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, 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
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)
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,
as well as 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.
7. 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
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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i'm an anarchist, but i'm also polish, and we kinda need NATO right now, with the whole Russia thing at our doorstep. i know it's not ideal, but fuck, not many other options out there and i do enjoy not being forcibly drafted to war
You’re not wrong.
your bourgeois state needs NATO, not the working ppl living in Poland
In an inter-imperialist war, shouldn't socialists from an outside country support neither side and shouldn't socialists from a country participating in said war employ revolutionary defeatism towards "their own" bourgeois state?
the answer to a regional imperialist power is not the largest imperialist block in the history of humanity(!)
after all, a socialist has no country and belongs to no nation. just like working ppl everywhere
EDIT: cmiw but isn't supporting one bourgeois state over another and thinking of it as "one's own" contrary to anarchist thought?
Congrats on the dumbest post of the day, I guess
being an anarchist (or a working person) doesn't particularly help with not being forcibly drafted, and neither would Putin care if i told his goons "hey can you not bomb me and my family, you see, i'm an anarchist and this is not my war :)"
like i get the theory of what you're saying, but the practice is a bit less wordy and more- bomby. is NATO my ideal version of reality? no, of course not. am i glad it's a thing as someone living in poland? fuck yes i am. i can't really work towards helping people realise capitalism bad if i'm dead
this is not supposed to be a "gotcha" or anything like that
I'd just like to make you aware that in the sense of preventing invasion from the RF, NATO is kinda redundant, since the EU has a mutual defence clause that would trigger in such a case