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.
People replying to you are expressing intense chauvinism. Are his reactionary tendencies not ok bc he was raised in the imperial core? I want someone to actually articulate why we should be holding him to a different standard. Fells like white savior shit. Comes off like people saying we have to give leniency to people from the global south bc they were not raised in our elevated western society lol.I don't think we should ban the things your joking about either just to cover my bases.
What are people even saying.
Copying another comment from elsewhere:
Yes there are different standards for the imperial core than there are for the periphery. The imperial core should be held to a higher standard because it is the source of woe that it sows across the periphery.
This is about lionizing a person not endorsing all of their beliefs. "Stalin saved the world from fascism and is hero for it" is not me saying we must implement Lysenkoism.
Removed by mod
Wrecker shit.
Uh please come up with excuses for Lysenko.
"Don't look that I created this account 10 hours ago and only posted in the struggle session. "
Why are lemmy.ml accounts even allowed here? I can understand people from grad being allowed to chat, but the only reason I see for a .ml to show up in a struggle session is ban evasion or sockpuppeting.
There are some good .ml users that continuously fight in the posting trenches since they have to see all the .ee and .world libs and sometimes an actual .ml will wander in here and learn something in good faith. But yes, the ease of making an account there and then coming here to freely comment makes it a ripe target for wreckers like this one. To me, it seems crystal clear that at least two of the accounts posting in this thread now are sockpuppets of each other, but I don't know what tools the mods have at their disposal to spot sockpuppetry if they have any at all. It also seems clear that it's the same wrecker that infested the last big mod overreach related struggle session. It doesn't help that the wrecker is ostensibly a sycophant for the side the mods have taken, but maybe that's by design.
edit. I actually meant this to be a response to @YEP@hexbear.net, so tagging instead.
I've generally had good interactions with ml but that's an obvious wrecker/sock/fed/whatever
Catharsis of posting ppb is unmatched fr
this is such a wildly bad faith interpretation of the disagreement lol. the deleted comment was asinine and people are rightfully calling it out for showing incredible ignorance of Marxism-Leninism and conflating legitimate anti-imperialist struggle with some white dude in the core who went sicko mode. Luigi did not do a revolutionary praxis. i shouldn't have to spell it out for you, honestly read a book.
Oh you're a better Marxist than him I should know better.
No, you're idealizing and separating of "legitimate anti-imperialist struggle" from greater class struggle is wrong. The CEO killer is a reactionary raised in a reactionary society it does not disqualify him from being proletarian. Hong Xiuquan was a religious reactionary nutjob but it did stop mao from labeling him a a proto communist (I know this word is sticky prior to capitalist development).
I believe you are expressing a view based on unaddressed nationalism because you are willing to stratify the reaction(literal meaning) to global capital based on some intrinsic value assigned to those from the global south; I am asserting this is condescending and chauvinist. The struggle of syrians against western backed jihadists or the Palestinian resistance against the western colonial project in Israel is part of the same struggle against global capital. The buckling of the US healthcare system(private insurance kills 70,000 people yearly. see The Condition of the Working Class in England by Engel's describe social murder) under the fascistic decay of capitalist society in the west is just manifesting itself through Luigi's actions.
Luigi is a reactionary but his actions have sparked renewed class consciousness. He is revolutionary, it is our mission as principled leftists work combat (not on like a personal level) and to cast his reactionary views into obscurity. His views are irrelevant to the manifestation of rebellion against the American fascist system even if this agent of change is not ideologically succinct and full of reactionary brain worms.
I don't think we should model ourselves on him at all, he is wrong about so much. But to view the event through this narrow view of Luigi's identity and belief is wrong. I'm not trying to be agro I'm a bad writer and don't know how to express my disagreement well.
Side note typing out his name when writing on these topics is endlessly amusing. Tickles part of my brain.
i hate these people
i have spent far too much energy on them today and i regret it, super drained. thanks for the word of support comrade. i really firmly believe that a large group of users are completely wrong about this and seeing them dig in and get nasty is really unpleasant. just thankful the mods are on the correct side of this one lol