this post was submitted on 19 Jul 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, 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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[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

That lack of nuance is not helpful. There are plenty of liberals that would like a more balanced economy.

Edit: I’m tired of everyone's "that’s not socialism." You have to get people behind it. That requires taking steps. You aren’t going to bitch at reasonable people online to wake up one day and we’ve made the full conversion.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 9 points 4 months ago

"More balanced" I.E. "we can compromise with it"

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"More balanced" means Capitalism with safety nets, right? That's not Socialism.

[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sure but I don’t think we are just going to flip a switch tomorrow and the country will be socialist. You have to start somewhere and get support. When we show people how good it is for the working class, they will push with us.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 months ago

You're partially correct. You can't get there via the existing Capitalist system, you have to build up dual power via organizing. The Capitalist system will dangle treats like Carrots but never allow the system itself to change from within.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

A balanced economy is not socialism. Socialism means the democratic control over the economy by the workers. To have democratic control over the economy, workers must control the means of production. You cannot "balance" that with capitalism.