this post was submitted on 11 Oct 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
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,
as well as 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).
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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.
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(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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Nah dude a liberal can be right wing and another lib can be left. You can be a liberal soc dem if you want
There is a set definition for what liberalism is.
Because it considers private property a core foundation it literally can’t be left wing. Leftists (whether socialists or anarchists) believe private (not personal) property should be abolished.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum
You don't define what's left and what is right. Most people agree that liberal can mean left, central, right or right wing
I accidently responded to the wrong message last time. In the vast majority of countries Liberal is right wing, America is an outlier because of the red scare. Fundamentally Liberalism isnt left wing, its just the most left wing option Americans have so they they see it as left wing. Fundamentally if you believe in private property, capitalism, few social programs, funding genocide, and imperialism you are a right winger.
(Ex: the German political spectrum)
From your linked article:
Yup. A single set definition alright.🙄
And they all still enshrine the sanctity of private property which was my point when referencing the definition. All the variations of liberalism still boil down to a capitalist ideology.
Again, this meme is suggesting that liberals are against any form of wealth redistribution. Capitalism and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive. Social programs, funded through taxation, is a form of wealth redistribution commonly found in capitalist nations.
Didn’t say you couldn’t attempt some wealth redistribution under capitalism but it’s not really related to what the discussion was. The left/right dichotomy for political economics isn’t based on whether there’s an attempt at wealth redistribution it’s whether the economic system is capitalism.
Also at the end of the day you can try to gain concessions from the capitalist class through social programs but there’s a hard limit on what will be allowed and as soon as the capitalist class is able to they will push for austerity for the working class. It’s been seen numerous times in history.
A liberal’s opinion on wealth redistribution exactly what the meme references, as well as the comment thread you’re responding to.
The specific comment I responded to was talking about whether liberals are leftists.
If you’re asking whether I believe liberals support a little wealth distribution (specific amount depends on the individual) in the form of taxes for social programs I’d say yes the meme isn’t absolutely correct.
I’d also probably recommend to you just to save you time is to not take leftist memes (or any really) as a literal/specific endorsement of a policy or idea, it’s likely an exaggeration.