Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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For the shoplifting thing, it depends which store it is. Big chain grocery store? Yeah, I couldn't care less what someone takes. Small single owner shop? Fuck you for stealing from that guy. Those stores struggle enough just trying to compete with the Walmarts of the world.
Stealing food? I didn't see shit.
Absolutely yes, but also, choose your targets. Walmart ain't gonna miss it. The local bodega will.
People who shoplift are only considering a single factor: what's the likelihood this store ends up caring and puts me in jail eventually.
Turns out, plenty of stores will NEVER stop you provided you dont exceed a certain dollar amount or try to walk off with large appliances.
Its not hard to find a stores policy around theft and prevention.
Its a coincidence that big box stores are stolen from more, not a moral thing.
When the food is multiple grocery bags full of steaks I'm a little less inclined to a charitable view.
That said, I'm still not going to do anything about it. Intervening on the behalf of a grocery store is insane, even if I were opposed to what's happening. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
"Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, otherwise we'd get along!"
Riffraff! Street rat! I don't buy that! If only they'd look closer… Would they see a poor boy? No, siree They'd find out there's so much more to me
Wal mart is still the one and only store I used to steal from back in 90’s. Had to wear umbro shorts since they had that webbing in them and then grab a few CDs and beads to make necklaces that I would sell. By the time I got to high school I was over the shop lifting thing.
Much like pirating Nintendo games, it is morally correct to shoplift from Walmart, assuming you have the skill to get away with it.
Plus it was the only way I could get CDs with explicit lyrics like Rage Against the Machine
Most stores don't stop you. The security guards are just there for the police report and a description. That said, if you get recognized coming back to the same store, they will call the cops.
If there's a police report, you didn't get away with it unless you're never going to that store again. Which is probably not usually the case.