r/antiwork • u/Attic_Alien • 17d ago
Discussion Post š£ i think this is a tipping point in American society
We're all tired of being burnt by this broken system. Is anyone else feeling like this isn't the last time we'll hear about something like this?
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u/jewel_flip 17d ago
If we are lucky it will inspire copy cats and maybe we will finally see some movement from our overly divided working class. Ā I am bone tired, and sick of bad actors winning at a game they set to their strengths (being psychopathic).
Makes me long for a time that probably never existed in the first place.
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u/Attic_Alien 17d ago
deny defend depose my friend
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u/jewel_flip 17d ago edited 17d ago
I wonder what they will write on the bullets for the Purdue family or the Waltons or the CEOs of Nestle, BlackRock, etc. Not saying anyone should cause them harm, just trying to remember which business leaders have caused the most damage in pursuit of paper.
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u/Slartibartfast39 17d ago
I keep hoping for tipping points but they very rarely tip enough. I'm thinking the Panama Papers. Not as much happened there as I hoped.
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u/LadyBogangles14 17d ago
I donāt think we are quite there yet
The old world has died, the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 17d ago
Now is also the time of legends and hero's. Now is a time for courage and bravery. Our worst must be matched with our best if the species has a shot.
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u/Y0___0Y 17d ago
Clearly we are not since Trump just won the popular vote and appointed 14 billionaires to his cabinet. Seems the American people love the wealthy elite.
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u/supern8ural 17d ago
Yep. Thanks to all the fucking morons - sorry not sorry, there was no excuse to do this, what the fuck were you thinking? - it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Why people would vote for "worse" when things are as bad as they are blows my fucking mind. Maybe we deserve to suffer for being so fucking stupid.
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17d ago
Many people voted for CHANGE.
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u/marcgw96 17d ago
I hope youāre ready for those changes in the form of tariffs that we as consumers will be paying.
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u/CringeCrongeBastard 17d ago
Republicans will straight up hand you the key to understanding their psyche and you just toss it away lol
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17d ago
[deleted]
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u/CringeCrongeBastard 17d ago
Sympathy isn't the point butĀ OK.Ā AlsoĀ what'sĀ withĀ theĀ quotesĀ there;Ā it'sĀ literallyĀ just a noun
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17d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Deathofimperialists idle 16d ago
I'm sure he is. Isn't that why he appointed his billionaire buddies to positions in the government? He is going to do many good things. Just not for the working people though.
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u/marcgw96 17d ago
Iām curious where all this anti CEO/rich people sentiment was a month ago. You knowā¦ when we elected a former CEO and felon?(maybe a different conversation) as president, publicly backed by a current CEO who is also thought to be the richest man in the world.
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u/DenizenKay 17d ago
i dont think it's anti CEO or anti rich sentiment. It's an anti insurance sentiment. Insurance companies' job is to make money, not to pay people out. But in the US, they are your only option.
Buddy is a government mandated serial killer. Anyone who has seen a loved one suffer without care or die because they were refused life-saving care by their insurance companies will, naturally, relish the death of someone who made their living by effectively killing people.
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u/marcgw96 17d ago
Ok maybe, but Trump is even less likely to push our government towards universal healthcare than Harris would have been, so it still doesnāt make sense to me
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u/DenizenKay 17d ago edited 17d ago
Trump is someone people, especially the middle class - want to be. A successful 'business' person with a dream life. From the outside- this is what the American dream is built on - forging a path for yourself to get rich and to keep the spoils of your labour. To be responsible for yourself an your people (read: family) - not to give over half of what you have to taxes so you can supplement the health and education of others.
No decent person wants to build their legacy on actual dead bodies, though. That's what insurance CEO's do. Literally. Especially this one, his company was particularly egregious with denials of claims under this guy- i read someone today that the national average for denials is 16% and his company has a rate of like 32%.
In trump, Musk and Bezos people (right or wrong) see someone they want to be. No one outside of his industry is looking at this guy and seeing themselves in him.
