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.
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.
It does seem to fit the cycle but it is also completely self-inflicted.
Instead of seeing the opportunity and the vast possibilities opened up by this incident (far more “normal” people are supportive of left wing position than the left has been crying about for years that everyone in America is too selfish/too stupid to support healthcare rights), instead they chose to focus on the individual traits of the dude (a very liberal way of looking at the whole situation) and selectively ignore that the reaction has been a collective emotional outburst of the working class people who have been yearning to see some kind of justice being done - justice that the left only fantasized about but never delivered.
It seems clear that the only lesson to be learned from here is that if you don’t want the luigi dude to be cheered at, then the left better stand the fuck up and be the change they want to see. Again, I’m not talking about killing CEOs, I’m talking about actually organizing and push for a real change to the system.
And if you’re too afraid to stand up and do something, don’t cry about it when someone else you don’t like foolishly and accidentally did something that resonates with the plights of the working class that he got all the praise instead. There is nothing you can do at this point to change how most people feel about this incident. It’s already too late.
The whole complaint about the reaction to this incident has the sequence of events completely backward: the emotional release that came from the masses happened because it seems like the only “good” thing that has happened in years. In 2016, people were discussing about seriously getting single-payer healthcare. In 2020, people were talking about how the pandemic can potentially bring about universal healthcare. In 2024, nobody - absolutely nobody - was talking about the deteriorating and debilitating healthcare situation during the election cycle. The left wing movement is dead, and people will latch on to whatever that gives them a sliver of hope, however unrealistic it may seem to be.
I think the idea is that he should not be lionized on hexbear. The general public should lionize him, most of them will barely know anything about his reactionary social views. On Hexbear it’s different. We’re supposed to be a safe space, we all know his post history, and there’s no need to turn him into a character for spreading socialism here because we’re all socialists already.
Well this site is full of liberals, and that second part goes right back into the grief/, jealousy cycle I referred to in my previous comment. The guy (however flawed he and his methods are) actually managed to do something, while the left have nothing to show for it (unless you count the Bernie Sanders campaigns, but again they failed, so nothing to show).
I don't understand why people are taking this so seriously to the point of going through stages of grief. The shooting is just like how those billionaires got owned in that submarine. It's funny, and the funny event has some value in sussing out the outraged libs, who will 100% snitch on you when the time comes, but this isn't the spark of some mass movement.
People really need to put things into perspective. Lenin didn't like adventurism, but his idea of adventurism was closer to something like clandestinely organized terror cells, not lone wolf individuals. The Narodniks and successive groups were organized. It was a team of 4 who assassinated Alexander II, and even that team was directed by an Executive Committee comprised of 22 people. And Lenin disapproved of them for being adventurists.
And if Lenin disapproved of these organized terror cells, imagine what he has to say to people who think some lone wolf individual would inspire societal change.
They aren't and no offense to MarmiteLover123, I just think that's a bad take. People here are upset because they're being told how to feel about a person who just did something that caused the sudden and unexpected flash of radical sentiment throughout the west. No one is going through stages of grief (which itself is a flawed model at best), they just have different thresholds for who they're willing to offer their critical support to, and some people with a very high threshold who have mod privileges are telling the people with a lower threshold that they're ideologically impure and need to have their posts and comments removed.
be upset then, what kind of power do you have besides being annoying? The mods are completely correct in this issue and im glad they're enforcing the correct opinion.
"I have nothing of value to contribute so I'll just whine in response to someone who does!" - you
Stop your harassing, pointless replies to my comments.
i was just following your lead, stop mucking up the comments with your politically incoherent slop
Stop harassing me, coward.
Me 10 minutes ago: "The 5 stages of grief are not actually useful."
Me now applying it how I've been reacting to world events in recent history:
(I was typing this out when the mods removed the thread to get at me personally)
It's one of those psychoanalysis things that once you notice it, you can never unsee it, and it's everywhere. Maybe they're fake and I'm just seeing patterns in areas there is no pattern, but it's still interesting.
There are some other more disturbing Freudian concepts of a similar nature (once you notice it, you can never unsee it, and it's everywhere). All I'm saying is that if Freud could interact with modern society, he'd feel incredibly vindicated lol.