r/behindthebastards 16d ago

[ Removed by Reddit ]

[removed]

1.1k Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

View all comments

926

u/kratorade Knife Missle Technician 16d ago

You're gonna see this buried.

He's not following the script we have for events like this. He's supposed to have a bunch of unhinged weird beliefs in a long rambling manifesto that we can all gawk at.

This... ain't that.

122

u/moonstrous 16d ago edited 16d ago

Saw another comment with his full "manifesto" here:

https://pepmangione.com/manifesto/

That URL is the username Mangione used on several social media sites. It's remarkably cogent.

Actions, no matter how shocking, seem necessary to awaken a population lulled into accepting this desolation as normal. My manifesto is a desperate attempt to shake the foundations of a world that has allowed itself to be governed by heartless spreadsheets and corporate-led moral arithmetic. When I act, I do so in the name of humanity, not spite.

He's explicitly not excusing acts of violence, but framing them as a kind of inevitable Thermidorian reaction to for-profit models of healthcare services. I don't know what to make of all this.

Look beyond the sensationalism that will inevitably surround my actions—spun by media outlets that rely on shock value. Penetrate the veil and see the underlying disease. Question every assumption about why a pill costs hundreds of dollars, why a specialist is out of reach, or why an insurance claim can be denied with impunity. Challenge every premise that leads to the commodification of health. 

I can't say whether this site is genuine (if it's a fake, it was certainly thrown together fast). In the interest of scrutiny, the Wayback Machine has only ever scraped the page today. Not sure if that means this was a ready-to-publish hoax, or if the site was just never indexed because there was no reason for significant traffic before.

48

u/OisforOwesome 16d ago

I don't know. The language doesn't feel like the same guy who wrote the Klippenstein text. I mean, the post isn't incorrect about its indictment of American healthcare, i just want to see verification before I attribute it to him.

42

u/moonstrous 16d ago edited 16d ago

Agreed, that's why I was skeptical as well. If you intend to share this with anyone, definitely include a disclaimer.

However, I believe the Klippenstein text (the body of the OP post here) was transcribed from a handwritten, maybe hastily written page in the notebook that was in Mangione's bag.

IMHO, this does read like the difference between scrawling something off the cuff on paper, versus cracking open a word processor with all the time to structure and edit an essay.

There are enough similarities that it feels reasonably credible. I'm in trust-but-verify mode, here.

20

u/octopush123 16d ago

I still think the first "fake" manifesto felt very real. With his skillset I imagine he could launch these things quickly, and/or schedule them in advance.

33

u/OisforOwesome 16d ago

Deadman switch to hit publish if he doesn't send a code every 24 hours kinda thing I guess isn't too implausible, but until he takes responsibility for it or there is independent verification I'm withholding judgement.

30

u/octopush123 16d ago

Oh, for sure. I'd rather we called it "unverified" than fake.

At the very least, it was authentic to whoever actually wrote it - not a creative writing piece or ChatGPT. It was gutwrenching, and so well written.

38

u/bookdrops 16d ago

The WHOIS data for that URL show it as created on Namecheap yesterday at 19:41:02 UTC. If it was an official website from Mangione, it was almost certainly published by an associated person or by some kind of automatic website creation tool he set up. 

20

u/DefunctFunctor 16d ago

Yeah this should be the first thing you look up for these kinds of instances. Domain wasn't registered until he was already found out, so there's a reasonable chance it's not him

8

u/The_Nice_Marmot 16d ago

It’s absolutely inevitable. Murder by corporation is fully legal. Those saying that “this is not the way” have yet to suggest what the correct way is, if that’s the case. When murder by corporation is government sanctioned, legal and lauded by stockholders, this absolutely is inevitable. History shows us that clearly.

1

u/fourofkeys 16d ago

i wonder if that's what the youtube video that was taken down was talking about, the text.

1

u/Lost_Scene_9957 16d ago

How did you find this one? I don't know the site he's on, but it does seem like it is him. I couldn't find the manifesto but the link works.