this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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:

(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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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Alternatively, one could disengage from the electoral system and instead focus on actions history has proven effective.

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

I don't have that much fertilizer though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Befriend a farmer.

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

Lol, which wars fought by a democracy are you thinking have been ended by non democratic means?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The failed invasions and colonizations of Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. were ended through brutal defeat despite decades of "democratic" support.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

The post to which I was responding was:

Alternatively, one could disengage from the electoral system and instead focus on actions history has proven effective.

So, going by you Mr answer, are you suggesting the appropriate non electoral response is to go fight in Gaza?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

The New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, Women's Lib, cessation of hostility in Vietnam, the Clean Water Act, the ADA, Lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ummm, all of those came about via democracy?

Edit: Also, most of those weren't wars....

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

None of those were the result of democracy.

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

Are you maybe meaning to comment on another thread or something? Right now it looks like you're trying to claim that "The New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, Women’s Lib, cessation of hostility in Vietnam, the Clean Water Act, the ADA" all of which (except maybe arguably Vietnam) were things passed by popular demand by a democratically elected government...

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

Why did they pass them? You seem to have not studied any history at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There were mass movements that translated to electoral victory... In other words, democracy function led exactly as it should.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Oh no. They were mass movements that performed illegal actions and threatened more. We the People didn't cast votes. We demanded what we deserved with a threat of violence.

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

And then those mass movements resulted in... Yup, democratic change! And frankly, the illegal actions were mostly to stir sympathy because, yes, the key making policy changes was having enough people support your side because, you guessed it, that's how democracy works!

I don't recall the book's name but there's a great account of why the civil rights movement targeted Birmingham in particular and one of the big reasons was they knew the sherrif, Bull Connor, would over-react and over-react violently in a way that would garner sympathy for the movement. (That's how they got the iconic photo of the Black kid getting bitten by the cop dog.) King might have talked about it in Letters from Birmingham jail?

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

Democratic?

US exceptionalism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Hahahahaha. Wrong

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All of those were accomplished through the electoral system though….

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago

None of them were accomplished through the electoral system.