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.

Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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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submitted 3 months ago by BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world to c/leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Pertaining to this meme and subject, yes.

Despite having less than a quarter of China's population, the U.S. also has the highest overall prison population at more than two million. China's is approximately 1.7 million. Globally, the U.S. accounts for 4% of the population and 25% of prisoners.

Some context:

Not only does the U.S. have the highest incarceration rate in the world; every single U.S. state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any independent democracy on earth. To be sure, states like New York and Massachusetts appear progressive in their incarceration rates compared to states like Louisiana, but compared to the rest of the world, every U.S. state relies too heavily on prisons and jails to respond to crime.

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

the US is a terrible example for incarceration rates in any case.

The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide (per data released in October 2021 by World Prison Brief). This number is equivalent to roughly 25% of the world's total prison population and leads to an incarceration rate of 629 people per 100,000—the highest rate in the world.

The Uyghur situation is immaterial to the original comment of whether socialism works.

China considers the country socialist.

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Weird way to defend capitalism and the prison industrial complex.

The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems. source

The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Concerning the International Situation

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What does that have to do with there discussion at hand?

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but what does that have to do with China being or not being socialist? Or are you saying socialism needs to be authoritarian?

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nothing and everything. I’m saying we should do whatever can fix this.

[–] accideath@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

No argument from me on that.