The CEO killer may have been caught. The alleged murderer is named Luigi Mangione, and he’s not quite what I expected.
He is from a prominent Baltimore family, and attended a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, called the Gilman School, according to school officials.
Mr Mangione was named as the valedictorian, which is usually the student with the highest academic achievements in a class.
…
A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Mangione came from a wealthy family, even by that private school’s standards. “Quite honestly, he had everything going for him,” Mr Leatherbury said.
…
Mr Mangione went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science, according to the school, and founded a video game development club.
He comes from a wealthy family in the Baltimore area that owns country clubs and other businesses, although it sounds like he’s fallen away from that family in recent months. He’s well-off, a privileged member of the upper middle class, but he was apparently radicalized by a severe spinal injury that has sporadically left him in agony. He was rightly enraged by the criminal health policies of the United States by his personal experience.
Insurance company CEOs ought to be trembling in fear. It’s not just the poor who are stirring, it’s everyone recognizing that living in thrall to for-profit insurance companies is a bad situation. Here I am, a tenured college professor with a stable income, and I’m hesitating to retire (especially after the last election), because I’d have to depend on the predatory sharks of some random, greedy insurance company if my health failed…it’s safer to remain in the bosom of the one particular greedy insurance company that my university chose for me.
We’re all going to have to read more Marx and Engels, I think.
Engels on ‘Social Murder’
When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call that deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call this deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or the bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them … to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual …
Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845 [1967]), p. 126 (Panther Press)
Dismantle the system. Shut down private insurance companies, create a single pool controlled by the government that pays out to each according to the needs of the citizens. Don’t allow managers of those funds to draw salaries of $10 million — no one needs that kind of income, especially not if we prevent people from wobbling on the edge of bankruptcy if they get sick.
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/13/the-founding-of-the-nhs-75-years-on/
Gasp!
But why should we do anything unless we someone doesn’t become obscenely wealthy? I mean, are you saying we should just provide things like health care, food, and shelter WITHOUT expecting to get a yacht or a mansion out of the deal?
I mean, sports cars don’t just BUY themselves!
Edit: But why should we do anything unless someone becomes obscenely wealthy?
And now the tories want to dismantle the NHS…I guess they’re so impressed with the American system.
Are these the Death Panels that Sarah Palin warned us about?
The Tories are run by wealthy people (the last Tory MP was literally one of the wealthiest in the land) they will not get hurt.
Cory Doctorow has a prophetic novella from 2019 about exactly this scenario.
https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/
I don’t know if that link is going to work but it’s a story called “Radicalized” about people whose loved ones are allowed to die by insurance companies prioritizing profits over lives.
By the way I am totally not suggesting anyone should do copycat crimes (makes an insincere somber face).
I hope Mangione lives to come to trial. After all, both his testimony, and the public sympathy and support he will get, would be very embarrassing to some extremely rich and influential people.
The problem is that at least in the United States, significant numbers of the people who suffer most from the system continue to vote for the party that screws them. Impoverished Appalachia, the Rust Belt, rural Mississippi and Alabama, the places with the worst poverty in the country are all Trump strongholds.
I have a brother whose wife has Stage 4 cancer and would probably already be dead if not for Obamacare. He’s unemployable for reasons I won’t go into. They’re both evangelical Christians so they vote Republican because they’re anti-abortion and anti-gay. I’ve asked him point blank why he persists in voting for the party that would happily let his wife die so that Elon Musk’s taxes don’t go up; he just laughs. I will never understand it, and at this point I’m on the verge of simply no longer caring.
So long as people are complicit in their own oppression, I’m not sure there’s much to be done.
goddammit we were really hoping for some db cooper shit
@2: Sports TEAMS don’t just buy themselves!
I am not surprised that he had a wealthy upbringing. Only the wealthy would have the expectation that the system is supposed to work for them.
