friends and family. My work has BCBS health insurance coverage so when they were dropping coverage for anesthesia, all casual conversations at work with colleagues were about it too. I couldn’t have avoided it if I actively tried.
I’m not in the US no, so far nobody has mentioned it in conversation
First shots in defense of the working class have been fired in the class war and most of us are surprised it took this long.
As someone who’s father was killed by health insurance companies, the assassination of the UHC CEO brings out some really passionate bloodthirsty emotions in me. And I’m just one person….
The assassin is my hero. Too bad if it hurts your sensibilities. Fuck him, fuck his family, no sympathy. I hope there are many copycats, there are many deserving targets.
Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable. They have it coming.
Sorry to hear about your father. There’s maybe nothing more horrific in Western society than the way we fund the lavish lifestyles of mass murderers like Brian Thompson.
And I have pearl clutchers whining about how my support for violence is wrong.
It’s self defense. The justice system doesn’t work against the rich so vigilantism it is.
It is wrong but I understand how you feel and I may feel the same if I was in your situation
No, it’s not wrong. They’re committing social murder and living lavish lives off it no less. Fuck bootlickers defending them with iTs WrOnG so is denying and delaying healthcare you fucks.
Denying and delaying health care is wrong. And while I think that murder shouldn’t be a desired solution to the problem as it is also wrong, at this point we have to accept that we’ve reached systematic self-defense.
Something needs to change, and there are currently no motivating factors encouraging those with the power to make change. I don’t want the answer to be violence, but, genuinely, what other options do we have at this point? The courts, the Democratic process, the police and the economy all work together to protect the massive wealth of the few, and we live in a world run by that wealth. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but more than that, I don’t want anyone to be hurt. When the few in power choose to hurt the many without, tolerance for the gaps in power, wealth, and quality of life give way.
Yeah, in summary, no one wants violence but we’ve been on the receiving end of it for decades and we’ve grown impatient with doing things the right way in terms of fighting back. It’s not like we haven’t tried every other way of doing things short of a mass general strike. And the people are too desperate and divided for such a coordinated action. So violence it is. I can’t believe it took this long.
Slaves cheering when a slave owner dies seems pretty normal, no?
Nothing of the sort happened lately in the news.
Is Lemmy getting more bootlicker lately?
The recent killing of the UHC CEO seems to have pushed all the right buttons in activating people’s bloodlust and mob mentality. But I actually looked at some of the threads on reddit after being a bit taken aback by the reaction on Lemmy, and redditors were being just as violent. So I don’t think it’s Lemmy getting more radical, it’s just the flavor of the week right now to celebrate violence, as long as it’s against the bad guys.
The main doctor Reddit had to delete a whole thread due to bloodlust.
We are rampant for a revolution. Everyone is united in how pissed they are over health insurance. We need to seize this moment.
A successful revolution takes a whole lot more than bloodlust and directionless anger. The emotion is there, but there is no revolutionary framework or ideology in place to direct that feeling towards meaningful change. This seeming “unity” is ephemeral, it’ll be forgotten as soon as the next media cycle starts.
No it won’t. Kill people’s family and they’ll spend years thinking of ways to get revenge. Multiply that by millions. Multiply that by desperate economic conditions. I am one of the people who lost a parent to these ghouls, and I’ve had 13 years to think about it. This killing woke up some deep emotions that aren’t going to go away anytime soon.
We’ve been sitting on a powder keg for a while. It doesn’t take many people to start some shit - a few more assassinations and things will change fast.
We’ve been sitting on a powder keg for a while. It doesn’t take many people to start some shit - a few more assassinations and things will change fast.
Things will change for the worse. We just elected Donald Trump and the government is controlled by conservatives. How exactly are you expecting them to react to CEOs getting assassinated? You think they’re going to come to the table and work out a plan for universal healthcare, a compromise?
Fuck no, they’re going to fight fire with fire. And they’ve already proved they can manufacture consent from average Americans by taking advantage of their stupidity to make them go against their best interests.
I’m sorry for your loss, but this nonsense isn’t going to bring anyone back, it’s just going to lead to even more suffering and violence.
They already fight fire with fire. What’s your solution, continue to lay down and take it? Continue, for decades, to get anally raped with no lube?
As a bullied child, that’s not how this works. You fight back. Drones have proven themselves in Ukraine. A new asymmetrical warfare is coming and it’s best we catch these overprivileged shitheads while they’re still finding their balance in this new world the assassin ushered in. They need to be reminded they are neither invincible nor untouchable.
I’m on your side. You’re speaking out of desperation, lashing out instinctually.
But as I said before, directionless anger will not get you far. You and those like you will surely fail, and all of your rage will amount to nothing.
As they say, when you come at the king, you best not miss. As bad as you feel the situation is now, it could be far, far worse.
You sound like you’re discouraging more assassinations. If so we’re not on the same side.
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I think in general there’s just a lot of people getting to the end of their rope at the moment. This isn’t just hatred directed at insurance companies (although that was certainly the catalyst to get it started), but I think it’s also a reflection of growing agitation towards the upper class
He killed a mass murderer who murdered people who’s names he didn’t even know so rich people could get staggeringly rich.
Like ok, vigilante justice is a mixed bag. But if you’ve ever felt relief at any killing of a dangerous and violent person who victimises the vulnerable then the only reason you wouldn’t feel that now is because you think some words on a scroll change morality.
what is the opposite of “radical”, in your opinion, and was lemmy like that before “lately”?
I think it’s America that’s getting more violent. You see the same thing on other platforms.
