Lmao
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 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
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.
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- 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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Why do we separate the two? Who does that serve?
Historically it used to be used like: "I'm socially liberal but a fiscal conservative"
The reality is that translated to: "I want to fund everything I want but never give money or resources to people that aren't like me".. good old institutional racism and bigotry with a nice facade
Conservativism as an ideological definition is a branch of liberalism.
Well, this is LeftyMemes, so there's a preference for the left here.
Free market Capitalists dislike the population being able to make/recognize the distinction. Because there's a certain kind of "Liberal" who are only Liberals when Liberalism economically benefits them, but become Conservatives (and even radically right wing Conservatives) when Socially Democratic policies, or talk of taxing wealth becomes popular.
Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and others have all worn the mask of a "Liberalism" that refuses to to make this distinction (between social and economic liberalism).
A Liberal who is an economic liberal but doesn't seek progressive improvements to society, isn't a liberal at all. They're a conservative in waiting for the moment things progress too far.
Thus leftists are served by keeping this distinction in mind. Learn it. Recognize who will kick up a fuss and change teams, and remember that they have a limited use, and will eventually go no further (or worse, become a major hindrance). You need an exit strategy for those people.
Otherwise progress gets maligned in the name of maintaining the 'status quo'.
Authoritarians, who want to paint anything "liberal" as the enemy.