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.
I’m going to post my reddit comment replying to a discussion about how Lenin’s critique of adventurism applies in this situation, because I think it sums up my thoughts pretty well:
Lenin was critiquing socialists engaging in adventurism, who should know better. If this dude were in the PSL or something, the party would be in the uncomfortable position of needing to publicly distance themselves from him if they want to maintain a disciplined ideology rooted in democratic centralism. But the fact that this was some tech bro who had to face the material conditions of the health insurance industry and organically gravitated toward an adventurist strategy-- that’s something else entirely. That’s a barometer of class malcontent in the general population, and it seems to be off the charts at the moment
Removed by mod
This is the correct take and seeing all the removals of good posts and comments that are entirely consistent with this is really disappointing.And now it has been removed. The most cogent, materialist, consistently communist position gets removed and the user banned. Will my comment get removed for expressing how ridiculous I think that is?
Ok I’m honestly furious that this comment was removed for being “inappropriately dismissive of valid concerns.” This was the best comment in the entire thread and clearly the community agreed with that. What kind of paternalistic bullshit is the mod team on?
It’s the fact that once again a small portion of the mod/admin team has unilaterally decided what the whole community’s “line” is, in this case on the CEO-killer. Anyone who says something just a little too contrary to that line gets their comment or post removed (and possibly banned) even if most users agree with it, and even if it was a perfectly reasonable, well-thought-out, analytical, and intelligent argument that was devoid of any negativity towards other users. It was just a little too positive about the person who did a thing we all in our heart of hearts wish we could do en masse. But that person has been deemed “of the enemy” by the people with the ban hammer, so any positivity towards him is now off limits. “You wouldn’t want to be caught siding with the enemy, would you?! That’s a bannin’!” Even in the thread where we are discussing this unilateral decision based on a non-majority-view and the consequences of going against it, where presumably we could at least present arguments against it, the comment with the highest number of upvotes gets wiped from the discussion.
I want to say also that I’m furious about it too, like you. And I think anyone who cares about this community, regardless of which side of this issue they’re on, should be angry about that comment removal as well.
Since you’re relatively new, I’ll note that this is an ongoing problem, it’s not unique to this recent disagreement over the merits of adventurism and the subsequent Luigi-posting. A few people who have a lot of power here have a vision for what they think hexbear should be and are steering it and curating it through user bans, comment removal, and I strongly suspect sockpuppetry. But this vision is in direct contradiction with what the majority of the users on this site want. We keep running into this contradiction and it has never been resolved.
be real lol it was vulgar un-marxist shlock. “he’s our guy” is just plain LARP. the left actually isn’t in a position where it’s politically viable to wage class war by killing people! glad she caught a 7 day and i won’t have to see her awful takes for a bit.
Look I’m new to this site and you are clearly a very popular poster here so I will choose my words carefully but let’s just say you and I are not in agreement on this issue. I thought this reply was thoughtful and nuanced and apparently so did 80 other users before the mods removed it.
If the reply simply said “He’s our guy,” I would agree. But it was actually a whole, complete thought. Apparently it was a thought you didn’t agree with, but IMO a post that doesn’t perfectly align with your (or the mods’) Marxist ideals does not warrant removal.
I cannot speak to that poster’s history on this site or 7 day ban as I am a relatively new user and generally just pop in and out.
i don’t really wanna get into this if it’s alright with you, we can just say we disagree and leave it there. this is all ultimately quite meaningless and i don’t really want to spend much more energy on it. for what it’s worth though, her 7 day ban was for DM harassment of another user who had previously asked her to disengage on this topic because Awoo was being hostile (which is what netted her the 3-day ban). she DM’d this user immediately after getting her 3-day ban overturned by leveraging her power user status. regardless of the disagreement, the way she talked to that user was extremely gross and to then move onto DM harassment is very over the line to me and deserving of the ban she got.
That is fair, I mod a large-ish leftist subreddit and I would also ban a user for DMing another user after being asked to disengage. IMO a 7 day ban is justified, removal of the comment was not.
It is clear to me now that nothing was truly resolved during the last struggle sesh
Correct, there was never any real resolution to the last several site-related struggle sessions. With that big one, there was some appeasement to make it seem like all was good again, but truthfully the big problem was just quietly set on the back burner, and surprise surprise, here we are again.
