this post was submitted on 19 Oct 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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[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee -2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

The people advocating to accelerate the decline and break the system so they can have their revolution have no idea how many vulnerable people will be killed in the process, nor do they care.

I would suggest that they look to Syria, and perhaps Myanmar.

There's no reason to assume that things will get better after a collapse; things are just as likely, or more likely, to get worse. Right now goddamn near half of the voting public in America wants a guy as president that has told us that he's going to make things worse for nearly everyone. Meditate on that.

If the system isn't changing, you need to put in the time to convince people at the grass-roots level. You need a ground game; you can't expect that Jill Stein is going to swoop in and save us all, and then act butt-hurt when her campaign fails for the third time in three presidential election cycles.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

People are already being killed by the system. Millions are. It's just not you yet.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 0 points 5 hours ago

I'm not going to end up getting killed either way, because I'm not an at risk person. I'm white, and I can do a very good job cosplaying as a christian nationalist, because that's the kind of home I was raised in. And I can just as easily be comfortable with leftists, because that's what I've been for 20-odd years (although the label keeps changing). On the other hand, my Jewish, Muslim, and Satanist friends, my LGBTQ+ friends, my non-white friends, they're going to suffer and die because of accelerationist fantasies.

You want to actually see improvement? Start building community locally, expand that into real local political power, and then grow that. It's real work, harder than being a keyboard warrior. You'll quickly discover that the very messy job of politics is building consensus and compromising. ...Which you should already know, considering how excellent leftist groups are at forming circular firing squads.

[–] Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

The system isn't broken, it's "fixed"

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Beautiful .... the cost analysis of either renovating an old house .... or tearing it down and building a new one

[–] mc900ftJesus@lemy.lol 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Except the house is armed and actively trying to suppress you.

[–] basmati@lemmus.org 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You've clearly never had to remodel a mid century house. Asbestos and lead paint or lead pipes guaranteed. Not to mention what boomers considered routine repairs; none of them had the slightest idea what they were doing, especially electrically.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

This comment cuts deep.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Sure but houses typically don't resist change and also don't make up the fundamental basis of our organization of production and labor. You can't reform a system dependant on exploitation to one that isn't. You have to make a non-exploitative system to replace it.

[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world -4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

So not fixed, destroyed? So what's in its place, anarchy?

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 day ago

Ideally: Yes.

[–] AutomaticUpdates@monero.town 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

No. Cause North American kids only think they know what that is but they don't. Communism in it's ideal form is impossible.. It requires humans to be selfless and share equally. That is not human nature and will never ever happen. Now I grew up under a communist regime who raped, pillaged and burned their way to the capital before taking power and becoming just as corrupt and greedy as the previous government.

So I've actually lived under a communist regime and it was no different than a fascist one. So I dunno what the hell you kids think a communist country looks like. You have this weird utopian ideal that is never ever going to happen

[–] AutomaticUpdates@monero.town 1 points 17 hours ago

Cause North American kids only think they know what that is but they don't.

So it's not a classless society? Also not an American kid btw

Communism in it's ideal form is impossible.. It requires humans to be selfless and share equally. That is not human nature and will never ever happen.

Funny you say that when humans since their very existence cared for their disabled/elderly and formed social relationships trough gifts and gratitude and not for monetary gain.

In fact, lonelyness and the pain associated with it are a protective mechanism, as people were much less likely to survive alone outside the group:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3874845/

https://www.amazon.de/Loneliness-Human-Nature-Social-Connection-ebook/dp/B00421BN3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540372258&sr=8-1&keywords=Human+nature+and+the+need

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04930-1

Our 'human nature' is to not be an egotistical asshole as that leads to social isolation

It's actually Capitalism that promotes egotistical and psychopathic behaviour, because you are competing against everyone in order to someday be more wealthy than someone else. Statements like this are burgouis propaganda to preserve the status quo.

So I've actually lived under a communist regime and it was no different than a fascist one. So I dunno what the hell you kids think a communist country looks like.

Actually Communist/Socialist, for a start. With strong democratic institutions.

Dictatorships will always try to preserve their power at the expense of anything else.

You have this weird utopian ideal that is never ever going to happen

Better to have an ideal and fight for a better future than being a defeatist geriatric. Or what do you propose as an alternative?

[–] Urist@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

Well, older people telling kids what are the limitations on how the world can change is not new and has shown historically to be of little epistemological value.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A working good enough mix.