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NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with murder for gunning down a top health insurance executive, more than a thousand donations have poured into an online fundraiser for his legal defense, with messages supporting him and even celebrating the crime.

Most of the messages on the crowd-sourced fundraising site GiveSendGo reflect a deep frustration shared by many Americans over the U.S. healthcare system - where some treatments and reimbursements can be denied to patients depending on their insurance coverage - as well as broader anger over rising income inequality and soaring executive pay.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    What a pile of shit this article is. Reuters, just take the mask off already.

    The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned, but the Ivy League educated, photogenic 26-year-old has become an unsettling mixture of folk hero, celebrity, and online crush in certain circles. His support has only seemingly intensified since his arrest on Monday.

    Unsettling, is it? Is that your detatched journalistic opinion? Fuck.

    “They’ve made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies,” said Rodriguez, now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “I mean, who hasn’t had run-ins with their insurance? But he’s a stone-cold killer.”

    Damn, THE John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City?! Going all out for the “I mean, who hasn’t had their mother’s cancer treatment denied” quote eh. Good call, Reuters.

    “It’s hard to underestimate the anger and angst people have with their insurance companies,” said David Shapiro, a former FBI agent and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

    Spent more than ten minutes in the building did ya?

    ‘DEEPLY DISTURBING’

    Support was by no means universal, however.

    Several commentators on social media noted Mangione’s privileged background as a member of a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family, as compared to Thompson’s working class upbringing in rural Iowa . . .

    Ahhh there’s that b0Th SiDeZ that makes the world go round. Well done Reuters, no one can fault this one! And that bit about the healthcare CEO being raised a hardscrabble farm boy with dreams of the big city is pure fucking gold you soulless corporate sleaze merchants.

    “Our health system needs to be better … There’s a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage,” Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Vin Gupta said. “It’s also true that (the killing) should not have happened. There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse.”

    That’s what the article closes with. I bet it took AI at least a minute to fine-tune the “false moral equivalence” so all the poor libz who think he’s a folk hero can begin to second-guess themselves and start the collapse of this whole sordid phenomenon whereby people are no fucking shit justifiably beyond outraged that everyone and their mom is getting screwed by this bullshit profit factory Nixon dreamed up.

    Great job Reuters, you really whacked all the moles on this one.

    • samus12345@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned

      …by the oligarchs and their puppets exclusively. Pretty big omission there.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        No, because “the fundraiser” isn’t one I recognize and also there was discussion that funds seeming to reward murder would be banned - that sort of thing, both of which tell me the article didn’t much care what the fundraiser was, just that it was an anchor for the rest of the tripe to hang on.

        Funding his defense counsel, funding ACLU or a non-profit in support, or directly to his Monero account or something - OK. But this doesn’t sound like it.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      9 days ago

      Several commentators on social media noted Mangione’s privileged background as a member of a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family, as compared to Thompson’s working class upbringing in rural Iowa . . .

      That’s not the same as condemning him. Just saying.

      • beansbeansbeans@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Who cares what either of their backgrounds are. One preyed on people for profit, the other is fighting for social equity. It’s how they conducted themselves that matters, not the circumstances of their birth.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        9 days ago

        I mean, I read that as two class traitors, one of whom did the praxis to show which side he is on.

        • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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          9 days ago

          Personally, virtually 100% of the chatter I’ve seen online is pro-Luigi. Rooting him on in his escape/evasion, hoping he doesn’t get caught, or outright praising his actions.

          Thus, my point is if the sharpest anti-Luigi commentary the author can find is discussion of his background, that shows he’s pulling at straws to get a ‘both sides’ story when the reality is among rank and file people, there’s a strong near-universal sentiment that Thompson had it coming.