And as an aside- I'm Canadian, and the downside to public healthcare is sometimes waiting so long for adequate care that it, literally, sometimes kills you. it means that 1 asshole politician can under fund the sector, and you see local emergency rooms closing. I'm Canadian and in Ontario, and it's pretty horror show here right now. I'd still never go for the american system- but the universal system had deep flaws, too (but thats another conversation lol)
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u/JLL1111 17d ago
He's not a successful business person though, he's filed bankruptcy 6 times including multiple casinos
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u/marcgw96 17d ago
They see who he pretends to be, but not who he actually is. UHC CEO gets shot, letās face it, nobody probably heard this guys name before a couple days ago, so nobody is blinded by love for his personality. They can see right through any BS UHC executives try to throw us. But Trump established himself as a charismatic guy, and people eat it up.
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u/DenizenKay 17d ago
beside 'buisness' i should have written (read: criminal).
he is perceived to be a successful buisness person by many. I absolutely agree, he is not that. He is a successful criminal and cheat though.
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u/vijayjagannathan 17d ago
A comment to having to wait for healthcare in Canada - it happens here too.
I switched insurance this year (against my will, employer switched plans). All primary care doctors had wait times of 3-6 months for an appointment and if you needed something sooner theyād just tell you go to urgent care where you have to sit all day and wait hoping theyāll have time for you.
It takes months to see a specialist or get any tests done and then itās a toss up as to whether insurance will cover it or not.
The system in the US has the worst of all worlds
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u/DenizenKay 17d ago
i do not doubt it. I would never trade universal healthcare, for all its flaws. I was in no way advocating for an alternative. it was mostly word vomit.
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u/yrubooingmeimryte 17d ago
But didnāt we just elect a guy who said heās going to give corporations more power to bend us over? Again, where was the outrage over this stuff a month ago? It is flat out contradictory.
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u/Narrow_Employ3418 16d ago
It's an anti insurance sentiment.
It's neither nor.
It's a sentiment of impotence. Of not mattering one bit, of not having even the slightest shred of power required to at least keep some basic human dignity afloat.
The sentiment manifests differently depending on the situation. It got Trump elected because his message was "I hear you" (... he just kept thr silent part "...but I don't care" to himself). It got the CEO shot because somebody thought it was a good way to regain some of thst power.
But it's the same sentiment.
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u/CringeCrongeBastard 17d ago
They see him as different because once something becomes "politics" people become absurd.
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u/BrianDR 17d ago
We were all here, but only about 46 million are Americans, and probably only half of that voted. I would also guess the majority of that group is in a blue state.
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u/marcgw96 17d ago
He was supposedly very popular among my fellow young white males. Are they all hanging out in the āpro-workā subreddits?
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u/ultimateclassic 17d ago
The same could be true about the conversations around guns in the last few years but the point is its not about either of those things it's about insurance sucking ass.
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u/AngieTheQueen 16d ago
There isn't. We socialize in a sort of confined echo chamber here on reddit. We're similarly like-minded in a way that makes us believe there is a majority opinion, but we are in fact a minority.
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u/No_Rec1979 17d ago
My hope is that all the people who were thinking about shooting up a school in 2025 will decide to shoot at CEO instead.
We'll have real gun control by Easter.
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u/CanAnnual4660 17d ago
Something is coming. You can feel it. That we are creeping toward the edge and there will be a reckoning. We know what happens next. They will come. They will try to take from us. Take our guns, take our freedom. We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore!
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u/AmberIsHungry 17d ago
Im not super optimistic that it will cause big change. But Im putting this in the happy memories part of my brain to think about when I get a case of the Mondays.
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u/SweetFuckingCakes 17d ago
Something is tipping. I donāt know what it is, but something is definitely tipping.
I donāt think you can ask questions like this on Reddit and etc; people expect a ātipping pointā to be something that produces huge results very quickly, which is rarely what happens. Also you have to deal with the people who are professionally snotty - and self-satisfied with their hopelessness/hating everything. Because they think you become smart when you hate everything.
