USE OF WEAPONS

This is not about Brian Thompson.
It's not about “The Adjuster”.
It's about you.
It's about me.

I want to know if you've watched as an elder is tossed into the crisp winter as a landlord shrugs and the bailiffs excuses themselves “just doing my job mate”, the two cops at least have the decency to help him to the end of the garden. He's always paid his rent but the landlord feels now's a good time to sell up. No one bares him any ill-will and he's been given his notice: should of sorted something. There are no emergency beds and he's got to much pride to accept your offer even for the night.

I want to know if you've every been given a week and if you don't show up with the money, they'll empty your gaff. So there you are in cash generator selling everything you own for a fraction of it's value and that's you in your tiny box, emptier and emptier. For years that's you. Trapped in a cycle of buying inferior things that last half as long and ultimately cost you twice as much because you have never been able to afford quality. Renting the white goods and a decent telly allowed you to feel human again but the noose constricted and the consuming void now blurs your days. The bills goes up each month and there is absolutely nothing you can do.

I want to know if your mam ever stood by as the gas clicked off. Not her fault but they wouldn't give her a another crisis loan and that's it, three of you Sat under thin duvets for the foreseeable, the next giro already spent before it even exists. The nights getting longer. Did she have to slap you arse to get you to cry before you went into the council office during the festive interregnum in the hope of inspiring, if not compassion, then frustration, and if not that, working hard on the British need to avoid, at all costs, a scene.

I want to know if you've ever looked into eyes of someone who is killing a loved one with a slash of a pen. A refusal of service, a claim denied, a loan refused. A medical professional, a suit from the insurance, a banker: a proxy for the disinterest of a some vague and powerful infrastructure. Maybe it's the second time that day, in a moment of privacy as your kin goes to the bathroom you plead with them to do something, your facade of strong support crumbling instantly, you get a pat on the back, there there champ, call this number if you need help: Last time you bothered them picked up and dropped the call before they even spoke. Now please leave.

I want to know if you've ever lost everything because supporting you was no longer economically viable? Have you ever lost the soft pillow of security and become surplus humanity, a story to keep the rest of the working class in line? Have you ever eaten the casual violence, injustice, and murder masked behind paperwork?

The false artifice of “civilised” society (the poisonous term we utilise for the mores manifested by the state using a false god, their legal codes and the carceral system which assures their power) nurtures us to a horrific acceptance of the brutality of capitalism and state will. They obfuscate the quintessential truth of the violence behind policy and layers and layers of staff. It's hard to muster rage at the injustice of it all when you know the voice on the other end of the call is just like you, a minimum wage shmuck, just trying to survive, just as terrified, just as incapable of accepting this reality, just silencing his conscience each day avoiding the reminders of just how complicit in industrial murder he is. Even if you rage at him, in truth it's just a whimper, an impotent cathartic release that will do nothing, change nothing.

In theory, in a democracy we can all change policy? Each of us is an Erin Brockovich in waiting, we could change things if we really wanted. If we tried hard enough. This is an aspirational falsehood we are sold so that we don't confront the grim truth that the electoral system and our governmental models are rigged to keep you squarely in your place. To maintain the power to sway things in the hands of a chosen few and the power to makes the real choses in even fewer. So you moan, down the phone, and slink back into the corner of your 2LDK rental, and accept defeat. The rage subsides into depressive maw as you put the paperwork back in the folder. No point staying up thinking about it, you've got work in the morning.

If someone shot your loved one in front of you, you'd probably try to kill them.
If they signed their death sentence on the dotted line, you'd probably feel bad.

In the distance, behind layers and layers of bureaucracy, sits the benefactor of this system, legally protected, social admired, economically secure. They live in opulence beyond your ken.

They don't know who you or your dying loved one are, nor do they care.

So what the fuck are you going to do about it?

THE MURDER
UnitedHealth Group profits Hit $22 Billion In 2023. It is the world's ninth-largest company by revenue. It gave $10.76 million to political candidates and groups in 2023 alone. ^[1]

They have featured in dozens of lawsuits, including market manipulation, stock fraud, underpayment of medical professionals, over-billing of service users, faking scientific data, use of nH Predict (computer program to automatically deny coverage) and monopolisation. Found guilty time and time again they have been hit with a fractional fine and a slap on the wrist.

