Luigi, So Confusing

Luigi didn’t have to murder anyone. Still, he had an amazing plan up until he left New York state and stalled in Pennsylvania. I’ll explain that there’s a great, less violent way to bring down health insurance companies. But first I have some analysis.

I am shocked it took this long for a radicalized individual to kill an American CEO. I was waiting for an oil company CEO to be attacked in the early 1990s. Then, I thought maybe someone would go for a tobacco company CEO in the late 90s. But of course it eventually happened to the CEO of a private healthcare payment corporation - the behemoth, cruel middle man that destroys both families and hospitals by denying coverage and reimbursement. This company has killed both people and smaller hospitals that are just doing their damn jobs to heal people.

The assassination of United Heathcare CEO Brian Thompson reminded me of cyberpunk literature, in which people have to buy all sorts of supplemental subscriptions to get healthcare, and corporate executives ('Corpos') have their own police forces and hit squads. Oh wait, that's our world now! Chapo Trap House and Trashfuture are going to go wild with this story.

This assassination, to a degree, was a huge victory for the left. Why? Because for a few days, the corporate executive class was scared. That's the very definition of terrorism. Kill one, frighten thousands. Since the rise of Reagan in 1980, have they ever been scared? No. They have been acting like they can do whatever they want to us, and get away with it.

Here’s a young billionaire, NYPD Comissioner, Jessica Tisch, scolding us not to celebrate this radical murder. She starts talking here at 3:10. Try, if you can, to think of her saying this about ‘wanted’ posters for abortion providers, or about any school shooting. But no. This is what she gets furious about. Someone broke one of the biggest rules in our society. You don’t do violence to the oligarch class.

Jessica Tisch -a billionaire who ought to be enjoying her inherited fortune rather than buy her way into senior positions in government- is here to tell us that the murder of a CEO is one of the worst things to possibly happen in our society. If you ever have any doubt over the role of the police, remember this. The police are not here to protect little people. They are to protect property and oligarchs like Jessica Tisch. And that’s why I have never called the police, and will never call them.

Things will settle down. Regular order will be restored. Only little people will be victims of mass shootings. Only abortion providers will be assassinated. But for a few days, we little people had a win.

And to the Democratic leaders who wag their finger at me and say "don't be the joker," or "come on now, we go high and murder is wrong," please shit the fuck up and let the vilified 'far left' enjoy this small moment in history. Of course murder is wrong. But even acknowledging that, this is an assassination for the history books. For a few days, Luigi Mangione was the DB Cooper of corporate terrorism. For a few days, I really thought he had fled to Fiji or some other island nearly 8,000 miles away.

And yeah, about that terrorism charge. I agree that this crime had a key element of terrorism. One was murdered, and thousands rethought their security. But not thousands of little people. Senator Elizabeth Warren seemed to understand this when we said, “people can only be pushed so far.” Does that make her a terrorist? Famed Los Angeles artist Cola Corporation put Mangione’s slogan on a t-shirt. Does that make the artist a terrorist?

And let’s be crystal clear, the charges against Briana Boston should be dropped.

I wish I could have consulted Luigi Mangione on a better plan that didn’t involve phones, bus rides, a hostel, unmasked IP addresses, or even card transactions. He could arrive in the city with a beard, and leave clean shaven on his way to the Mexican or Canadian border, with a fresh phone and alibi in-hand. From there, he’d be a few days away from a ride on a freighter or plane to a nation that has no extradition treaty with with the US. But that would require multiple people to help him. And they would have been caught.

As I think about it, murder was not the tactic to use here. But before I write what I want to see instead, allow me to say that it’s not going to be very easy for District Attorney Bragg’s prosecutors to fill a jury box of New Yorkers willing to convict. If a New York jury let Daniel Penny walk, surely there are those including myself who would return a not guilty verdict for Mangione. Both are clear murderers. If the disgusting boy with a ratty perm and who’s sponsored by the far right can walk, then surely there is a chance for the far more relatable and likable Luigi Mangione to walk. His conviction is in no way assured.

