Luigi Manon, the alleged murderer of Brian Thompson, the late CEO of US Health insurance UnitedHealthcare. Well, you'd have to have taken an impromptu excursion to the Andromeda galaxy if this particular story has passed you by now, to avoid any

misunderstanding. When he claims I'm violating the law or YouTube rules, glorifying or inciting violence, I don't support killing anyone. I know, bombshell, right? I think anyone who follows me already got that particular gist. So it's been interesting to see many of the

people who have focused on this particular killing as a particularly obscene outrage are often the very same people who have actively advocated the industrial-level slaughter of the Palestinian people for the last 14 months. An article in the Atlantic, whose editor incidentally is a former Israeli

prison guard, is headlined 'Decivilization may already be underway,' with a subheading: 'The brazen murder of a CEO in Midtown Manhattan and the cheering reaction to his execution amounts to a blinking and blaring warning signal for a society that has become already too

inured to bloodshed.' Well, as one Twitter user put it, surely it suggests more in the way of decivilization when the world's leading genocide denier can hardly get through a speech to Congress for all the standing ovations. That's referring to how Benjamin

Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who was a wanted man for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, was loudly cheered and celebrated by US politicians when he addressed them after having exterminated tens of thousands of Palestinians. Indeed, if we're talking

About decivilization, literally de-civilized Gaza by wiping civilization out. If we're discussing killing, killing machines, more to the point that surely includes how the privatized US healthcare system, and as a socialist, the systems I'm interested in rather than individuals, has condemned so many

Americans to death and suffering. What 19th-century German philosopher Frederick Engels would have called social murder, which is what has clearly driven the response which we're going to look at to Luigi M's violent act.  Let's get the

pronunciation right. A lot of discussion has focused on, well, people lingering after him. Um, that's been helped along by, I think, admittedly pretty shirtless pictures and the truly bizarre decision of the Pennsylvania police to keep releasing mug shots of him that has clearly fueled that as well. Some of

those comments veered into pornographic territory. Here's one example of this on TikTok: "My husband, which is Luigi Manon, has been eating a lot of McDonald's lately, so I decided to celebrate his Italian heritage and make a pasta

puttanesca. I simmered together some tomatoes, onions, spices, Kalamata olives, and then added some flaked tuna. I then served it with pasta, a little bit of grated Parmesan, and this was really satisfying and hit the spot, just like my

husband." What I'm interested in, with my stroke-y chin writer hat on, is what could be called the Luigi Manon phenomenon. He has become celebrated on social media in a way which almost never happens with killers. I mean, that's not surprising; killers aren't generally hero number one in

Society, this is certainly not like other killings, not most killings. Certainly, previous statistics from the FBI showed most Americans who were killed were killed by someone they know. They also showed 42% were killed during arguments. That's what happens, I'm afraid, if you've

got lots of guns; people get angry, spur of the moment, they shoot each other. In some cases, while another 23% were in circumstances such as rape, robbery, or burglary. So, not the same clearly as this particular circumstance, if we're going by what is officially defined as

terrorism. The figures show it's far-right extremists who've committed by far the most ideologically motivated homicides compared to far-left or radical Islamist extremists. I'm using the term 'far-right' as described in the official statistics, with 227 such attacks since 9/11,

compared to 42 attacks by those who were termed far-left. Now, this is not—it should be emphasized—a quote-unquote 'far-left' attack. It's quite interesting, isn't it, that someone who does not have the, let's say, normal profile of a killer—how they

become a killer? When that happens, that's interesting of itself; when somebody just doesn't have the sort of history you would expect, and someone who is not actually a leftist in any meaningful sense at all. From what we can see from social media,

he seems like the sort of guy on a dating app like Hinge to select 'moderate' from the drop-down box; a sort of tech bro, I guess. He's someone whose friends have come out to laud him on a human level. One of them, Tracy Moehl, posted this