UnitedHealthcare (Its insurance branch) CEO Brian Thompson took home a $10.2 million annual compensation package, including salary, bonus and stock options awards. Even prior to his murder, his gloating social media posts are inundated with horror stories about loved ones who died, suffered, or lost everything because of his corporate decision making.

If you are American, there are 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage. Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts but even those who with plans, who pay their premium, have the right coverage and do everything right false a slew of methods in which their claims might be if not reduced then denied entirely. One of the main weapons used against people is the demand for "Prior Authoritsation" a requirement that a healthcare provider gets approval from your insurance plan before prescribing you medication or doing a medical procedure. Forcing people to either delay care, pay for care themselves, or recieve care and have their claim denied.

In an American Medical Association 2023 survey, 94% of physicians said prior authorisation delayed care, and 78% said it sometimes led to patients abandoning treatment. Some 1 in 4 reported it had resulted in a serious adverse event for patients.^[2]

The 2010 Affordable Care Act (often reduced to Obamacare) set new baselines for who and what insurance plans must cover. As costs have risen, insurers increasingly turned to the prior authorisation process, vetting requests for medical services before agreeing to pay. Prior authorisations were deployed 46 million times in 2022, up from 37 million in 2019, a KFF analysis of privately managed Medicare Advantage plans for people aged 65 and older or who are disabled found: CVS denied 13%, Blue Shield denied 4.2%, and UnitedHealthcare denied 8.7%.

In this grim industry of death, which in the USA employs more people than there are doctors, United Health is particularly egregious. The average annual claim refusal rate is 16%, theirs is 32%. In recent times they've been experimenting with an AI model (nH Predict) with a 90% error rate to deny care.^[4]

Even in America, land of freedom and worship of the all mighty dollar, even the most ardent advocate hates the healthcare system, it's capacity to steal a life-times work, it's sheer injustice, and the hubris of it's privateer captains shocks. The burning hatred for this system dispels divisive camps of the left and the right, and makes the class war evident for all. The only US is the working class, the only THEM, the high echelons of the economic elite.

You can be a “hard-working”, well financed, professional who has never missed a payment and in one act you can loose everything. Even after payouts, many are still lumbered with stratospheric bills and life changing expenses.

You can do everything right in the capitalist system and have your claim Delayed, Denied, Defended.

Somewhere, somehow the decision was made to murder your child, make your mother homeless, put your cousin on the breadline. Some clerk (or AI) made the call and took home a wage and commission. A team lead pushed to them and signed off on their work, took a wage and bonus. A department head was delighted with the numbers. Her salary will has a nice bonus and maybe some stock. The regional director delighted with the regional expansion and increase in profits. His stock options will take a nice bump.

What about all the politicians with golden handshakes, soulless lobbyists, clinical marketeers, doctors and surgeons playing along, sales staff, lawyers, offices clerks, maintenance and custodial staff?? They all contribute and benefit. Collaborators and beneficiaries. Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare companies profit from the endless excess deaths. United Health jumped $18b between 2019-20 and another $10b the following year and the piss trickles down and fills the cups of those further down the chain gang.

Depending on your level of political purism, you probably understand and accept how some of the working class betray others, they are just surviving capitalism. Few hold a grudge against the poor bastards on minimum wage, however, the further up the chain, the further influence you have, the more you benefit, the more culpable you are. At the top of this monarchistic hierarchy We have the proverbial Dukes, Kings and God Emperors in the chief officers, CEOs, and God Empero Richard T Burke.

They govern the lives and deaths of millions.
This is capitalism.
This is every industry.

Books, TV Shows, memes, political propaganda from “both sides”, anarchists, and otherwise, the lived reality of the pandemic and with it the knowledge that despite everything we say about “civilised” society, the truth is that there is a class war and the vast majority of us from broke as fuck Lumpen to the flush middle classes are absolutely the play thing of the infinitely wealthy and all powerful God Emperors of Industry.

It's terrifying when you realise the grim truth of it, the facade of comfort we build around ourselves, it's a lot easier to accept. Most people spend their entire lives avoiding this realisation but The Murder is around us every day, it's happening constantly, most of us are in some way part of it. We're in an abusive social relationship with vast industries of slaughter and it's scale, it's brutality, it's reality are beyond comprehension, especially for those who have been granted to minor privilege, some security, an easier life, relative safety.

