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.)
view the rest of the comments
For those who don't seem to get it:
No, this meme does not mean that you can't temporarily halt fascist electoral victory, but rather that fighting symptoms and portraying that as a "victory over fascism" completely disregard the root cause (as liberalism often does)...
Tho I'm ngl, the NFP seems to be pretty based, at least relative to the usual neolib bs
ie.: Fascism is a built-in function of capitalism and thus bourgeois "democracy". Capitalism turns to fascism when threatened, so as long as you aren't ready to give up the private ownership of the economy, you will not be able to get rid of fascism (paraphrasing Bertolt Brecht here)
sheesh, I often forget, that libs and revisionists actually believe in bourgeois democracy. If you are open to changing your mind I can recommend "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxenburg
EDIT: @[email protected] made me aware of an ebook-specific link
I had to read that a couple of times before I understood what you are trying to say. At first glance, it seemed like you were calling democracy itself bourgeois, but I think you meant it as a specific thing that isn’t actual democracy… e.g. it’s an illusion of democracy because capitalism gives the wealthy the ability to steer the whole ship, as it were. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.
I'm glad you took the time to read and understand it in good faith!
And yes, under bourgeois "democracy" (be it multiparty or bi/mono party dominant) you only get to choose between various representatives of capital
The system and it's laws are inherently designed in such a way, that no matter whom you elect, you still live under the dictatorship of capital
Exactly that. Capitalism is incompatible with democracy.
It seems so. Capitalism fundamentally unequal, which is opposite of real democracy.
Found it If you click on author name it only gives you the web version, for epub you need to go to this page:
https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/#ebooksinenglish
thx for providing the link!
(I don't frequent marxists.org, since I get all my ebooks through Anna's archive)
I've learned that using the term "bourgeois" just confuses half of liberals and convinces the other half that you must be a tankie - I just call it liberal democracy and they get it (it does send them into reactionary fits, though).
That just exposes them as being politically illiterate reactionaries and staunch defenders of capital
Those who are open-minded will interact in good faith and ask for clarification (the thread of my overarching comment might be an example)
1st of all there is no such thing as a communist country, as communism describes a state-, money- and classless society.
Then I think you are conflating two very different things: what I think you are alluring to, simply describes a more centralised and ruthless approach at achieving and keeping alive a revolution. (and arguably betraying it, but that does not constitute fascism)
Fascism is a very different thing. Basically it's the act of "unifying" a group of people or nation against a caricature of a "common enemy". It seeks the suppression of proletarian class struggle by forcing collaboration and integrating society into one "corpus". Corporatism is a core tenant of fascism, which is (imo) very well depicted through unions being forced to merge with (or be disbanded into) private companies, because "such distinctions are obsolete when we stand united as one Volk". Those class distinctions never disappear, but the whole charade is basically based on that premise.
Ofc this all serves the protection of capital by fooling the working masses and suppressing labour or simply "undesirable" elements of society...
Communism involves, almost by definition, a centrally planned economy. That isn't really possible without a state.
Socialism can involve that (decentralised planning is possible)
In communism - as there is no need for the suppression of reactionary classes anymore - the socialist state ceases to exist in terms of what we know as a "state"
Administration of the economy can and will still exist in the post-"socialist world republic" (ie. communist) world
A Leninist should perhaps open a dictionary instead of trying to redefine words.
An Anarchist has clearly never worked in any group setting I'm familiar with.