I’m noticing a troubling but interesting phenomenon: the sanctification of Saint Luigi.
I don’t care for this at all — it’s more than just my anti-religious attitude, but that given Luigi Mangione’s privileged background I doubt that he’s the class hero anyone expects. The over-reaction by the establishment is what’s driving this, though. I don’t think they’re going to calm their freakout, this trial is going to be a media spectacle and it’s going to get worse. You would think villains would realize that creating a public martyr and exhibiting fear is the last thing you want to do. I do wonder if Mangione is going to get an opportunity to orate on the stand, and if he’s going to be any good at it.
On the other hand, I can understand the response. Assassination is a common thing in America. Think about it: my earliest memory of a news event is the JFK assassination. Then there was the RFK assassination. Martin Luther King jr, Malcolm X. Harvey Milk. Everything the CIA did — they tried hard to assassinate Fidel Castro, and failed…but succeeded all over the place in Latin America. It’s hypocritical for Americans to be outraged at any one particular assassination, but maybe this time it’s because the target lacked any taint of leftiness, since those are the only acceptable political murder victims. Uh-oh. What do you mean, rich conservatives might get killed? That’s not the game.
And maybe it’s starting to sink in that also, in America, we have handed everyone a gun. Maybe a few dim capitalists are waking up to the danger they have created for themselves.
I don’t want anyone to get murdered, but…if someone Luigi’d Elon Musk I’d run out and buy cake and ice cream and have a party at home. There’s a whole class of overpaid morons that could be gunned down in a mass uprising that wouldn’t trigger a single tear drop from me, and I might even think we’d improve society by removing them.
They’re quite right to charge Luigi Mangione with terrorism. He’s one little molecule getting heated up in a pot that’s close to boiling, and he could inspire a lot of other people to undergo a phase shift. The powers that be should be terrified.
I reckon they made a mistake to charge him with terrorism. Apparently he wrote on his laptop that he didn’t want to harm innocents. As things stand, they might not even be able to get a jury together, charging him with terrorism could really be a bridge too far and lead to a mistrial.
Early in Kim Stanley Robinson’s brilliant novel “Ministry For The Future” a whole gaggle of oligarchs all over the world get taken out at the same time by drones flown into the engines of their private jets.
A bit off topic, sorry, but there was a sci-fi movie I watched a while back. Don’t remember the name, and it wasn’t a great movie, but the premise is that all of the global elite moved someplace off of Earth, another planet or a satellite (this isn’t “Elysian” with Matt Damon). But I thought there was a fundemental flaw. The elite were portrayed at living in a clean, technological society, while the remainder on Earth had turned into primitive tribes living in mud.
But if all the highest echelons leave the planet, think who would be left. Scientists, engineers, project managers, artists, teachers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, bus drivers, everyone who knows how to cook and sow. It’s more likely that the “elite” society would devolve into a Lord Of The Flies scenario. The rest of us would say “I’m so glad they’re gone, let’s clean up this shit.”
” It’s more likely that the “elite” society would devolve into a Lord Of The Flies scenario. The rest of us would say “I’m so glad they’re gone, let’s clean up this shit.””
Until everybody dies from a plague transmitted by unsanitized phones :-P
Hero worship in general sucks for many reasons—it strips power (or at least perceived power) from the public and assumes only a single representative “genius” (I don’t mean this just in terms of intelligence, but for the broader idea of an allegedly gifted individual) is capable of changing things. It necessarily involves oversimplifying ideas and promotes propaganda. It’s dehumanizing for the “heroes” in question, and it can blind us from the fact that these are people and not personified virtues, so everything they say and do is a part of the movement they represent regardless of wrongdoing.
All this stuff with Mangione is really weird imo, especially when you remember all the creepy sexual shit people have been posting about him online.
The sanctification of privileged criminals is a popular pastime in the US these days. You need look no further than the man who’ll be occupying the WH in another month. His fans have certainly sanctified, if not outright deified, him and have the iconography to prove it.
Then there is the revisionist history involving Jan 6th that is being promulgated by the right and wholly accepted by those who’ll soon have most of the power. And this revisionism includes turning a wouldbe terrorist named Ashli Babbit into a martyr.
So all of this Luigi Mangione stuff didn’t happen in a vacuum and, admittedly, it’s makes me smile that the people who are seemingly the most bothered by the celebration of Mangione are the same people who most guilty of doing stuff like this themselves.
The privileged parasites are terrified thats why he is charged with terrorism and school shooters aren’t.
Elon Musk isn’t even an American. Except as an immigrant through naturalization.
I look forward to him being deported back to South Africa as an undesirable alien.
I would point out that Engels also had a privileged background.
You haven’t just handed them a gun, you’ve handed them military grade killing machines. What could possibly go wrong with that?
