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.
Did you guys check if
had good politics before you officially lionized him on Hexbear? Or are you just navel gazing because Luigi is American?511 comments
Death to America
I have been struggling to think of how to say this constructively but it feels wrong to be mad a guy that did intresting and good things for posting badly. Like, we all post badly. That is why we are here. I think I have seen this emotion in the comments but I am not sure it ever worked out. We have an nearly unprecedented moment of clas solidarity and good vibes so it feels real bad to be upsets about posts at the moment. Especially as the posts don’t seem relevant to the moment. So while the take is probably correct I haven’t seen any discourse where it would be relevant or good to actually point it out. When someone says how cool thr Luigi guy was doing a cool bit if asventurism it doesn’t feel relevant to put him down for stuff not in his manifesto. Posting is not praxis. So there is a lower bound for how much posting can be the opposite of praxis. I feel like that is divisive and self defeating in a moment when we should be trying to do something with all this revolutionary energy. We appear to have half a thousand posts of people trying a dialectic process here but I am not sure we are approaching synthesis
I have never seen the word tailism in my life until this thread.
The fact that if the guy had been a leftist this whole debate would vanish is all one needs to know if this is actually a debate worth BANNING PEOPLE OVER, shove the hammer up your asses you’re actively making the site worse far more than whatever lionizing is happening
deleted by creator
This circles back to those big questions about “site culture.” But is Hexbear a site for leftist users to shitpost or is Hexbear a site for leftist shitposts?
New megathread dropped?
There is a very easy way to avoid all of this. Just celebrate the killing of a CEO. Stop talking about Luigi jfc
its not adventurism if you dont get caught
500 comments incoming lol
mods better roll the tanks on the weirdos actually advocating for literal fascist tailism, this is actually getting ridiculous having to deal with this every time a struggle session happens. How can you only temp ban people for actual fascist opinions, these are subversive elements that NEED to be purged or they threaten the leftist foundations of the site. I dont care how many keyboard addicted losers get mad this is actually terrifying to watch something HAS to be done
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.
Feels like we started a struggle session bc someone posted out of hand? Weird paternalistic mod behavior to post this ngl.
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.
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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.)
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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!)
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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!)
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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).
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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.
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