this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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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.

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

(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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[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 91 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.

[–] Chriskmee@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.

[–] MattsAlt@hexbear.net 43 points 1 year ago (18 children)

They could go to any bank and leverage that asset for a loan for more than everyone who posts on this platform will make in their lifetimes no problem. That is a nonsense talking point

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[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (41 children)

True, but that ownership gives them access to very low interest loans that they then use as spending money and don't have to pay taxes on it

https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-avoidance-income-wealth-borrow-money-propublica-2021-6

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[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (82 children)

While that may be technically true, is running defense for these people who would happily see you and everone you care about die if it would make them another buck really something you want to be doing?

also assets count as wealth if you tried to explain to king Solomon that he wasn't actually rich because his money was tied up in land and cattle he would call you and idiot and explain that land and cattle are his wealth

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yes this is true but they have so much money available to spend that it makes amounts practically meaningless