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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.
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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
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.
SOUTH AMERICAN ELECTIONS
[two different people are being portrayed side by side]
Gabriela Rosa Sympatica
Elementary school teacher
Beloved by her community
Wants to improve lives
[portrait of a smiling woman in overalls]
Diego Hitlerio de la Junta
Son of a previous dictator
Went to jail for corruption
Wants to sterilize natives
[portrait of a frowning nasty looking character in military gear]
Temporary results (98% ballots counted):
[Gabriela] 49.9999%
[Diego] 50.0001%
Hey, Latin American here! A few comments to expand:
The thing is, no matter how much of an anarchist I want to be, I can’t fully support not voting. Because it’s precisely by not voting that the Diego Hitlerios come to power and screw us all over.
(Your system is shit, I'll die on this hill).
Oh trust me, a lot of us fully agree this system is dumb as hell. Personally I'm in favor of a parliamentary system with a PM who is just a random rep from the leading party and disposing of the senate because it just artificially inflates the voting power of corn. Corn's cool and all, but I don't think corn's existence should count as like 6 Californian votes.
the electoral college and a federal government made up of the states rather than of the people along with simple plurality voting sometimes and majority voting others are, mathematically, the least power you can give people while still issuing a ballot. a binary party system is just a unitary party system where the final votes for the party leadership is more visible.
"The people only have those rights which i allow them to have" — Dr DOOM
I like to use a common quote from data archivists: Two is one and one is none.
The more people your system represents the better. Two party systems are an illusion of choice and single party system offer you no choice.
Because of the First Past The Post, even a Parliamentary system in the US with the current Mathematics of how Congress or the Senate representatives are allocated from votes (i.e. single winner per electoral circle) would be still be a two party system which doesn't represent most people.
Just look at Britain (which has a FPTP Parliamentary System) were the current party in Government has more than 50% of members of Parliament even though they got only 34% of votes and is arresting people as Terrorist Supporters for demonstrating against Britain's support for the Genocide in Gaza, has enacted quite extreme anti-Demonstration legislation and is passing electronic communications surveillance laws similar to those in Despotic Autocracies.
Absolutelly, Presidential systems where ONE PERSON ONLY supposedly manages the nation according to the will of millions are complete total bullshit because it's impossible that one person can reflect the preferences of millions, but Parliamentary systems with First Past The Post aren't much better because de facto they're generally equivalent to 2 sets of views rather than just 1 - theoretically multiple parliamentarians from the same party would mean multiple view, but my experience living in several such countries is that it's rare for a member of parliament not to vote the same as the rest of the party in a vote - I would estimate that dissent is in average less than 5%.
I like Scotland's proportional representation system. It retains constituency candidates, but compensates non-winning parties with seats based on regional votes. Afaik Wales and Northern Ireland also have proportional systems in their devolved parliaments, so only England is lagging behind :P
Oh, I hate FPtP too, much more of a ranked choice kinda guy. This was just me complaining about my stupid government's form.
Because it’s precisely by not voting that the Diego Hitlerios come to power and screw us all over.
wish more people would realise this.
You need a system like Ranked Choice voting to prevent the issues that cause strategic voting and the 2 party system.
What is "Ranked Choice voting"?
Short (mostly correct) answer is instead of picking one candidate, you rank all of them, then when your first choice loses your vote goes to your second choice.
Lets you vote honestly without worrying about who's most likely to win and gives less common options a chance
this honestly sounds awesome
The UK had a referendum on whether to adopt it and voted against. You ahould have seen the insane rubbish the "no" campaign said about it
We can have nice things once we pass this math test.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/RANKED-CHOICE/zdpxqrolgvx/
I like that this explanation has pictures
The thing is, no matter how much of an anarchist I want to be, I can’t fully support not voting. Because it’s precisely by not voting that the Diego Hitlerios come to power and screw us all over.
I'm also an Anarchist. I hate how the left has to shoot itself in the foot for the sake of purity constantly. Not voting doesn't make you more of an Anarchist, or whatever you are. It just makes it so you don't get a say in the election, and the right certainly doesn't have any of the same issues with voting. You should vote for whatever moves us toward the correct path, not avoid voting because you think you're too good for it.
Yes, elections suck. If they worked as well as we want we probably wouldn't have them (or we'd be in a very different situation and this wouldn't be an issue). However, participation takes almost no effort. The effect it has per unit of effort spent is pretty incredibly high. It's not going to change the world, but it will help some people, and it only takes you all of a few minutes usually.
