An American Christmas Carol for Advent III
“Brian Thompson was dead to begin with. As dead as a doornail.”
It’s been nearly two weeks since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan.
Since then, I have been asked twice to speak at rallies of members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
One was for workers at Keck-USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, who are contemplating a strike because they do not get the health benefits the rest of Keck employees do, they are paid 30% less than market rate ... and nurses assistants have no limit on the number of patients they are charged with caring for on a shift -- upwards of 14 at a time.
The other was for mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente, who have been on strike for eight weeks with Kaiser management refusing to come to the negotiating table. They are demanding to restore their pension, a life-changer for the 1700 members that don't currently have one, to win adequate guaranteed time to be able to care for their patients (it often takes as much as six weeks to get a follow-up appointment because of understaffing) and to address the inequity in wages that they have experienced based on wage freezes Kaiser imposed for years
There was a meme that circulated around this time last year that said:
This year, we have both.
I’m not sure unions have ever been more important in my lifetime. In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth.
The incoming administration will most probably double down on the union-busting policies of its first term, making it harder for workers to organize and more difficult for them to achieve their aims when they do.
And yet, if the CEO’s, corporate board members and major stockholders are feeling comfortable, they should think again.
Brian Thompson was dead to begin with. As dead as a doornail.
Like Jacob Marley, Brian Thompson’s ghost is a harbinger of spirits that are in the air … spirits that they – and we – ignore to our own peril.
I was trying to think of the last time a murderer became a folk hero (Bernard Goetz?) – which is what Brian Thompson’s killer has become.
The most common emoji on United HealthCare’s Facebook post acknowledging his murder was a laughing face. In fact, the dominant theme on social media (which represents 87% of the U.S. population) has been how Thompson’s murder pales in comparison to the evil manslaughter of a health care company that denies an industry-leading one-third of all claims filed.
Even the McDonald’s where the suspect was turned in has been flooded with one-star Yelp reviews.
Hardly anyone in America is happy with healthcare.
More than 50% of Americans are dissatisfied with their health care … that’s also the same percentage of American households that own at least one gun.
That’s a combination that begs not the question “why did this happen?” but rather “what took so long.”
When I heard about Brian Thompson’s murder, it hit close to home. For eight years, one of those corporate healthcare CEOs was my parishioner. And though he and I differ greatly on many, many things, I have seen and known him as a human being. I cannot and will not wish suffering on him, even if the policies of the company he leads are causing suffering to others.
Because wishing and causing suffering is not the answer.
The brilliance of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is that even the greediest, bleakest soul is not beyond redemption. It is a tale of humanizing the one who himself dehumanizes – and it is in that humanization that salvation is found.
In the common lectionary today, we hear John the Baptist crying:
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
And then we read:
And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
John the Baptist’s message is that preparation for Christmas … for the birth of Christ … is a matter of economic justice. The task of Advent … and in fact of life in Christ as a whole … is one of ensuring the death of dehumanization and the certainty of enough for everyone. It’s why the nascent church is described in Acts 2
Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. (Acts 2)
And … John’s choice of phrase is telling:
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
The wrath to come.
The wrath to come in this country is not from God.
The wrath to come in this country is from the people who are tired of being dehumanized and having the fruits of their labor stolen.
The wrath to come in this country is from the people who will soon discover (if we haven’t already) not only that the president they elected will continue to fleece them … but that the other party offers little more than a slightly gentler version of the same.
The wrath to come in this country is from a heavily armed population that have been manipulated by a press so controlled by corporate interests that it can scarcely be called free to see one another as the enemy while the top 1% of wealth-owners cash in … who are beginning to take the rhetoric of “second amendment solutions” to heart.
The spirits are speaking … and not in a whisper.
If the message that the CEOs are hearing is to up their private security, they are making a grave error. The spirits are begging them to read the fucking room! Studies have shown that it takes just three percent of a population committed to revolution to make one happen.
Three percent.
There will be a wrath to come. The only question is what will it look like?
I am not a believer in violent revolution. Much of this is my upbringing having followed Gandhi longer than I have followed Jesus. And … it’s because I find the work of Erica Chenowith compelling.
Violent revolutions tend to raise up leaders who just continue the violence and oppression of the people wearing different masks. However, Chenowith discovered after extensive research that
“Countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns — whether the campaigns succeeded or failed.”
There will be a wrath to come. The only question is what will it look like?
If CEO’s like Kaiser’s Greg Adams won’t even come to the table to meet with overworked and undercompensated mental health workers during a mental health care crisis in this country….