They made a matrix channel, which is hard to gain access to and has like 50 people in it. Anything agreed in the channel is non-binding and again, it’s on a separate platform. Ugh.
for real, this is getting ridiculous lately
They fucking banned awoo? Oh my god fuck you people
Just let people fucking talk, you posted a bait thread for people to disagree with you let them do it
It was a very good comment too, hers usually are. Find it in the modlog if you haven’t already.
How do i do that?
This link should take you there. For future reference though, just go to https://hexbear.net/modlog and where it says “filter by user” just start typing in the name you want to see the modlog entries for and click the right one when it appears.
I see, thank you
EDIT: Omg they did her so dirty, this reads like someone who has a lot of power and no accountability abusing it because they disagree
it was vulgar tailist nonsense and i’m glad she’s banned. british people shouldn’t be allowed post on here
Is this supposed to be a joke? Its hilariously funny for the majority American user base here to say this shit with a straight face. I guess you can say whatever nonsense when you think you got the mod team on your side lol.
i am not amerikkkan, there are actually more than two nationalities! hope this helps:)
The point is that the people on this site are overwhelmingly living in the West, so if Westerners can’t post here then the site would be like 3 people and no owls
Your celebrity crush doesn’t have class consciousness, he has a personal vendetta because UHC fucked up his back. That doesn’t change that he did a good thing, it doesn’t change how happy i am over the public reaction to it, but the problem we need to tackle is precisely that material conditions in the US at best lead to people doing sigma lone wolf adventurism instead of building a mass movement, and that things are that way is precisely because they are infected with the reactionary ideology you so casually brush aside and ignore.
good post!
Not really. It’s much more difficult to judge how good a post is when it’s a reply to another post that no one can see. But more than that, right off the bat, demeaning the previous (now banned) commenter by referring to her principled and theory-based position as a “celebrity crush” is childish and needlessly adversarial. No, the Actually good post was removed and is now relegated to the modlog. Those who have to sift through the modlog to even see what she did say, they’ll see that Awoo did not “casually brush aside and ignore” the reactionary views, she clearly addressed them.
we obviously just fundamentally disagree here on whether awoo was doing vulgar marxism or actually offering insight. there’s no point in me and you arguing about it. for what it’s worth, awoo was carrying on being spiteful and insulting about this topic to users disagreeing with her before the “celebrity crush” comment. she caught a ban for it (which she then used her power user status to get overturned, then immediately started DM harassing another user who had asked her to disengage, resulting in a well deserved 7 day ban). so i find it hard to sympathise there and think a bit of derision is frankly deserved. zeroing in on the one very minor insult kinda brushes aside how acidsmiley’s comment also contained valid criticism. and for my part i’m glad i don’t have to see awoo’s takes for the next week.
there’s no point in me and you arguing about it
It isn’t even something I was arguing about with you, so if there is no point in doing that, why did you start?
zeroing in on the one very minor insult kinda brushes aside how acidsmiley’s comment also contained valid criticism.
My point was that it is now impossible for people to tell whether Acidsmiley’s comment did in fact contain valid criticism since we can’t see what the comment is criticizing. It looks to me like there is some valid arguments and counters to what Awoo said, but it’s mixed in with invalid criticism, but no one can tell which is which unless they go check the modlog. I don’t know what Awoo did or said elsewhere, but having read and enjoyed her posts for years, it must have been extremely uncharacteristic of her if it was in fact deserving of a ban. But that is completely beside the point that her comment here that was removed contained nothing of the sort, and its removal supposedly was only because a mod thought it was “inappropriately dismissive of concerns” which is clearly a minority view, considering the upvotes and responses (including from some who disagree with her position).
That’s great for you that you’re glad you won’t “have” to see Awoo’s takes for the next week, but you didn’t have to wait for her to be banned to accomplish that, there is a block feature you know. I personally will miss Awoo’s takes but look forward to seeing them again, as one of a number of the major staples of the hexbear community.
disengaging!
Removed by mod
Hmmm depends on the adventurism in my opinion? I could see a whole bunch of scenarios where adventurism is actually a net negative for us. This however? This is so clear.
Yeah that is fair, I guess my own optimism that as things get worse it will be harder and harder for liberals to try and push the normal common sense civility narrative and that seems to be their weakest point even though yes it is definitely dangerous.
