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.
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Communists literally sent humanity to space.
Like I get making fun of the paralysis of the modern leftist in the west, but it’s wild to me what people will broadly describe communists as in effecting when it created two super powers from peasantry.
Yeah that’s fair, I was only thinking of US leftists (including myself) in this context. That statement does not apply to historical international communist movements.
Even US leftist hasn’t been totally uneventful. Civil rights, Pride riots, etc. Also the West has to deal with being in the heart of the beast and surrounded by the brunt of propaganda.
I dunno… I just feel like sometimes when people say the western left is ineffectual, it comes across as defeatist.
I don’t think we have to be ineffectual. I think we are capable of getting our shit together.
Discourse like the OP does not inspire optimism, however.
It’s some white savior shit where thinking cause you’re not gonna be the leaders of the global revolution you may as well not do anything and let the third world take on the entire project under the veil of third worldism or whatever. If you’re inside the wall it doesn’t matter thst you support those on the outside until.you start bsdhing some wall from the inside as well.
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Not instantly winning in the face of enormous power doesn’t mean all efforts are pointless. We have managed to do some good things. Managing to wake a lot of people up to the genocide of Palestine, for one.
Man i get it. I’m a Cubs fan. I under stand small wins here and there. But eventually you need a 2016 or people are going to eventually stop caring.
Also gaza is more the doing of Israel posting crazy shit non stop and thinking it was perfectly normal.
I just don’t want to fall into the trap of self sabotage
Yes, when communists are in power, they do great things. We are not communists in power.
True…
Pretty clear what type of communist is being made fun of. You don’t criticize disco elysium for not sufficiently acknowledging the achievements of communism
Parent post really should have said “western communists” or “communists in the imperial core”.
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What did he do? Dead guy’s position was immediately replaced and nothing has changed.
I’ll paraphrase Hasan here: he got the Lindas and the Barbaras on Facebook saying “Yeah! Kill another one!”
He got Ben Shapiro’s audience saying “Actually, Ben, it’s not just the left celebrating.”
It’s a stirring of class consciousness. He’s certainly not going to lead a movement, but he awakened something. It’s up to us what we do with it.
(I am of course referring to writing strongly-worded letters and making evocative, edgy signs for our peaceful protests. That sort of thing.)
I’ve never seen so much class consciousness online before, nor so many people talking about healthcare in our country since Bernie Sanders ran 5 and 10 years ago. The left AND right is celebrating this. That’s the first I’ve ever seen.
There’s also a huge disconnect between the media’s propaganda and what normal, working-class people think about this. We can leverage that wedge to show how wrong the media has been this whole time.
It’s also the first time I’ve seen people be for violence that isn’t wielded by the state. This is sparking unprecedented revolutionary discourse that the left cannot squander.
probably made some security companies some real cash
It’s not just about what he did, but what we do in response to that. Do we dissolve into the same old petty bickering, or do we use this moment? We can’t use this moment if people are chilled from talking about it
it’s not praxis if you don’t have the beliefs part
He does have some of the beliefs, though. His Reddit posting history talked about how we live in a capitalist society so doctors only take chronic pain seriously if you tell them you can’t do your job.
He is not a Marxist and his actions did more to advance class consciousness than most of us on this website have probably ever done and he is kind of a douchebag tech bro rich kid who likes Elon Musk. 🤷🏼♀️ Idk what to make of it, but murdering a CEO because the US is number one in healthcare spending and number 42 in life expectancy is praxis.
His beliefs seem simple. Parasites are harming people. They’re causing horrific healthcare experiences, which he had first hand. Nothing will change without taking matters into own hands. Class war should be waged against them.
These beliefs are fine and they are the only relevant beliefs to why he carried this out as far as we can tell.