(“You” because I’m a Canadian)
@1 don’t think it was such a mistake to charge him with terrorism . I’ll bet abusing corporate heads are rethinking some of their policies. I have a bad feeling that there’ll copycat murders .
2 years from now this guy will be largely forgotten, his victim more so. Most of the big money elites are far more worried about their taxes going up than being killed by a random shooter.
There is a character in the story that was a terrorist, spreading fear through the populace. That character was not Mangione, though.
I doubt that any of the true American oligarchs really fear Mangione copycats. They have private security teams and are essentially out of reach of the public unless they choose otherwise. But Brian Thompson was no oligarch. He was wealthy and privileged, but fundamentally just a high-ranking servant of the true ownership classes.
The massive over-reaction by the NYPD and civil leaders, to my mind, has more to do with reassuring the upper classes that crimes against them will be taken very seriously. Giving this guy as much prominence as he’s had is probably more likely to inspire copycats, but I think that if they considered that at all it likely was felt to be less important than the need to show that anyone who has the temerity to harm a real person in NYC will feel the full weight of the law. After all, they wouldn’t want the ultra-wealthy to think that Manhattan wasn’t a good place for them to live/visit/shop.
Since it’s apparently an unchangeable state that the US is awash in firearms, and there is an ample supply of disaffected young men looking for a cause to throw their lives away for. I’d much rather see them engaging in class warfare than, for example, shooting up their former schools. This is hopefully the start of a positive trend.
@1 The shooter was quite correctly charged with terrorism–his notebook, online postings, etc. indicate he wanted to send a message to the health insurance companies–he didn’t even have an insurance policy from UHC. But UHC is one of the biggest health insurance companies and the worst in terms of indefensible denials of claims for legitimate health care.
He wanted to send a message to the health insurance companies. And he did. That’s pretty much a working definition of terrorism–to frighten or terrify a group of people, as compared to singling out a single person or group for a defined reason–they injured or wronged the perpetrator of the attack in some way. In which case other people would likely not be threatened or intimidated. Example: someone who says “kill all black people” is a terrorist (and a bigot). Someone who kills a black person as revenge for that particular black person say, running their kid over with their car, is a killer and (after a court case with a guilty verdict) a murderer but not a terrorist.
Luigi Mangione showed clear concern for innocent bystanders (which is admirable) but is still a killer and a terrorist and possibly a murderer (after a trial by a jury of his peers and some really expensive legal assistance) although I am kind of expecting a NGI or possibly a jury who says something along the lines of “yeah we know he killed someone in premeditated murder but we’re letting him go anyway”. (Scenes from The Jerk with Steve Martin and A Time To Kill with Samuel Jackson spring to mind.) Also this:
Really, did none of those people in McDonald’s see Queen and Slim?
The good news for Mangione is that he is a wealthy white male being tried in New York, which abolished the death penalty–the last time NY executed a person was in 1963.(People need to remember that it’s TEXAS who pretty much executes all the death row prisoners in the US, with only a few exceptions.)
@11 Are you kidding? This guy is going to be in the news for years, judging by all the online female attention this guy is getting. I think we are looking at the 21st century version of a combo of the Unabomber and Charles Manson. Behold the cult of personality.
Keep in mind that the subway choker (Daniel Penny) got off scot-free.
https://apnews.com/article/daniel-penny-subway-chokehold-jordan-neely-305a4eb324f6466a67bdb6734a7b999a
Crying laughing here.
Rich people don’t pay taxes now, what makes you think that they are worried about their taxes going up?
Tax cuts are the newspaper that the fawning slavish Congressional poodles bring to their corporate overlords for a pat on the head and some kickbacks. Kind of meaningless to the recipient but the dog lives for that pat on the head.
Exhibit A: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/losscarryback.asp#:~:text=A%20net%20operating%20loss%20(NOL)%20carryback%20allows%20a%20firm%20to,loss%20toward%20future%20years'%20returns.
Basically, rich people–whose money decidedly does NOT come from any actual earned income–pay taxes (sometimes anyway; at a greatly reduced rate compared to people who actually work for a living) until they hit a bump in the road, financially speaking, at which point they have a loss year which is a year in which they show negative income (on paper anyway). They then run sobbing to the federal government, who clearly does not want their corporate overlords to be sad and more importantly, stop the flow of kickbacks, so the federal government allows rich people, whose income largely derives from investments, to apply the loss to prior years in which they actually paid taxes to reduce the taxes they already paid, which results in a big fat federal tax refund check for the temporarily disaccommodated rich person. So then they won’t be saaaad anymore.
If you are just a regular person who works for a living, you’re fucked. Lost your job? Injured and can’t work? No carryback for you. GET BACK TO WORK WELFARE QUEEN, WHY ARE YOU CHOOSING TO BE POOR. /s
kenbakermn @2, old trope, the Morlocks and the Eloi.
