this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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Lefty Memes

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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!

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)


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.



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

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Patrol Cop once told me a joke about how he ran over a black kids bike. When got back to the station he saw the kid at the desk trying to report the incident. He'd carried his busted up bike the entire way. The cop behind the desk called out "Hey Rob, did you run over this kid's bike?". "Nope". Case closed. No report filed.

Edit: PS: This was one of the "good ones". He voted Clinton in 2016 because the rival faction in the Union was showing up to Trump rallies in class A's. Took him the entire Trump admin but he works retail now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

How the fuck is that a joke?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It was funny to him. It was the moment he realized he could get away with crime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Aristocrats!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24%, but only while considering acts like shouting as violence. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.

The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H.., Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:

Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.

There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:

The study includes as 'violent incidents' a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn't indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c

An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:

The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.

More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, 'Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.' Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862

Yet another study "indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent)." A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF

Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to 'getting physical' (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

TL;DR: only ~10% of police are confirmed assailants of domestic abuse!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Now go look up the incidence of domestic violence in the general population, and see if you still feel so smug in saying that, lol.

EDIT: Lots of people angrily downdooted instead of looking it up, lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I'm gonna be that person right now, but i really don't care if it's a misleading or misquoted stat. If they get to throw around 13/50 or that trans suicide number without any care to the actual reasons I'm gonna throw around 40% self report to domestic abuse. Just like you can't stop them, you can't stop me. It'd be different if I had a platform of some kind, but I don't. If someone finds out misrepresented something oh well, they'll fine the correct info eventually and by that point they may have been swayed to our side by doing further digging. Go ahead and down vote internet numbers mean nothing to me.

BTW did you know that 40% of cops abuse their spouse?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Lying to support your position is how people lose trust in arguments. I'm used to seeing this kind of BS from the RW but it's disappointing to see it from the left. We need to be better than this or discussion becomes completely useless

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are few things more frustrating, politics-wise, than seeing someone who you presumably fundamentally agree with on issue X, fuck everything up by exaggerating or fabricating evidence.

It's better to get called out by someone who isn't interested in doing anything but correcting them. Could easily be fuel to completely reject the premise if it was someone else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, well said

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If people were convinced by facts and logic we wouldn't have had trump as president and the ADF wouldn't have any power in Germany. Snappy soundbites are necessary. Why do you think you heard 13/50 everywhere? Because it's easy to remember and it sounds good. Same thing with 41%. You'll be hard pressed to find someone that's willing to do a whole bunch of reading to understand why ACAB unless they are already predisposed to believe you. 40% is a potential gateway in, and when they are along that path and see all the problems with cops, it won't really matter when they find out that the 40% wasn't true.

So go ahead, be disappointed, go ahead downvote, or whatever. But if you think winning only involves playing fair and honest you have another thing coming and it's very far right from what you want.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That kid's getting punted across the street the next second lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That kid had a gun 🔫

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Shame that the kid was such a threat to the cop that he needed to unload several magazines into him.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I love how every acab post inevitably brings out a bunch of uninformed libs in the comments talking about how pigs are only bad in America (as though the term ACAB was invented in America...) or how a society without them is completely inconceivable. As though badges grow on trees, like police are just a natural thing that sprung out of the ground.

The primary function of the police is to protect private property and enforce eviction. They're state agents who are allowed to use violence against working class people, and do so to prevent us from overthrowing the ruling class and redistributing wealth and the means of production. They protect class hierarchy. They attack protestors. They use state violence against the disenfranchised and the marginalized. The "just doing their job" of the police is to protect and preserve the unequal distribution of power in society. They do so by using violence against the working class. The rest of anything else they do is a small fraction of their job and entirely secondary to their primary functions.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Every post i see seems to use lib as a slur

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is a bit further left than center. And most liberals tend to fall around the center to center right.

Most people on the left don’t like liberals because in their desire to be “the adult in the room” by dismissing anything more radical than the status quo, they get in the way of people trying to bring forth important change. As an activist, it’s not very fun to see someone take a milquetoast centrist position and call you radical while continuing to uphold the status quo that we are peotesting against while claiming to despise the status quo. These liberals, though often well meaning, end up being the great stumbling block to freedom MLK was talking about.

From the perspective of the left, if you see someone who is making it harder to make necessary change (ex: ending the war on gaza, stopping police violence/police abolition, being a cop, etc) is a pretty nasty sight.

Is lib a slur? No, but it’s certainly an insult, and it’s aimed at people who aren’t used to being called out for their political positions by someone who isn’t conservative.

Also, as an anarchist, I find it fun to lib bash every once in a while :3

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The rich love to make liberal a slur. Because to be liberal means you're against tyrants. So now with more divided factions their minions can exert more power

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'm an anarchist, and seeing someone say "to be liberal means you're against tyrants" is pretty humorous. It's a self-aggrandizing tale that doesn't reflect reality.

Liberals do not oppose tyranny. Liberals opposition to tyrants is done by keeping the offices clean, and the seats of power warm, be it in the oval office, judge's bench, or chairs in the chambers. Liberals vote for the lesser tyrant as an anti-tyranny measure. They oppose tyranny by increasing funding for the police, and giving bombs to fascists the world over while continuing to fund the biggest military budget in the world while giving the district of defense a thumbs-up to defend American interests by invading countries and slaughtering millions.