The absolute naive necessity some people have about having the correct take is baffling.
It’s part of being the western left. We must always only criticize, lest we actually do something and thereby open ourselves up to criticism.
It’s pretty clear now that there is a portion of this site, including quite a few mods and admins, whose priority is having an ideologically pure reading group. There is a massive difference between tailism and accepting that real change requires alliances of convenience with people you greatly disagree with, because you’re never going to find a critical mass of perfect comrades in the greater masses without recruiting and converting people who started with shitty opinions.
You’d think a site that agreed to stop fighting over whether veganism is a hard requirement of leftism would understand that by now.
I don’t fully agree with this and I support what AcidSmiley replied, but why are genuine opinions being banned as well as the user just because it might have been a bad take? This isn’t one of these cases where a comment shouldn’t exist at all on the site, like fascist or liberal opinions. It’s an opinion that has some truth to it and opens up a productive conversation on what a revolutionary movement should be and what it should condone and support.
Cuz mods don’t care, don’t have time to ideologically sort people, and don’t have time to sort people by sincerity, simple as.
I’ve seen someone get banned on hexbear for doing Astartes posting (Warhammer 40k Space Marines start every other sentance with “Brother,”) and get banned for misgendering for doing it to a femme mod.
At the end of the day it’s a shit posting site so who care?
mods don’t have time to ideologically sort people
But that’s exactly what they did in this case and why the comment was removed.
and don’t have time to sort people by sincerity
Yes they do. They do it all the time (and that is a good thing). If given mods don’t have time to do the job they volunteered to do, then they shouldn’t be mods. I don’t think lack of time is the problem here.
and get banned for misgendering for doing it to a femme mod.
If the person you saw misgendered someone and refused to correct themselves or apologize, that is a very good and legitimate reason to ban them.
At the end of the day it’s a shit posting site so who care?
It is that, a shitposting site, but it is also more than that. There are many of us here who, for better or worse, spend a lot of time and energy on this site. We care about the community that makes it up and we care about the direction it’s headed. The mods do too obviously, and problems arise when there is disagreement over what that direction should be.
It is that, a shitposting site, but it is also more than that. There are many of us here who, for better or worse, spend a lot of time and energy on this site. We care about the community that makes it up and we care about the direction it’s headed.
This is your actual argument. This all boils down to a “No Exit” argument. You are mad that the mods are “the look” in the Camus sense. You want the mods to recognize the subjectivity in your person, rather than seeing you as an objective collection of posts. That is an unrealistic demand for an online site. Given the history of philosophy and general human history it’s a bit of an unrealistic demand on real-life people too.
Time is a limited resource, at the end of the day your only real option in any community is to care about the community in an egoless way otherwise you’ll only feel burned and be jaded.
So your pseudo-philosophical position is that no one should ever expect to be recognized or treated as the individual sentient human being that they in fact are, but only as an “objective collection of posts.” Strange, because I have no problem recognizing that people are, well, people. And even though I may disagree with them, I am certain that most of the mods are just as capable of that as I am.
In this case you should write a retort to Being and Nothingness. There’s no further point to this discussion, you’ve thoroughly defeated all the practical concerns of online moderation and all the “pseudo-philosophical” ones as well with a well rounded argument of “nuh uhhhh cuz I can ;)”.
you’ve thoroughly defeated all the practical concerns of online moderation
Unfortunately, I have to concede defeat to you, for you have clearly won through sheer nonsensical blathering and the sophomoric name-dropping of philosophical works in the place of any kind of reasoning (and to show off how you’re ever so smart!) In other words, waaow you’ve red Sartre! I give up!
Philosophize these balls with shit on them
I think you are getting it backwards: people (not just here) are celebrating spontaneous adventurism because there is no left in America that would step up and do something about the deteriorating and exploitative healthcare situation in the country.
It would not even be a spectacle if there is an actual left wing movement in America. And until you have an organized movement in the country that is serious about winning and actually does things (not cosplaying as protestors in rallies), you simply have to concede to what the masses (most of whom are the working class people who want a left to do something about it) think about this guy.
Reading the reaction as the lionization of an individual rather than an emotional outburst of an entire class of people suffering from years of oppression will, of course, lead the American left to miss their mark once more.
