this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
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Lefty Memes

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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!

Rules

Version without spoilers

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" (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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] RmDebArc_5@feddit.org 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We do agree that one shouldn't kill or rape people, however were we disagree is that you think that someone can't do something without finding it wrong if they had an objektive look at the facts. Do you think someone shooting a dog that is attack ing their child is a evil person? Do you think the majority of people couldn't be convinced that a certain group of people is subhuman, more similar to an animal perhaps, not be treated as a human? Do you not think that the majority of couldn't be made believe that these subhumans are attacking your country men, practically your family?

To name a more harmless example: most people will continue to buy products even they know they are partially being manufactured by slaves, even if they know that the production conditions of these products cause many deaths, even though this isn't a life or death situation for them.

Your idealism is honorable, however I think you expect to much from humanity

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you think someone shooting a dog that is attack ing their child is a evil person?

how is that remotely on par with a war crime?

Do you not think that the majority of couldn’t be made believe that these subhumans are attacking your country men, practically your family?

pity you weren't born several decades ago, I think your life's calling would have been defending the nazis at Nuremburg. that's the same argument they used to try to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their war crimes.

[–] RmDebArc_5@feddit.org 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

how is that remotely on par with a war crime?

It's not, that's the point. People are made believe that they are equivalent

pity you weren't born several decades ago, I think your life's calling would have been defending the nazis at Nuremburg. that's the same argument they used to try to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their war crimes.

The crimes the nazis committed are on a bit of different level than those committed by Russian soldiers, so please don't relativize them.

To follow along with the point, I have on multiple occasions heard the sentenment expressed, most recently in a well known podcast(I can look for it if you want to), that World War II soldiers that killed German civilians aren't that bad because the Germans were nazis. Ukraine government/military/parts of the population being nazis is common in Russian propaganda. Don't you think those people could be convinced that it's okay to kill Ukrainian civilians?

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Don’t you think those people could be convinced that it’s okay to kill Ukrainian civilians?

does them believing that absolve them of war crimes? that's the crux of my argument, and international courts have ruled time and time again that no, being brainwashed by propaganda does not absolve you of guilt for war crimes.

Netanyahu thinks Palestinians are subhuman, and has convinced the nation of Israel of the same. does that excuse the IDF soliders for raping Palestinian prisoners? yes or no, please, I want you to answer that.

[–] RmDebArc_5@feddit.org 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Many of the international courts do like to overlook war crimes committed by the "good guys", also legality≠morality

In general I think there has been a miscommunication. Do I think that people committing war crimes, under any whatever circumstance, have done nothing wrong? No. But if you look at the laws, there are circumstances were a crime is viewed specially. For example were I live if you get drunk and kill someone you will not be punished for murder, but for not being able to now your limits with alcohol. Or if someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to kill someone you will not be considered guilty in the way a murderer would.

To get to the IDF soldiers, no I don't think the propaganda excuses rape, they have done something wrong. However I don't think they are inherently evil people that deserve to die or should be permanently excluded from society. I don't think there lives should be considered expendable or worth less

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In general I think there has been a miscommunication.

I'm assuming so, because that's the argument I'm making. being a victim of propaganda doesn't absolve you of guilt for violent acts. you have to choose to do that. nobody is holding a gun to the heads of the IDF soldiers and telling them to rape prisoners. they chose to do that without urging. did the propaganda make them decide the people they were hurting were subhuman? yeah, maybe. but a normal person doesn't go around raping and torturing animals, either. the kind of person who does things like this is someone who has something broken inside them. the propaganda is just a convenient excuse for them.

does every person have the capacity for evil acts in them? absolutely. but some people have a greater capacity than others, and they were born that way. they're all around us, living among us, a part of every group and nation. just waiting for an excuse to do truly horrible things to other humans.

[–] RmDebArc_5@feddit.org 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

And it this point we're back to what I said, neither of us is a psychology expert that can on a scientifical level make claims about if people are born in a way, or raised or whatever, that's why this is mostly pointless.

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 points 3 weeks ago

luckily for us, there are people like that that have published peer reviewed research on the matter, so we can defer to those experts.