Lefty Memes
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
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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
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.
- 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
view the rest of the comments
We think it's more pointing out that democracy itself is flawed. Tyranny of the majority.
'Democracy' does not mean 'first past the post election of a single executive agent, pre-vetted by local oligarchs.'
The inability to imagine, see in history, or see in the world today other systems of decision making by the people reads as unimaginative to the point of being disingenuous bad faith bullshit.
We are aware what it means and honestly, we genuinely believe that in many cases democracy is not the best fit for making decisions. So no, not in fact bad faith, ignoring your ridiculous and pointless attempts at insulting us without even knowing us.
It's okay for us to hold different opinions, doesn't mean we are incorrect.
So... Monarchy? Oligarchy? What's your solution?
Because im pretty sure i take offense. How dare you tell me i don't deserve either autonomy or an equal voice in my governance.
No. No there's no civil disagreement on that point. Even the fucking tankies have the pretense of democratic centralism.
Since you asked, even though it seems coming at it from bad faith then there's many forms of non democratic decision making or even systems which get on well without making decisions that don't fall in to oligarchy or monarchy or other forms of near ir actual authoritarianism.
Consensus, which could be seen as near democracy, but isn't democracy since it requires all those making a decision to agree completely, not based on majority rule.
Some forms of anarchism do not really believe in democratic or oligarchic rule and don't rely on any kind of formalised decision making.
Counter to popular belief there was a time in history before the creation of democracy which was not oligarchic or authoritarian etc (though I'm sure some may argue it was) which was based on asking elders who had knowledge and wisdom about what to do in certain situations, like harsh winters etc. It probably continues today in some form. Today and in the past it is/was usually as equally non authoritarianism based since if they stopped being trustworthy then they stopped being listened to. Sadly this is incorrectly often called 'tribal government'.
Then there's also just general co-operation without a formal decision making system.
Finally, for now, there's those that will go there own way if they don't agree with a particular decision, which is a perfectly acceptable way of doing things instead of coming to blows or pointlessly arguing it out.
Here's some further reading and listening for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
https://srslywrong.com/podcast/207-democratize-everything/
https://reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/17zruxr/is_anarchism_antidemocracy/
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/zoe-baker-anarchism-and-democracy
https://libcom.org/article/anarchist-critique-democracy