If CEO’s like Keck-USC’s Rodney Hanners continue to prioritize high profit margin care like surgeries and create labor and delivery deserts like the one they have created in the Glendale, CA area by eliminating that program at Verdugo Hills…
If parents continue watch their children get sick and die because of lack of adequate health care in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world…
If all these things and more continue to happen, revolution will happen as a matter of self-defense if nothing else.
John the Baptist told the crowds they needed to repent to prepare for the Prince of Peace.
Maybe that’s because if they didn’t … even Jesus wouldn’t be able to stop the wrath that was to come.
We have been warned.
Dear Mike,
I like to wonder “what could Jesus see that we cannot see” when he said “you have eyes but cannot see and ears but cannot hear.”
I think Jesus could see Abba and we might know them as acts of (science based) love. We can define acts of (science based) love as “acts which sustain life, acts which enhance life, and/or acts which make life possible.”
We can “be still and know that I am (science based) love.”
We can become aware of all the (science based) love within ourselves and every other living thing.
What acts of (science based) love can I experience when I am still?
When I am still, I can feel my heart beat. Every beat of my heart is an act of (science based) love, for every beat of my heart sustains my life and makes my life possible.
When I am still, I can feel my chest rise, and air coming into my lungs. Every breath is an act of love. Every breath helps sustain my life and make my life possible.
When I am still, I can move my fingers, and every move of my fingers can be an act of love for my fingers can help feed me and sustain my life.
To best recover from the fires, we must focus on all our acts of (science based) love.
For those not closely tied to the fires, they might define “Our (science based) Satan” as “the desire to emit CO2 and greenhouse gases for our own comfort and convenience or to make money without regard to Our (science based) Father’s Creation Mother Earth.” This is similar to the Satan that Jesus the Hunter Gatherer saw in Peter in Matthew 16:21.
Matthew 16: 21 says “From that time on Jesus the Hunter Gatherer began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed..
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus the Hunter Gatherer turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Our (science based) Satan is all about human concerns.
Our (science based) Satan is the desire to emit CO2 and greenhouse gases for our own comfort and convenience or to make money without regard to Our (science based) Father’s concerns which are protecting Mother Earth from global warming, climate change and the (science based) Curses in the Book of Deuteronomy.
We can say that Jesus the Hunter Gatherer lay down his life to overcome the Satan within him. Jesus the Hunter Gatherer did not want to be crucified, but he thought Our (science based) Father was commanding him to lay down his life to protect his hunter gatherer sheep.
We know this from the Bible’s John 10 which reads: “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as Our (science based) Father knows me and I know Our (science based) Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen…The reason Our (science based) Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from Our (science based) Father.”
To help us “see” Our (science based) Satan, we can know that whenever we spend $1, we are emitting about 0.6 pounds of greenhouse gases. We can know this by dividing the per capita greenhouse gas emissions of the United States by the per capita Gross Domestic Product of the United States.
When we sing “We Shall Overcome”, what shall we overcome?
We shall overcome the mindset of our self centered agricultural societies best described by Jared Diamond in his article about agriculture being the worst mistake in the history of the human race.
https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/Diamond-TheWorstMistakeInTheHistoryOfTheHumanRace.pdf
Thus with the advent of agriculture and élite became better off, but most people became worse off. Instead of swallowing the progressivist party line that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls.
One answer boils down to the adage “Might makes right.” Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life. (Population densities of
hunter-gatherers are rarely over one person per ten square miles, while farmers average 100 times that.) Partly, this is because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants. Partly, too, it’s because
nomadic hunter-gatherers have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it’s old enough tokeep up with the adults. Because farm women don’t have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years.
As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps toward agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth. Some bands chose the former solution, unable to
anticipate the evils of farming, and seduced by the transient abundance they enjoyed until population growth caught up with increased food production. Such bands outbred and then drove off or killed the bands that chose to remain hunter-gatherers, because a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter. It’s not that hunter-gatherers abandoned their life style, but that those sensible enough not to abandon it were
forced out of all areas except the ones farmers didn’t want.
At this point it’s instructive to recall the common complaint that archaeology is a luxury,
concerned with the remote past, and offering no lessons for the present. Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed a crucial stage at which we made the worst mistake in human history. Forced to choose between limiting population or trying
to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare,
and tyranny.
Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it’s unclear whether we can solve it. Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited from outer space were trying to explain human history to his fellow
spacelings. He might illustrate the results of his digs by a 24-hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset.
Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture. As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture’s glittering façade, and that have so far eluded us?
We must begin preparing Mother Earth for the meek hunter gatherers who will inherit the Earth.
We must begin safely storing nuclear weapons as soon as possible.