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
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).
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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.
(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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You're complaining about making the political axis reductive and yet your entire comment completely ignores the existence of actual French leftists during the revolution. The Liberals in France might have helped to begin the revolution, and they were certainly the ones that help to end the revolution, but they weren't the only members of the revolution. They helped to murder and destroy the French left During the Revolution and in the years that came after. Surely you aren't arguing that Babeuf was a liberal? But his mere existence shows the great flaw in your theory. The French liberals were to the right of him and a number of other French revolutionaries. So how could they be the extreme radicals you claim they were?
You can only say that Liberals are the left if you're looking at it solely from the perspective of extreme conservatives and regressives. Yes if that's the only way you view history is through their eyes then everything can look leftist. That does not mean it is though. The Liberals of the American and French Revolution were those that that wished for the culmination and empowerment the burgiose. The ascendancy of the capitalist class. Nobody who works for this ascendancy can be called leftist. You're basically making the Overton window argument. That because we are at a time of extreme right wing thought that centrism would have been only moderately right wing. We know that's not true. Just look at the Shakers in England during their Civil War. A people most would classify as a Proto communist movement.
The concept of Centrism that modern Centrists jerk themselves to sleep over is the idea of "hearing both sides" of an argument and establishing a compromise position.
I'm curious who you think Robespierre was compromising with.