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'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

abcnews4.com

71–80 of 505 posts

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#71
No. If you’re concerned that you might get murdered, and want to make it clear that you have no intention of killing yourself, telling your one friend about it in a conversation in the midst of moving a sofa with no records to prove it whatsoever is the worst possible way of doing it.

Tweet it, send it in a message, leave a note in your home. But, “hey push that side, and let’s lift this in 3..2…. oh by the way I have no intention of killing myself… 1… go! There you go”. No. That doesn’t check out. Even if that conversation actually took place, it’s not helpful at all because it’s so easy to dismiss as hearsay. That’s actually a curse you put on your friend if it really happened.

EDIT: Apparently, the aforementioned help in the article was being a pallbearer at the friend’s father’s funeral. That turns out to be a less and less proper conversation for the occasion.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#72
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article we're commenting on, where a friend attests he was told explicitly that any "suicide" is fowl play. Sure, it's nowhere near "beyond a reasonable doubt", but it's plenty, together with the obvious motive, to form an opinion.

> fowl play You probably meant foul play. "Fowl" means chicken-y (galliformes) or duck-y (anseriformes) birds.

Fowl play was what the DoJ suspected when they were investigating the chicken industry.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just speculating here but isn’t jumping out a window in Russia usually an implication it was ordered by the Russian state (ex: FSB) while in the US a framed suicides are assumed to be done by numerous non-associated actors. So in one place a single entity is responsible and in another it’s multiple entities. It doesn’t seem surprising to me that there would be an affinity towards a particular method within entities.

> jumping out a window Or a poisoning with a ludicrously rare poison, a strange car crash, a plane falling out the sky, dying at a gulag when you were fine a few days earlier etc etc. It’s a very unsafe place when you don’t toe the line.

Technically I don't think Navalny was fine a few days earlier, I understood that he had ongoing poor health due to, uh, being previously poisoned.

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#74
post #12

Oh so in Russia its jumping out a window and in the USA its some random method of suicide? Why not be specific, and consistent, like Russia?

We don't know that this was the result of a state actor. It could also have been someone who bought a ton of Boeing calls before the safety scandals.

> “It could also have been someone who bought a ton of Boeing calls”

Now I’m imagining a show set in Greenwich, Connecticut, where a gentle white-haired family man trades options during the day and manages assassinations after the kids go to bed. “The Americans” meets “The Big Short”?

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#75
post #12

Oh so in Russia its jumping out a window and in the USA its some random method of suicide? Why not be specific, and consistent, like Russia?

Because in Russia it is an open message to the public 'don't mess with the KGB or we kill you and maybe your children'. Everybody knows and understands who is the sender and the message. Classic mafia move of intimidation. It is a message to the living. In the Western World the secret services kill to silence people, not to broadcast messages to the public. Quite the opposite PR strategy.

Exactly. People need to understand that the murding methods in the West are just so much more civilised and polite, otherwise they just might commit suicide

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#76

This is kind of mind-blowing to me. First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons. Has this happened before? I assume it has but it's very rare.

Karen Silkwood comes to my mind.[0] Kerr McGee whistleblower back in the 1970's. Maybe not your lifetime but definitely in mine.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#77
post #71

No. If you’re concerned that you might get murdered, and want to make it clear that you have no intention of killing yourself, telling your one friend about it in a conversation in the midst of moving a sofa with no records to prove it whatsoever is the worst possible way of doing it. Tweet it, send it in a message, leave a note in your home. But, “hey push that side, and let’s lift this in 3..2…. oh by the way I hav…

[flagged]

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#78
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons Is there anything supporting this theory other than the fact the death benefits Boeing?

The article we're commenting on, where a friend attests he was told explicitly that any "suicide" is fowl play. Sure, it's nowhere near "beyond a reasonable doubt", but it's plenty, together with the obvious motive, to form an opinion.

> The article we're commenting on, where a friend attests he was told explicitly that any "suicide" is fowl play.

Isn't there obvious reporting bias here? People typically don't go around saying "btw I'm going to kill myself, if that happens assume it's not foul play", so it shouldn't be too surprising that people kill themselves even though they said they wouldn't. Moreover people who actually tell people they're going to kill themselves likely will receive intervention (eg. suicide watch/hospitalization), which further drives up the relative rate of people committing suicide "unexpectedly".

Re: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower before death

#79
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons Is there anything supporting this theory other than the fact the death benefits Boeing?

It's far more likely that he simply changed his mind after making the statement attributed to him than it is Boeing would arrange for him to be murdered five years after the fact.

Not "Boeing" in its official capacity, but it has a lot of executives and shareholders, only one of which needs to have the hubris to think they can get away with it. That seems a lot more likely.
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