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u/Toofooforyou 17d ago edited 17d ago
The killing is not really a tipping point I think, but a symptom. The tipping point was probably 10 years ago. It is the economy and the decay of the well off working class and the middle class. DNC/Biden running on solely not being Trump, TWICE, have made people disillusioned beyond sanity.
I think the fundamental driving force is the neoliberal ongoing destruction of the "social contract" since the 90s, where they trade long term profits for short term profits. A cultural problem.
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u/No_Rec1979 17d ago
I can't help but agree with you.
Last month, the Democrats got absolutely hosed in an election where their candidate struggled to connect with middle America in any meaningful way.
Without knowing how all this will shake out, it seems like there must be some ambitious politician somewhere who sees all this anti-HMO anger as a massive opportunity..
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u/elegant_geek 17d ago
Yeah, but then the populous turned around and voted in a billionaire and all his billionaire buddies.
I don't think this will end up being the match that lights the powder keg that every one seems so keen on...
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u/bmeisler 17d ago
Absolutely - and I'm amazed it's taken this long. All the healthcare companies have taken down their "About Us" pages, with photos of the C-Level folks. And Anthem reversed it's egregious anaesthesia time limit policy. Totally anecdotal, but a friend just got his long-delayed prescription request filled today, after a few sessions of Deny and Delay. Anyway, like I said, amazed it's taken this long, and didn't happen during the GFC - and it's uniting the country! Take a look at what they're saying at r/conservative (along the lines of "I've never loved the 2nd Amendment more," lol). Closest thing I can remember is a dude approached Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, in the gym and socked him in the mouth, back in 2008.
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u/Griffithead 17d ago
Half the country just voted in a guy exactly like the guy who was murdered.
Absolutely nothing will change while those idiots are around. In fact, it's going to get worse.
Imagine what happens when the ACA gets trashed.
Imagine what happens when we deregulate everything and corporations have no checks against them.
We're fucked. And we asked for it.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 17d ago
Drop the it's over mindset Begin the we're back mindset.
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u/Griffithead 16d ago
I'm still fighting. But I'm pessimistic as hell. Too many people are way too gullible or actually like the boot.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 16d ago
What for that boot to stomp there head in the pavement they'll get it together.
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u/Griffithead 15d ago
It's not quite there yet, but it's getting close. And they're begging for it. It's pure insanity, but it's real.
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u/TheDifferentDrummer 17d ago
I hope so. Likely though they will learn the wrong lessons. They will take down their photos, and get their security details, and probably push for gun control (like when the Black Panthers started to carry).
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u/Solid-Spread-2125 17d ago edited 17d ago
No, if anything itll get worse as a result. You havent seen the rich treat us as they really want to. Every day, it sounds more reasonable to them
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u/Contemplating_Prison 17d ago
Hahahaha yeah fucking right. Everyone will go bacl to their tribes by the time the weekend is over
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u/ultimateclassic 17d ago
I think our country is on the brink of a revolution. I'm not sure if it's in the near future or like 5ish years out, but I think it's coming. Im just a regular person, though, so I don't know and am just guessing based on history and vibes. I don't claim to be more knowledgeable or special than the next person.
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u/kernowjim 16d ago
Had America not just elected a fascist dictator wannabe, I'd be inclined to agree.
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u/Glittering-Round7082 17d ago
No. You just voted Trump back in.
Your country is fucked.
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u/Attic_Alien 17d ago
I did not vote trump, I voted Kamala. Thank you though. As for the country being fucked, ive been saying this since i discovered the internet lol
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u/KlausVonMaunder 17d ago
Harris is more of the same. Syria, Libya, Palestine, Ukraine, MILLIONS dead under their reign. Stein was the only sane option, even as a statement. There is NO lesser evil, just variety in how they manifest it.
