this post was submitted on 20 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.

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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[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

nah i just can't fucking stomach the fact that everytime a political debate happens and i bitch about politics being a shitty machine that shits out dysfunctional rhetoric and polices for the purposes of preventing actual real change from happening.

Because it fucking is, people lose their shit and call me any number of insults, including telling me to literally "kill myself" because apparently, having semi nuanced viewpoints is bad.

[–] GnomeKat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You can't escape politics, its baked into everything. You are expressing political views right now even as you claim otherwise. Even complete dissociation from society is a political choice. Its childish to try and escape from it, an abdication of our responsibility to others.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

yeah, that's my problem with it.

It's fucking everywhere. At the very least if we're going to fucking deal with it every day, i'd prefer it do things that actually exist, rather than boogeyman level shit that it currently tends to do right now.

It may be childish to try and escape from it, but falling with a failing system is equally as bad.

[–] GnomeKat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I feel like there is a subtle missunderstanding of my point. Its not that there is politics and then there is everything else.. its all political, everything, anything humans care about at all is politics.

There is no escape from it because its everything. Buy a bottle of water, that political, drive to work, that's political, play a game of dnd with your friends, thats political, jerk off alone in the forest where no one anywhere will ever see or know, guess what.. political.

Politics is the collective struggle to decide what we will and will not do, what we can and can not do, our values. Anything and everything you care about is political. Even if its something you take for granted and don't think about ever, the fact that you can take it for granted is political.

There isn't less or more politics at any given time, only less or more acknowledgement of the political realities at that time. Its everything.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

its all political, everything, anything humans care about at all is politics.

yeah, i think that's the problem, there is a fundamental misapplication of politics. I also dont fundamentally agree with that assertion, arguably dying is not a politically relevant act. You could argue that being born is influenced by politics i suppose. But even then there's a layer of separation, or two.

[–] GnomeKat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You think dying isn't a politically relevant act?

i mean, you can kill yourself, which can be politically relevant, but i don't think dying of natural causes is politically relevant in any sense of the action, yeah.

[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Being told to kill ones self over slight nuances is childish, says more about them then you.

But like someone else has said politics is inescapable.

Man is by nature a political animal

Aristotle.

Everything that makes you and everything that will make you, is political. even if I choose to live in a forest on my own without contact would be a political choice and further actions born from that choice would continue to be political.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

even given that fact, we've created science, and managed to create some of the most advanced, and incredible things in the world. Our level of technical complexity is unmatched by anything in our observable universe, to our knowledge.

I'm not sure it's impossible to consider politics, without politics. Even if just for the purpose of a thought experiment.

[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe its the broadness of the word politics. As its extensive and easy to get hooked up on politics being old men farting in a room deciding on whether or not to rase the retirement age.

In that case I understand what your saying, so if we sent children to colonise another planet and these children miraculously had no understanding of prior generation or the world they'd come from we would soon see a system form akin to politics most likely archaic but would continue to evolve and would govern the lives of generations, this colony would most likely (if they survive) go on to create science, maths and build systems to interpret the world around them and all this governed by politics.

The way i like to conceptualize it, is that governance is independent from politics. Politics is meta governance.

Technically politics refers to the whole of it, but let's be honest, that's not particularly helpful here.