Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Working Class History Podcast.
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Speaker 2: As we come Margin Martin in the Beauty of the Day,
Speaker 2: A million dark in kitchens, one thousand mil. Last grade
Speaker 2: I've ridden by the beauty is Sun Sun Disclosed and
Speaker 2: the paple hereusing breaden Roses, red and Roses.
Speaker 1: Hello to all of our fantastic patron supporters. Our fireside
Speaker 1: chat for you this month is something a little bit different.
Speaker 1: Matt and I got on a call to have a
Speaker 1: chat about my experiences organizing at work in the public
Speaker 1: sector a few months ago, but earlier the day that
Speaker 1: we spoke, New York and federal authorities in the US
Speaker 1: arranged a ridiculous purp walk for Luigi Mangna, who'd been
Speaker 1: arrested in connection with the assassination of a healthcare CEO,
Speaker 1: and basically that was all we wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: so we accidentally ended up with a bunch of tape
Speaker 1: about Luigi. A few months on, Manjohnie is now facing
Speaker 1: federal death penalty charges and his first federal court appearance
Speaker 1: is scheduled for today, the nineteenth of March. So we
Speaker 1: thought we would get a fire going and have an
Speaker 1: updated discussion on developments in the case, which had taken
Speaker 1: place since we first spoke. So this chat consists of
Speaker 1: two set discussions, the first from our chat in December
Speaker 1: last year and the second from a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed the episode and what do you think
Speaker 1: about the case? Let us know in the comments. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the one thing that's kind of blown me
Speaker 1: away about this is because obviously Manjohn like looking at
Speaker 1: the stuff he wrote online and things like that, and
Speaker 1: the stuff he posted on social media app it's got
Speaker 1: a lot of like a lot of his views a
Speaker 1: kind of typical manosphere sort of right wingish manosphere type views.
Speaker 1: But in other stuff he's written, you can see that
Speaker 1: he's is critical of US corporations burning the planet and
Speaker 1: things like that. So it's a I think, quite typical
Speaker 1: of a lot of people in the US with kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know if you'd call them radical centrists
Speaker 1: or kind of like extremist centrists or something, where they
Speaker 1: hold like a real mixture of or just some sort
Speaker 1: of general populism where they've got a mixture of and
Speaker 1: left ideas but support violence.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's what I find funny about
Speaker 3: more than because I think, like, really, you know, there's
Speaker 3: basically like, apart from the tiny minority of people like us,
Speaker 3: whether they're left wing or right wing, who like give
Speaker 3: so much of a shit about politics, I think most people,
Speaker 3: you know, hold some weird combination of but you know,
Speaker 3: left and right wing ideas, and you know, we'll hold
Speaker 3: them together. But the funny thing is is that like
Speaker 3: whatever the combination of ideas that people are holding in
Speaker 3: their heads, you know, like about I don't know, gender,
Speaker 3: or about whatever the welfare state, or whatever kind of
Speaker 3: combination they have, it seems like in America. The one
Speaker 3: thing that they're united by is that we should shoot
Speaker 3: healthcare CEOs, and that was what I think. It's so like.
Speaker 3: And also it's so funny just seeing the media, like
Speaker 3: even in the UK, really everyone going into overdrive just
Speaker 3: to really underline like, oh, this thing that happened was bad,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like so many people are
Speaker 3: reacting in a positive way about this terrible thing that happened,
Speaker 3: you know, and you're like, usually I feel like there's
Speaker 3: not that kind of that necessity to like, uh, you
Speaker 3: know that terrorist attack, that that terrible terrorist attack, you know,
Speaker 3: something like that, just like Okay, we know it's terrible,
Speaker 3: you know, so you don't have to say it, so
Speaker 3: you just kind of it's just left there. But then
Speaker 3: because so many people are supportive of this, like the
Speaker 3: media is taking it upon themselves that it's like, we
Speaker 3: really have to underline this was a bad thing, and
Speaker 3: everyone is supposed to feel like negatively about this, and
Speaker 3: just everyone's I don't know how it is in the US,
Speaker 3: but from here, it seems like everyone in the US
Speaker 3: is either kind of like that guy had it coming,
Speaker 3: or like, you know, who cares really.