Still, when life hits you hard and they come and murder you with a smile and shrug, when you come to seen an injustice to one as an injustice to all, to you, well it's like learning about bad kerning, you start to see the truth of this conflict and even in the twisted logic of the frontier America, they drew first, it's just obfuscated by layers of bureaucracy.

The unwilling, incapable and dejected all wishing they had the gall, all telling themselves it “wouldn't be right” all quite aware that in truth the fear that they might loose their “earnt” comfort, and end up having to live on the run or worse, in prison, the carceral system used by capitalism to maintain order as the layers of Hell were used by religious orders for centuries.

So the social peace, the “order” maintains, fear suppresses, and we assure ourselves that IF we really wanted change we could go through government, the courts or maybe even a trade union and change it all, every one of us knows this is a lie, it's a lie when they say it, it's a lie when we say it. Government is theirs, the courts and theirs, the trade unions, let's be honest, (with a few notable exceptions and even then not really) are theirs.

Eventually, someone's going to going to say fuck it.
Maybe fuelled by righteous indignation, maybe a dash of ego, and a sense of injustice at The Murder around them, or that has hit them personally.

Everyone of us has the capacity to download some files, print a gun, looked up a conference, maybe talk some PA into giving you a schedule. You can have a coffee at Starbucks, walk up to your class enemy and shot him down before disappearing into the wind. (You've seen the success rates of the NYC, you watched the “search” Central park on CNN, the odds are with you really.)

Any one of us could do this. But we didn't, did we.
The pretty boy with the noble cause went and killed a profiteer of death.

He went and did the thing, and the working class love him for it.

USE OF WEAPONS
I don't give a shit about CEOs, Fuck CEOs, I could watch CEOs get shot all day.
I'm not going to pretend I have some compassion where I don't. When I saw the video I felt and feel, “good fuck him”. I have absolutely no false sense of empathy with him, I'm sure his family are sad, shouldn't of married a profiteer of death, you married into the mob, you got no one else to blame. Fuck this guy, fuck him in particular, and fuck everyone like him.

When I witness someone respond to The Murder in kind, I think good for them, I understand it. I see absolutely no difference between some killing a CEO of a health insurer, than I do Gary Plauché shooting Jeffrey Doucet or María del Carmen García torching the rapist of her daughter.

Finger Wagging (Anarchist penitence and hypocrisy)
I've seen a number of anarchists attempt to shame people revelling in the the shooting as some indictment of society. That young men in particular are jaded and burnt out, isn't society just so terrible today, the young anarchists don't care for the proper patter of their betters and shame on them for not caring about our emotionless statements of distancing and demand that they adhere to the official policies of the mewling rebel leadership.

The violence of Capital/State, even through opaque Kafkaesque policy, is not any less real.
We must defend ourselves.
They are killing us.

I don't advocate shooting people, not because of any moralistic virtue, but because such targetted violence is ineffective as a revolutionary strategy of change. I want us to build systems beyond and despite of Capital/State. I want CEOs erased as a concept. I would caution on a political and personal level against such vengeance politics, even if they seem our only possible action.

But how can we condemn someone who takes those steps while being so utterly silent at the deaths of thousands upon thousands. You want to condemn the individualist action, while ignoring the collective pain. Oh you'll have a march, here is a petition, the odd protest. We are absolutely failing at every step to “build a better world” and you want to get on your high horse because someone shot down an profiteer of mass murder?

Fuck those guys. I am glad that they are dead and I think fair play to those that take such action.

I don't recommend it, I don't know if I'd do it, but I sure as shit understand it, and I'm sure as shit not going to condemn those who do. Certainly not because I have a better form of revolutionary violence, one I consider “proper”. We are absolutely failing at every step to “build a better world” and you want to get on your high horse because someone shot down an profiteer of mass murder? Motherfuckers, do you even read the anarchists of the past you admire so much? Do you think they were passive? Do you think they shirk from the realities before us in this class war? You're so afraid of looking like a budget Anarchik^[5] of someone saying “Propaganda of the Deed”, that you might be accused of actually doing something... You know non-violence protects the state and distancing yourself from pro-active violence as uncouth or immoral is little more than kicking the soap box out from under yourself.

All those long dead anarchists you can't stop praising, overwhelmingly, quite happy to see a dead boss.
This is like singing the praises of Hawkwind while saying “don't do drugs”. Get a grip.

