this post was submitted on 14 Nov 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.
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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)
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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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Clearly most people don't consider forced labor slavery in a prison environment. At least not in California or any of the other states that allow it.
I voted against it because I think they are plenty of prisoners that want to work, so we don't need to be forcing people, but I also understand how people could just consider it a part of the punishment too. I mean, you take away so many rights of a person when you imprison them. What makes this facet special? Is it because we used the magic word slavery and so people suddenly feel guilty because of America's past?
The prisons themselves litreally didn't care enough to even argue against it, which should tell you how little this actually impacts their workforce. My understanding was that people were just getting upset at having to do wildfire related work when things started getting dangerous after they reaped all the rewards and training for that job.
It's like being a firefighter for the pay, chili, and comradery, then balking when you are told to go fight a fire. Your average person could do that and probably be fired on the spot. Prisoners don't get to make that decision.
You understand they weren't paid for that training or job, right?
You understand they weren't allowed to do that job when they were out of prison, right? Even as a volunteer they'd be disqualified. They received no benefits for risking their lives, but we're punished if they did not. They were not sentenced to death.
To your main point, slavery is bad in all contexts. Corporations shouldn't get to have slaves because they pay their workers so badly they turned to crime.