Clip of him. This is an update: We found multiple ice cream... ice cream, "mangaby," she wrote alongside it. Luigi Manon is probably the most Googled keyword today, but before all of this, for a while it was also the only name whose FaceTime calls I would pick up. He was one of my

absolute best, closest, most trusted friends. He was also the only person who, at 1 a.m. on a workday, in this video, agreed to go to the store with drunk me to look for mocky ice cream. Another friend posted a picture of them together

with a caption, "He's not a monster." I can't put into words how worried I am for you right now. They have this story all upside down. He seems to have been an athletic frat boy from a pretty gilded background who academically excelled and

who was well-liked. No prior evidence of violence. Studied computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, who was into making computer games. What we do know is that, as the Daily Beast put it, he was laid off by a Californian resale car resale site in 2023 and dealt with

debilitating back pain requiring surgery; that he was sometimes bedridden, which one friend said was heinous because of the giant screws needed. An X-ray of his back with those screws can be seen adorning his Twitter header, which was suspended for a little while. He's been

reported to have been an active Reddit user, often posting in Reddit communities about spinal pain. Quite a key point, clearly. Um, he said, according to—I mean, this is covered in Forbes—"When my spondy went bad on me last year, 23 male, it was"

Completely devastating as a young, athletic person, the spondylolisthesis had a Google result that refers to a bone in your spine. He also posted, "Keep trying different surgeons; nobody will operate on my..." This is recommending to someone else, clearly: "Keep trying different surgeons; nobody...

will operate on my back until I'm at least 40."  This is nonsense coming from a medical professional who lacks perspective. Tell them you are "unable to work."  SL, do your job. We live in a capitalist society. I found that the medical industry responds to these key

words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it's impacting your quality of life. Now, his... one of the following is undeniable, including amongst his fellow inmates. And while I think it's fair to say we know a lot of convicts will get

hassle in prison, I think it's clear it's not going to apply to this guy. Let's listen to this outside the prison, on the US cable show, NewsNation.  Sucki, the US drag queen Aquaria, tweets, "Hold up, Joe Biden, and see what you've

done for Hunter." And I think the American people would like to request one small final favor, please. Another tweet: "We finally have someone to replace all those Christopher Columbus statues." Christopher Columbus, of course, being responsible for far more murders than Luigi Manon. Jolie,

while commentators are outraged, the headline for Zoe Strimpel's piece in the Telegraph speaks for itself: "Luigi Manon's disgusting Gen Z fan club makes me fear for our society's future." They really don't like young people. The Telegraph. She has millions of salivating

Over the alleged assassination of Brian Thompson, in a disgusting display of our society's disintegration... Well, perhaps the best example, let's say, of differing approaches to outrage comes from Fox News. Listen to this; we'll dig into it later. Uh, the Instagram post from... nutbag people, which

I was sent in the commercial break earlier. Crazy! Like, he's cute! He's... and people celebrating this. This is a sickness, honestly. It's so disappointing, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Um, gentlemen, thank you so much. And up next, the other big news out of New York:

Daniel Penny. A lot of people think he's a hero, and tonight he's not guilty. My take next. Daniel Penny, of course, is the former Marine who was acquitted of fatally choking a homeless man on the New York City subway. The fact is, the US healthcare system, dominated by private

healthcare insurers who exist to turn the most basic human needs into an excuse for profits, they kill people and they inflict terrible suffering. That system does, and it is the system which is why this killing has, let's just say, struck a chord amongst a significant

number of Americans. Let's read the leaked manifesto of Luigi Manon, posted in full on the Substack of the top-notch US journalist Ken Klippenstein, to the feds. I'll keep this short because I do respect what you do for that

country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial; some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and to-do lists that

Let me illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering, so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. As a reminder, the US has the number one most

expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly number 42 in life expectancy.  United is the undeniably largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, and Walmart. It has grown and grown, but the reality is these

companies have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it. Obviously, the problem is far more complex. I don't have the space, and frankly, I do not pretend to be the most

qualified person to lay out the full argument, but many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g., Rosenthal, decades ago), and the problems simply remain. It's not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly a power game. Evidently, I am the first to face it

with such brutal honesty. Well, I mean, he's clearly a very smart kid, isn't he? Not to sound patronizing, as a geriatric millennial to a significantly younger American... um, I mean, you know, he's intelligent, he has

insight. 51% of Americans have a very or somewhat negative view of the healthcare industry, with 31% opting for very or somewhat positive, while 62% correctly believe all Americans getting healthcare is the responsibility of the federal government, with 36% disagreeing.

The failure of the US to have universal healthcare is, of course, a scandal. The bullets allegedly used by Luigi Mangolini's alleged killer were reportedly inscribed with words well known by Americans and associated with refusals to offer healthcare.