There is absolutely no such thing as a “non-violent” revolution.
I am not 'ard, I'm not a scrapper, I have a calm manner and a sanguine disposition. This was not always so but long after my errant youth and well into my conscious political organising I have fought people knowing full well that my life and liberty were on the line. Violence, defensive or otherwise, is not something to kid around with. A single punch, a shove, a lobbed bottle, can do great harm, and they can very easily kill. With intention or otherwise, each and every time any actionist steps out to do some radical action, some community defense, some clandestine insurgent/revolutionary activity where they may be opposition, they take on this burden.

This is something actionist should accept when taking to political action. Especially those who take part in front line militant action such as anti-fascists, eco-defenders and hunt saboteurs. Violence is a risk they take with every camp, with every country jog. People have died, people have had life altering injuries. Taking it further still, groups such as Eco-Platform and Têkoşîna Anarşîst, fight, kill, and die. If not for anarchism as such, but certainly as anarchists for a cause and purpose.

That is unless you live in the vapid entitled activist mindset, that this is all really a game you play because you're politically keened and ultimately, you'll be safe really. The cause is more an abstract sense of the righteousness than a visceral need, the riot, just a bit of a jolly, nothing bad will happen if you get caught, a slap on the wrist maybe....

Did you think the “revolutionary moment” was going to be petition writing and A-B marches punctuated by some punky invectives for edgy cheers?

It is we who allow our government to carry on as it does, to sign bits of paperwork that mean some corporation gets fat building weapons, why your gran can't afford gas, why time and time again working class people starve to death or turn self harm, abuse and crime. We are terrified of standing up for ourselves. Castigated at every turn should we step out of line, too few of us even begin to fantasize about breaking free, to experiencing even a moment of the illegal freedom.

Every Martin Luther King JR has his Malcolm X, Every Mahatma Gandhi his Bhagat Singh, every Nelson Mandela his... well... Nelson Mandela. Non-violence and “peaceful protest” are sold to us by bulk. You're in a society that uses non-violence as a social contract to control you, to minimise the threat you pose and to position you weak and vulnerable before those have a monopoly on force. This is why two cops can hold back a hundred rioters with a bit of training, and shouty voices.This is why JSO et al are tolerated. The state is quite sure is doesn't have a conscience, that they have cells a plenty, and activist martyrdom changes exactly nothing. It's why we limit ourselves even as genocides happen before our eyes.

In February 2003, somewhere between 750,000 and 2,000,000 marched peacefully down Whitehall to protest to Iraq war. They were joined by symbiotic protests across the UK and in over 60 countries around the world. It was overwhelmingly positive and peaceful. The next month, our invading armies joined the US's JSOC and SAD forward operations and invaded Iraq. They didn't even declare the war. According to a Lancet Survey this war caused 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths. It lead to the formation of ISIS, regional instability and countless pain and suffering beyond scope. _[6]

This could very well of been avoided if a million people said fuck being civil and stood with the working class of Iraq who were about to be murdered en-masse and undergo at least 8 years of occupation, pain and suffering. This horrific conflict may very well of not happened if the British people (and elsewhere) were not so keen to whimper away, terrified of their own might, zeal for a better world satiated with a picket and a bit of chanting. Our non-violence, our impotent rage, our fear, it allowed them to mass murder Iraqis and later Afghanis, directly and by proxy, as it does today Palestinians.

That's on us.

OH, Wont Someone Please Think of the CEOs? (Right-wing and Liberal hypocrisy)
On the Tuesday after the shooting Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro gave a speech for the cameras.“In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero. Hear me on this: he is no hero.” He went on to talk about his family, his loved ones and all the rest of the humanising play bill. Too bad, he shouldn't of profiteered from The Murder.

The moment his body hit the ground and his killer peddled of there was a vast outpouring of understanding and cathartic joy. By the end of the day, a flurry of memes, the sharing of CEO details, Tiktok music, graffiti, doxx lists, shared sentiment and mild chuckles. The sheer joy at the death of a profiteer of industrial murder, and economic violence was over-abundant and stemmed from across the political spectrum.

