Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as “The Adjuster.”
In the day or so since the alleged shooter’s identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a “typical” American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.
This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society 
, but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.
This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as “nothing malicious,” by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.
We’re going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to “propaganda of the deed” may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.
Okay, I literally only started commenting on this site literally less than a week ago, so I want to drop a disclaimer before I start yapping that I don’t mean to misrepresent anyone’s positions.
I think there’s value in noting his various alleged and reported reactionary tendencies because when we’re on a site like Hexbear which is just largely us leftists, we should know where the line in the sand is among ourselves. But what’s the point? Well, the point is this: We should never expect perfection from “revolutionary figures” but there are figures who have come historically close to to it and whom are actually one of us. Those like Alexandra Kollontai, Fred Hampton, Leila Khaled. They deserve our recognition because only us leftists can ever pay tribute to their actions and recognize them for the heroes they are, whom should have given universal “lionization” in a just world. While we should seize the moment which things like this provides, someone like Luigi (unless there’s been a drastic change in his values in the months he’s reportedly gone cold turkey from his socials) hasn’t come close to earning the credentials to stand among those we should be paying our respects to.
I don’t think it’s pedantic to insist on this because us leftists are the most persecuted and censored political groups in the West in the entirety of its contemporary and when we’re among ourselves, we should not be elevating any random person to some heroic ranking when there are plenty of others to hold up as inspirational. That sort of thing among ourselves would detract from the important recognition that there really have been revolutionary figures who came close to perfection in terms of our ideals, whose memory has been completely suppressed from any public consciousness.
Yes, when I’m on R*ddit (fuck me, I literally vowed to never go back to that site again in one of my first comments here but this event is drawing me back in) or especially IRL, you can bet I’m not going to be going “Well actually, he’s likely reactionary and you should feel gross for supporting him.” I’ll pretend he’s a full blown Das Kapital-reciting Marxist-Leninist and “The Last Communist” if that’s what it takes to use this moment to instil some miniscule specks of revolutionary awareness in the average person I’m in contact with. If there’s anything that can be done to prolong this ephemeral moment of frankly miraculous class solidarity we’re seeing in the bombed out ideological wasteland of Western society by even a second more for the IRL communities I’m in, yes, I’ll “lionize” him to sainthood if necessary.
For example, the food bank org I volunteer with actually agreed yesterday to allow us to commission some small pamphlets with poems and personal testimonies on struggling with insurance (and lol someone suggested Luigi stickers if Nintendo doesn’t Oreshnik us with their legal team) for the distribution team to hand out during the food drive this holidays. Literally nothing, all things considered, but you wouldn’t imagine the amount of pushback from the civility libs just to agree to do something small like this. There’s also great examples of others using whatever medium they have at hand to help educate their audiences on the twisted nature of the American system right now, like Jesse Welles’ new song about United Health and its founder Richard T. Burke. But when we’re among ourselves, as leftists, we should know where we should really stand because there are real near-perfect heroes out there that deserve our support and whom have only us leftists to depend on for solidarity.
Do most people in this community even know that the Merrimack 4 - Calla, Bridget, Paige and Sophie - who are part of the Palestinian Action US group that heroically sabotaged productions at a Elbit Systems factory, the Israeli arms contractor, are currently in jail right now? Calla is a great comrade who I personally met while at an event for Cuban solidarity (IIRC, I think the Deprogram podcast also did an episode with her about Cuba) and is actually one of us. Luigi is likely well aware of the widespread support from the general population by now and the general population is already apparently all too happy to support him and send him things in commissary to show he is “not alone.”