Mangione terrorized corporate America. He didn’t terrorize me or people like me. He and his victim were both visitors to New York City. We New York residents didn’t know them nor really care.

Oh man. Brian Thompson’s family din’t care about him, did they? They have said nothing about what a good father he might have been. They released just one shitty home photo of him. That speaks volumes. Johnson was a fucking ghoul. Maybe good, decent people shouldn’t work for private healthcare companies. He sure as hell wasn’t decent.

But our police commissioner, who doesn’t have any more police and investigatory experience than I do, has spoken, folks. Get back to regular order, or else. We little people will deal with the national firearms crisis, mass shootings, and target assassinations of doctors.

Here’s what I think should happen next. I don’t want a wave or bombings and murders, like this is 1970s Germany or The Troubles. What I want is for activists to use the PETA playbook. Shock and shame. Throw animal blood at CEOs. Splatter them. Shame them. Recruit a few celebrities to speak publicly how awful private health insurance is, and how single payer, presented as vastly expanded Medicare for everyone, is the answer.

I want United Healthcare and companies like it to be put out of business by single payer. No one has to die. People just need to lose their jobs. The healthcare middleman payer industry needs to die. Start throwing blood around. Put blood at their entrances. Connect these evil companies to the pain and suffering they inflict on the majority of Americans.

We hate this paradigm. We hate this industry. We need to shut ‘em down. Do to the healthcare middleman what PETA did to the fur trade and private zoos.

Here’s Hasan Piker to take us home and explain this entire issue, including his take on terrorism, morality, and special classes of citizens, in just 36 minutes:

New York City Loses Another Civil Liberties Suit

They can spin it all they want, but a $2M settlement is a defeat in my book. Good for the plaintiffs in this case. 52 people were peacefully protesting on a city sidewalk on April 7th 2003, when the NYPD rounded up and arrested them. Unfortunately, justice will not be given to the nearly 2,000 protesters who were arrested, thrown into detention pens, and denied their constitutional rights for over 24 hours during the Republican National Convention just over a year later. The 2003 incident could have been a warm-up for the RNC, because the tactic they used was similar to what they did during the RNC. The police cut-off West 53rd Street, surrounded the protesters, and then arrested them all:

Lawyers said that..people were arrested without police warning or without providing an opportunity for anyone to leave.

During the 2004 RNC, the NYPD had perfected this tactic so that they turned side streets into 'traps.' By cutting off access to the east and west avenues, everyone trapped on the street could be taken into custody. The police even used scooters and nets to perform these sweeping mass arrests. In at least one reported case, they directed pedestrians and bicyclists to turn onto a street where they were subsequently trapped and arrested. Many of those arrested weren't even involved in the protests, such as the famous case of bicyclist Alexander Pincus, who was directed to ride his bike into a trap after picking-up soup for his girlfriend at the now defunct Second Avenue Deli.

And last week, we got some good news regarding the 2004 RNC tactics. A federal judge has ordered the city to turn-over NYPD reports and summaries of their intelligence-gathering of protest groups prior to and during the 2004 RNC. The city will appeal, but perhaps this means that we're a year or so away from determining the depth of the NYPD's spying program. The documents detail which groups were spied on and/or infiltrated by undercover officers, and include summaries of what intelligence was obtained from each group.

I have always asked (and I assume others ask it as well) - was there any overlap between the NYPD surveillance and spying by the NSA or FBI? In other words, was the NYPD spying on groups that the FBI had already looked at (or didn't bother looking at)? Did the NYPD go beyond what the feds were doing? What made the NYPD commit to an expensive surveillance program if the feds weren't concerned with the target groups? Or if the feds were watching the groups, what made Commissioner Ray Kelly think that the NYPD could do a better job? Did the NYPD tell the feds that they were doing this? Did the NYPD spy on groups outside the US? Wouldn't that be the NSA's responsibility? We know there is historic tension and mistrust between the FBI and local law enforcement, but this would make a great case study by a criminal justice or legal scholar.