@10 – awomanofnoimportance –> “Impoverished Appalachia, the Rust Belt, rural Mississippi and Alabama, the places with the worst poverty in the country are all Trump strongholds.
A most insidious self-flagellation. Very difficult for people with logical thought processes to Grok.
and “at this point I’m on the verge of simply no longer caring.”
I’ve crossed that line.
@10 – awomanofnoimportance
I think this quote of H.L. Mencken expresses it well: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
awomanofnoimportance @10: To an extent it is not that hard to understand. Many Democrats vote to make our lives a bit less comfortable (by voting for higher taxes) in the name of the greater good. The difference is what one considers the greater good to be, and what one is willing to sacrifice for it.
Where I grew up, having at least one parent as a doctor or corporate lawyer meant “upper middle class,’ not owning multiple country clubs. The kid grew up rich.
He was a spoiled rich kid who lived in the world of the elites, which is very different than our world, especially in the sense of law enforcement and punishments.
This will be seen as evidence by the right that elite schools are teaching kids to be communists. I can only hope the left can use it to argue against private schools where kids can be so out of touch with everyone else.
@PZ: You should look into the Dutch health care system. They have a mandatory insurance system that looks a bit like the US system but much better regulated. In fact they seem to rank as one of the better systems in Europe together with Switzerland and Norway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Netherlands
Rightwing talking points sympathizer Jerry Coyne just posted a photo on his blog of himself stuffing his mouth with an oversized pretzel while on a European vacation. The epitome of privileged comfort there. He has to call it a “comestible” so he signals how highly educated and better he is. From his judgment throne above he calls out PZ (“the capo”) and commenters here for engaging in a bit of schadenfreude over the deceased CEO. I doubt Coyne has wanted or needed for anything in his life which makes it easy for him and some of his right wing followers, drawn like flies to his blog for some reason, to dismiss the place where these outraged sentiments toward health insurance industry big wigs are coming from. It’s not like such stuff is confined to Pharyngula. Coyne is just taking yet another pot shot here.
When the owners take seriously Marx’s predictions of mass immiseration and political upheaval, then they enact semi-socialist reforms to buy the loyalty of the masses. These reforms tend to work, and they negate Marx’s predictions. But then the owning class stops taking Marx’s predictions seriously, so they defund and delete those reforms, and Marx’s predictions tend to come true. Therefore, from the point of view of the owners, Marx is a true a prophet as he is false. I call that the “Marxian Paradox”. The paradox disrupts the owning class’s ideologies, for ideology has binary logic: it cannot abide paradox.
#19: He claims everyone here is “very sad” about the arrest? Where? I thought it was kind of inevitable, myself.
God, every time I read Engels, I just want to-… I want to pick up a literary machete & some pruning shears.
Most of the sentiments in his works are pretty relevant, but gods abound! Iunno if it was the translation or what, but the prose can’t just gut punch a point home to save itself.
“Sowing the seeds of revolution, and they don’t even know it yet”
exactly.
the 1% have been successfully oppressing the other 99% for years. the March on Wall Street didn’t change anything. income disparity has only continued to increase. the satisfaction of the 99% has only continued to decrease.
now, one aggrieved person has taken extralegal action, targeting and murdering, a CEO who represents the foe that thwarted his right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
how long until it happens again?
when will another aggrieved person, who has been denied those rights feel the only recourse they have is extralegal action?
remind me again how the French Revolution started?
Isn’t the murderer the one who literally thwarted his [the victim’s] right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Robbo? Or does that not count in your estimation?
Also, the murderer did indeed pursue his happiness, so clearly his right to seek murderous vengeance had not been thwarted by the victim, contrary to your claim.
Ah well, surely he has now increased his right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by his actions, no? :)
Soon.
Happens all the time in the USA; land of the gun-toters.
You know, gun murders and mass shootings and whatnot by aggrieved people with guns at hand.