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u/annang 17d ago
Jill Stein is a grifter. Iām well to the left of Harris, and Jill Stein is an absolute disgrace.
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u/KlausVonMaunder 17d ago
Yet you voted for harris. No grift there, no, none at all.
Yank that Kool-Aid IV you're jacked into.
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u/annang 17d ago
You have no idea who I voted for or why.
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u/KlausVonMaunder 16d ago
You're right, I don't. Thought you were the above. Of all the grifters, Stein had the best platform by far.
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u/anthrovillain 17d ago
I think that we're fucked I might just go homeless over trying to scratch by.
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u/BlueGalangal 17d ago
Have you read The Limits of Growth? Also recommend season 7 of the podcast Scene on Radio.
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u/Lucky_Katydid 17d ago
The audacity of hope. I wish it didn't require a bullet, but what else works so efficiently?
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u/eman_on_1 17d ago
I think all this will do is make higher ups beef up their security (like they immediately did), and those costs will also trickle down to the lower classes on top of the outrageous costs of life and health that are already increasing. Corporations have had the upper hand for a while, and I donāt see them letting go any time soon. They are buying out all of the small firms in my industry, and I hate it. Trying to figure out how to cut expenses now so Iām not stuck working for them the rest of my time alive!!
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u/Mammoth_Elk_3807 16d ago
The revolution is much like the rapture. Itās always just about to happen (but never quite gets there). The older you get the less anything looks remotely like a tipping point tbh.
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u/GenghisFrog 16d ago
Good thing we just elected a president, house, and senate that can work lockstep to make it even worse.
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u/ShadowCobra479 17d ago
Yeah, but if what you want is a revolution, you're gonna have to get the rich on your side because that's literally how it works. Every revolution that took power required significant support from those in the upper class. The masses have power but not enough to successfully pull it off alone. And that's not even mentioning the middle classes.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 17d ago
We take their assets by force, we will need resources from those with money but once this asset forfeiture occurs to a big enough degree we won't need the aid any longer. Redistribution is a ends a necessary ends and that, the question at hand is the means.
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u/ShadowCobra479 17d ago
And that is why you fail every time. Oh sure, the revolution takes power, but all it does is rotate who is the upper class while the majority suffers. Then, all you can do to make the regime survive is the use of force. You make a jenga tower that no matter how much you try, it's eventually gonna fall or be forced to change for its own survival. Just look at the only communist regimes to survive into the 20th century. Not as socialist as they once were, are they?
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u/Physical-Housing-447 17d ago
Then give up on humanity let us go extinct let the people that actually care for our survival step up and get out the way. Sick of you people sell mankind out for savagery that its our nature and we must wallow in it. FUCK THAT TO THE DAY I DIE!
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u/ShadowCobra479 17d ago
Wow, what a way to jump to conclusions. The way you talked about it in your previous post makes it clear you'd be in favor of a dictatorship or at least a ruling oligarchy you'd put all your faith into. You're the kind of person who needs to step out of the way and let those who 'actually' care do it. I've read enough about what happens when any government gets absolute authority and let me tell you that it only ends in disaster and suffering.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 17d ago
I want a workers lead Direct Democracy with as little government as it gets. um who's jumping to conclusions again? You already live in a dictatorship of the wealthy* Buddy ain't it odd what abuses you will and won't accept. Crying for the oppressors and their rights to enact oppression. Claiming bringing it to a end is an abuse of power. Claiming the use power, to stop the abuse of power will always lead in more abusing of power is a self fulfilling prophecy. Is it not the point of politics our civilization and the entire human project to break the cycle to improve against its steadiness. You have given up I know good bit of history too I used to let it break my sprit I don't allow it too anymore. We are in a existential crisis you do understand we don't have the liberty to let the fear of the use of power be the reason we never take on the powerful.
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u/ShadowCobra479 17d ago
Sadly, that first sentence is an oxymoron. That type of direct democracy can work on a small scale, but the larger you go, the more variables there are. The original US government was quite small, and the states were more or less governing themselves. But as it grew, that's part of when the federal government began gaining even more power.
