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
Neither the black panthers nor the IRA overthrew a state, or defended a territory against a modern army. Both movements were contained, infiltrated, and suppressed by states using overwhelming force/tactics. Their guns didn't protect them from a modern government's means of action (which is far more than just the military).
The only reason the IRA was able to last so long was the UK deliberately tolerating a small conflict in order to avoid political escalation. They thought it was preferable to have a rowdy Belfast than to flatten it like Russia flattened Chechnya, the terror attacks on the mainland did much more for the IRA than the armed resistance. The good friday agreement was the IRA giving up out of exhaustion, not a win for armed resistance at all.
Well yeah, a handful of cops will be reluctant to escalate against a rowdy crowd. The same happens in France without guns, when protesters start throwing rocks the police backs away and waits for the CRS (riot police with military grade weapons) to take over.
Guns wouldn't do much to deter SWAT, the national guard, etc.
I might be wrong (non-USA perspective here), but wasn't there also a big political angle? Since BLM were protests against police brutality, it would have been really bad PR wise for the police to escalate with more police brutality, therefore they showed more restraint than usual, no? Optics of shooting back at protesters would have caused a huge nationwide mess. Wouldn't call this a case of guns working, rather of politics constraining the states' options. If the government had wanted to do Kent State 2.0, I doubt guns would have stopped them, but they chose not to.
I also don't recall guns stopping rubber bullets shot at journalists, cars rammed into crowds, entire neighborhoods being gassed, activists being kidnapped in unmarked vans, tac units being sent in Portland, doing anything to protect Rittenhouse's victims, etc…
The IRA kiiiinda did though. The map looks different than it did. It was an anti-colonial struggle, so winning looks different, but yeah, they did the thing.
And I think things like swat would be substantially deterred by going after pigs at their dens in retaliation for every act of violence. Nobody's doing this right now.
MOVE bombing?
LA riots crushed in blood?
Waco obliterated?
Modern states don't get deterred when you attack their symbols of power. They reply in kind with overwhelming force. SWAT isn't scared of retaliation, they exist for this exact purpose.
You are LARPing your own suicide.
I don't mean symbols and I don't mean the whole state.
Doing nothing is also larping my own suicide, and it should be noted that I have no friends+am bad at violence. Really just trying to make outcomes where I might not die palatable to others. Thanks for helping BTW.
To be clear, just because I'm rough in my disagreement doesn't mean I dislike you.
I have friendly feelings towards most people who decide to engage in lefty communities (some exceptions apply).
Even towards that other person who's feeling overconfident about geopolitics and made my blood boil a little… in the end we're all on the same side of the class war and I strongly believe in empathy, mutualism, togetherness. Whatever happens in the world, you have communities of people all around the world who would let you join them and consider you their friend without a second thought.
We're all tired of capitalism and violence.
Peace.