There has been an attempt to narrow that response to “ideologues” by the state and other CEOs, and across the talking heads of the fascist(ic) right (from Ben Shapiro's neoconservative milieu through to Matt Walsh and various other Herrenvolk pricks) they have sought to make the laugher some narrative of an uncaring and violent left. In both cases only to find their audiences turn on them, shrug and tell them to jog on, the truth of the matter is that no-one gives a fuck about CEOs.

Look, unless you're religious or have some moral stand point on violence, which I respect, I really do. Then no one cares. RIP couldn't happen to a more deserving bastard. You don't get to falsely claim “we don't kill people in cold blood in America” and preach the “ sanctity of life” when you absolutely murder innocent people day in and day out and in almost every case, they get away with it.

Each and every day the right-wing and centre celebrate death and violence across the Occident and in conflict zones the world over. The casual right (and much of the political centre) has spent years delighting in stochastic terrorism and violence against trans people, “Antifa” and anyone/everyone the left in general. They celebrated people driving into protests, signing messages on bombs, and turned a blind eye to school shooting after school shooting. They have absolutely not claim to morality, and for hundreds of thousands of people the inherent contradictions they've come to accept were laid out before them and they responded by telling these grifters to fuck off.

You think suddenly they are going to shed tears because the mean lefties laughed at a guy you wish you killed yourself? Nah.

The horrific abuse of firms like UHC are a great leveller, especially in the USA. Everyone, regardless of their position on traditionalist values, on tax hikes, homosexuality, abortion, or public transport, Everyone, - even those who dream of somehow making it someday - hates the CEOs of these cruel and brutal companies. The universal response (while tempered by respective “oh I'd never do it but...) has been delight.

Meanwhile CEOs turned to CQP agencies in their multitudes, Musk brought his kid to work randomly, and various mouth pieces for the political centre reminded us all that “murder is bad” only to find no one cares, maybe they think they should, on some academic or spiritual level, but they don't.

Porky is nervous.

THE MAN, THE MYTHOLOGISING, AND THE MISTAKES
He wasn't radicalised by class antagonism, but by pain, and a sense of individual betrayal. Luigi Mangione is just a guy, the left and right wing dissect his online presence to decide whether they can claim or reject him, but he's just a guy. If he's the guy who shot a healthcare CEO, then he's the guy who gave a release to countless. Even before we knew a scrap of information about him, he was deified by the people across the political spectrum, and even those who have been chastened into pacifistic viewpoints gave a snort.

“Murder is wrong of-course , but...” became this weeks “I condemn Hamas of-course, but....”

Let's presume the manifesto and note are real,That his social media accounts are an accurate depiction of the man and that he is in fact “The Adjuster”. Ultimately we have absolutely no clue to the truth of it, whether Luigi was even involved etc but presuming truth or at least what can be pieced together.

The man
He is a wealthy and well-educated young man, you're going to find that many sources are going to repeat this endlessly. His family own owns Turf Valley and Hayfields country clubs. His cousin is Maryland Republican Delegate. Nino Mangione. He was valedictorian at Gilman School (costing $37,690 per year) and his speech was pretty painful to watch if fairly typical. The framing will be to lament how a kid with everything going for him could do such a crime, but in truth the purpose is to remind you that he is not like you.

He went to Starbucks before hand and was caught in a McDonalds. This will feature in stand up, and punditry alike. Right wing pundits will call this straight up hypocrisy, Left wing ones will remind you that he wasn't as noble in his boycotts as you. How dare he live “In a society”. (If they ever arrest me, I expect the fact I do my big shop at a Sains and have a penchant for Pepsi to feature heavily). They will talk about this persistently because they want you to disconnect. The conscious intent of this is for you to distance yourself from the man and thus the action.
The idea that any of us could go and kill any of them (and so easily) presents an existential threat to the avenues of the wealthy and the American aristocracy in particular. They have worked very to hard to secure, to make you accept, they won't let you disrupt this.

The “they” here isn't some government mandate, rather the ambiguous collective formed of the beneficiaries of our imbalanced social dynamics, and those who do their bidding. Liberalism doesn't require a dictate from above, it self-polices through social conditioning and capital reward. Behave and tell others to behave otherwise you might fucking join them in the meat grinder.

He was in actuality an average Joe.