But it rests with us leftists alone to stand with those like the Merrimack 4 and let them know their heroism has not been and will not be forgotten. Calla has been doxxed and harassed by stalker Israeli groups like Canary Mission and the shitstain incels on r/tankiejerk. The 14th is the halfway point of their 60 day imprisonment and this is usually the point in time where the initial wave of support slows down and the isolating pressure of the fascist prison system sets into the morale of the imprisoned
I actually have been meaning to ask the admins/mods (but I haven’t figured out if there’s a way to PM the mod team) if it would be okay to make a post on the mutual aid sub in 3 days time for the purpose of sending them gifts like letters or books, especially as they’ll be imprisoned through the holiday season and into the new year. If not, I’ll just ask now that anyone here who is considering sending Luigi any gifts to please instead consider sending a message of solidarity to others like Calla, Bridget, Paige and Sophie instead (or on their socials). Here a link to Calla’s Twitter with information on means of support for anyone interested.
In short, use the moment this event has provided when doing IRL work in whichever way you feel necessary but when we’re among ourselves, we should always remember there are those who deserve our solidarity and our attention to their memory far more than those the general public already recognize and whom are actually our own. This is why, within communities like this, there should be a clear distinction and reservations made, in my opinion.
Just going to copy paste my comment from the other thread, it’s just everyone coping with the fact that the assassin is not who they thought he would be. That’s the general reaction of the userbase right now. Also some of the comments in here are completely ridiculous, seriously comparing this guy to Hamas or Hezbollah… I hope you’re joking because it’s very funny to read. But anyways, the copy paste:
In my overly depressing opinion, it’s just the userbase going through the 5 stages of grief, because the CEO assassin turned out to be some normal American guy (and that means incoherent right wing politics, that’s normal in the USA from what I can tell) with a personal grudge against the health insurance system from having severe surgery. And not the based communist/anarchist antifa super soldier CEO killer that people projected their desires onto him to be. I was also fooled by my first viewing of the video of him shooting the CEO, at first I thought it was a professional level hit. Then after a few rewatches, I realised it was just some guy trying to fix his malfunctioning weapon.
-
First it was denial (he’s not the shooter, look at this image that consists of five blurry pixels that I cropped! His nose and eyebrows are different.)
-
Then it was anger (how dare you lionise this chud piece of shit! Look at this social media post from two years ago, he retweeted Elon Musk. He even arse kissed the feds in his manifesto!)
-
Then it’s at bargaining (we are here with the responses: He killed a CEO, he’s based and still our guy despite his right wing political views!)
-
Next it’ll be depression (this will happen when all the energy fizzles out, like it did with BLM, and nothing changes systemically and there are no copycats, and jury nullification starts to look unlikely).
-
Finally it’ll be acceptance. (The assassin will end up in jail, healthcare insurance CEO’s will hire more security and keep their wearabouts private, people’s health insurance premiums will go up and they’ll pay them because there is no other choice.)
Again, an overly depressing and dooner outlook. But that seems to be the theme recently.
-
Before you get mad at this mod post, consider the difference between “critical support” and “lionization.”
Which term is used in the post?
Should we lionize a transphobic white guy living in the imperial core, in 2024, on this trans-inclusive website? No, because people here shouldn’t have to wonder, “does this commenter know about the transphobia and just not care?” There shouldn’t be that ambiguity.
Luigi had the right motives, the assassination itself was not a reactionary act. But the man is a transphobe, or he was one recently, and that’s not a trivial issue, we shouldn’t treat it as a trivial issue. He’s not Hamas, he’s not Stalin, he’s a well-off white American man in 2024.
Yeah, you can and should celebrate that a CEO got dropped, but don’t make Luigi your hero. Don’t lionize this guy.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable mod stance to me.
(Idunno, I’m depressed and had a bad day at work and I started typing and kept typing and this came out and no I’m not gonna read over it again to make sure I actually went anywhere with it thank you for coming to my ted talk)
Folks shit is fucked and we all hate everything, but lets be real the mods are right on this one, @iie@hexbear.net nailed it with “Before you get mad at this mod post, consider the difference between “critical support” and “lionization.””
