It's almost like the material conditions of the society haven't changed, and that people are desperate for a symbol to rally around. You're watching the birth of a folk hero. You're a witness to history.
Yeah I'm of two minds. Half the time I'm feeling what Tolkien taught - "many that live deserve death, and many that die deserve life. Will you give it to them?" As I cannot bring the dead back to life, I should not be so quick to endorse the taking of life.
The other half of the time I'm ready to start a crowd funding campaign to erect a giant bronze statue of Luigi.
The latter attitude I tend to reserve for flippant comments and posts. I've been on a kick lately about suggesting we chain CEOs to boulders and throw them into the Sea. But when I actually sit down and write something more long form, I tend to take the former approach. Also, I wanted to have something that people could reference as an actual calculation for the real magnitude of Thompson's crimes. I felt not openly condoning murder was better for that purpose. But I still wanted to have a strong moral component, so I took the approach of "all y'all are goin' to Hell for this."
But he had a family! What right did Ukraine have to kill a man who was acting entirely within the law? If we just let Ukraine kill every ricin manufacturer in the street, who will be next?!
Repetition is often necessary in this kind of thing. You have to repeat yourself, lest you be accused of supporting vigilante murder. The intention was to thoroughly explain the methods and assumptions. As far as the religious bent, that's deliberate. I'm agnostic myself, but I decided to take a very religious "fire and brimstone" framing to the piece. I've read so many pieces condemning Luigi as a monster and irredeemably evil. And maybe it's just my own religious upbringing, but I know of no way to more thoroughly condemn someone than to state that they are literally burning in the fires of Hell itself. That's not the kind of language one is to use lightly.
I think we could use more fire and brimstone rhetoric against the oligarchs. That's always been one of the core traditions of Christianity. It's the money changers in the Temple. The belief that even if the powerful escape accountability in this life, they are still to be shamed, as they will burn in the Pit forever. In today's world, it's primarily only the right that uses this language of Damnation, almost exclusively against LGBT people. But I think the left really needs to reclaim this rhetoric. It is a powerful thing to look an evil man in the eyes and to calmly say, "you are going to burn for what you have done in this world."
Also, this issue is something that appeals to people on all sides of the aisle. I could have written the article from some sort of Marxist class analysis, but that really doesn't seem appropriate for the moment. I mention a policy solution, Medicare for All, that is usually considered left wing. And I wanted to balance it out with some very traditional religious condemnation.
Remember. When Brian Robert Thompson hit the pavement, he did not stop falling. He fell, and fell, and fell. Right into the open maw of the Pit of Hell itself.
He died on his way to a conference where he was going to openly celebrate the record profits he made killing thousands of people. If that doesn't Damn your soul for all eternity, I don't know what does.
Wait til you learn that the reason you hate immigrants and immigration is that the wealthy conditioned you to hate them. Notice how capital can cross borders, but people can't? This allows the wealthy to profit off of international arbitrage, while regular citizens can't. A CEO can move a factory to a low cost country to save on labor, but you in a wealthy country can't move there to save on cost of living. And the citizens in a poor country can't move to a wealthy country to earn better wages. The corporations get to take advantage of international arbitrage, but you don't.
I wanted to have an actual quantifiable number for his victims, so I ran the numbers. By my math, Brian Robert Thompson was responsible for the deaths of 40,000 innocent human beings.
If you want to actually look at things quantitatively. I ran the numbers, and by my math, Brian Robert Thompson was responsible for the deaths of 40,000 innocent American souls.
I mean, yeah, but it just doesn't have the same vibe to it. You can't make a grandiose speech about "condemning them to the depths." Plus it's just much more terrifying, watching the surface of the water rise above you, as you're pulled inexhorably down into the abyss...
It's almost like the material conditions of the society haven't changed, and that people are desperate for a symbol to rally around. You're watching the birth of a folk hero. You're a witness to history.