The so called United States is a liberal democracy. It always has been. And yet this structure is the cause of some of the most violent tyranny the entire world over. Even if you consider the fact that there have been some terrible presidents who might have been the cause for some of the most tyrannical acts of the state, the very act of saying "all men are created free and equal" is tyrannic when said by a slave owner trying to create a government that considers life to be property. And that was said before there were even presidents.

Under a liberal democracy, even with a liberal leader of it, being minoritized is a sentence to feel the tyranny of the state. It doesn't matter if you are a holding a minority political stance and using the liberal-approved mechanisms to oppose the state. It doesn't matter if you are a minority based on religion, sexuality, gender identity, race, or ethnicity trying to peacefully oppose the extermination of their group, or the systematic oppression of it. You will feel the force of a police officer's boot on your back and knee on your neck, tools of the liberal democracy being used to "keep the peace" or maintain "law and order".

Liberals will uphold the fundamental tyrannies of capitalism. Liberals will uphold the fundamental tyrannies of property ownership.

To be a liberal doesn't mean you are against tyrants. It means you are the lesser one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I mean, it's not a slur, but an insult? Sure. Liberals are not allies to leftists, and actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Liberals are not allies to leftists

They can be. Using traditional definitions, the Liberal / Authoritarian axis is orthogonal to the left / right axis

actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.

Who are we? Poor non cops?

What are we putting in place of the dismantled system? Anarchy? Different cops? Something else?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

When there's a power vacuum, gangs even worse than the police tend to fill it. Don't get me wrong, the entire U.S. criminal justice system is rotten to the core, and causes large amounts of pointless suffering. BUT, there needs to be some sort of "police" to enforce the laws of society (and ideally, all those laws would be just). Even the Zapitistas had a form of police.

Also, I find "ACAB" cringe inducing. Sounds like something an edgy 14 year old came up with. And I'm not sure focusing on individuals (cops) instead of the institution itself is helpful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

ACAB as an acronym began in the early 20th century by workers who were striking in the UK. It is a term with a long, complex history behind it. Cops are the institution, so I'm not sure what you mean by individuals. Every member of the police force, from the top down, is a bastard. Every single one. There's no exceptions to this. The very nature of law enforcement is being a bastard. It is a term that is meant literally. Law enforcement functions as a means to break strikes, to enforce private property and ownership of the means of production, to enforce rent and evictions, to terrorize the impoverished and the marginalized, to collect menial tax from the impoverished who cannot fight back against them, and above all else to act as the legal arm of state violence against working class people.

Individual cops may have done good actions. I'm sure there's a cop out there who's volunteered at a soup kitchen, sure. But that has nothing to do with him being a cop. That has nothing to do with the actual role he fulfills in day to day life, with the violence he enacts, with the system he supports.

The idea that police are holding back some tidal wave of horrifying crime is and has always been propaganda. Nearly every single woman I know has been a victim of sexual harassment or violence at some time in their lives, including myself. A lot of them have gone to police before. I don't know a single person for whom that did literally anything good for them. I know 1 woman who was harassed literally across the country by people including police officers who said she was lying. The police don't prevent murder. They don't prevent violence of any kind that's literally not their job. More often than not they are the ones committing acts of violence for which there are no repercussions.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Don't talk to cops like this, they will ruin your life or end it. Use that energy to campaign for electoral reform in your state so we can break the bipartisan police state.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Do you really think all cops are bastards or is it like a easy thing to type instead of "corrupt cops are bad" or something?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

All. Because the ones who aren’t corrupt fucks either look the other way, or try to report the bad ones and get bullied off the force.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Woo, I disagree. I mean, statistically that can't be true.

Do you have a proposed alternative to law enforcement?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not my job to convince you of anything.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't even know what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Read again but actually try to understand

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Which part are you confused about?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

See this is what I'm talking about

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Questions? Or me directly addressing what you're talking about?

You seem very confused about both

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Enabling the corrupt ones is almost as bad being corrupt.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Taaangent?

You asked about ACAB and got an answer about ACAB. This feels like a cope.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh.

I see

If you think you can only come up with ax partial answer, it's usually an indication you don't understand the concept as well as you think and a good idea to just skip trying to come up with an answer.

Your talk if you want to! I'm just saying it might confuse the situation unless you have a complete answer.

I thought you did that deliberately so I was wondering why you were explaining what a slice was when I asked about making a pizza.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm not the same guy, it's just obvious to everyone else here what he was saying since we don't need our hands held through every implication.

If bad cops can just get rid of others who call out bad behavior, what is left but the corrupt and the complicit? Hence, complacency is bad too so ACAB.

First it was "tangent", then it was, "ax partial answer", so now what is your excuse?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Making assumptions and looking for excuses is the reason you Don't understand.

"If bad cops can just get rid of others who call out bad behavior, what is left but the corrupt and the complicit..."

If that were true, you would have a case.

Since that is not true, you don't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Since that is not true, you don't.

Except in America it seems that's the exact case. Maybe not in other countries.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

It seems like that's the case to you because you're surrounding yourself with an echo chamber instead of rationally thinking about the situation.

It makes no sense in any capacity to assume that any group of humans are all identical or behave identically.