Speaker 1: And that's what's so crazy to see, like the reaction.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that when United Healthcare posted to
Speaker 1: their face page about oh, just a personal tragic note
Speaker 1: about how sad it was that their person diet, and
Speaker 1: it literally got fifty thousand laughing face reacts, right, and
Speaker 1: only a couple of thousand sad face reacts, So then
Speaker 1: they turned off the ability to react to it. But
Speaker 1: then what that meant was all you could see was
Speaker 1: the main reaction and the number, So then it made
Speaker 1: it look like there are one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand laughing faces and nothing else. And like the fact
Speaker 1: that the usual suspects, you know, lefty kind of influencers
Speaker 1: and things making jokes about it. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I find the craziest is like on TikTok, just so
Speaker 1: many average random TikTok influencers who just have a couple
Speaker 1: of million followers, so they're people that don't make political
Speaker 1: content for the most part. They make songs or they
Speaker 1: just chat about their lives or whatever. Are just doing
Speaker 1: songs about how great Luigi Manjoorni is.
Speaker 3: There was something out that some Disney chant thing or
Speaker 3: some Disney Adults gig or something like that, and like
Speaker 3: they played some song. I forget what it was, but
Speaker 3: they were just playing kind of like a slide show
Speaker 3: of like Luigi Manjohana's face just behind them, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, and just like.
Speaker 1: And the whole crowd was cheering. Yeah, And then they
Speaker 1: showed his mugshot at the end, and the whole crowd
Speaker 1: just went, what like it? Really? I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's like a generational thing. I think it's partly generational,
Speaker 1: but I mean I've seen plenty of like older people
Speaker 1: say so and in comment section, I mean, comment sections
Speaker 1: on social media are quite like self selecting because they're
Speaker 1: algorithmically like chosen and stuff. But it is very surprising
Speaker 1: to see and that so many people are talking about
Speaker 1: class as a result of it. Like I've seen so
Speaker 1: many just like random apolitical people on social media talk
Speaker 1: about oh, like class consciousness. Now that like this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, regardless of political views or has given quite
Speaker 1: a few people in the US a feeling of class
Speaker 1: consciousness that you know, politically or whatever might have disagreements,
Speaker 1: but it's like, oh, this is clearly a class issue.
Speaker 1: That this was a wealthy capitalist whose job is kind
Speaker 1: of helping to kill working class people and it's like
Speaker 1: against the rest of us. It's quite interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, it is is incredible to see. Like
Speaker 3: what's incredible is that like it underlines this kind of
Speaker 3: latent class tension that exists, you know, and maybe like
Speaker 3: it comes out in like weird ways you know elsewhere,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean maybe like in you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: it comes out as like anti immigrant sentiment, or like
Speaker 3: it comes out as yeah, maybe occasionally kind of sort
Speaker 3: of crystallizes in the form of strikes and things like that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this for it to come out like this
Speaker 3: in this way that also like feel like, actually, oh,
Speaker 3: there's quite a large constituency in this country for like
Speaker 3: offing members of the ruling class, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, which is like, which is quite funny. And
Speaker 3: like I'm not sure that like Bernie could run on that,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not sure you could like fit that
Speaker 3: into a kind of a social democratic you know, worldview.
