this post was submitted on 23 Apr 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).

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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] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

While I hate the current state of affairs around housing, some people do lose the plot and forget that some people prefer/need to rent and that rent cant just be the mortgage payment because they're on the hook for repairs, not you.

Landlords aren't inherently the problem, they're a symptom of ALL property owners completely shutting down new development for over 50 years.

I agree with these ideas but we also need to fund development of new housing, and if anyone wants to complain instead of shutting it down extend an offer to buy their house so they can leave.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

we also need to fund development of new housing

Hells yeah. That's why one of the ideas above was that the government should be a significant force in housing. Part of that might be buying up existing homes, but a lot would be funding the construction of new homes.

I didn't mention it above because while related, I considered it out of scope for that comment. But I'm also a fierce advocate for abolishing low-density zoning entirely. What my city calls "LMR" (low-medium residential) should be the bare minimum zone for residential areas. That still permits single-family separated homes to be built, but it also automatically permits 2–3 storey townhouses and apartments. Plus zoning areas near (say, within a 400 m walk of) train stations for medium-density residential. (All mixed-use, of course.)

But this isn't [email protected] or [email protected], so I'll leave it at that for now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We also need to look at how mortgage applications are handled. Like if you can pay 3k a month in rent for 2 years (not saying 2 years should be the requirement, just that if you happen to have that history) and can prove it, you should qualify for a mortgage that costs 3k a month.

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

The idea that affording $3k also means you can afford a $3k mortgage falls under what I'm saying about people swinging too far in the other direction - affording $3k in rent =/= affording a $3k mortgage plus taxes/insurance plus upkeep etc etc.

That being said our credit system is 100% busted. Engaging in predatory lending to build a credit score should not be the only way to "prove" financial fitness. Just because I pay my credit cards off every month doesn't mean I don't still waste like $300/mo on doordash 🤣