Reading the reaction as the lionization of an individual rather than an emotional outburst of an entire class of people suffering from years of oppression will, of course, lead the American left to miss their mark once more.
I mean, Hexbear (or a segment of Hexbear which includes the mods, I guess, is) but I follow a lot of American communists on TikTok and not one of them has condemned the guy like you see here, they’ve remained (like the masses of people on social media as far as I can tell) pretty on board the “lmao, CEO down!” train.
That is at least comforting to know.
I will add one more thing though: if this incident does not translate into a political movement, if the American left cannot leverage this level of public outcry and transform the energy into political actions, then you can forget about having any sustained left wing movement in the country.
This is the litmus test, and if they don’t learn their lessons from the failure to leverage the opportunity to advance healthcare rights afforded by a global pandemic, then their only fate is to be swept into the dustbin of History.
As you already identified, there is no left to leverage this, there will be no actions outside of the protests you correctly criticized, therefore there will be no movement. Self fulfilling
“Reading the reaction as the lionization of an individual rather than an emotional outburst of an entire class of people suffering from years of oppression will, of course, lead the American left to miss their mark once more.”
I second this. And I resist the urge to think “correctness” means anything in a vacuum and removed from action. I’m disappointed in the mods reactions to this because the reality is that it is absolutely fucking meaningless how “correct” our opinions are on this if we are never going to connect them to meaningful action.
It is very terminally online IMO to think that these discussions being had about how to leverage this moment and what can be done with the momentum stirred up by The Adjuster only amount to “lionizing a fascist”. If all we can accomplish with this moment is another terminally online struggle session that ends with simply the conclusion “we shouldn’t lionize a fascist” then we deserve to lose the future. To me that is the most self defeating lesson we could possibly take from this.
I think very often of this scene from the early days of the DPRK. Kim Il Sung had come into possession of a ledger containing the names of all the Korean people who had been collaborating with the Japanese colonizers. Rather than use it to purge his growing movement, he very publicly burned it as a sign of amnesty towards those amongst him who had collaborated, coercively or not.
America is obviously not post WW2 Korea. America is a fascist country. It goes without saying that the biggest victims of fascism are the colonial subjects and persecuted “other” within the nation.
That said, someone once told me that one of the many terrible things about living in a fascist country, one of the more subtle things, is that all of the ostensibly “good” people end up having to lie about who they are and what they believe, constantly, as a matter of survival. In America this tendency runs so deep it’s not even seen as dishonesty, it’s “grindset”.
I am absolutely not saying Luigi Mangione is some sort of secret communist. That is obviously absurd. I guess what I take issue with is the idea that we can take his internet history as some sort of cross section of his human soul. I think that is over simple and a disingenuous interpretation of someone who should be deserving of a more charitable interpretation. Because if he doesn’t deserve that then no one in the west ever will. I mean for gods sake the guy wasn’t even 30 years old; aren’t we supposed to be the side that has a heart? It all just feels so callous to act as if it’s a betrayal to some bullshit revolutionary discipline to recognize that he is a sympathetic character whether you like him or not.
This may not be true for most of us; but I think for a lot of young people your online persona is a PERFORMANCE of who you THINK YOU SHOULD BE.
And yes I have read settlers and I understand “narrow self interest is not the same as class consciousness”.
I think it is a mistake to read this quote and take it to mean “if it aligns with a westerners self interest it cannot possibly be class consciousness”
I think it’s also missing the point of what has made third worldism arguably the most successful branch of communist thought: it can be brought into alignment with the self interests of the masses basically immediately. The early raids by the Vietcong on Chinese grain reserves happened because it not only took advantage of pre existing antagonism to the Chinese, it also gave people a real material example of class struggle being in their immediate self interest.
Luigi Mangione is not a revolutionary to be emulated. He’s not a principled revolutionary and it’s absurd to expect revolutionary discipline from him. The point I’m trying to make here is that no matter where it is, in the first or the third world, building a revolutionary movement is a risky endeavor. It necessarily involves trusting in other people which always carries a certain amount of risk that only multiplies the more people you trust.
As conditions deteriorate and life gets worse and worse for the average westerner; at some point the interpretation of the past will cease being relevant and we will be forced to reckon with different material conditions. I would echo the other voices in this thread saying that the point of revolutionary leadership is to lead people towards your position, not find the perfect revolutionary subjects already formed and ready to go.
