this post was submitted on 28 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).
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.
7. 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
(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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Is it wrong to call a Nazi a Nazi? No and it should be done regularly.
For 16+ years I've been watching the divisions grow. It started with the covert racism of the tea party and birtherism and in 2015 an orange turd slid down an escalator and brought it all out into the open, making it ok to identify people as rapists and murders based on where they are from and the color of their skin.
There has always existed "others" to those who need to have someone to blame or someone to punch down and there always will be. But I liked it better when they weren't so empowered. "Democracy dies in darkness" but so does hate.
It used to be that not knowing how to spell potato or not wanting to eat broccoli was enough to damage a political reputation. To say that you don't like the man who divides and insults, funnels tax money to his pockets, attacks women verbally and physically, and threatens the security of our nation and our allies'; but still vote for him is insanity. At this point I can only conclude that his supporters embrace the racism, are willfully ignorant, view him as a useful idiot, or a bit of it all.
End rant. I didn't want to actually add to the divide, but finding common ground is nearly impossible.
I'm happy to vote for Harris. A person who supports all Americans regardless of how they identify in any way. I am excited to have someone who will fight for equality. Someone who understands that income and wealth disparity is failing lower and middle classes.
Harris is not perfect, but perfect for me won't be for someone else, so searching for perfect is a losing hand.
I agree things used to be more... sensible? But the issue I take here is the bit about hate. It does not die in darkness. It festers. It may be forgotten and quaint by the time it boils back up, but it remains. The best resolution to hate is enlightenment and education, but that is a difficult and involved commitment, which doesn't suit our particular need to fight the nearest alligator at all times. The greater risk comes when we've forgotten about the hate because we were busy with something else.
You're right it doesn't die, but it is suffocated a bit in my experience. When it is not okay to be hateful, when people actually are not comfortable putting their hatred out there, it doesn't spread as easily.