this post was submitted on 01 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.
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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.
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.
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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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We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
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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.
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Imperialist ≠ fascist
America was often imperialist, only had periods of fascist political movements and has been transitioning for a while.
they are not the same thing per se, but imperialism is a fascist strategy. genociding brown people or otherwise oppressing them for money sounds pretty fascistic to me.
its just that its on a worldwide stage now, so the in-group is even more insulated from seeing it.
Racism is not fascism. Imperialism is not fascism. Nationalism isn't facism. They are characteristics that sometimes or often lead to facism. Facism has a fairly explicit definition. Things can be a part of each other and overlap each other without being each other.
If I make a snowman, that doesn't mean that the carrot is a snowman or every snow sphere is a snowman. You can say that when you see me laying out the carrot with 3 balls of snow and a hat, it is leading to a snowman, but it has not always been a snowman.
But yes, facism is a huge danger and on the rise all over the world. Not even just in white western countries either.
when racism, imperialism and nationalism have been a main part of a given country's identity for decades, yea thats fascism, and its precisely my point here!
don't forget US segregation laws inspired the nazi treatment of the jews, and you havent changed much in that aspect since then, honestly. i don't even need to say anything about nationalism, even americans can see it clear as the day. these things don't lead to fascism, they are the alarm bells.
fascism is rising outside the west because of how tight of a grip you have on us and how you meddle with our electoral system (eg. imposing dictatorships on us). milei is widely and openly supported by western institutions. brazil has seen a lot of meddling for bolsonaro to succeed, also somewhat in the open. i could go on about this one.
What is it with Europeans and making up lies about America to make themselves feel superior?
It's been 85 years since WWII. I like to think we've made at least some social progress in that time. We've stopped segregating, for a start. Affirmative action is the latest thing U.S. conservatives are up in arms about which means we must be doing something right. And say what you will about slavery in America but we did not murder them en masse.
I beg to differ. Sure, there's a certain demographic that loves their guns and their trucks and their flags and their homophobia, but they're far from the majority. Most Americans I've met actively despise them. I'd also question whether nationalists ("my country is the best so your country should become part of mine") as opposed to patriots ("I love my country and want to work to make it better by copying ideas from yours") have been present in any meaningful capacity before the Cold War. I'm also not at all sure it was present in any meaningful capacity between the end of the Cold War and 2015.
i'm not european
Good to know. Can I assume everything else I said is correct?