this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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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:

(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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[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But to say that reforms, especially liberal reforms who even fail to see capitalism as the root problem, are good because someone is at least doing something is just as wrong.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying do the work or put the effort into help sell people on and direct them to better action. Critique is easy, solutions are not, and this post doesn’t really propose solutions. It feels like red meat for people who want to go “liberal reforms are nonsense amirite?” - notice how most comments are functionally just nodding along or just giving this post the same dismissal in kind. Ridiculing well-intentioned people with a pikachu joke and then walking away is worse than inaction, frankly. If your goal is buy-in, I’m seeing quite the opposite, which is unfortunately a kind of post that is generally rewarded online. Yet I imagine we both want to see meaningful change!

Let me ask you this: why was this posted? What was the goal?

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Critique is easy, solutions are not, and this post doesn’t really propose solutions

someone posted a photo of you earlier

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

come on now, that's not good conduct!

Please refrain from ad hominem/personal insults in the future, I would like for this community to be in the image of rule 1

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do that with ppl who make right wing and/or troll "contributions". A singular lapse of judgement or lashing out - between socialists - does not warrant more than a warning imo

Repeated toxic behaviour, however, will be handled differently

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Lol, so they get to sealion and gish gallop, but pointing out that what they are doing isn't productive is somehow the problem? ok...

(E: also it's not an ad hominem, I didn't attack anything about them, but the point they were literally making)

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

that is not what I said. If you want to constructively point out flaws in other peoples' argumentation, feel free to do so. Friendly discourse in the comments is more than welcome!

It's the insulting/ad hominem or using/painting caricatures that I cannot abide

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

reacting to the edit: Maybe using caricatures to point things out isn't best practice

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

If this is the path we are going down then I'm not really in the mood to continue this conversation. Have a good one man.

[–] gxgx55@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The meme about liberals is also applying that same kind of logic, so I guess it's all just petty insult flinging in the end. Proves hoodatninja right nicely.