this post was submitted on 17 Apr 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

Version without spoilers

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).


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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The free market will regulate itself! We’ll all have open and fair access

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You’re at the magical thinking “And then of course we will all…” crutch that a lot of philosophies lean on

Capitalism: We’ll deregulate and open the market to everyone, and then there will be “perfect competition” in a “free market”

Communism: We have state socialism until society is prepared, and then transition to communism

Anarchism: We won't have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns. And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We won’t have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns.

Yes, by definition that's how anarchism works. If if wasn't like this, it wouldn't be anarchism. Not sure why this is a difficult concept to handle.

And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!

Nobody said that external dangers are not a potential issue, but the plan is to oppose them. Not a difficult concept to grasp either.

[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

I have fringe anarcho-syndicalist politics, I understand the theory. I also understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, and while our happy anarchy-commune/whatever of 3,000 aligned people may build mutual aid tranquillity in our area, others may not. And those others may choose banditry, and your stuff instead of working for food.

So our commune/syndicate/etc form a defensive structure/organization to stop/prevent them - you just created a military/police class of “most equals”. Who will need a command structure for doing the ‘gun/bat meet aggressor’ functions, and some kind of special remit from the community. Or we say no dedicated force and the classes it brings, and use the irregulars/militia model instead. Which has so many issues on so many different aspects that’s it’s not worth me typing out.

Ffs go read Hobbes’ Leviathan