Speaker 1: Bernie manchone, twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no exactly, but it is there, and
Speaker 3: I think it is something that always has to be
Speaker 3: sort of born in mind, you know, especially when people
Speaker 3: kind of criticize things like abolitionist politics or you know,
Speaker 3: if people speak in favor of, like, you know, law
Speaker 3: and order, like working class people, they you know, they
Speaker 3: love law and order politics and things like that. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure that's if you do focus groups, that that's
Speaker 3: what you would find out. You do focus groups, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure you would find that out. But I don't
Speaker 3: think that if you'd have done a focus group two
Speaker 3: three weeks ago and asked, you know, are you in
Speaker 3: favor of, you know, shooting healthcare CEOs in the street,
Speaker 3: I'm sure very few people would have said yeah, definitely actually,
Speaker 3: But then once it happens, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think like true sort of fans of the
Speaker 1: part will probably be aware of the Martin Klaberman quote
Speaker 1: about action preceding consciousness, which I think has come up before.
Speaker 1: That that was in respect to workers in the US
Speaker 1: towards the end of the world, we're too voting to
Speaker 1: support the note strike pledge but then taking wildcat strikes
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think it's a really like yeah, the
Speaker 3: way he phrases that is really good because he's like saying, like,
Speaker 3: you know, which one of the two actions is more significant?
Speaker 3: You know, is it the vote to give away your
Speaker 3: your right to strike during the war. Is that more
Speaker 3: reflective of the mood of workers or is the fact
Speaker 3: that the majority of auto workers went on wildcat strike
Speaker 3: at some point during that wartime strike wave period. And
Speaker 3: it's so yeah, that thing of what do you put
Speaker 3: down on a piece of paper as your your stated
Speaker 3: position and then what do your actions say your stated
Speaker 3: position is, and how that kind of contradicts.
Speaker 1: You know, on like the class nature of it. Fox
Speaker 1: News commentators people were kind of saying making jokes about
Speaker 1: so content note for brief mention of sexual violence, but
Speaker 1: were making classic kind of right wing jokes about saying, oh,
Speaker 1: Luigi man Geno is going to be subjected to sexual
Speaker 1: violence in prison, and then being gleeful about that and
Speaker 1: then seeing what actually happened with him in prison with
Speaker 1: journalists outside where his fellow detainees were yelling out the
Speaker 1: windows to journalists saying that his conditions were terrible and
Speaker 1: that they should free Luigi.
Speaker 3: And shouting free Luigi.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you know again, they're just not, like Fox News,
Speaker 1: just kind of not understanding basic ideas about the sense
Speaker 1: of class solidarity that a lot of people still have,
Speaker 1: you know, on in an eight level thinking that that
Speaker 1: people in prison would have the same view of someone
Speaker 1: who killed the ceout as a multimillionaire Fox News presenter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there's also there's something a
Speaker 3: bit discussed in any way about like, you know, a
Speaker 3: certain amount of joy that this kind of millionaire like
Speaker 3: right wing TV presenter gets from, like the idea of
Speaker 3: someone going into a bit like an institution that kind
Speaker 3: of encourages and you know, sort of incubates, you know,
Speaker 3: these kinds of conditions as well, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: It's like it's something that they seem to revel in
Speaker 3: as well, you know. There so there was something, I mean,
Speaker 3: there was something sort of like multiply kind of disgusting
Speaker 3: about that comment and then for it to just be
Speaker 3: proved immediately wrong anyway, you know what I mean, which
Speaker 3: is like, because the whole point is is that like
Speaker 3: his view of the people in prison are that they're
Speaker 3: all kind of basically animals anyway, you know, and they
Speaker 3: and they behave like animals because that's what they are.
Speaker 3: And you're throwing this guy into you know, this animal
Speaker 3: environment which.
Speaker 1: Is run by the state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly, and actually the people in there aren't
Speaker 3: nearly you know what what he accuses them of being.
Speaker 3: But yeah, anyway, he is quite jokes. It's also it's
Speaker 3: mostly quite funny because at the same time that there's
Speaker 3: Luigi Manjoan here, there's also that guy with it, Daniel Penny, who,
Speaker 3: like you know the right obviously want him to be
Speaker 3: like the superhero you know what I mean, like the
Speaker 3: White Night going out on the on the New York Metro,
Speaker 3: you know, to take down swarthy villains.
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of this episode preview.
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