It’s useful to remember that Americans are a minority on the English-speaking internet. There’s only 330 million of us, while the world has an estimated 1.5 billion English speakers. Probably much more if we include people that just know some of the language.
English is the global trade language, it’s frequently taken in school as a second language all over the world. If you learn some English, the amount of activities available to you dramatically increases.
Sure, I’m not American myself. But I’m pretty sure much of the violent rhetoric on social media right now around killing CEOs etc is from Americans. The murder of Brian Thompson happened in America after all and all the anger around health insurance wouldn’t really make sense in most of the world where there’s universal health care.
Certainly. But anti-elitist sentiment is broader than just this country, as is anti-capitalist sentiment. There’s a broad coalition of people that would celebrate something like this for a variety of reasons. I try to avoid taking people online purely at face value, since its so easy and commonplace to simply spin one’s opinions slightly into something that seems similar to solidarity with one specific position, but in reality is operating from a subtly different motive in an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of way.
That said, I do agree that a lot of it is from Americans. But it would be in the interest of a variety of different chaos-interested positions to amplify that in any way possible. To a communist, its class warfare. To a geopolitical rival, it’s a blow against stability. To the far right, it’s a blow against the liberal order. To social media companies its an enticing engagement. Etc etc etc.
edit for a typo and an extra example
Need to get rid of all the guns in America.
There is definitely a trend towards calling for death and violence against billionaires and other powerful figures that I’ve observed over a while.
I say it’s getting less radical when 20 years ago a country got invaded, a million killed, based on nothing but lies and no one bat an eye on any forum.
Yes and no.
There are more calls for violence, yes.
But a lot of people on Lemmy have a lot of catching up to do in understanding the world, nuances and getting rid of outdated and harmful thinking stagnated by clinging onto certain ideologies and belief systems.
That would be way more ‘radical’ than just violence alone.
Lemmy started as tankie safe-haven, and those memes are all over, not just on lemmy.
So I’d say, no.What communities?
Not that much, but I blocked some pretty nsfw instances…
Just yesterday I read a post about a woman being stalked by a supposed Nazi. At least 5 comments were quite literally ‘buy a gun and shoot him’, those had by far the most upvotes. When I said I hope theyre joking, I got downvoted and told you dont joke around when it comes to Nazis.
So yeah, maybe Lemmy is becoming kind of radical.
The alternative would be to call the cops, who would say “we can’t do anything as long as nothing has happened”.
Personally I’d call the nearest Antifa group.Tbf, “self defense,” while technically being “violence,” is the only time violence is actually acceptable. She should buy a gun if she’s being stalked by anyone, but of course just buying one isn’t enough. Also needed is practice to learn how to shoot (preferably with an instructor if you can afford it, but you can learn most of that stuff from the right sources online actually like Jerry Miculek’s videos on it, if that’s your only option), carry permit if your state needs it, and learning the laws regarding use of force in your area. Also buy/carry OC spray if it’s legal (for instance it isn’t legal in NYC) in case he ends up being a threat, but not a deadly threat.
Practicing nonviolence is a worthy pursuit and I’m also a proponent of it, but to go so far as to forego self defense in the name of pacifism is just foolish in my personal opinion. The advice isn’t just “shoot him next time you see him,” (that’s called murder lol), it’s “just in case he tries to kill you, be prepared with an Uno reverse card.”
The only difference is the immediacy. If exploitative strategies by healthcare companies directly caused harm to you or a loved one, it could very much be interpreted as self-defence to kill their CEO.
Unfortunately not, it would be interpreted as retribution (at least by the courts). Immediacy means something like “guy with knife threatening to stab you right now,” BUT if you pull your gun to do so and he starts walking away that’s it, it’s over, if you shoot him at that point you’ll be argued to be the aggressor and will lose your case. As such, having a claim denied and then traveling to wherever this guy is and likely planning for months is called “premeditation,” not “self defense.”
You may disagree, but that’s the court’s opinion.
I didn’t think we were talking about the law. I thought we were talking about personal moral considerations, which don’t have much to do with the law or courts.
carry permit if your state needs it, and learning the laws regarding use of force in your area. Also buy/carry OC spray if it’s legal (for instance it isn’t legal in NYC) in case he ends up being a threat, but not a deadly threat.
Those are all laws.
Wasn’t the opinion in George Zimmerman case.
True, sometimes juries fail, personally I wouldn’t bet on it and would err on the side of caution but that’s your own choice to make I suppose.
(It also helps if you’re the “right” color shooting the “right” color in the “right” state/county… but… otherwise it helps to have your ducks in a row.)
I genuinely laughed. Politician style or hospitality industry style? I’ve so many questions!
It was not about self defense, they were saying ‘go and shoot that fucker in the face’
Yeah ya can’t do that lol, that’s murder.
Thats what I said, seemed like an unpopular opinion…
I’d believe it, some people on here advocate for killing people all the time, so long as they’re a “CEO, accused-nazi, liberal, landlord, government employee they don’t like, etc.”
If saying to kill nazis is radical then call me a fucking Ninja Turtle.
There’s not exactly nuance when you’re dealing with a world that is growing far right, and has only hatred to show.
Maybe the radical is the Nazi, not the need to stamp out Nazism?
The creed everyone should have is: the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. Humanity has fought against fascism 85 years ago, and some people are thinking the same things as fascists now.
Comrade. Do not deny, defend, or depose the past.
The same is happening now as in the quote, just add queers and Muslims to it. I see your perspective, but what you are saying effectively comes over as, “oh no! a poor Nazi getting threatened!”, when the better action would be to stop and think:
Is it better that tolerance is intolerant against intolerance? Or should tolerance mean allowing hatred to destroy that very tolerance?
