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!
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.
We still don't know if Hitler's party burned down the Parliament or if it was a convenient coincidence for him. All we know is that there was a fully worked out bill on the president table just a few hours later which uses this extreme circumstance to break the law (and eventually establish a dictatorship). Seems awfully suspicious
Hummmm… I can think of a couple more historical events that follow a similar pattern…
Like the gungan delegation in the senate moving to give Emergency powers to the chancellor
(World's first honest instance of) I'm no racist, but Gungans fucking suck!
True, true..
But it was the (Judeo-)Bolshevists all along! Don't you understand that?!
(obvious /s)
This applies to any justification for breaking the law. If you generate a perverse incentive, someone will take advantage of it
I agree in principle, but I'm not sure what a good alternative is in the US today. In a crisis the laws would have to stay ahead of the executive responses to novel situations, and the legislature couldn't pass a law that fast if there was an angry mob at the door.
Establish a defined set of emergency powers that exist for a predetermined amount of time, with an extremely narrow scope. Which can only be extended for a brief period of time with a 2/3rds majority vote. Otherwise they end and the executive is removed from office and barred from ever holding an official position again.
If there are barbarians at the gates, and emergency powers are actually required, then fine, you can have them to deal with a highly specific crisis. None of this "war on terror" bullshit.
And it'll be the last thing you'll do.
I'll add that absolutely no measure taken should extend for a minute after the emergency is resolved.
I like that actually, a "break glass" provision in the emergency powers law! It's so obvious in hindsight.