this post was submitted on 24 May 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.

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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.


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That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.


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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.


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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.



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[–] the_doktor@lemmy.zip 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Exactly. This is what I cannot understand from all these "true hyper-leftist" people. You do realize that the future of the USA is at stake here, and that our system is fundamentally rigged to not allow any real alternative as a choice, right? Your brain-dead "BIDEN BAD VOTE THIRD PARTY" is just going to enable Trump and then you'll never be able to vote for anyone ever again as you are forced to participate in alt-right Trump rallies every single day and post on the Trumpernet about how much you love Trump. This isn't much of an exaggeration -- this where they want to go if Trump wins.

You're not supporting Biden. This isn't how our vote works. You're voting for the person less likely to fundamentally fuck our country up. And in case you still don't quite understand who this is, that is Biden.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 19 points 6 months ago (4 children)

The largest current of leftists aren't saying you cannot vote for Biden, and that you should vote third party, but that ultimately change comes from outside the electoral system.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately unless a revolution falls into our laps and magically solves all our problems, the modicum of control we have over the steering of this ship is limited to voting and advocating for others to vote

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Can we safely encourage Republicans to vote 3rd party?

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They’ll never accept that, because they fundamentally see nothing wrong with the system. They want to preserve the broken machine, even if it doesn’t work for them. They think changing the oil will repair it, when it was designed to break.

[–] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

More like we don't want to crash our only car when we don't have another means of transportation, and oops, now we can't get to work.

It's great to say "the system is broken and must be replaced." I agree! But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system or to prevent something even worse from taking over once the system is destroyed.

Everyone gave the GOP shit for screaming about how Obamacare needs to be "repealed and replaced" but never saying what it should be replaced with (though that was because the "replace" part was a lie and they just wanted to go back to the bad old days of people being trapped in a job or entirely unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition). It's the same thing with people saying the entire system of government needs to be replaced.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But nobody who says that, me included, has ever had anything resembling an actual plan to replace the system

There are numerous other models of government being practiced all over the world. Choose one of them (I would recommend Swiss democracy).

[–] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's all well and good to say "choose another system of governance" but how do we implement this change? What is the mechanism under which we can replace our current system of government with Swiss democracy, without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit? The only method I can think of is a constitutional convention, and right now we're closer to the right wing being able to call one and rewrite it to take pur rights back 200 years than we are to leftists implementing Swiss democracy.

Like... I would be thrilled if that were within the realm of possibility, but as it stands any possible options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists. That's what I mean when I say I've never seen an actual plan by leftists to overhaul the system--it's all arguing about what the sexy end goal should be, without bothering to talk about the boring minutiae of how to actually get to it. So far as I can tell, the "plan" to make all these needed changes, so far as any thought is put into it at all, is just a silent assumption of either "we lobby our politicians and they do what we tell them and nobody opposes our ideas" or "we do a violent revolution and kill all the bad guys without harming the good guys and we definitely win and accomplish our goal without someone else taking advantage of the chaos to do a fascism instead," depending on how radical the change is.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

how do we implement this change?

Constitutional amendments

without the old government just saying "lolno" and bombing it to shit?

Make sure the old government doesn't have enough votes.

options for dramatically overhauling our system of governance is more likely to lurch us straight into permanent hard-right minority rule by a bunch of fascists.

Agreed, but it doesn't have to be like that.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

They think changing the oil will repair it, when it was designed to break.

That’s what I said.

[–] the_doktor@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not the point. Trump needs to be defeated, and the way we're going to do that is voting for Biden. There's no other way. It's not going to happen. You are absolutely deluded if you think there is another way.

After we fend off the Trump bullshit, then, yes, we have to make actual change to push us much further left. I don't get how all the ultra-leftists cannot fathom this simple fact.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

After we fend off the Trump bullshit, then, yes, we have to make actual change to push us much further left.

That was the lie in 2020 and it didn't fucking happen. Now Biden is supporting genocide and we still gotta vote for him.

[–] the_doktor@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 months ago

Because Trump is still a fucking threat, you assclown. His cronies are still in office. We are going to have to keep fighting this fight where it needs to be fought, then when that fight is done, THEN we push to the actual left. Is this so goddamn fucking hard for you "LOL DONT VOTE BIDEN SO TRUMP CAN BE PRESIDENT AGAIN" fucktwaddlers to understand?

[–] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not American dawg. I hate biden as much as I want. Let me hate.

[–] Xanis@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Nah, everyone is free to hate. However, support from others on this planet against Trump is also important. To some degree we all affect one another and his rise into the seat again would directly impact a LOT of people, even outside the U.S.

BUT

I'm hoping that there is now enough anger and frustration for us to carry the momentum past the voting gates and straight into very strong pressure towards all politicians. This IS fixable. The message is there, even if it will result in violence from our militarized police force.