this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Lefty Memes

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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

Version without spoilers

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


That means 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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think that makes you a leftist who hasn’t yet realized that liberalism doesn’t want many of those things.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most Americans still don't realize there's a difference. I've been hoping the recent conflict in the Middle East would wake some people up to the major differences between libs and leftists - it sure did for me.

Leftists are literally losing their job for not supporting Israel and yet liberals are still out here confused about what's even going on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Liberals prefer negative peace - the absence of conflict - over positive justice.

If you prefer positive justice, you aren't a liberal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like liberalism can go fuck itself too if they don't care about trans/gay rights, etc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They care about them in a performative way. The minute it stands in their way or they can’t use it as a tool to get your support to gain or maintain power they will immediately drop the act. Before Oberfell even Obama wouldn’t give a clear statement of support for gay marriage because it was seen as political poison.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

They care about them in a performative way. The minute it stands in their way or they can’t use it as a tool to get your support to gain or maintain power they will immediately drop the act.

Standing up for trans acceptance and rights is the right thing to do but it is by no means a winner of a political platform:

The public is divided over the extent to which our society has accepted people who are transgender: 38% say society has gone too far in accepting them, while a roughly equal share (36%) say society hasn’t gone far enough. About one-in-four say things have been about right. Underscoring the public’s ambivalence around these issues, even among those who see at least some discrimination against trans people, a majority (54%) say society has either gone too far or been about right in terms of acceptance.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/americans-complex-views-on-gender-identity-and-transgender-issues/

Democrats haven't dropped it yet, despite anti-trans sentiment being one of the Right's favorite things to rally around.