this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
609 points (91.9% liked)
Lefty Memes
4359 readers
40 users here now
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
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.
- 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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You can't destroy a system billions of people depend on without killing billions of people. We need to learn to not depend on it first.
Our only hope is to culturally evolve past our current situation, and we're kinda of in the process of that now. I'm almost 50, when I was growing up any talk like this was old hippy fantasy (hippies are 25 yrs older than me), but now it's come back and more real than ever.
More and more people are seeing the police not as a helpful and necessary but as oppressors and sadists. Eating rich people is talked about every day. People are starting to realize that any state is inherently corruptible and if we want peace and sustainability we need to see the string of failures that is the state and realize it's a failed technology.
At some point, hopefully we'll get better at strategizing and acting instead of just complaining and protesting. Realistically using the tools we have available (e.g. the state) to put those currently running the system in their place.
Run for office, vote, be less dependent on the system, do mutual aid.
Don't be so absolute. You can destroy capitalism very well without destroying the people within it.
Yep, as I suggested. But let's not kid ourselves, most people talking online about destroying the system and aren't joking are speaking of violent communist revolution a la the 1920s.
I'm not blanket supporting the end results of everything, but the "violence" in those revolutions was initiated by the existing states, not by the people doing the revolution. Read up about it. Almost every time the workers just required the obvious (not to be crushed underfoot) and started seizing factories and farms when life became intolerable, and then the state and the rich brought the police and the army to kill them. Sometimes the end result of the state oppression was people trying to survive and opportunist authoritarian leaders taking power, but not always.
True, the death toll in practice has only been in the range of 3.5 to 5 million in one case or 1 million up to many many more in another, with 20 million deaths being a probably-unlikely outlier estimate on the high side. I don't think it's ever killed billions or even close to it.
Not every revolution has to be an Marxist-Leninist revolution. Nor is the world the same. Not to mention that Capitalism is killing millions per month right now. You're perfectly content to let Capitalism crush millions right now to maintain the benefits you have so you're just a hypocrite on top of being intellectually dishonest by presuming every revolution will lead to totalitarianism.
When did I say that?
I think changing the system into something better sounds like a great idea. I'm being a hypocrite about it because I haven't really done shit in an activist sense; that part is accurate. But if you ask me what I want, I want the system to change into something better. I don't want it to change into something worse. How does that translate into me being perfectly content with the current system?
There's a reasonable middle ground between "let's ignore the history of the outcome of this strategy and assume it'll be fine" and "every revolution will lead to totalitarianism, I'm content with the current system." I am definitely not saying the second one, although I can get where it might have sounded like I was. In my opinion the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes.
You just send me on a rabbithole and Til
A part of the movement who’s nain motive was to maintain communism apparently included the creation of social classes…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Black_Categories
“Members of the Black Classes were systematically discriminated against, as one's classification could affect employment opportunities and career prospects and even marriage opportunities. This could also be passed onto their children. Over time this resulted in a victimized underclass that was treated as if it were still composed of powerful and dominant people”
Literally facism.. of course to some this was already apparent but with this information bring public its baffeling that so many still believe china is political left.
The French revolution claimed all men were created equal yet oppressed the noble clergy classes.
walkaway vibes. I wish this were practical.
Indeed. We need to represent a better path than tearing down civilization in the hopes that everyone will get everything on their priority list, while tempering the state from the inside with sanity and decency instead of weaponization.