this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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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 hitler-detector , 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.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago

Yep, as soon as he praised the feds in the manifesto I knew something was up, sure enough he's a radlib. Is it cool that an enemy of the proletariat was killed? Yea. Is the shooter a leftist? Of course not, arguably the adventurism should have tipped everyone off to that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

tbh yankees are coping if they think the broader US left is in any position to use this as an opportunity to achieve anything. things are going to continue to get worse.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (3 children)

the event should have nothing to do with the shooter. the left just needs to fucking step up because we need to take action. effective action. the right effectively holding a monopoly on political violence is not a good thing like the libs act like it is. people who act like 'we' have to maintain the 'moral highground' on not using violence when our enemies do, is actively disgusting to me. its just dying the martyr because they lack the conviction to do anything.

even before this guy got caught tho i never thought he should be made into a hero. we should have no heroes. even if this guy had been a leftist, he could have been an example to others sure, but making him into a hero makes everyone else passive victims waiting to be saved.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Thanks for calling out this bs, was pretty disgusting to see all the tailist edgelords crawling out of the woodwork. I mean, i'm not surprised, given our incel weirdo problem or that the most vocal stans are the most consistent bad take factories on this site, but it's good to see some pushback against that.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I dunno how much I believe it when somebody let one of the most disrespectful chief waterbearers slip a 3-day because things were able to 'be hashed out privately'; especially not with reports that said chief waterbearer returned to someone she was going after's DMs after the fact. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

i noticed this too, i didn't wanna stir shit by making a whole post about it but it is interesting seeing a power user get preferential treatment after being very wrong and then spewing so much vitriol in response to critique. very reddit thing to happen on the site.

edit i see the user has caught a 7 day because of DM harassment. maybe we just shouldn't let br*tish people on here.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

^(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, @[email protected] 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! spongebob-i-fucking-love

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 character~~ but 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 win~~

So 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 dorner imo, someone who should not be personally celebrated because he wasn't a good guy but who did a cool as fuck thing

He 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 Treat^TM^, and my Treat^TM^ 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

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

Kinda unrelated, but the kind of person who cries about their post being removed for lionizing a problematic guy with paragraphs of justifation for why it being removed was an affront to all true leftists everywhere and how this site is literally 1984, are the same kind of people who seem to think their opinions are the most valid of opinions and people NEED TO see them, and the real injustice is the censoring of their enlightened takes.

Some of y'all need to separate the ego from your posting.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

The fella is a broken clock. He is correct once every 0.02% of the time he does something, and he won the lottery that day.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I really don't understand the desire to lionize this guy! He's a tool for us and we should use him as such without feeling attached to him as a person, especially because he's not a comrade.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well said! I am disappointed by a number of the responses I've seen to Mangione's reactionism, even among users who I normally am very fond of, so I was just thinking that this is the sort of thing that should be moderated more strictly to make this community safer for marginalized people.

I actually ended up in a private conversation with a highly respected user, largely centering on Mangione's Don Quijote sex toy tweet, and I'm still not sure how to feel about that conversation... I wanted to disagree with her, but I didn't really have anything I could think to add, since she seemed like more of an authority than me. I will ask for her consent to share her username and the details of the conversation for public scrutiny, since I know very well from binging Mentour Pilot what can happen if the less experienced become deferential to the more experienced.

Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837

"We Will Talk of Nothing Else": Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

NGL, I just haven't had the time to look into the social media thing. I really have no idea.

Definitely not defending Luigi, but my opinions at 26 weren't amazing. I might not even be allowed into Hexbear at 36.

Dunno what my point his, but I hope he grows a bit more. I'm sorry that people here are defending him.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

Good take overall. A lot of people (myself included) wanted this guy to be some sort of leftist hero. Even though it sucks to find out he was just an average american dude with kinda shitty beliefs, we should accept reality as it is and not try to pretend otherwise. We can think of it as a small victory that even someone who's seemingly not very class conscious could be driven to an action like this. That, along with the amount of support this got, still makes me feel much more hopeful about building a left-wing movement in the west than I was a couple weeks ago.

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 part I find maybe a bit tasteless. Even though I agree we shouldn't glorify the guy, I do think he deserves some sympathy for what he did and the undoubtedly awful punishment he's going to be sentenced to, and I don't think it's fair to compare him to a school shooter. I don't think anything indicates that he's the kind of person capable of something like that.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (6 children)

There is apparently a public fundraising of him floating around. For the record, I personally wouldn't donate money because if nothing else, that money should go to Palestinian gofundmes instead.

What is the admins/mods' official line on passing around that link?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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...

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

good take. luigiposting is a textbook treat and this website loves tailism apparently.

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