this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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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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[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

For those who don't seem to get it:
No, this meme does not mean that you can't temporarily halt fascist electoral victory, but rather that fighting symptoms and portraying that as a "victory over fascism" completely disregard the root cause (as liberalism often does)...

Tho I'm ngl, the NFP seems to be pretty based, at least relative to the usual neolib bs

ie.: Fascism is a built-in function of capitalism and thus bourgeois "democracy". Capitalism turns to fascism when threatened, so as long as you aren't ready to give up the private ownership of the economy, you will not be able to get rid of fascism (paraphrasing Bertolt Brecht here)

sheesh, I often forget, that libs and revisionists actually believe in bourgeois democracy. If you are open to changing your mind I can recommend "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxenburg

EDIT: @trolololol@lemmy.world made me aware of an ebook-specific link

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Found it If you click on author name it only gives you the web version, for epub you need to go to this page:

https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/#ebooksinenglish

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

thx for providing the link!

(I don't frequent marxists.org, since I get all my ebooks through Anna's archive)

[–] Veraxus@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I had to read that a couple of times before I understood what you are trying to say. At first glance, it seemed like you were calling democracy itself bourgeois, but I think you meant it as a specific thing that isn’t actual democracy… e.g. it’s an illusion of democracy because capitalism gives the wealthy the ability to steer the whole ship, as it were. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm glad you took the time to read and understand it in good faith!

And yes, under bourgeois "democracy" (be it multiparty or bi/mono party dominant) you only get to choose between various representatives of capital

The system and it's laws are inherently designed in such a way, that no matter whom you elect, you still live under the dictatorship of capital

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

What they managed to do is pretty cool though. Like yeah all the structural issues remain but centrists working with leftists to keep fascist out of the gov? Pretty rad! Broad leftist unity on the ballot at least? Pretty rad!

I'm pretty sure the leftists know the stakes, don't shit on solidarity.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wait, so are you trying to clown on the fact that France managed to stop their neofascist party from gaining any real hold on power?

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm clowning on thee idea that you thinks anything was "stopped"

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fascism is a weed and power is a vacuum. It’s always going to crop back up and we stop it with any means necessary.

Unfortunately for the US, we’re kinda fucked and being pushed towards the more extreme removal methods.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago

At some point one has to wonder why that weed finds such fertile ground to grow instead of spending all their time weeding.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We know that fighting fascism requires constant vigilance. But you don’t have to be an asshole about it. Nor do you have to shit on a country’s electorate for, you know, doing the right thing and voting against fascism.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

doing the right thing and voting against fascism.

You can't vote against fascism. The French fascists are still there, gaining power - the voting didn't weaken them in any way whatsoever. And they'll keep on gaining strength until they figure out how to get into power despite so-called "liberal democracy."

All the voting in the world isn't going to change that.