(People get aggrieved by lots of things, very often domestic things, not just by wealthy people)
Here:
“1 dead, 6 injured after chase ends in crash, shooting along border of Cicero and Chicago
ByTre Ward WLS logo
Monday, December 9, 2024 4:15AM”
(https://abc7chicago.com/post/cicero-shooting-today-4-shot-1-killed-roosevelt-town-spokesperson-says/15628101/)
John @24: How many people had their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness destroyed by the actions of the CEO? Granted, they were legal. But they were (are) morally reprehensible, like the actions of many corporations. Do you disagree with that?
If you think the killer was pursuing his happiness, you’re being (or pretending to be) a bigger idiot than usual. His act was one of, I would guess, rage. He doesn’t expect happiness. He probably gave up on that long ago.
If you have any more fine points to make (I’m sure you do), they’ll be wasted on me. You’ve become far too boring to engage with past the one response.
No, I don’t agree.
This “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” slogan can be applied to anything anyone dislikes.
Obs, the killer did not lack any of those. Going forward, who can say?
The victim is dead, so he doesn’t lack anything at all, now.
Who’s the literal one here?
<clickety-click>
“In the United States, “the pursuit of happiness” is a foundational principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It asserts that individuals have the right to seek personal fulfillment and well-being, free from undue government interference. This concept emphasizes the importance of individual liberty, economic opportunity, and the ability to pursue one’s goals and aspirations. It reflects the broader American ideal of freedom and self-determination.”
Fine points?
“Nuances: Subtle distinctions or details in a discussion or argument.
Precision: The degree of accuracy or exactness in an explanation or measurement.
Elegance: Delicate or refined features, often in artistic or aesthetic contexts.
Sophistication: Advanced or complex aspects of a subject.
Debate details: Specific arguments or considerations in a thorough examination of a topic.
Technicalities: Specific, often minor, aspects of a rule or process.”
Apparently he plagiarized a review of Kaczynski on Goodreads. So, I think we’ll all be OK with the death penalty after all. Even if it will be applied for the wrong crime.
I propose a new ethical principle, Legalism: that act is moral which I can get away with.
Bill, raised as a Catholic, I was told the 11th Commandment: “Don’t get caught”.
(Luigi was caught)
I’ve got questions regarding the official story. Starting with why a McDonald’s employee would even be seeing his ID, much less tagging it as fraudulent. Some of the details that have been released so far are rather suspicious.
I don’t know…those eyebrows are distinctive, didn’t need an ID.
Yeah, when I saw the masked photos, I was wondering if it was Mehdi from Electroboom. The guy’s got eyebrows for days. But so do a lot of people.
It does seem a bit weird though. Like, you see someone in a McDonald’s and they look a bit like a photo from surveillance cameras from a major crime that made national news. Do you…call the cops? I’d be willing to bet that nearly all people would just make the assumption that it’s just a guy who sorta looks like the photos released, and move on with their lives. Moreover, anyone who had committed an egregious and extremely public murder, who knows that partial images of their face were being seen by billions, would likely have a plan for lying low for a few weeks. To even venture out to a McDonald’s would be quite unusual (unless the person was either an idiot, or wanted to get caught – but this killer was in neither of those camps, because he planned an executed a successful murder, his plan worked, and he escaped with nobody knowing his identity). Obviously, hubris is a thing, but feeling the pressure of a massive federal investigation (and knowing that there was some evidence that could link you to the crime) would tend to counteract it. At least, I’d assume so, having never been the subject of a manhunt myself. Also, you’d think he’d ditch anything that could incriminate him. So…unless I’m missing something (and it’s entirely possible I am), I don’t think this adds up. You can’t be a criminal genius AND a moron at the same time.
“You can’t be a criminal genius AND a moron at the same time.”
Hm. I reckon one could, but that’s by the bye.
Whatever makes you imagine this chap was in any sense of the word “a criminal genius”?
(If he ain’t, then there’s no paradox there, right?)
