After massive floods killed more than 100 people in Texas Hill Country, some coastal progressives blamed the victims, assuming most were Trump-supporting Republicans who voted against climate change legislation and warning systems that might have reduced the death toll. Similarly, when Californians die in mudslides or earthquakes, victims are often blamed for choosing to live in such areas. Aside from being insensitive and cruel, this rhetoric is inaccurate; surely some of the flood victims in Texas were Democrats.
Wrong-Voting Disaster Victims
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Okay faculty lounge, before you post from your moral high ground how right Ted is, check yourself on what your reaction was to “CEO Murder,” and decide whether you really have anything useful to say here
Glad to help
Nice mix of apples and oranges!
That’s one in the column for “I’m in favor of CEO Murder!” Any other takers?
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is one of my foundations. I’m not in favor of killing anybody, but those who, to paraphrase Woody Guthrie, “kill with a fountain pen” are opening themselves up to being murdered.
Now, now, easy there Murder Lover! You only get to count once!
When you list it all out, almost all of us are living somewhere we shouldn’t. On the East Coast? Idiot! Don’t you know there are tropical storms? Alaska? Can you not read? Earthquakes! Pompeii? Good God, how obtuse can you be?
The usual difference is one of excess. When some upper-class twit has his “dream home” built five feet from the beach and a storm comes along during a high tide and sweeps it away, a lot of us cheer. Grotesque wealth getting its comeuppance? Hurrah. Some liberal elite dipstick with more money than sense built a soaring mansion in the middle of vastly overpriced scrubland filled with flammable debris and no fire hydrants? And there was a major fire (as there is almost every year) that reduced the place to cinders? Welcome to the small taste of reality most of us have shoved down our throats on a regular basis but that you sidestep due to whatever “very important” work you do or the wealth you were handed by being born at the right time to the right people.
Some working class Joe who lives on a flood plain and now that it’s no longer profitable, the insurance companies are pulling out? As with the healthcare CEO, the business model isn’t “help people.” The business model is “commodify something that should never have been turned into a profit maker.” I have a lot of sympathy for the victims, staring at the ruins of their modest lives. But I also wonder, “Are you finally waking up? Do you finally understand? The Clintons never cared. Barack Obama didn’t care. President Cheney never cared. Donald Trump doesn’t care. Even before he forgot whether he cared or not, Joe Biden never cared. The healthcare CEO, posing with his picture perfect family in a setting you could never afford in a million years? He, literally, sent some of you a death sentence by denying procedures so that he could make even more money. Is it finally getting through?”
That’s a lot of word salad! Judges? *DING*! OK, that’s two in the column for “I’m in favor of CEO Murder!” Thanks for playing fellas
There is no statement in my reply that says I am in favor of CEO murder. I would have been quite happy with him being taken to court, the evidence shown that his decisions led to the deaths of people, and his drawing a lengthy confinement in prison as a punishment (along with forfeiture of the possessions he acquired during his years as a CEO who murdered).
I can understand the impulse. Especially when the system is carefully designed to keep the wealthy from ever paying for their crimes. It is that very system that puts CEOs in danger of being gunned down. If they COULD be dragged into court, that’s what people would be happy to settle for. A fair accusation, a fair trial, and, if found guilty, a fair sentence.
You’re lapsing back into ad hominem. You really need to get that under control. Have you considered therapy? Or just, you know, talking to a friend? You’re deliberately insulting, boorish, and, frankly, not very good at it. If you were firing off some real zingers, that might mediate your childishness. But you just sound cranky.
If you have a counterpoint to make to someone’s comments, make it. Otherwise, stop wasting everyone’s time with your second-rate routine.
I’d like to thank all participants and our readers for joining us on this journey. As expected:
* CEO Murder: Eh, he had it coming
* Random guy on Internet saying things I don’t like: Stop it! Ad hominem! You need therapy! Whaa
See you next time!
Anybody who thinks they live somewhere safe is most assuredly wrong.
Dude comes in and sees what he wants to see, regardless of the reality…..
I see two people who are incapable of saying “murder of anyone is horrible wrong.”