Joe, might be broke, he might be flush, he isn't a “leftist” nor “right-wing”. His perspective fluctuates per the issue, as he listens to AOC and Joe Rogan with equal esteem. He admires Elon Musk's pioneering spirit and doesn't care for “modern architecture” or but he's not sure why. He is trapped with a sense of hiraeth, nostalgia and longing for some vague memory of a better time. This is displacement for the core feeling that something is wrong with the world. Like everyone else he can see out society is fragmented and is looking for a reason why, just like everyone else. The reason won't be a system or practice he benefits from of course, most people are unable to reflect on their privileges. Maybe it's toffs, maybe it's white people, maybe it's immigrants, maybe it's communists, maybe it's patriarchy, maybe it's feminism. Most people have a lean, it's just a vague opinion, not something that consumes them daily, it just flavours the memes, the websites, the drunken rambles... Depending on his age he moans about various euphemisms “Woke”, “DEI”, “SJWs” or “Snowflakes” with his multiracial bros while shooting space Nazis.

Joe's opposed to “cancel culture” and aligns himself internally with the righteous lone wolves who confront the destructive industries he also admires. He'll read biographies from revolutionaries and conservatives, he'll chuckle at Trevor Noah and Ricky Gervais, he'll listen to Rage Against The Machine but he's probably positioned against socialism as “Lazy people/big government taking from what I've earnt” and with the dejected apolitical cultural poison of South Park and Family Guy feels that any political interest is little more than self interest and ultimately, even if he never says it, feels compassion is a weakness of the effeminate, and is buoyed by the notion about what a “Man” is and does. He loathes the electoral system for churning up animosity but has a quip about how “It's the best thing we've tried”, he tells himself it represents freedom and equality, but he has eyes. Still he views political activists on either side of the artificial fence as idiots who can't just “get on with life”, live and let live. His neutrality and silence benefit systems of oppression but he can't accept this, believing it actually means he's beyond and above people trapped in their echo chambers.

The other-whelming vast majority of humanity does not give a diddly fuck about left/right, state/anti-state, progressive/regressive or whatever multitude of sectarian titles and hyper specific designations we use to describe the politics of the day. They just want to live in relative comfort, get their rigging license, buy a nice car, get a promotion. They want to go to gigs, hang out in the park, feel the pride in a good work day, play board games, get laid and keep their kids safe. They do not connect the evident realities of capitalism with their own autonomy. Well not until it effects them.

So, Luigi is just an average Joe.

He's just a rich boy college bro, who can skol a brewskie and listens to your favourite 00's band. He's well read and likes Pokemon. He might be richer than you, read books you don't like, or follow someone you hate on Twitter. He'll get (and has been) pinned “Grey tribe”, “Centrist”, “politically homeless” “lib” “leftist” and “fascist” and so on to suit purpose. But having gone through pretty much everything that's been found, none of that rings true. He's white, and this is going to flavour unconscious positions, he's pretty, ripped, and has a name some people think is funny. Luigi is just an average Joe.

Well until capitalism, until The Murder, effected him.

The Mythologising
I believe in truth. I believe that as anarchists we are beholden to it. We should frame things accurately and honestly, so it's somewhat disheartening to see people keenly remove his agency to serve our rhetoric, especially when it comes to his character and purpose. Some of us are too keen to brand this shooting as propaganda of the deed and act of insurrection against a cold uncaring system, and my concern is there is just a wee bit too much lie in that truth there, and keenly ignoring the man's politics because you like what he's done, is politically fucked.

The Action and The Principle matter both, if you're quite happy to accept the deification of some suspect individual or organisation because ultimately you like what they did in a specific case, if you're happy to promote, endorse, and work with people who advocate politics antithetical to your own (or those you have solidarity with) you offer a compromised position.

I'm sure there are many excuses from excerpts from some 1900's manifesto to “let people enjoy thing”, maybe you care about “optics”, maybe you're just after driving Stochastic Insurrection and will utilise any means, finding solidarity with everyone whose with you, cussing anyone who isn't as a lib.

This is XR keenly accepting statists, transphobes and racists because of a unified cause, this is state-socialists and fascists finding common purpose in opposing the state, it's “Anti-Civ” primos and eco-fascists endorsing each other and it's Anti-Authoritarians and Nazis joining together to oppose an invasion. This is dedicated organisers being told they were not serious about “the cause” because they wouldn't align with bigots.

The "left" and Anarchists who share a grievance with the Healthcare insurance system of the US, immediately started to deify the shooter based on vibe, long before they had any baring on the man's purpose and politic. Like I hope I've made clear, this is natural and expected.