To not try to at least prevent the worst outcome from happening and to not try to make the situation better at least somewhat is just stupid. Although I see myself as an anarchist I vote in every election. There is always a not so shit option on the ballot.
Just voting is still not enough and real change will most certainly not come through a election.
Me watching the peruvian ultraleftist who proudly showed a pic proving he voted for "Tung Tung Lenin" last week, not realizing he might end up being the reason his family and him will get disappeared in a fujimorist labor camp in a few months.
Nah, not camps. Sterilized and/or "disappeared", latinamerican way
Shit like that makes me think Americans aren't that different than they're "third world" counter parts
In the US version the left side candidade would be "Identitaria Fatcatus-Loving", listed as:
At least the "third"-world places often have electable left of center candidates, not just Fascist vs Warmongering Hardcore Neoliberal.
It's something expected to happen in first past the post electoral systems. It's by design things like these happen
Yeah first pass the post system does fucky things, but the issue is the dictator being viable and shows that there's population of that country that supports their violence and oppression...
It's like watching trump win the 2024 primaries and realizing maga is still core to the Republican party
The affinity towards dictators could be partially explained by this
And because of FPTPs ability to drown voices that are not popular, these dictatorial leaders tend to rise at the top, and only option becomes the other party. The equilibrium of FPTP is a two party system, exactly like the one we see in America.
Unfortunately Trump is a product of this exact machinery.
I say it's more complicated in that these dictators control mass media and hence why the "vote dictator" germ is everywhere and sustained.
Back in 2016 people were saying that trump is a product of decades of propaganda. Like decades of propaganda got us to trump
Power Duopolies are better than Power Monopolies but not by much and they certainly do not represent the true breadth of political beliefs of a population of millions of people.
In countries with such systems (at least in the ones I lived in) people get trained by the Press to expect everything boils down to "one side versus a the other side", but if you actually analyse the whole thing and think about even simple choices in groups of people (say, "we're should we go to next?" when out with friends) and it's very rare that even for just one thing there are only 2 prefered choices in a group with more than 2 people, so now imagine how many possibilities there are in all combinations of preferences for all the social and political choices in a country of millions.
Representative Democracy by necessity is a heavilly reduced and simplified reflection of the preferences in the society they mean to represent and those variants of it where the representation system is Mathematically Rigged to de facto reduce that representation to just two, is literally the second farthest political system from properly representing a population, with the farthest one being dictatorship.
Personally I don't count Power Duopolies like that real Democracies: a vote alone doesn't make something a Democracy, otherwise Russia would be a Democracy. The again I grew up in a country with a lot more open Democracy (though still far from perfect) and lived for almost a decade in one with Proportional Vote.
They’re the ones that made the Americas like that.
Yeah but they fall for propaganda all the same. I find hilarious and also an obligation to do counter propaganda
So unrealistic, the dictator would win by a way bigger margin. I'm from the Caribbean so I should know.
Do you use torrents? Because if so, gasp! Found a real one!
Diego Hitlerio said he would open up the nation's natural resources to American corporations so the CIA is running a smear campaign on Ms. Sympatica and will overthrow her if she still manages to get elected.
Almost makes you think of the recent US presidential election, where in swing states ONLY and for in-person voting ONLY (not mail-ins), statistically anomalous numbers of Trump ballots were Democrat all the rest of the way down, in numbers just high enough for him to win but just low enough not to trigger mandatory recounts, in places where voting machines received software updates just before and just after the election.
Sympatica is clearly a radical communist while hitlerio is a gentleman, let's see what he has to say for the next 24 hours of television
Somehow still doing a better job than the largest country in NA
Not really, latin america is pretty fucked up man. It's a large part because of that largest country, but no, latin america is by and large a shit show. Even moreso than the US, for the moment, give it some time the US is falling fast.
it's not latin america's fault latin america is a mess. latin america was much more stable before european colonization destroyed the social structures and societal infrastructure that had developed there for milenia. the fact we even call it "latin" "america" when those are both european constructs from the peninsula of italy should tell you something
At least we're honest about it. Donald Trump stole an election in a way that looks better on the news and the USAmericans refuse to believe that it wasn't legitimate. Death to the USA
One backed by propaganda & propped up by the CIA, and one who worked through their community.
one who worked through their community.
Which miraculously didn't die by CIA hands
That only happens if there's a chance of them winning, silly
These are getting progressively less bad.
Makes me think of Tropico (I was the Diego Hitlerio)
Tropico 7 gets released this year. I wonder if they'll have weird interactions with the US, and have an orange president you have to deal with in the modern age or something