Health insurance companies in the US healthcare system are wasteful and inefficient, requiring a huge bureaucracy and money which could be better spent on, for example, providing decent healthcare. As the National Women's Law Center put it back in May 2023, refusals to provide

healthcare threaten the health and lives of patients nationwide. Back in 2020, it was revealed that as much as a quarter of the American population were delaying getting the medical help they needed because of surging costs, and that clearly kills Americans. A significant number of those will die prematurely

because of that. Look at this TikTok of the parent of a terminally ill four-year-old child, which fleshes out where I think some of the emotional response is coming from.  [Music]

The fact is that mass murder is baked into capitalist societies in different ways, which can be seen in particularly stark terms in the more unrestrained capitalism of the United States. We've discussed the mass killing

of people abroad, facilitated by politicians and legitimized by media outlets, and the mass killing of people at home by depriving them of their most basic and fundamental needs because profit is seen as a higher priority than people's lives and well-being.

Healthcare is at the heart of that. Now, the left believes in mass movements which use collective power to transform societies, rather than "lopping off" rich individuals at the top. It is objectively true that this killing has certainly raised awareness about the horrors

of the US healthcare system. Whether it now ends up as a net saver of lives because of that, well, that remains to be seen. It is true that in our profoundly unequal and broken societies, if we fail to address the catastrophic distribution of wealth, power, and rights with

collective movements which secure wins, then I think this sort of violence will become more common. I want to hear your thoughts on this; I'd be fascinated to read them, actually. To be honest, so I will read every single comment in response. Please like and subscribe; leave

your thoughts. Um, uh, help us keep the show on the road at patreon.com/jones4. I should tell you, um, finally, a massive project which I'll be working on, which is about the BBC and its coverage of the genocide in Palestine, which is based on interviews

with multiple BBC journalists, is finally being published next week. I will give you more information about that. Um, cost £20,000 to legal... interesting. Anyway, so yes, your support, as ever, for all that I'm able to do is hugely appreciated. Please like, subscribe, uh, listen to the

podcast, patreon.com/jones4. I will speak to you soon.

How Luigi Mangione Became Hero To So Many: The CEO Killer And The Health Killers

Owen Jones

Luigi Manon's Murder and Societal Response

Introduction to Luigi Manon, the alleged murderer of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

The speaker clarifies their stance against violence and killing.

Contrasting outrage over Thompson's murder with the lack of outrage over the Palestinian conflict.

Discussion of an article in the Atlantic about 'Decivilization' in relation to the murder.

Comparison of the reaction to Netanyahu's actions with the reaction to Manon's actions.

Discussion of the US healthcare system's role in societal issues and the concept of 'social murder'.

Analysis of online reactions to Manon, including inappropriate and sexualized comments.

Examination of Manon's unusual celebration on social media compared to other killers.

Discussion of Manon's atypical profile for a killer and his lack of a typical leftist ideology.

Friends' accounts of Manon's personality and background, contradicting the image of a killer.

Details of Manon's background: job loss, back pain, surgery, and online activity.

Manon's Reddit posts about his spinal pain and struggles with the medical system.

Discussion of the medical industry's response to patients' needs in a capitalist society.

Social media reactions to the event, including comparisons to other figures like Hunter Biden and Christopher Columbus.

Analysis of media coverage, highlighting differing perspectives and opinions.

Mention of the Daniel Penny case and its relation to the discussion.

The US Healthcare System and Manon's Manifesto

Critique of the US healthcare system and its impact on the public.

Summary of Manon's leaked manifesto, focusing on his motivations and criticisms of the system.

Statistics on the US healthcare system's cost and life expectancy.

Statistics on public opinion regarding the US healthcare industry and the role of the federal government.

Details about the bullets allegedly used by Manon and their connection to healthcare.

Discussion of the inefficiencies and negative impacts of the US health insurance system.

Statistics on delayed medical care due to costs and its consequences.

Concluding remarks on mass murder within capitalist societies and the US healthcare system's role.

Discussion of the left's approach to societal change and the potential impact of Manon's actions.

Call to action: sharing thoughts and promoting the speaker's work.

How Luigi Mangione Became Hero To So Many: The CEO Killer And The Health Killers

How Luigi Mangione Became Hero To So Many: The CEO Killer And The Health Killers

Scripts