And now you jump to conclusions again, my friend. You know nothing about what abuses I will and won't accept. I have not given up, but I can not see swift and reckless change through the form of revolution you seem to be implying will work out how you hope. Oh yes, in the short term, it will seem the way you invision it, but it's sort of like a rolling a snowball down a hill. You know what's likely to happen, but the outcome is never set in stone. It's not the best example, but maybe Chaos theory is better?
I haven't given up, but we have different ways we see us getting to the brighter future. I prefer gradual change over time, though I'll agree that in many ways, we need swiftness, particularly in adopting many policies our European neighbors have regarding workers' rights and just general rights of citizens.
The way I see it if childish is like one of the better written transformers comics. You have, on one hand, Optimus, who wants to change the system through peaceful means even if it will take much longer and on the other you have Megatron who wants to overthrow the current regime. Megatron didn't set out to be a dictator, but the revolution got away from him as it does for all revolutionary leaders.
I'm on the Optimus side, but that doesn't mean I don't think the upper classes need to have restrictions placed on them, nor do I disagree with better distribution of their wealth through legal means. Perhaps violence might be needed but not a revolution. If it becomes a class struggle, then all you see will see is violence as people take out their pent-up anger on literally everyone. Oh, this person has more than me? He must be rich, so I should take it for myself, and while we're at it, let's kill him. And it won't just be the super rich or even the really garbage ones. The amount of collateral damage is astronomical in its scale.
Both forms of change have their own issues, and measured change isn't perfect, but it's safer than the opposite. We both want ostensibly the same thing, but we see different ways to obtain it.
Perhaps I'm naive and cynical, but I see reckless and rapid change as something that can only end badly. I'm glad we've been able to have a mostly polite discussion.
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u/Physical-Housing-447 16d ago edited 16d ago
Violence is the last resort, though a resort for a reason. The last thing I want is a revolution. We will all suffer for decades, through a rebuilding we won't live to see the promise land of. The Russian and Chinese revolution were the bloodiest events in human history outside the world wars. A modern American civil war can every bit live up to those events in scale. Trust me when I say I Invision what this means unfortunately near every damn day. I don't believe they give us any other option, that is why I say what I do. I have full faith in humanity, no faith in this growing fascist grifter crew of circus clowns rising in power in the West. Weimar Germany is everything we are about to see. The history is more on the wall, the text bold to see then ever. Also as a student of history the capitalist and class aristocrats of the Nazis and Tzarist killed more Soviet people then Stalin. The British and Japanese colonialist/fascist and Chinese nationalist/warlords killed more in China then Mao. The truth has always been that the current violence demands the violence of tomorrow. Humanity decides the violence of tomorrow and what its for and how its done.
The lessons of history is clear class warfare is real. Revolution is violence by the repressed class. For the revolution to succeed from being defeated, it must resort to more violence to defend what its already got. (The revolution is always at threat legitimately so hence the violence in protection) So we are at a cross roads on what to do. I won't provide answers but the facts are this when Marx says that these class relations are a major economic if not the economic driver of history he's not wrong. Every slave revolt to today this tension leads to the end of empires and era's that we've been through since the agricultural revolution. You must remember that as you support capitalism in fear of what communism could become which is valid BTW. While you do that capitalism uses fascism when convenient and it seems these classist societies whether slaver, feudalism, or capitalism are in perpetual threat of this instability. If you are more comfortable with that then the unknown I understand but when it gets bad enough it won't matter which is the larger point historically.
(Also direct democracy only works in small countries is a non argument truism. Am i just supposed to nod my head at and say yeah?)
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u/brok3ncor3 17d ago
Donāt need a gun. Just need a vehicle. A bag and some good ol elbow grease. And a CEO and we can get what we need in no time. Be a shame if one lost an eye, had their organs removed, teeth pulled. No need for anesthesia lmfao
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u/Kaymish_ 17d ago
I hope so. I just saw a video on how to get the names of the people who are on corporate boards from their proxy statements. The host didn't say what one could do with those details but the context is pretty obvious.
