Lefty Memes
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.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
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
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
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
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" 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 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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
view the rest of the comments
Only true if you want to form a monoculture, which is a seriously bad goal in a country as diverse and broad as the US.
But how can my ideology win, if other ideologies exist?
I sincerely hope that's a sarcastic question. If I'm taking the bait, I'll wear the dunce cap: The litnus test for whether an ideology should exist at all is whether or not it requires the extinction of all other ideologies. If a system accepts multiple viewpoints and inputs, literally that it's DEI, it is a good system. If a system exists that recognizes an ideology within itself is calling for the extermination of all others and snuffs it out, it is a great system. See Nazis.
Edit: Because you .ml types stretch every phrase, "see nazis" means see what happened to them, where other ideologies banded together against them.
If communism/1-state solutions require all other forms of belief to be expunged, it should be expunged itself.
what do you mean, "you people"?
A country as diverse as the USA? I'm all for diversity, but the US is a monolinguistic monocultural state. No other language than English, no other culture than Christian... Those are the roots of the USA. Hell, even some small countries like Spain or Belgium have multiple official languages.
That's just straight up untrue. Latin culture and language is very much alive within our nation, as are African, European, and Asian cultures. We are witnessing the dying gasp of the white Christian roots myth. The true America beneath that facade are the everyday people in the margins that make up this immigrant nation, and this rise of fascism and neoliberalism is exactly the sign that the idea of a white Christian nation is coming undone.
Look what they have to do to maintain the myth. Look how hard they grasp for anything to make their own foundational lies seem real. Look how you're buying that lie.
I'm not saying there's no potential, but come on, for the size of the US it's incredibly homogeneous. Compare that to, say, China, which has many different provinces with different majority ethnicities, same in Russia, same in India regarding languages... The US is definitely a very non-diverse place for its size, as a byproduct of its short history and the policy over the past 200 years.
We must live in very different Americas. It looks a lot more different when you're out there with the people. Every region is different. Cultures, goals, a hodgepodge of immigrant customs and a beautiful mosaic of faces. Even in my sleepy midwest city there's so much more than white Christian culture that has stood in stark contrast to the narrative that we are solely an anglican-aryan nation.
I grew up a military brat. I've seen nearly every corner of this country. I've seen with my own eyes what the melting pot actually looks like beyond my own social media bubble. A nation is more than it's incumbency. People live here.
Again, I'm comparing to other nations. Go to China, for example. Go to Canton, then go to Xinjiang, and finally to Beijing. Three entirely different cultural areas, with different majority languages. You simply cannot find anything remotely close in the USA. Now do the same in Russia, and move from Moscow to Tatarstan, then Ulan-Ude and then to Chechnya. Again, the US is very homogeneous for a country with its span and population.
West coast, new england, bible belt, bayou/french south, texas, the midwest, the latin basin. These are vastly different cultural regions. Your argument isn't holding water to me. I've lived in many different places, and you just can't have a landmass as big as the US or China and make it homogenous. It just doesn't happen. People don't work that way.
oh yeah, definitely all the same language:
Just because the government has only 1 "official" language doesn't mean other cultures don't exist within the country. In my area businesses post signs in English, Spanish, Korean, Cantonese (pretty sure it's not Mandarin, but I'm not an expert), and occasionally Vietnamese, Thai or Hindi.
And like... have you ever walked around NYC? nothing further from a monoculture.
Plus you've pretty much just dismissed all the Native American tribes that still speak their own languages.