Then we came to know more and some refuse to pivot and reframe, to be contextually truthful. They've rather flirt with distilled vibe. You like his stated purpose, so you excuse his politics. Several influential accounts across social media making it very lcear that they don't care about his politics, or even his purpose, but the action alone.

That people have utilised the shooting as a point of engagement is an aside, and one which would be stronger if we were not so keenly building flimsy mythologising. He doesn't have to be the second coming of Bonnet for people to take the action and it sure as shit matters what his politics are. It doesn't mean disengagement, I'm talking about truthful framing.

I get it, he's anti Health Insurer and so are you, but this position isn't the purvey of socialist minds alone and there are many such cases in which our politics are reflected in those of our enemies. Even staunch positions such as Anti-Capitalism and Anti-police etc, It matters WHY we are these things, not merely that they happen.

I've noticed a lot of people reflecting on other acts of violence, comparing him to school shooters, mosque shooters, other Italian's that got shooty, and while the scale of comparison is hyperbolic, in all these instances you have individuals who are acting on individualistic grievances. Sure in this case is seems Luigi took a moment to assess this and decided against bomb making, and he didn't shoot the witness, but this difference between “innocents” and “culpable” is for these men is a thin line whose existence is very much dependant on the context of their ire. If he'd waxed a lobbyist, surgeon, or the policy decision maker? Would it be different? When Vester Lee Flanagan murdered Alison Parker and headed the United Healthcare call centre enact revenge was his anger any different to Mangioni's? What about what Micheal Louis shot up a hospital? Did they not feel exactly the same importance to their actions, Louis and Mangioni felt the same rage and injustice. In the case of Michael Louis he blamed the surgeons instead of the industry but set about with the very same purpose. vengeance against the injustice and a "contract broken", X was supposed to do a thing and they didn't. While Luigi's manifesto talks about UHC and the health insurance system, it's clear this is added framing to the driving factor, that he is an American man scorned after an agreement was betrayed, and that is why someone had to die.

Plenty of people spew this kind of rhetoric “Kill All Whites/TERFs/MEN/Toffs [Insert selection collective you don't like]” and call it a day. If that's your politics, fine, I'll might laugh a long at the hyperbole but in doesn't make it anything more than masturbatory dreams of collective punishment, a bit of generalised sloganeering, but when this becomes normalised in the politically disenfranchised and those who aim to do something about it, in almost every case, when put into action, it sees innocent people killed, brutally and horrifically.

We don't do ourselves a disservice when we pretend his purpose was class war.

The mistakes
When it's been clear (again should we presume it's Luigi and his social media etc are an accurate portrayal of political will and tendency) that this isn't exactly Berkman or Sasha, but some right leaning, politically “grey”, individualist with a chip, the sensible thing would be to accept this and understand this event through the lens of truth.

I don't know about you, maybe you have a better feed than me, but the fawning affection is gagging and the political rhetoric that it doesn't matter the man but the action, is extremely disconcerting , especially when it comes from influence accounts, this is the kind of shit that leads to red/brown alliances and allowance of bigots in organising spaces, you know "for the cause".

I'm reminded of a meeting where someone asked in earnest “Are you saying you wouldn't work with a housing union because one of the members was a transphobe?” and I know my answer, yes. Bad actors like to confuse such a position by downplaying what they mean by “transphobe” in the same way they do “homophobe” and "racist” trying to blur the line between conscious bigot and person who just doesn't quite understand the issue or who has reservations. There is a critical differance and the ambiguity favours the more volitile, self serving position and should we normalise this lax attitude we're critically undermining the solidarity and security of our spaces.

I see the same thing happening here. You can make all the memes and essays you want about how political neutrality sides with the enemy, you can highlight real the terrible shit fascists (public and private sectors) do, but then someone on their periphery does something you like and suddenly it doesn't matter? This is inconsistent and a critical failure. You're doing exactly the same shit the media, government, and police are doing but simple from the reflected point. Much like the “workers state” and “people baton” it's not any better when used ostensibly for egalitarian purpose.

As Anarchists, we should reject such manipulation and dishonesty. When you find out that Bakunin was an anti-semite, or that George Jackson was a msyogynist or Wolfi Landstreicher a peadophile apologist, you don't just turn the blinkers on becuase you like the material they produce or the action they took. You contextualise and forward your positions honestly and openly.