(Well, not in space, but still. Then there are Asimov’s Spacers)
silvrhalide, most CEOs are regular persons who work for a living.
Another good thing about the justified killing is that has revealed that a ton of “smart” people are too stupid to understand what being working class class entails, or what class is more generally. Genuinely glad your not one of them PZ.
A slightly different take: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/luigi-mangione-racism-media
@13 Sure, if oligarchs want to hole up in their massive family compound in Wyoming, it will be difficult to carry out an assassination like the UHC killing. Thing is, rich people love to flaunt their wealth as well as enjoy it, so if they ever plan on going to Palm Beach, Vail, the Hamptons, NYC, LA or even hop on a private jet to Gstaad, they will have to be out in public, which leaves them vulnerable to a UHC-style killing.
I agree with you that Brian Thompson wasn’t an oligarch but he was a millionaire, so by definition he was rich. He just wasn’t ultrarich the way Bozos or Muskrat are. And yes, the overreaction of the NYPD was more about reassuring rich people that Manhattan is indeed a petting zoo/safe space for the wealthy and privileged than about catching a killer. Income taxes on the rich are negligible but NY has a sales tax and the rich like to shop, dine and be entertained. I just disagree that the UHC killing hasn’t suddenly made the wealthy and ultrawealthy concerned. Clearly they ARE concerned, as evidenced by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s sudden decision to backtrack on anesthesia limits and/or other health insurance companies sudden scrubbing of corporate personnel’s details on their websites. Clearly they are worried that they could be next.
“Clearly they are worried that they could be next.”
You sweet, sweet child.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Most CEO income is not derived from whatever fig leaf W-2 income (salary) they actually get as a highly paid employee, it comes from stock options, tax deferred income, deferred compensation and other investment instruments, to say nothing of tax laws structured to favor investment income over wage income. Investment income increases at a drastically greater rate than any actual working income (ie., wages/salary) to the point where anyone who actually works for a living can never hope to financially catch up.
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/long-term-capital-gains-tax/#what-is-the-long-term-capital-gains-tax-rate
Time to acquire some basic math skills?
Our organization does not approve of Mangione’s actions. However, the corrupt healthcare CEOs are murderers, too.
Most perp walks have the prisoner in a bulletproof vest, surrounded by ‘cops’ to protect him. However, here all the ‘cops’ are in bulletproof vests with military gear and the ‘perp’ is out in the open without any protection whatsoever.
Does this mean that ‘law enforcement’ recognizes that he is ‘revered’ by the populace and therefore needs no protection?
OR, does it mean that they want him to be an unprotected target, right out front?
@4 nihilloligasan wrote: Hero worship in general sucks for many reasons—
I reply: You are so correct. One of the reasons our organization has no heroes is that they almost always end up worshiped as a cult leader. (We do have many people that we highly admire, respect and appreciate. I know he doesn’t like it said, but we put PZ in that category. And, we appreciate many of thoughtful commenters here)
@17 John Morales wrote: silvrhalide, most CEOs are regular persons who work for a living.
I reply: I mostly agree with John. But, I would say ‘many’ not ‘most’, since I have no reliable statistics to quantify that, just personal observation of a number of CEOs. And, I would want to add that the many CEOs that are obscenely wealthy, cannot in any way justify that they ‘earned and deserve’ that obscene wealth.
If you will forgive my offering a cross-post from the infinite thread:
The founder of our organizations created a short, tranquil, mind-cleansing video that we want to share with you to help in these tempestuous times.
http://theartsinarizona.org/Contemplation_in_Apprehension_of_More_Devastation.mp4
Wonders of the internet:
“As of December 01, 2024, the average annual salary for a Chief Executive Officer in the United States is $885,080. According to Salary.com, salaries can range from a low of $463,234 to a high of $1,354,352, with most professionals earning between $664,270 and $1,130,715.”
(https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/chief-executive-officer-salary)
[for perspective]
(https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/surgeon-salary)
As of December 01, 2024, the average annual salary for a Surgeon in the United States is $443,938. Salary.com reports that pay typically ranges from $375,419 to $526,891, with most professionals earning between $313,036 and $602,415.
@27 John Morales wrote: the average annual salary for a Chief Executive Officer in the United States is $885,080.
I reply: I don’t doubt you, John. However, to be fair, I think we need to take into account the factual reports that the ‘total compensation’ for CEOs is usually many millions per year, due to the ‘gifts and bonuses’ of stock, jets, and other perks. The physicians and surgeons I know don’t get those ‘added goodies’.
There are 9,990 CEOs in “Elementary and Secondary Schools” and 16,890 “Local Government, excluding Schools and Hospitals (OEWS Designation)” in the USA.
