Global
It’s been three days since Luigi Mangione’s manifesto was discovered in his backpack explaining why he assassinated the CEO of United HealthCare.
In Mangione’s manifesto, he said that he was not the “most qualified person to lay out the full argument” against our for-profit healthcare industry. Apparently, to Mangione, one of those qualified people — is me. In his manifesto, he references how I’ve “illuminated the corruption and greed,” implying folks should go to my work to understand the complexity — and the power-hungry abuse — within our current system.
It’s not often that my work gets a killer five-star review from an actual killer. And thus, my phone has been ringing off the hook which is bad news because my phone doesn’t have a hook. Emails are pouring in. Text messages. Requests from many in the media. The messages all sound something like this:
“Luigi mentioned you in his manifesto. That people should listen to you. Will you come on our show, or talk to our reporter and tell them that you condemn murder!?”
I welcome in the new year with a sense of abstract helplessness, as the headlines continue to bring us dead children, bombed hospitals, torture, rape and, of course, ever more “self-defense” (sometimes known as genocide).
From my safe, secure office space I absorb the daily news – from Gaza, from all across the planet – with a whiplash of guilt and naivete. What the hell do I know what it feels like to have my house, or my tent, bombed, to see my children die, to have no access to water, let alone healthcare? Is it enough to comfortably empathize with the collateral damage of this world at war?
No, no, no, it’s not.
But I empathize nonetheless, and shake to my depths with an incredulity that never goes away: “As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap.”
JFK's Assassination: What We Learned In 2024
Pleading ignorance of the new evidence demonstrates 'lone gunman' theory is defunct
Case closed?
Our poet laureate MIMI GERMAN leads off GREEP Zoom #205 with two beautiful short poems.
Our deep dive into public waste fluoridation with DOUG CRAGOE, followed by LYNN FEINERMAN, MYLA RESON, DR. RUTH STRAUSS and DR. NANCY NIPARKO.
We'll revisit at a future date the life-and-death complexities of this vital issue.
JOHN FITZGERALD then gives us a thorough analysis of the petition demanding that the Congress deal with the 3d section of the 14th Amendment.
That law stipulates that someone who has participated in insurrection against the government of the United States.
Fitzgerald explains that Congress has the power to decide whether a candidate can actually become a President or member of Congress.
Two Supreme Courts (Colorado & Maine) & three Congressional Committees have branded Donald Trump an insurrectionist, leaving Congress the option to disqualify him from office.
MIKE HERSH emphasizes the non-partisan nature of the Constitution.
LORI GRACE adds her support to the effort to have the Congress deal with this astonishing political football.
