this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
349 points (88.0% liked)
Lefty Memes
4134 readers
791 users here now
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:
- 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.)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Saying both parties are the same is absolutely the same as saying it's meaningless.
No one is saying that. What I'm saying is that saying both parties are the same is helping the bad guys. Criticize the Democrats sure, but also note that all those criticisms apply except worse to the Republicans. Criticize and demand change in a way that helps progressives rather than conservatives.
Consider that Gore would be president if a bunch of goofs hadn't voted for Nader. Consider that we face a very real possibility of another trump presidency because a number of us don't like Biden.
That's just utter nonsense. The logical conclusion is to vote as best you can in the moment, and work for better options next time. Like getting likeminded people involved in the vehicle most likely to carry the necessary changes, in America, that's the Democrats.
It's hard to say Democrats are the ones to make necessary changes when they are in real material terms bringing the whole political sphere to the right by helping the most insane Republicans win primaries. Like Hillary's campaign early on wanted Trump to be the GOP primary winner, what a joke that would have been, they'd look ridiculous! Lots of races around the country have had the same influence, Democrat PACs run ads on behalf of the fascist GOP candidates, it helps them sometimes because they get to say "hey if you don't vote for me you're helping the crazy person over there." Over time it's clear what this is doing though, since the 90s-00s, this is a downward spiral. Change has to come from outside, the more people think the Democrat apparatus is the machine for change the more history will simply repeat itself, further sliding to the right as what's been the case since Reagan. Why would it be different? Bernie was the nail in the coffin, the delegates aren't interested, unless you can replace the delegates there's no hope in the Democrat machine. People need to wake up to this and move on to new organization, and it will happen as people become more desperate and stressed by the degrading conditions of life in the US. I have more hope in the labor movement right now than I do in party politics despite the obligation to vote, that's where the improvements have come from historically anyway.
And did they do anything to make that happen? Right, they didn't.
Yes, in 2020 some of the lunatics were boosted but this is a relatively new phenomenon. And not to mention, is pretty damned strategic and as someone who understands how damaging republicans would be, I'm kind of okay with it.
If you aren't constrained by reality, sure, this is a valid point!
Except Bernie lost the primary vote 43% or so to 55%... Let me ask, this was important to you, did you vote in the democratic primaries? Did you canvas for Bernie? Bring friends to vote? If so, awesome. If not, you, like most folks under 40 once again lost to the people who actually show up and vote. Almost like the younger, more progressive wing keeps buying into stupid ideas like both parties are the same and thus voting is pointless...
(You might be shocked to learn that the labour movement has had most of their victories by gasp getting candidates elected, becoming a force to be reckoned with. Unions were the backbone of the progressive coalition for a long time and had all sorts of victories with, yup, electoral politics. Weird how that works huh?)
Nobody said voting was pointless, it's the bare minimum. Labor organizing provided an outside influence to party politics, the party politics weren't the vehicle for change there. Democrat delegates and members don't want Bernie or class policies, because they aren't a left party, they're a neoliberal capitalist institution supported by and for capital interests. Their branding is what you're talking about when the "vehicle for change" stuff comes out, if they stood by broadly supported left-rooted measures they would say as much, but they don't because it would lose them material support. For political involvement I have had close friends run for office as socialists, and campaigned with them in two elections. I'm also involved in my labor union doing unglamorous work and hopefully as a delegate one day.