I’m sure most if not all of you, like me, wish we could each do more to affect any real change in the world around us, for those of us doing praxis in our communities we know that just keeping people alive and housed isnt good enough, just treating the wounds won’t stop the guy running around stabbing people. Even when your job is directly saving lives it’s Sisyphean because without a solution to the problem the line of victims is never ending, let alone if you flip burgers or shuffle papers or saying hi to people in a walmart. I’m sure my fellow americans will agree last week was fucking awesome, its been a LONG time since something cool happened, there is nothing to look forwards to or hope for, even if you’re on the ground doing the good work, shit’s bleak as fuck.
Then suddenly, woah! What the fuck? For real? Someone coldly and brazenly walked up to a health insurance CEO on the streets of new york in front of witnesses and executed him, and then he vanished without a trace?! And best of all, your coworkers are mentioning it to you and think its cool!!!?
It wasn’t Teddy K’s misguided attack which mostly just killed a bunch of nobodies (correct me if I’m wrong, which I’d love to be in this case) and definitely did not cause what we saw with other health insurance companies rolling back draconian shit they were about to pull out of fear. it was fucking AWESOME!
I mean how many dozens of times have you said or heard someone say “if only one of these mass shooters would take out bad people instead of random elementry schools or crowds of brown people, how is it possible that never happens!?” and then it DID!
And we just wanted to enjoy it for fucking once because finally something genuinely good and surprising and new happens and then suddenly everyone at even your job is stoked this capitalist was assassinated in the streets, it was awesome, its the closest I felt to joyful optimism since I first radicalized during Bernie’s 2020 run.
I genuinely felt hope for the future, was reminded that things can be better actually,
which I know is foolish and unserious in this current case of propaganda of the deed by (maybe) a Nintendo characterbut I can’t help that I felt hope and joy like I did in 2020 when Bernie said maybe people should have homes and food and medicine and most of America was like “hey yeah, you’re right!”Back then I was naive and really though yoooo we got this! The bourgeoisie fucked up so bad let’s goooo! And then the ‘democratic’ apparatus swatted him away like a fly and Bernie thanked them for it
For a moment I felt that naive optimism again. Oh man, wow! Everyone is on board with this, this is amazing, what if this continues happening and consciousness continues building and then and then
and then heres how Bernie could still winSo it sucks that our fun little vacation where we celebrated the Adjuster has come to an end, but that was always going to happen (as it should! Can’t be on vacation forever when there’s work to be done in the world do (or shit to post)) even if he had gotten away it wouldn’t be healthy to stay latched on, we would have had to move on sooner or later
But i won’t be talking about luigi 1 year, 2 years from now, so I don’t think we should be trying this hard to hold onto this guy when its clear that doing so is harmful and unsafe to our community ideals, lets be real. Even if you strongly feel that he is rhetorically useful, he is more useful in the abstract. He doesn’t need to be Luigi Linguini the guy who interned for Civ 6 and also has reactionary posting history, he doesn’t need to be more than who he was: an american who was helpless before the abject cruelty of capitalism, and and hey aren’t we all?
Hope things can become fun around here again soon (but not the kind of fun like going to parties and not masking that happens despite the needs of marginalized comrades; in this case, we should not Lionize, Canonize, or ‘Claim’ this guy as a member of the team, nor should be adopt an approach of live and let live just so we can achieve a false peace through the absence of tension but not the presence of justice: this would be liberalism of the highest order and shitposting website or not liberals should get the fuck out. I’ve seen many comrades make it clear they are made unsafe by this waiving away of Luigi’s politics and rhetoric, so thats it end of story.
Luigi deserves a spot right next to can’t corner the
imo, someone who should not be personally celebrated because he wasn’t a good guy but who did a cool as fuck thingHe did something super cool that has given us amazing rhetorical opportunities, which I will continue to gleefully use, and a temporary moment of reprieve before those insurance companies do that draconian shit they were about to do but stopped doing for a second anyway, but that’s all
at the end of the day, when I think about this episode and my relation to it, it’s mostly as a TreatTM, and my TreatTM got worse and that happening made me sad, because I’m a dirty little treat goblin.