Until we have the courage to accept the risks inherent to trusting other people; flawed, imperfect people, and building a revolutionary movement, I don’t know what kind of future the western left has.
Yes the average westerners self interests is aligned against understanding class conflict, yes you can’t get someone to understand something that it’s against their self interest to understand, yes “read settlers” blah blah fucking blah. If there’s one single fucking thing we should be able to glean from this moment it is that those things are not as true as they used to be and they will only continue to decay as U.S. Global hegemony does.
The question I keep asking myself is; what is the fucking point of trying so hard to be CORRECT all the time if WE don’t even seem to believe we can use that to change hearts and minds?
Until we have the courage to accept the risks inherent to trusting other people; flawed, imperfect people, and building a revolutionary movement, I don’t know what kind of future the western left has.
This has consistently been an issue of mine with a lot of the recent struggle sessions: you cannot build a mass movement among a population that often has reactionary views without being willing to educate and convert them. A cursory glance at any successful communist revolution in the past 200 years proves this time and time again. Tsarist Russia was not a bastion of progressive beliefs. Warlord-era China did not have the correct takes on feminism. Batista Cuba was dominated by traditionalist Catholics and all the cultural brainworms that go with it. That did not prevent vanguards from overthrowing the existing order and bringing about a worker’s state, and it certainly did not prevent those worker’s states from then correcting those beliefs over time.
That doesn’t mean we should excuse reactionary beliefs. That doesn’t mean we should ignore vitriol or abuse being hurled at marginalized comrades. That certainly doesn’t mean we should lionize the shooter as an individual’s random Twitter takes from 2022. But that does mean we should be quicker to educate good-faith commenters when they post something that can be taken as reactionary in nature rather than immediately shut them down with zero discussion and/or ban them, because that has a chilling effect on engagement and makes growing leftist outreach extremely difficult.
The overwhelming majority of people in the west have completely incoherent political and social beliefs driven by the miasma of ideological garbage they’re subjected to the way a fish is subjected to water; the good news is that you can yank them out of it by presenting a coherent ideology that matches their lived experiences, and the bad news is that it’s going to take some effort to yank them out because the counterpropaganda is literally all-encompassing. You’re going to have to let them have some opportunities to find out what their particular brainworms are and have a chance to pull them out; if they make it abundantly clear they have no intention of ever doing so and are perfectly content to remain reactionaries then fuck 'em, but most people don’t fall into that category.
If Lenin had concentrated this much on his coalition having All the Correct Opinions All the Time with No Exceptions Lest You Be Immediately Purged™ prior to going out and actually doing something, Russia would’ve likely spent the twentieth century as a reactionary hellhole that modern Russian far-right nationalists could only have wet dreams about.
Atomization has done wonders on the western marxist.
People will remember this guy. He’s about as incoherent as any other American.
It is not about whether we embrace him or not, the working class will revere Luigi for speaking their rage on their behalf, and they’ll hear someone’s narrative about him. It needs to be ours. If we fail to lead, others are itching to do so instead.
We should not center the matter on whether Luigi was “cool” or not. It is clear he was not, but just did something extremely cool.
Our message should be one affirming how the working class feels, while keeping the converstation on class interest and organization instead of the celeb gossip of the doer of the deed.
GOOD post
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
Respectfully, don’t hold your fucking breath. He’s not the hero we deserve, but he’s the hero we need…? Or, he’s not the hero we need, but he’s the hero we deserve?
Look, I’m not looking to canonize the guy. He’s no Fidel. He’s no Harriet Tubman.
But for fuck’s sake, the purity tests get a bit exhausting. I’m not aware of any successful revolutions that were won by revolutionaries who were all on the same page ideologically. Are you?
At some point we’re gonna have to reckon with the fact that revolution requires alliance with people who have problematic views.
Dude had some bigoted viewpoints and dumbass takes. He doesn’t appear to be a Nazi though, IMO.
For fuck’s sake, when I was 26, I was libbed the fuck up, eager to use my international relations degree to work for the UN or the fucking State Dept 🤮 When I was 32, I was so libbed up I was posting inspirational Harry Potter metaphors on Facebook to inspire the other libs to ReSiSt Trump.
Now I am a 40 year old anarchist prostitute! None of us came out of the womb radicalized. The kid has time to develop some class consciousness. Let him cook.
