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.

      • TerribleHands [he/him]
        ·
        2 hours ago

        Was Luigi a racist transphobe? The tweets I saw just had some weird 'retvrn' techbro shit, but not overt bigotry.

        • nandos_house_of_glues [she/her]
          ·
          edit-2
          54 minutes ago

          if you mean posting like a grand imperial wizard or jk rowling, no, but i'm pretty comfortable reading between the lines with his retweets of culture warriors and childless woman panic and woke mind virus dei shit, given that this was a nominally public facing twitter with job titles and shit

      • GreatDong3000@lemm.ee
        ·
        edit-2
        4 hours ago

        Yeah man, you all were completely enlightened at 24. No shit views in any aspect whatsoever. Born well-read, class-aware and a radical leftist at 23 coming from a rich family. Come on.

        In fact, none of your worldviews have changed since you were 24 and you did not grow as a person since then. Because you of course did not need to learn and grow, you reached peak leftist enlightment at 23 and then never changed a bit.

        • hello_hello [comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 hours ago

          Born well-read, class-aware and a radical leftist at 23 coming from a rich family.

          You know those same people don't have to post and circulate manosphere + anti-woke and extremely racist (see his Japan posts on x dot com) content. This man literally cheers for US hegemony and he doesn't make any class connection. He wants to read Unabomber and Ayn Rand and doesn't have any history other than his assassination. His adventurism was done out of some Postal-esque rage, which is an extremely White yankee thing to do.

          • GreatDong3000@lemm.ee
            ·
            4 hours ago

            Yes, and look around at all the discussions going on in every social media and in real life too. That's ultimately what he has done while you and other people watch breadtube and comment on lemmy changing absolutely nothing.

    • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]
      ·
      5 hours ago

      he was 24 lol i don't buy this line of defence at all. 2 years out of college is hardly a baby, yeah actually something is wrong if you're still a right wing culture warrior at that point in your life. if he was 19 or something i could take it as some level of excuse but come on.