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.
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
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
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Okay, just so I'm clear then, you think Eco-fascism is bad, but that there are other flavors of "eco-authoritarianism" that could work in there place?
That probably sounds passive aggressive, but I'm legit trying to learn about Leftist takes on the matter.
I'm a product of the American Public School System, and was taught Leftist can be thought of as just another flavor of authoritarianism. But it seems like there's more to it than that and trying to "peel back the layers" on that.
Do you think there's an equitable way to impose de-growth policies (which it feels like is the camp you're in)?
Almost all leftists will say the end goal is communism / anarcho-communism. A system in which the workers control the means of production and anyone involved in production gets an equal say in how that production is done. Before this can be achieved the industrial capacity of a country has to be developed enough to easily provide for everyone's needs. Marx thought that once everyone's needs were met consumption would plateau and therefore so would growth. Capitalists would then compete for a fixed size pie where the only way to make money would be squeezing workers and automating jobs away, which would reduce the amount of labor needed but cause mass unemployment. This would eventually reach a tipping point where the workers would rise up, seize the means of production and redistribute resources so everyone go there needs met while working far less, and thus relieving the intraclass tension that would tear it apart once it took over.
The problem is capitalism is very good at creating new needs for people and instilling the desire for them in the working class through media and advertising. So the growth keeps going and we never reach that end state.
These needs and desires are built deep within most people living under capitalism at this point so even if a socialist revolution did happen, which is unlikely due to the above reasons, then those desires would still show in the workers choices on production, so we'd still be making f-150s, hamburgers etc.
The only way I think could result in degrowth is a massive re-education program to remove those desires, most likely through an authoritarian media control. You'd need to counteract all the advertising people have ingested, think of how much of your life you have spent watching car commercials. A person would have to watch just as many hours watching videos on how to destructive and environmentally disgusting cars are to counteract all the positive associations ads have instilled in them. Along with replacing ads with environmental psas, media would also have to be mandated to reflect environmental values, driving and eating meat would be shamed and only done by the lazy and cruel.
I'd say this is definitely authoritarian, totalitarian even, but not fascist. I struggle to think of a coherent eco-fascist ideology as fascism is all about ethno-nationalism, national supremacy and expansionism which don't work with any environmental goals. so I think Eco-fascism is just a derogatory term used by people who don't understand what fascism is and just think all evil authoritarians are fascist.
No. I oppose authoritarianism in all its flavors.
I also don’t think our species will ever willingly do “degrowth”
I think the collapse of modern civilization is an inevitability, and that there will never be any positive, organized way to guide that collapse to any worthwhile positive outcome. Will it come in my lifetime or yours? Probably not. But it will come.
The only wildcard I see that could change this would be fusion energy, actual self sustaining fusion that generates unlimited energy, or the discovery of some other exotic form of matter that can provide unlimited energy. Barring those highly unlikely developments, I think any form of eco-authoritarianism would just be a way for those in power to continue enriching themselves at the cost of everyone else, a more extreme form of what is already happening.