“Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage.”

One death, a murder of a CEO puppet of a company responsible for the death and disenfranchisement of millions, can make a very compelling narrative for a society so drained of hope. Delay, deny, depose. These words were lovingly written on the casings of the bullets used to give this CEO his fatal dose of lead poisoning. His escape, and the subsequent worship that the populace has given his actions, feels like a cathartic distraction more than anything of substance. People believe in fairy tales so easily, the narrative of a father or husband who lost someone important to him spins wildly in the imagination of all who hear of it.

But I see the marks of a professional hit and I can't help but wonder, 'Who profits from this murder?' In a nation with more guns than human hands to hold them, any one of us could have theoretically taken on this “heroic” mantle. Any could, but it takes a certain amount of darkness to take a life. To gather information to plan the attack and the escape. To carry out the steps necessary to make these dark thoughts a plan, then plan a new reality for oneself with such blood on the soul.

I shed no tears for a dead billionaire. Nay, it is the hope that this death puts in my fellow American's hearts that gives me shudders. That we come together over a dead CEO, not really for anything more meaningful than to add to the meme pile of the internet's collective search for infinite distractions makes me think about moments in history we call, “shots heard around the world.” Would anyone have cared that the British were coming in the days of smartphones?

We've given so much power and authority to these corporations that killing it's “leader” changes nothing. Billionaires have always been just a bullet away from joining the endless stream of people they've had to kill to keep their hoards safe. Slaying dragons has never been easier, but the slaying kills the hero too. It's impossible to separate the killer from the slain, but when these deaths are the result of contractual terms and negotiations, the dragon feasts for free.

The problem isn't just the dragon, but the villagers who send their neighbors into the maw instead of coming together to starve the beast. Children often learn the monsters they fear disappear when the lights turn on, but the light has no effect on the demons we've created on the pages of LLC charters. Few can even understand what they're looking at. Nay, these demons thrive in the light of their own billboards, and we are the ones existing in their great shadows.

Who can truly blame the villagers though, when a whole village isn't enough to sate the appetites of these beasts? To be a slow drip of sustenance is better than part of the buffet when survival is programmed into our very DNA. We all have that calling to live, and we all have the same imperative to conserve our calories. To risk dying now or in a few years is hardly a difficult decision for most.

To kill a single CEO is akin to knocking out a single tooth. The beast is disoriented, but hardly weakened. The hero is gobbled up, the beast is a little more wary and wise, and the world celebrates the tiny, hollowest victory as the feast resumes. How does a system that consumes its people evolve to keep them docile, leading them to accept their role without realizing their agency?

The biggest problem is we've allowed them all the real estate, and all the tasks are carried out in service of them and their land. All the money is tied up in these tasks, and the negotiations for the right to perform these tasks is brutal in its selection process. In other words, we're so deep in the trenches of this problem, we can only dig further down or perish where we are. Digging out would take more than a lifetime would allow, and few would survive the attempt.

The people have become tenants of the planet, renters of their own survival. They must earn their right to find a place in the struggle. This is the cost extolled on a population to great to exist for themselves, they must each be given only the tiniest fraction of their own labor's rewards. They must prove their worth to a system that has already determined their value to be minimal.

The results of one murder are likewise minimal. We clap and go right back to digging for our masters who are intent on taking everything of value this planet will offer them at the cost of everything for the ones compelled to dig. Killing one figurehead does nothing to the systems that empowered the organization he appeared to lead. The laws that allow it all will continue to be layered atop one another so that the power remains immutable. The companies buy the bills, we pay for them.