Critical support to him. Don’t pedestal individuals. But this discourse on the left is fucking frustrating.
And also, this post criticizing people for not unpacking their critical support at every mention just reads like OP has only spent time in online spaces
Removed by mod
It would be one thing if he was the leader of an org, or in a position to seize political power. It’d be important then to get a full picture of who he is because the breadth of his views would be consequential. But he’s just a guy who did a good thing for a good reason. My saying this doesnt excuse his other beliefs, but turning this event into an evaluation of his other beliefs is blunting a revolutionary moment.
For once, the left and right are in agreement that the bourgeoisie are contributing to the misery of the working class. Let’s please not squander this
Removed by mod
Right? We’re not using Luigi as a vector for radicalization, we’re admiring the moment of radicalization he brought on by himself in the masses by killing a CEO. Have some fun jfc
Removed by mod
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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
Communists literally sent humanity to space.
Parent post really should have said “western communists” or “communists in the imperial core”.
Y’all. It’s a joke. A joke on Twitter. Sometimes when you get overly detailed with a joke, it ceases to be funny. I know this is a difficult concept for leftists.
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.
People are criticizing others for heralding him as some sort of leftist saint.
Something something right twice a day
Me: “But who is doing this?! I haven’t seen it.”
Me logging into Twitter an hour later: 😬😬😬
Cultural heroes and mythic heroes don’t need to have anything in common with the historical figure they’re based on. The Adjuster doesn’t have to have anything in common with Liugi. Most people are never going to read this guys manifesto. They’re just going to see memes of him merking a CEO. The real person is not as important as the legend and the narrative built around that legend.
Agree. The Adjuster is a mythical figure we created with our collective consciousness. The Adjuster is bigger than Luigi. We do not need to (and probably should not) merge them into one.
Lmao perfect. A million views goddamn
I think OP’s post is an overreaction, but this… This is weird lol.
Okay, this is pretty fucking cringe, right down to the snoo as the cherry on top.
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.
J. Sakai
This isn’t a labor strike or reformism. Someone shot a healthcare CEO and every American who has ever filed an insurance claim recognized that they have a common class characterisitic that makes them enemies of the capitalist class.
And that is why there can not be a marxism without anti-imperalism.
evergreen
I just find the whole shooting and everything that came after it really really funny. Why do people have to turn something so absurdly funny into something ultra serious? He’s not the next Lenin or the next John Brown. You don’t have to put him on a pedestal or even care that much about him as a person. Fucking relax. Please.
The thing is, some people here do put him on a pedestal, will consistently make excuses for his reactionary brainworms and will talk down to anybody mentioning that and pretend that they didn’t see any posts where something like that happened. It’s all over this thread as well.
Although Luigi probably did liquidate the CEO, I’m going to laugh so hard when it turns out he really was a patsy and this 150+ comment thread was a complete waste of time. The pro-Luigi side of this struggle session will lose big time while my shitposting about Luigi being a Lee Harvey Oswald will age like fine wine.
This is what I was saying yesterday, all of these people just taking the cop’s word for it that he’s the guy and then they’re off running. You can enjoy the liquidation itself, but maybe wait and see before you go jerking this guy off? Shouldn’t you presume he’s not guilty until the state stacks up enough evidence to prove it? Also I really doubt this is the radicalizing event people think it is. The same type of stuff was said about Occupy, Bernie campaign, 2020 protests, COVID-19, etc.
I’m enjoying shitposting about Luigi being a patsy, but there’s a purpose to it. To be a hypocrite by being more serious about it, we should never trust the state’s narrative and certainly not what a bunch of pigs say. They routinely frame innocent Black men for crimes they didn’t commit, as in framing Black men for crimes where witnesses clearly saw that the criminals were white. Insofar as people want to take this funny incident and use it to radicalize people, two avenues should be focused:
- The liquidation of the CEO was a clear instance of class warfare that everyone who isn’t a capitalist ghoul or a working class traitor is celebrating or at least on board with.
- The state controlled by capitalists is trying to ram a narrative down people’s throats including the possibility of setting up a convenient patsy in order to salvage an instance of weakness displayed by the capitalist state.
Almost totally agree, although I will restate I think the “radicalizing potential” of the moment is a bit overblown. I’ve seen these things come and go before, and I do know a few pearl clutching civility fetishists who are borderline apoplectic right now.
