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, 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!
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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
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.
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 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.
Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.
While celebrating a billionaire getting their just desserts is always fun, not really sure that this is a reflection of the decency of the Vietnamese government.
Since there's no rational hope of addressing the other 3k or so billionaire parasites on Earth without building a really big Titanic wreckage tour sub and making little paths of stock certificates leading to it like reese's pieces in ET, I'll take whatever incidental vicarious revenge against humanity's oppressors I can get.
I mean, celebrate the revenge, for sure. Just don't mistake it for decency. Vietnam is about as corrupt as India.
We're no less corrupt in the US, merely more expensive.
Our cheats just hire lobbyists to make their corrupt practices legal, shout out to Citizens United, and/or hire enough lawyers to make the consequences meaningless, like fining a company that makes billions a year thousands for profitable criminal activity.
Our "solution" to corruption is simply to make it legal for the right price. Donald Trump should have lost his empire and gone to jail for his business practices long before he was a game show host, let alone POTUS, but he learned and inherited enough from daddy to understand how to wield American style corruption, and he's still free.
We’re no less corrupt in the US, merely more expensive.
We're very corrupt in the US. That's not the same as being corrupt to the same degree. I... would encourage looking into the relative corruption of countries. We, in the US, are near the bottom of the the list as far as developed countries go (beaten out by only such luminaries as Italy and Greece), but we aren't even close to as bad as it can get. We're just more aware of our own corruption than of other countries. I mean, we are Americans. We're barely aware of the existence of other countries, much less their corruption.
I can't get behind a government giving the death penalty to anybody for any reason
Since when is it leftist to support the death penalty, let alone take glee in it. This is like the boomer FB shit
I'm against the death penalty in general, but I also acknowledge that in terms of tangible damage to humanity, any billionaire walking the Earth makes any serial killer who has ever walked the Earth seem positively quaint by scale.
I also recognize that we are living under class occupation. The owner class handily won the class war by convincing most of the developed world not to fight it half a century ago.
The peasants don't have the luxury of taking prisoners. We are the losers of a war, in spite of the fact that many have come to worship their occupying oppressors.
Keeping the most destructive humans locked away and well fed until they die of natural causes is a peacetime luxury for those in charge, and unless you're holding a reprehensible amount of capital, that isn't us. You might believe we are in peacetime, but if we refuse to stop them, and it looks that way, they will force our shared, communal habitat to stop us all through their insatiable, sociopathic avarice.
We love to think we're not, but we're still subjects wholly dependant on this world, even the owners activily attacking us and it simultaneously.
well fucking said.
The French revolution shows that the guilotines don't necessarily stop when the aristocrats are all dead. I'm not enthusiastic about mob justice
“We” isn’t this the case of other billionaires getting mad at one billionaire?
I mean, Vietnam is a Socialist Oriented Market Economy.
86% of Vietnamese people own their own homes, 70% are farmers because the government will allocate farm land to anyone who proves they can raise crops.
And remember kids, 73% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Gotta serve those numbers with some sauce
I don't think we should have billionaires but celebrating state sponsored murder is fucking gross
Lol too bad. Eat the rich
Also how does it get to 12.5 billion before people do something? Had they intervened with something less severe at 1 billion then there would still be 11.5 billion and a life not lost.
This is a communist country and a show trial for someone fell out of favor, not am actual fraud case
Not a fan of the death penalty
Me neither, but killing some of the capitalist class has always been part of leftist revolutions so I can let this one slide.
Or just those that are not on "the line"? Like Russians falling out of windows. What is the actual truth behind this?
That's typical communist competitor purges, it has nothing to o with redistribution of wealth.