this post was submitted on 17 Jun 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.
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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.
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That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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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.
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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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Socialism ends up causing all the problems you think it's gonna solve. Name one time in history that it was successful.
What on Earth are you talking about? This is utterly vibes based.
Socialism factually does work this way.
I completely agree with you on ACAB in capitalist countries, for the same reasons you mentioned, but cops in "actually existing socialist" countries like Russian and China are no better. They still use authoritarian violence to oppress anyone who steps out of line with the will of the State. There are many, many historic and more contemporary examples of socialist countries using the [secret] police and/or troops to quell dissent from unions, anarchists, and other leftist groups, because anyone who protests the actions of the State, no matter how legitimately, is considered to be an enemy of the State, whether that State is capitalist or not.
Russia the Russian Federation, or Russia the USSR? Very different deal there.
Either way, I feel like this is vibes based analysis. Committing crime is illegal, yes. Even Anarchists like in Revolutionary Catalonia punished criminals, even putting them in labor camps. Would ACAB apply to Anarchists? No, I would argue not, just like I would say ACAB wouldn't directly apply to a Socialist State.
The difference between Capitalism and Socialism is stark, a Socialist State is run by the Workers, rather than a Capitalist State run by the bourgeoisie. An analysis of Capitalism, it's accumulation-based nature, and how this impacts the state, is necessary analysis.
What do you think of Chekism?
In theory. Never works in practice.
Socialism works in theory and practice, Capitalism does not.
Capitalism works if the systems goal is to accumulate wealth to monopolies and the capitalists.
It does not, because it contains within itself the necessity of its decline due to factors like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall.
We can always colonize other planets, if they exist. /s
China, Cuba, Vietnam…
Those are your success stories? Fucking laughable how stupid you are.
Pertaining to this meme and subject, yes.
Some context:
For one, the US is a terrible example for incarceration rates in any case. If you look at Europe, the incarceration rate on average is very comparable and in many Western European countries like Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. it’s closer to half that, sometimes even less than half.
And also, China has a comparatively huge number of political prisoners and some places in China (particularly where a lot of Uyghurs happen to live) have incarceration rates of more than 3700 per 100000.. That’s a lot higher than the US and more than double than even the US‘s incarceration happiest state Louisiana with ~1400/100000.
And even ignoring that, I wouldn’t use China as a great example for a socialist state either, for the reasons that they have a totalitarian government that doesn’t like it very much if you don’t like them and that they very much do take part in capitalism, being the worlds cheap production plant.
The Uyghur situation is immaterial to the original comment of whether socialism works.
China considers the country socialist.
If the uyghur situation is immaterial then so is incarceration rate in general. Especially since there are a bunch of capitalist countries with a significantly lower incarceration rate than China.
And if they say they’re socialist it must of course be true. Authoritarian regimes have never misrepresented themselves ever. /s
Weird way to defend capitalism and the prison industrial complex.
The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry
I‘m not defending capitalism, I’m just saying that China shouldn‘t be the system we praise as a good example.
The same way, I’m not defending the PIC or the US‘s incarceration rates. I’m just saying, if you want a positive example for how prisons should be run, don’t look at a state that currently runs concentration camps. Look at countries with actually low incarceration rates like the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands, that place their focus on reintegration not punishment, don’t have political prisoners, treat their inmates like human beings and also generally don’t have privately run prisons that "need" to be profitable.
What does that have to do with there discussion at hand?
ACAB because they police property-rights for capitalism, increasing inequality. Social Democracies seek to lessen the inequality through compromise with capitalists. Capitalism employs fascism to continue wealth accumulation. The world burns. Capitalism Can’t Solve Climate Change, so it must be discarded.
Sure, but what does that have to do with China being or not being socialist? Or are you saying socialism needs to be authoritarian?
Nothing and everything. I’m saying we should do whatever can fix this.
No argument from me on that.
All of those examples were successful in comparison to what came before. The ROC had a life expectancy in the 30's, and made no effort to address the basic needs of the vast majority of Chinese people. Cuba had a corrupt, authoritarian gangster state under Batista. Vietnam was suffering under brutal colonial rule. Under socialism, life expectancy, literacy, food security, and medical access rose dramatically and greatly improved the lives of the people living in these places.
So yes, they are success stories, they objectively solved many of the problems they were trying to solve and improved people's lives across a wide number of metrics.
lol. Got live in China. Tell me how that works out for ya. So stupid.
The Western world got a headstart through centuries of colonialism and slavery, while China, Cuba, and Vietnam were all victims of that exploitation. Of course somewhere like Vietnam, that was subject to extreme exploitation and then bombed to smithereens, with Agent Orange dropped everywhere, is going to have some challenges developing, especially when they then face economic sanctions from powerful nations afterwards. Yet, as I said, all of those nations performed remarkably well despite that serious adversity. When the communists first came to power in China, life expectancy was about 35, while it was nearly double that in the US, now, their life expectancy has even exceeded ours.
Western nations remain wealthier due to continued exploitation of the third world, and I'm afraid I don't have the means to immigrate. I am grateful for your highly intelligent and informed response to my points, though.
Go live there.
"Oh, you don't like America? Well why don't you go live in [country America bombed]"