The marketing methodology, the “post-truth”shite, the over-embellishing and distracting rhetoric and endless talking heads telling people what to think, work... they do. They are efficient and productive and secure power for capitalism, fascism and state authoritarianism in almost every domain.

We are not them.

We speak in truths. It's our role to help people disengage with this social conditioning and help emancipate them from this snare. Sometimes that means we lose. If you can't make that judgement call, if you're not willing to take that time, then you should put down your black flag.

The fascists have this tendency to appeal to short, clipped politics. The reduction serves the purpose of camped extremities. So, “leftists” and Anarchists alike (certainly this one) have a tendency to waffle on, because, I'm sorry but, it's just a little bit more complex than your slogan, your graphic, your quip. “Meme politics” reduce us, especially when behind them you have little more than hollow concept and disinformation.

Anarchists don't want power, we want to destroy the concept of power, of authority, of hierarchy. we want to confront the injustice and build a better world and this isn't going to be fuelled by half cocked memes about a right leaning shooter. Change comes with consistent work and solidarity. No state, no church, no real-estate firm, bank or health insurer is going to collapses because you removed a brick from the edifice, the rest of the board will walk past the body and crack on with business of grinding you are yours up. You can't assassinate a social relationship.

WRAPPING UP...
Smarter and more eloquent people have ran through all this time and time again. None the less I feel it's important to remember at these times, when we have a dramatic news story thrust into everyone's face, opinions demanded, how based is your hot take, it spells disaster. Short frame discussions and posturing. I'm specifically not mentioning individuals, organisations, and networks because I'm not after some beef here, I couldn't give a fuck whose “right”, or any of that posturing, but I care about anarchists, how we converse, and how we forward anarchism itself.

It's clear we've lost ourselves somewhat in deifying a blank slate and reactionary delight. Worst it now seems many of us are unable and unwilling to recognise and develop based on new information and change tack.

I hope someday we care about the 400 and odd other people murdered in New York each year.[7] How many of them get a news cycle, how many have them have you or I written about? How many of us took the time to build better healthcare systems, or even advocate them here and in the moment. Instead it was all eyes on the death of a millionaire, just as it was when OceanGate's Titan went down. Vast sums of money was spent in the SAR, the news was fixated on them, and then too we laughed. Meanwhile Refugees were drowning and they hardly got a mention, they certainly didn't get an international rescue effort. The good work of the MV Louise Michel and organisations like Alarmphone remembered for a moment before we collectively turn back to meme politics and catharsis. We have to do better.

I hope in all this distraction we remember our responsibility to those who listen, who feel this rage, and who act. Those who will be the victim of a volatile state looking to make examples. Like the kids at a demo who get nicked, someone's gotta be there with the beers outside the cop shop all night.

Specifically, first up but probably not the only one, Briana Boston.

She gave an off the cuff remark as she was being murdered by her insurer. The state wish to make an example to her. Her threat was impotent rage, a quick examination would show that she's no threat to anyone, spoke in anger and at any other sensible time would have been ignored or give a warning.

I hope each time you share Luigi's crowd funders (multiple of which smashed their targets but were shut down by the operators), you share hers. One which requests $45k currently has $20k (https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-briana-bostons-legal-defense) another request $100k has $3k (https://www.givesendgo.com/Brianabostonlegal).

I hope we remember the solidarity, even when it becomes a burden for those sparked into action by our words, if not our deeds.

I also hope we continue to develop as anarchists and reflect on our purpose and means, the methods we use to inspire and delivering change. We either become willing to toss one and put of bodies and practice where our words and rhetoric are or we live up to our deeper, more noble ideas and start building up solutions and counter-society, better yet, a little of both.

This I will explore in Part Two. ■

Peter Ó Máille

CITATIONS
[1] UnitedHealth Group Profits
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2024/01/12/unitedhealth-group-profits-hit-23-billion-in-2023/
[2] United Group lobbying
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/unitedhealth-group/lobbying?id=D000000348
[3] Annual deaths linked to lack of health coverage.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage
[4] Use of questionable AI
https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/
[5] What is Anarchik?
https://archive.org/details/iwilldomyworst/mode/2up
[6] The lancet survey on the Iraq war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties
[7] NYC murders
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/homicide.page

[