Yeah, I’m with you. It’s should’ve stopped at people photoshopping the Fallout hub into the footage and people recreating the shooting in GTA. People are overblowing things.
I mean, he shouldn’t be lionized regardless because he didn’t do it.
We appreciate the event, and as far as the event goes, his head just did that.
multiple cardiac perforations and acute lead poisoning were preexisting conditions
Nah you gotta get in to caterpillargate. We’re 9/11 truthkng Luigi’s magnificent eyebrows and how the Adjuster doesn’t have the same thickness or position.
Seriously disappointed by what I’m seeing here and in a few other places on hexbear. Do I support the action? Of course. Do I see it as an opportunity to increase class conciousness? Yes. Am I going to uncritically support Luigi just because of that? No.
If all it takes is a single act and the use of some vaguely class concious language to absolve someone of thier reactionary views then why don’t we just start uncritically supporting MAGA communists, Vaush, and any other public figures who hold vaguely leftist views? When I see people saying “don’t criticize Luigi” I see people saying that they don’t give a fuck about their comrades who are marginalized because they belong to a minority group who is affected by reactionary views.
If we are going to use this as an opportunity to build class conciousness, let us do so intelligently. I’ve been talking to people IRL about this and emphasizing the material conditions which brought about this act. But if someone were to point out that he believed that part of the problem that Americans are facing is woke/DEI or immigrants then I’m going to call him out on that. And if anyone here who keeps on harping about “letting perfect be the enemy of good” then just fucking stop and think for one second. You’re opening the door for the right to capture the people who are awakening to their class conciousness. And hell its not as if it isn’t already happening. THe populist Trump right uses woking class language all the time to justify heinous shit. And if you are willing to let Luigi’s shit views slide then you may as well start supporting right wing populaists just because they are “building” class conciousness.
Also seeing people whine about how this is being moderated and it being “worse” than reddit are being incredibly daft. I still see plenty of Luigi memes that haven’t been deleted by the mod team. If you think that posts and comments lionizing or otherwise uncritically supporting Luigi then you are being
brained.okay that’s fine, but what if i want to lionize him as in, draw him and turn him into a hot, buff anthropomorphic lion, kind of like tony the tiger but a bit more human and a lot more sexy?
Tony the Tiger, mascot for a cereal manufactured by a multinational purveyor of high fructose corn syrup
Luigi the Lion, slayer of social murder enjoyers and symbol of righteous anger against the bourgeoisie (even if he fell ass-backwards into it)Go on…
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.
it’s cause he’s italian (not a total whiteboy)
Italians
Settlers demoted from always right to always right if you assume Italians aren’t white.
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?His politics were awful but what if he changed. People can change. He read the Lorax.
From what I’ve seen he had his back surgery and disappeared for like 3 months. What if he spent that time popping pain pills and playing disco elysium.
popping pain pills
Holy shit doctor house referenc???
Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837
Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837
“We Will Talk of Nothing Else”: Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
Dr. House is so cool I wish vicodin was real
I too want to get high on vicodin and get in a fist fight with my friends while giggling maniacally
Possible, but it’s pure conjecture, and I think that position puts us at risk of projecting what we want to believe.
I was interpreting foxontherocks’ comment as sarcastic because of the Lorax mention
Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837
Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837
“We Will Talk of Nothing Else”: Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
i’m glad he’s reactionary so that it’s harder not to dismiss him as just another wacky lefty.
And he watched Wicked! He was such a fan that he had to go all the way to NYC to try to catch it on Broadway instead of waiting for Part 2.
deleted by creator
I’ll do my best to respect the direction the community opts to go and I understand the reasons and stated concern…but as someone who hasn’t personally done much lionizing of Mangione after his reveal, consider this my voice of dissent.
I am also disappointed that Luigi Mangione falls well short of our ideal role model as much as anyone…but ultimately we are materialists and this reaction strikes me as rather liberal and idealist. This isn’t even a case where the right thing was done for the wrong reasons. Mangione’s actions and motivations as outlined in his manifesto were an action of class war. As a figure he is complicated and problematic and the way he did the math completely wrong and somehow still managed to arrive at the right conclusion is quite head scratching…but ultimately I believe the words “critical support” apply here.
