Deny, Depose, Defend

Briana Boston, Luigi Mangione, and the ruling class response

The cover of Jay Feinman’s book on the insurance industry

Briana Boston, 42, was recently arrested in Florida for saying on a phone-call with her insurance provider, BlueCross BlueShield, “Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next.” She was clearly expressing her frustration with the system that had denied her insurance claims. She was original held on $100,000 bail and charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism. She has been described as a Luigi Mangione copycat even though she does not even own a gun. There is very little to the case against her, but her arrest is part of the reaction of the ruling class to the assassination of one of their own.

Yoav Gallant, internationally wanted war criminal, can walk the streets of New York without a problem, but if when a woman dares to express her frustration with the broken healthcare system with the three words, “Delay, Deny, Depose,” she is arrested. These were not even the same words that were found on the shell casings - which were “Deny, Depose, Defend.” In our capitalist society, genocide is fine, but standing up to corporate greed is not.

The arrest of Briana is an expected reaction for the assassination of Brian Thompson. The state is responding on behalf of the ruling class. The individual act of terror allegedly carried out by Luigi Mangione was a clear expression of anger with the ruling class and the broken capitalist system. The capitalist press has refused to publish his manifesto in full but has rather chosen to only print excerpts. The manifesto was published in full by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. It included the following indictment of the US healthcare system:

Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it.

Clearly Luigi was expressing righteous anger with the system, as the outflow of sympathy for him has shown. No one should mourn the passing of a mass murderer like Brian Thompson, but individual acts of terror will not solve a systemic problem. As the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky said, “The murder of a factory owner produces effects of a police nature only, or a change of proprietors devoid of any social significance.” The arrest of Briana Boston has shown this to be true. The apparatus of the state has come down with the full weight of the law against an innocent woman who was frustrated by the broken for profit insurance system while the system continues.

Andrew Witty, the CEO of the parent company of United Healthcare, United Healthgroup, has already said nothing will fundamentally change when it comes to their policies. The New York Times (paywalled) published an op-ed by him where he claimed, “As Brian Thompson’s family, friends and colleagues mourn his killing, we are bearing a grief and sadness we will carry for the rest of our lives. Grief for the family he leaves behind. And grief for a brilliant, kind man who was working to make health care better for everyone.” No one in health insurance is working to make health care better for everyone. United Healthcare is currently being sued in a case that claims they used faulty AI to deny care to Medicare Advantage plan patients. According to a report by Forbes, United Healthcare denied about 1/3 of their claims.

While he has remained silent on Briana Boston, President Joe Biden recently pardoned another group of people. These include the cash for kids judge Michael Conahan. As described by The Hill, “Conahan and fellow Judge Mark Ciavarella, both of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were convicted in connection with a scheme that sent thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks.” This has provoked a reaction from the juveniles who were wrongfully imprisoned in this for profit scheme.

“So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened? So it’s nothing for us, but it seems that Conahan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today,” - Amanda Lorah, one of the juveniles imprisoned by the cash for kids scheme.

Rita Crundwell, guilty of the largest municipal embezzlement scheme in US history, has also been pardoned. She stole $54 million from the town of Dixon. Danny LaGloss, current city manager of Dixon, said of the pardon, “We’re just shocked, outraged and as a community we feel betrayed by the justice system and by the president. She pleaded guilty to a very serious crime and got the maximum but served 8 years. What message does that send to the victims, to our community and people across the country who think about doing something like this?” The message is clear - Biden cares more about pardoning the rich and powerful than about the victims and the community.

Biden also commuted the sentence of Eric Bloom, as described by Politico, “former CEO of Northbrook-based Sentinel Management Group, who’s been serving a 14-year sentence since 2015 for defrauding hundreds of customers of more than $665 million.” Biden will pardon corrupt officials and CEOs and his own son, but still has not pardoned Steven Donziger, Julian Assange, Mumia Abu Jamal, Assata Shakur, or granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, who remains in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Joe Biden is now working to remove the Syrian Al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group off the terrorist list. A woman can be charged with terrorism in the United States for expressing her anger with the healthcare system on the phone, but actual terrorists get a pass once they become useful to the US agenda. The United States also lifted the ban on sending weapons to the Ukrainian neo-Nazi group Azov battalion during Biden’s presidency. Biden will come to the aid of neo-Nazis, Al-Qaeda terrorists, and corrupt judges, but not people who actually deserve a pardon.

The correct response to these actions is anger and an intense desire for revenge against the ruling class. But that anger must be channeled into an effective method to overthrow the system. As Trotsky explained:

To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction.

Rather than individual acts against representatives of the system such as CEOs, the working class needs to work collectively to overthrow the capitalist system. The assassination of Brian Thompson and subsequent events have put the spotlight on the depravity of capitalist healthcare but this does not solve the underlying problem. The state has responded with the arrest of Briana Boston, a brazen use of the justice system to counter working class frustration. If the working class is to fight back, we must get organized. As Lenin told Franz Koritschoner, what is needed is “not terrorism but systematic, prolonged, self-sacrificing activity in revolutionary propaganda and agitation, demonstrations, etc., etc., against the lackey-like opportunist party, against, the imperialists, against one’s own governments, against the war that is what is needed.”