We all know you can’t read mate you gotta come up with something better than that.

This seems to be more of an argument against a point you imagine someone like me would make than the one I actually made. Yes, bribery is commonplace, that’s not what I’m disputing. But politicians also do sometimes go against corporate interests for various reasons. This is an observable fact and your own source proves it. So you are just wrong about this one, sorry, it’s not really debatable.

This is not to say it never has influence or isn’t harmful. But this kind of black and white thinking is part of why the left is so ineffective. Most people have a very poor understanding of the way politics actually works. It’s all about bargaining power. Bribery is a powerful bargaining chip but it’s not the only currency in the game and it can be outplayed with the right strategies, especially organized actions by the public and civil society. The capitalists have all of the money, but money is only powerful because it makes people do things. We can do equally or more impactful things without money if we seize the real power of mass movements.

And fundamentally, I don’t think murdering people is a very effective way to build mass movements because it’s chaotic, morally questionable, and it scares people. Sure, it gets already existing radicals fired up but there are other ways to do that and it’s not the most important aspect of why a movement succeeds or fails which is effective strategy and massive public support.

Accepting bribes doesn’t mean they are slaves to industry. Politics is never that simple. They still have their own agenda and different constituencies to keep happy and are subject to public pressure as well. The weight of each of these factors differs in each particular case, such that some elected officials still work to limit corporate power some of the time.

The article you posted outlines many such actions. They objectively happened, so I’m not sure where your incredulity is coming from.

No I think that clearly was. But you are ignoring pressures by various elected officials and civil society on the anesthesia policy. Luigi may have been a factor but he clearly wasn’t the only factor.

I don’t think most of these decision-makers really understood why Luigi did what he did, or why so many people supported him. They think they’re the good guys. And it’s not at all clear that this policy change will protect them from the kind of person who does this anyway. So the causal link is not as clear as you imply.

That said, I’d be interested to hear health care execs talk about how this made them feel or behave, if any are willing to be honest. Maybe I am wrong, it’s difficult to know.

I think you are way overestimating the reach of these changes due to echo chambers. Most people don’t support Luigi outside of terminally online political radicals (no hate, that’s me as well). Loud but small in numbers.

It’s possible his action will take on a symbolic importance that leads to bigger changes in the future. But that remains to be seen, and I think ordinary people are already forgetting about this story. Again, without sustained organization this leads nowhere.

Maybe, but that’s only going to happen through a broader movement and not through a single killing. And organizing a movement to kill enough people will be difficult or impossible (and I believe unethical but I understand I’m in the minority there). OP had it backwards—nonviolent resistance is actually much easier because of state repression, not in spite of it.

Also, I think without deconstructing the structures that produce such outcomes, it would be at best a temporary improvement.

It’s unclear if this is related to the assassination. There were a lot of efforts pushing back against this horrible policy so attribution is difficult without knowledge of their internal deliberations.

Luigi didn’t change anything. He just killed a guy, who will be shortly and largely painlessly replaced by another stooge to do the bidding of the owners of society.

Real resistance must be organized to achieve anything. This Rambo shit is a Hollywood fantasy. And yes, organized nonviolent resistance can work and has worked many times, including in regimes far more repressive than the US.

I recommend reading Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know for those interested in how resistance movements an actually win real change.

A higher level than you have lol. Mixing bleach and ammonia creates Chloramine and chlorine gas which are toxic when inhaled but not mustard gas which causes chemical burns on contact and is generally far more dangerous.

This reaction is fairly easy to trigger on a basic level but producing enough quantity to use in a terrorist attack is not trivial. You will also need the skills and equipment needed to do so safely, as well as methods to store and deliver the gas to your victims. All in all this requires way more chemistry and engineering than your average person will be capable of without extensive study and planning. Yes, the necessary information and materials are likely available, but this is far from easy.

Compare with a vehicle-based attack. Vehicles are widely accessible to almost anyone—most people already own one and if not almost anyone can rent one. All you do is point the vehicle at the targets and press the accelerator. In fact it’s so easy that there’s tons of vehicle-based violence that doesn’t even make the news because it is just “normal” for people to be killed this way.

On the other hand I can’t think of a single chemical attack that was committed by non-state actors. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has happened at some point but it is very rare.

Other than guns the rest of these are going to be very difficult to kill more than a handful with. And they require a higher level of chemistry knowledge than most people have.

US street design and the fact that vehicles have easy access to crowded spaces make this type of attack much easier and more likely.

It’s weird how borders can move around on their own without any action from anyone.

Edit: On a more serious note, where exactly does this type of bias come from? I don’t think of the AP as a highly ideological organization but is there some top-down pressure to frame things in a certain way? Does it come from the outside? Or is it just the prejudices of individual journalists and editors at play?

I’m glad you agree that they didn’t work well at larger scales, and I’m open to trying newer, computerized versions in narrow cases. The more experiments the better to find an improved economic system. But in general I think you are massively overstating their benefits. Yes, economic planning works alright for some things. Utilities where competition basically can’t exist can’t have markets, so some level of planning is needed there, although there are still market forces at play to some extent. But they also had catastrophic failures in food provision in particular that market food distribution usually didn’t have. And large, centralized economies are vulnerable to seizure by centralized power structures, who then turn them to their own ends.

But even ignoring those issues, a lot of this is just the same argument apologists for capitalism use. “Life got better and it was all thanks to our ideology!” A lot of this is conflated with general technological progress and other social changes, and the fact that human welfare was shockingly low in the economies that preceded modern ones. Being better than despotic feudalism isn’t too impressive in my book.

And all that without exploitation that is required for capitalism to get even close to that

without all the horrible effects capitalism had at those stages

Looking at history I don’t see much difference. Both systems centralized wealth and goods into fewer hands at the expensive of those that lacked political power, often with horrific consequences. Both destroyed the environment as they industrialized, and continue to do so. We need to do better if humans are going to survive long-term.

Planned economies don’t have a great track record. Why not suggest something new instead of the same tired old ideas?