killing this Journalist wasn't a demonstration of power, it was a demonstration of impotence, it doesn't work as intimidation because leaking to journalists is not the only option, the alternative option is to give the list of the corrupted, to members of a very different section of the society that would do very ruthless things. If they kill a journalist after the leak happened they demonstrate a lack of power, because it's AFTER the leak. Retaliation for the purpose of intimidation only makes sense in a mafia structure. I don't know what the deal with Malta is, they used to be economically important during mercantilism, at some point they became a tourist spot, and now they do gambling and tax evasion. Does that lead to mafia problems ?
The other thing is, it is possible for all those corrupt fucks to be murdered, the only reason this doesn't happen is because capitalism doesn't work like feudalism where killing the king has the possibility to bring change for the better because the next king might be nicer. Even if the entire bourgeoisie were liquidated, it would just mean other capitalists will immediately fill the void and continue exactly as before, because capitalism is dominated by systemic pressures not individual attributes. The fact that people do not engage in a pointless Sisyphus murder spree does not mean that individual capitalists are untouchable or impervious to consequence. Capitalists are only protected because they are replaceable. From a systemic perspective a replaceable component doesn't stay dead, and that makes the cost of killing it tend towards the infinite. If they start acting like a blood-soaked mafia it will make sense to kill them because the many capitalists waiting in the wings to move up in the capitalist hierarchy, could promise to be peaceful and protect who ever is "cleaning out the mafia" after they gain power. This doesn't mean that capitalism is particularly peaceful, because capitalism has a lot of systemic violence, but it does clamp individual violence.
To circle back to the topic car bombs are a sign of amateur work or maybe a sign of lacking resources, and it seems very heavy handed, usually ruling class attacks on journalists are done as sophisticated slander campaigns that seek to undermine their credibility. By blowing her up they made her a martyr. So that's baffling to me as well, even a very simple minded strategy like game theory would tell you that disproportional response is irration
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