Albeit, a dirtly little treat goblin who spends almost all day thinking about how much they despise capitalism and wanting a better more communist world, and one who also will be using this CEO’s murder as propaganda as a touchstone with other working class people, the moment of unity this assassination afforded the working class and the subsequent display of class unity the bourgeois gave us with the press coverage.
(if luigi is a patsy, all bets are off)
but thats just me
be nice to each other if you can, have a nice day
why was my post about luigi’s github removed? it says “rule 1” so i guess it has to do with this.
i didn’t “lionize” him i simply noted that a lot of people have followed him etc. i did not voice any opinion on this and in fact i don’t even have an opinion on it. it’s just a fact of reality.
Feels like we started a struggle session bc someone posted out of hand? Weird paternalistic mod behavior to post this ngl.
Mod statement on the lionization of the Lion of Damascus when?
it seems to me that there is a gulf between mods and many users regarding the expected level of political education necessary to participate on Hexbear.
the questions I answered to make an account gave me no indication that I would need to understand words like “tailism,” which I came across for the first time here a few weeks ago.
feel free to excoriate me for being ignorant and a fake leftist, I guess 🤷 if I have to have the free time and mental capacity to engage meaningfully with theory to be a real leftist, then that’s sad news for me but probably better for me (and you!) to learn sooner than later.
does it make me a bad comrade? probably 😞 genuinely, I am sorry. if it’s any consolation to you, I used to be a voracious reader but haven’t read anything for pleasure in a couple of years. I haven’t put more than a couple hours here and there into self-improvement or entertainment because my extra hours and extra spoons very rarely line up. staying alive is sometimes difficult.
“Tailism” when tf did gargantuan nerds get here
Removed by mod
grimly funniest part of all this is all the yankees showing their whole asses and betraying how feeble and vulgar their understanding of actual Marxist principles are. yeah, Luigi is just like Hamas dude.
ok i have a chart that might help us figure all this out
Removed by mod
I just wanted to use this time to remeber Brian Thomas , the CEO of United Health
A Man so Brilliant he made it the 8th most Profitable company in the World ! The World ! all whily beeing unable to expand outsite of the USA , he extraxted so much wealth! from only America , what a genius and Briliant Buisnessleader we have Lost . All because this Scum and enemy of the Workingclass, this persona that has “wrong thought” Killed him. A Father , A Husband … A Health Provider … Children! , why would you want to Associate or Celebrate such Heinous and Uncivil Acts agains the Perfect status Qou.
Dont you see that it is All Is Provided For ?
Ligie had wrongthought (“Non-violence keeps the system working at full speed ahead” for example .)
And there are Many People Like him in America ! , Heros like Brian Thomsen Protect you from them , dont you see ?
Without Legs , they can not hunt you …
Without Glasses , they can not see you
without Teeth they can not eat you …
so please , do not disrupt the natural order of things , and do not let this filth and sin of these unwashed Masses infect your pure thoughts of being “better than this”.
You dont want to end up like Luigi , do you ?
Luigi isnt happy now … do you understand ? And be became this unhappy because he had wrongthink. When you celebrate such heinous acts , you may be inspiring others to become unhappy as well…
I think this is more reasonable than nuking the dunking comms.
Obviously nothing materially changed from last week. We were praising a reactionary last week. He didn’t suddenly become reactionary when he was identified. Our awareness of it changed. That’s what we’re really reacting to here, is the change in our awareness, not who he really is. The community isn’t more unsafe than last week. However it might be more annoying and uncouth because it’s bad to praise bigots. The clear answer is to not praise him for being a bigot. Was he being a bigot when he shot a cis white CEO? Nope. So you can praise him for shooting all you want. Just don’t praise him for being a bigot. Or pretend like him being a bigot is completely unrelated to his politics or who he was/is. That’s not a big ask.
I think people are taking this as “Don’t talk about the shooting anymore and do a personal growth because you’re problematic” which isn’t it at all.
