An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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" (read: Dengists) (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 irrationally 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.
SOUTH AMERICAN ELECTIONS
[two different people are being portrayed side by side]
Gabriela Rosa Sympatica
Elementary school teacher
Beloved by her community
Wants to improve lives
[portrait of a smiling woman in overalls]
Diego Hitlerio de la Junta
Son of a previous dictator
Went to jail for corruption
Wants to sterilize natives
[portrait of a frowning nasty looking character in military gear]
Temporary results (98% ballots counted):
[Gabriela] 49.9999%
[Diego] 50.0001%
Hey, Latin American here! A few comments to expand:
The thing is, no matter how much of an anarchist I want to be, I can’t fully support not voting. Because it’s precisely by not voting that the Diego Hitlerios come to power and screw us all over.
Oh trust me, a lot of us fully agree this system is dumb as hell. Personally I'm in favor of a parliamentary system with a PM who is just a random rep from the leading party and disposing of the senate because it just artificially inflates the voting power of corn. Corn's cool and all, but I don't think corn's existence should count as like 6 Californian votes.
the electoral college and a federal government made up of the states rather than of the people along with simple plurality voting sometimes and majority voting others are, mathematically, the least power you can give people while still issuing a ballot. a binary party system is just a unitary party system where the final votes for the party leadership is more visible.
"The people only have those rights which i allow them to have" — Dr DOOM
I like to use a common quote from data archivists: Two is one and one is none.
The more people your system represents the better. Two party systems are an illusion of choice and single party system offer you no choice.
Because of the First Past The Post, even a Parliamentary system in the US with the current Mathematics of how Congress or the Senate representatives are allocated from votes (i.e. single winner per electoral circle) would be still be a two party system which doesn't represent most people.
Just look at Britain (which has a FPTP Parliamentary System) were the current party in Government has more than 50% of members of Parliament even though they got only 34% of votes and is arresting people as Terrorist Supporters for demonstrating against Britain's support for the Genocide in Gaza, has enacted quite extreme anti-Demonstration legislation and is passing electronic communications surveillance laws similar to those in Despotic Autocracies.
Absolutelly, Presidential systems where ONE PERSON ONLY supposedly manages the nation according to the will of millions are complete total bullshit because it's impossible that one person can reflect the preferences of millions, but Parliamentary systems with First Past The Post aren't much better because de facto they're generally equivalent to 2 sets of views rather than just 1 - theoretically multiple parliamentarians from the same party would mean multiple view, but my experience living in several such countries is that it's rare for a member of parliament not to vote the same as the rest of the party in a vote - I would estimate that dissent is in average less than 5%.
I like Scotland's proportional representation system. It retains constituency candidates, but compensates non-winning parties with seats based on regional votes. Afaik Wales and Northern Ireland also have proportional systems in their devolved parliaments, so only England is lagging behind :P
Oh, I hate FPtP too, much more of a ranked choice kinda guy. This was just me complaining about my stupid government's form.
You need a system like Ranked Choice voting to prevent the issues that cause strategic voting and the 2 party system.
What is "Ranked Choice voting"?
Short (mostly correct) answer is instead of picking one candidate, you rank all of them, then when your first choice loses your vote goes to your second choice.
Lets you vote honestly without worrying about who's most likely to win and gives less common options a chance
this honestly sounds awesome
The UK had a referendum on whether to adopt it and voted against. You ahould have seen the insane rubbish the "no" campaign said about it
We can have nice things once we pass this math test.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/RANKED-CHOICE/zdpxqrolgvx/
I like that this explanation has pictures
It's amazing how people here still don't know what ranked choice voting is. I think video games that have voting, on maps or whatever, should implement ranked choice voting. It's do wonders to help them usually, and it'd also bring awareness of it to people who haven't heard of it. I don't think I've ever seen it in a game, but a popular game with it could do wonders in getting ranked choice voting passed.
wish more people would realise this.
I'm also an Anarchist. I hate how the left has to shoot itself in the foot for the sake of purity constantly. Not voting doesn't make you more of an Anarchist, or whatever you are. It just makes it so you don't get a say in the election, and the right certainly doesn't have any of the same issues with voting. You should vote for whatever moves us toward the correct path, not avoid voting because you think you're too good for it.
Yes, elections suck. If they worked as well as we want we probably wouldn't have them (or we'd be in a very different situation and this wouldn't be an issue). However, participation takes almost no effort. The effect it has per unit of effort spent is pretty incredibly high. It's not going to change the world, but it will help some people, and it only takes you all of a few minutes usually.
To not try to at least prevent the worst outcome from happening and to not try to make the situation better at least somewhat is just stupid. Although I see myself as an anarchist I vote in every election. There is always a not so shit option on the ballot.
Just voting is still not enough and real change will most certainly not come through a election.
Me watching the peruvian ultraleftist who proudly showed a pic proving he voted for "Tung Tung Lenin" last week, not realizing he might end up being the reason his family and him will get disappeared in a fujimorist labor camp in a few months.
Nah, not camps. Sterilized and/or "disappeared", latinamerican way
I read "fujimotorist" for a second and it triggered my trauma from the chainsaw man fandom
The electoral college is one of those many US things that kinda made sense 150 years ago.
…And that we never really fixed.
Whoops.