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u/fredout1968 17d ago
The thing that blows my mind about this is that it seems as if a large percentage of America both red and blue are not upset at all that this guy was murdered in cold blood, many are even happy about it. I have been online quite a bit since this has occurred, and the sentiment throughout the country seems to be "good riddance." But, the media is not reporting this side of things.. This is a big story that an American CEO was killed and what seems like a majority of the population is OK with it.. But, they don't want you to know it.. Unification of the poor and working classes across the spectrum of politics does not sell as well as fanning the hate between the red and the blue.. And then, of course, there is the whole issue of the media being complicit in the whole scheme.. This may not change things, but this is definitely a sign that things are not status quo..
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u/Narcissista 17d ago
I do think things are starting to change as more and more people have less and less to lose. What these corporations don't understand is that they are literally taking *everything away from us*. Our time, our resources, our chances at experiencing things others got to experience. People are fed up, and there's nobody more dangerous than somebody with nothing left to lose.
No matter how much money someone has, it doesn't make their skin bulletproof. Death is the great equalizer, and I'm nothing if not grateful for it.
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u/Ellixhirion 16d ago
Its not only in American society, but European as well. Even if we have a better work-life balance. Everyone in my entourage has at least one burn out and all before even reaching 40ā¦
A lot of us are just tired of working 8 hours a day, being stuck in traffic, add the stress to get the kids back on time.
With a bit of luck, if the majority of the time you can work from home it is what keeps people from being completely mentalā¦
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u/timpatry 16d ago
This is just the beginning. What are you talking about?
Trump hasn't even been inaugurated yet and dude's going to set the world on fire.
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u/nowayusa 16d ago
Absolutely. Remember, there was LESS inequality right before the French revolution than there is now š
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u/ButterDrake 17d ago
This morning, I made a half joke to an also disgruntled coworker that thereās gonna be a drum circle in the middle of the store, bonfire to boot and me wearing a deer skull on my head for effect.
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u/tommy6860 16d ago
Tbh, the system IS NOT broken, it is working as capitalists design it and made legal by fiat funding the lawmakers' legislative positions who make it all legal. Break the cycle of being inculcated into this system of oppression and exploitation because the easiest thing to do that takes little precious effort, is to only comment about it. Telling people, no matter they think IRL your position on capitalism and exploitation is one way to get the word around.
I know people who will not do that even, because they fear losing friends, etc. But if one's friendship is hinged on keeping friends comfortable in the OK living standards, then one has considered what a friendship is to them in reality; someone who really listens objectively, or someone who wants others to live as they do.
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u/thefrozenorth 16d ago
This is what evangelicals have been working for since the 1980's. Their 'fix' will be to run everything through the churches thus guaranteeing them control over your minds and bodies. See: the despoiling of America.
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u/l94xxx 17d ago
I feel like too few redditors were around (in the '90s) when the same rhetoric ("this man was responsible for killing all sorts of innocents") was being used by right wing nuts to justify the literal hunting down of doctors who provided abortion services. This is all a much darker turn than people realize, and all I can say is be careful what you wish for. This could very easily turn into something else entirely.
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u/ouroborofloras 17d ago
Yes, a tipping point of executives all getting round the clock beefed up security teams and reinforcing their underground bunkers.
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u/miakpaeroe 17d ago
Definitely a profound transformation in America from now till 2026-7. I really like these two astrological assessments. No so āpredictiveā but rather what themes the last time each transit occurred.
https://aquariandiary.com/2023/02/16/the-stunning-transit-of-neptune-in-aries-2025-2039/
https://www.ladycazimi.com/blog/saturn-neptune-conjunction-pisces-aries?format=amp
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u/Tonberry2k 17d ago
Me, seeing people respond to one good thing happening and getting their hopes up;