5 days ago
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James Harr, founder of Comrade Workwear, a self-described "socialist apparel" brand, has courted controversy with his latest project -- a deck of cards featuring "most wanted CEOs" complete with names, faces, and illustrations of gun range targets.
Harr, known for his anti-capitalist rhetoric and controversial social media posts, introduced the project days after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York. On his Instagram and TikTok accounts, which collectively have over 109,000 followers, Harr shared his plans for the deck, adding the idea was inspired by the Iraq war-era card decks. He claimed the deck would help people identify the CEOs he believes are responsible for harming the public.
The deck will be divided into suits representing various industries, according to Harr's posts. Clubs will feature pharmaceutical and chemical company CEOs, Hearts will represent retail and real estate, Diamonds will cover tech, finance, and media, and Spades mean oil and war company executives.
The cards' reverse sides will display the phrase “most-wanted CEOs” alongside a red human silhouette gun range target, and the front will show black-and-white close-ups of each CEO's face, name, affiliation, and QR codes labelled "why they're evil," leading to web pages outlining their alleged wrongdoings.
Harr asked his followers to suggest more CEOs to feature in the deck, and many pledged to buy the deck as soon as it was available. One commentator even asked if the deck would include addresses.
In response to criticism, Harr insisted the deck was not a call to violence. "I'm not suggesting anyone should cause any physical harm to anyone," he told The NY Post. "But I do want people to know who is making their life harder, who is stealing from them, who is deciding that a couple more percentage points of profit is worth more than the life of your loved ones."
This comes in the wake of growing support for Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of killing Brian Thompson. Some of Luigi's supporters have lauded the act as resistance against corporate greed. As a result, many corporations, including UnitedHealthcare, have taken down the names of their executives from websites and marked their Wikipedia pages for deletion.
Private security firms have reported a surge in requests from Fortune 500 companies for extra protection services.
English (US) · 