At the same time Mulgrew was making his announcements against a planned Times Square casino, there was an intense police investigation going on nearby concerning a targeted and killed man. The murder was somewhat unusual in that it appeared to be very calculated, and the person targeted was wealthy, powerful and influential. Superficially it doesn’t seem all that interesting, maybe for a movie of the week, but the guy who was targeted was the CEO of a company. His company is very much like Medicare Advantage , which makes incredible profits from denying desperate people much needed medical procedures. This case has certain philosophical aspects that become deeper and deeper as one looks into it. The assassin had certain words etched on the bullets - DENY, DEPOSE and DEFEND. Those were the ways that the murdered individual indirectly caused the demise of the people seeking his company’s help. That of course, does not legitimize what the assassin did. Two wrongs do not make a right. Perhaps corporate greed, and the marginalization of the sick and elderly should be carefully reconsidered. These companies have placed layers of unaccountability, irresponsibility, and indifference between their decisions and their customers. They make their money the new fashioned way - by indirectly killing their customers.
Of course, this had me thinking about who was the more egregious in this case. The killer with his silencer or the unsuspecting profiteer of suffering and death. That will have to be for the courts to decide, when the killer is found. The killer made some mistakes, and even if he didn’t make those mistakes, he would still be found. You see if the victim was just a normal average Joe Schmo from Tuckahoe, going home from his day of teaching his killer would never be found and there might or might not be an article in the daily paper concerning it. But this man was not the average commuter - he was one of the wealthy elites who have free rein to rip off the poor and middle class. Thus, even in death, he gets preferential treatment. There’s something profoundly wrong with that. There are two levels of everything in this world, one for the rich and powerful and one for everyone else. This is no more apparent than in medical insurance, justice and education. There was one shining light here in New York. We used to have a union and a city that didn’t work on a class system. A child could go to a public school and get a good education. If you were a city worker/teacher, cop or fireman you had great medical coverage while working and once retired it took great care of you. Now we have a union president that does not seem to understand (or has made an intentional choice) in trying to put us into a medical insurance plan that makes it’s money denying, deposing and defending. Not only has Mulgrew attempted this, but he has worked in collusion with the Adams administration to facilitate it. With friends like this who needs enemies?
So as you watch this murder mystery unfold, think about the deep ramifications of ethical, moral, fiduciary and human betrayal between the CEO and the killer. Then do the same with NYC, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, the UFT, Mulgrew, Adams and us.
What a heap of stinking trash Mulgrew has turned the UFT into!!! He needs to be tossed into the nearest trash can or promoted to the closest facsimile of a trash can, the AFT.
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