[I’m currently re-reading the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repairman_Jack novels]
Mano Singham;’s post here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2024/12/10/theres-something-happening-here/
notes towards the end quoting a source that :
So, yeah, seems problematic. Milkshake Duck anyone?
OTOH, certainly can understand the fury and justified schaudenfraude at the CEO’s assassination and may it generate reflectionand change for the better from them. Unlikely giobven most of them are probly sociopathic but can hope..
What, from the perspective of everyman taking it to The Man?
(’tis a very very silly perspective)
“‘It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing “The…game…is,” and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?’
“‘Why, now that you mention it,’ said he, ‘I remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn.'”
(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_%27Gloria_Scott%27)
[um- sorry]
@34: “Whatever makes you imagine this chap was in any sense of the word “a criminal genius”?”
Well, he pulled off a broad daylight murder so successfully that he was out of the city days before the cops realized it. That’s not easy to do. And yet almost a week later he was still walking around with all the paraphernalia used in the crime on his person rather than ditching or destroying it. And as I said earlier, the original tip was supposedly that he had fraudulent ID, which is strange because since when does McDonald’s check IDs? Really raises the question of whether or not the FBI used illegal methods of tracking him and just put this out as a cover story.
As a side note not directly related to the above statement, news articles today were posting that the supposed tipster might not get the reward money promised because of how convoluted the rules are for actually qualifying for the reward. And since those rewards come out of money that the public pays for their taxes, that’s rather like how you can pay for insurance for years only to have your claim denied, isn’t it?
microraptor,
Not even slightly.
Taxes are a government thing, private insurance is a business thing.
So, different.
Taxes are money people pay to the govt, rewards are money the govt pays to people.
So, kinda the opposite.
—
Also, sure.
If you reckon lasting almost a week before getting caught is genius-level criminality, then I suppose he qualifies.
You probably need to be a career criminal to figure out how to get away with murder. And read a lot of true crime literature about scene of crime processing etc.
There is no murder academy, except the ones run by CIA, Russian intelligence, North Korea etc.
I am somewhat amused by the inscribed bullets. That was a nice touch. Reminiscent of the inscribed lead slingstones found at key sites of battles during the Roman civil wars.
You’re thinking this guy was some kind of genius because he outsmarted the police?
Yeah, he managed to escape after pulling off an early morning murder in New York(the shooting happened around 6:50 AM), a city with a population of millions. I’d be more surprised if he did get caught right away. “Shoot someone, get on a bike you’ve left nearby and ride off, get out of town as soon as possible” isn’t exactly the most complicated of plans.
Killing a single executive for a major health company won’t make a difference to the health care business. He will be replaced, the industry will spend more on security, and maybe some innocent person will get killed by bodyguards/the cops for doing some innocuous thing at the wrong time near some exec.
Most people in Mangione’s situation are likely to lash out with violence against people they know, not the company bosses. Or against low level employees of the company that are easy to get access to, like the staff of a sales/customer service office.
VolcanoMan 10:09:
“You can’t be a criminal genius AND a moron at the same time.”
I beg to differ. Consider Donald Trump.
Yeah, I mean, de doo doo doo de da da da is all they want to say to you.
Fuck it, let’s just elect this guy to be the US president 2028. There’s already a criminal in charge so he won’t be the first anyways.
Murder vs self defence.
Can an extra judicial murder reach the self defence point?
I know at least one country using that excuse at the present time.
However, self defence seems a properly recognised thing. There is a broad grey area in the middle.
DanDare:
The very phrasing of your supposedly paradoxical rhetorical question evinces your lack of understanding.
(‘murder’ is not the same as ‘killing’ — there are many apologetics upon that conceit alone)
When the details of the alleged murderer came out and that he was from a rich family from Maryland, what first came to mind was Bob Dylan’s song,”The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol.” Part of the lyrics read:
“William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders…”