(https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes111011.htm)
People have been equating CEOs with the “ultra-rich” (beyond rich), but not all CEOs work for the top 500 companies. And very, very few are billionaires.
(A cartoon view of the world is not that helpful)
@29 ShermanJ
I agree.
“Average pay of CEOs at the top 350 firms [in the USA] in 2018 was $17.2 million—or $14.0 million using a more conservative measure. (Stock options make up a big part of CEO pay packages, and the conservative measure values the options when granted, versus when cashed in, or “realized.”).” (from the Economic Policy Unit https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
I am certain the amount has risen considerably in the last seven years and probably by a lot.
Andrew
It still baffles me that people can point to a salary and say “see not billions therefore worker!” Like ruling class is a social relationship to both the means of production as well as the working class. Like money is not the criteria for ruling class, you could in theory be a working class millionaire, in fact lots of professional athletes are. Like this isn’t hard. Also being a CEO of a public education institution fundamentally places you outside the private property relationship, you are a public manager at that point not working class but also not necessarily ruling class. All private sector CEO’s are ruling class by definition, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t billionaires it doesn’t matter if they take a salary or not. It is the social relation to both money capital and labor that makes them such not anything more superficial.
“All private sector CEO’s”
CEOs. Plural, not possessive.
(I notice you now specify “private sector”, so well done)
John Morales @33
Does it really add any value here (or hear) for you to swoop in like a spelling or grammar flame vulture all the time? A tedious pedantic distraction if you asking I or we. You get off on correcting others. Understood. Sad life hobby.
John Morales @16
Upstairs/Downstairs actually. HG’s mom was a domestic servant.
http://www.novelgetaways.co.uk/blog/hg-wells-west-sussex
Hemidactylus, not very reflexive, are you?
It’s not all the time, is it? Rather rare, actually.
As for a “flame”, well. Your standards are exceedingly feeble if you find a mere mention to be a flame.
(Does it really add any value here to pop in specifically to diss my style and nothing else?)
@39 John Morales wrote: There are 9,990 CEOs in “Elementary and Secondary Schools”
I reply: I don’t dispute your assertion that very few of those categorized by the OEWS Designation are billionaires. I, and my cohorts, as common usage here, have never considered the Principals and Administrators of school districts as CEOs. They used to be educators. But, most are now just business executives with almost no knowledge of the field of education (ask PZ about that). And, they make relatively tiny amounts compared to CEOs of large corporations. What I refer to (if not as precise as some would like) is that there are, as of 2023, there are ~735 billionaires in the United States.
No, that’s the supposed “justification” for war invading whole nations and murdering millions of brown people. Just ask Dubya* “They tried to kill my Daddy!” Bush.
They should indeed be terrified given we are living through a Mass Extinction Event which we are causing and the world as we know it is literally being destroyed by our greenhouse gas emissions. Plus because we almost all live in societies that they are actively making worse by increasing inequality and supporting science-denialism, religious extremism and outright fascism esp in the United States of America. Which of course is a nation that has a disproportionate influence over much of the world including Australia, Canada, Britain and Europe and yet has a sad history of extreme anti-intellectualism and falling for toxic ideologies like Libertarianism, Manifest Destiny and unfettered hyper-extreme capitalism,
Of course, that doesn’t seem to be what most scares them and instead they might maybe now worry about assassins and social unrest and maybe revolution occurring as a result of the inequalities and injustices of a system they benefit from if not outright exploit and manipulate in their own favour. A problem with the obvs solution of them NOT doing that and instead working to make things fairer and better for everyone and getting rid of their excess wealth in positive ways rather than hoarding it.
PS. Someone on fb made the comparison between those idolising Luigi Mangione on the left and those hero-worshipping Kyle Rittenhouse on the reichwing. Oh & to Dylan Roof as well.
.* A.k.a. “Thankyou Trump for making only the 2nd worst POTUS ever & seem reasonable in comparison” George the Second Bush II the Lesser.
For those equating Luigi Mangione with Charles Manson or the Unabomber-there’s a major difference. Mangione picked one target and did a lot of research before acting. Manson and the Unabomber killed indiscriminately, picking mostly random targets. So do most mass murderers. Mangione went out of his way to avoid killing or injuring bystanders. For mass murderers, the more innocent bystanders they kill or injure, the better they like it.
christoph, but then: https://www.newsweek.com/luigi-mangione-reading-list-famous-killers-read-2000391
Yes, yes it does.
Nice one, Beebee.
The beatification of Luigi vs. the demonisation of John.
I mean, yes, one more comment from me as I respond to your inanity and bluster has little value, but only because I speak the obvious truth.
—
And remember: “They’re quite right to charge Luigi Mangione with terrorism.”.