this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
666 points (94.9% liked)
Lefty Memes
4411 readers
23 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
Giving them public lands unfortunately doesn't solve anything. They did try that my city, and the result was that this land has basically turned into a huge garbage dump.
did your town actually do anything for them or just say "hey fuck you go to this hill and stay there"
like did they follow any of the recommendations scientists make or even make one effort to do it correctly? having studied this for years, the answer is usually no
Not sure, but I'm guessing likely not. There were a lot more encampments around here last year, but many of them were in places that were either unsafe (such as freeway greenbelts) or privately owned (but accessible to the public). Apparently they did tolerate this one camp, however, because it didn't have any of those issues, but it's still turning into a festering sore at this point.
I honestly don't know what would help here, but all the solutions that I see being discussed on Lemmy always just seem to revolve around giving people free stuff, and I don't think that'll solve anything in the long term. Unless you show people a path to becoming self-sufficient, all you'll ever accomplish is feeding or housing them for a day. While I realize that depending on how deep in the hole someone is, it might take a long time before they feel safe enough again to take risks, but ultimately, unlimited amounts of free stuff will only create dependency.
inadequate measures were inadequate; nobody surprised
The idea that you're independent is an illusion. Independence and the aspiration to it are usually just lies we tell ourselves to justify this stupid cruel system we're using.
What are you independent from? If your grocery store runs out of food you're still as fucked as anybody else. And in the next few years it's likely to. There's no such thing as independence from food. We throw out so much fucking food in this culture, but if we gave it to those guys we'd be acknowledging that feeding people is supposed to be the point of food, rather than making money, and in this culture we cannot have that, that's an unthinkable thought.
As far as I can tell the people in those encampments just tend to be people nobody gives a shit about. That's true independence, in a sense, but I don't think that should be an aspiration, do you? And isn't that one of the only actual useful functions of government, to create systems to take care of those people? I mean it's not like they're regulating businesses properly... anyway that's another discussion.
Thanks for providing an instructive example of the type of destructive mindset that keeps people stuck in homelessness and poverty. Username checks out I guess.
You see, if you blame and attack anyone who even considers offering help, all you’ll do is make sure no one will ever want to do that. It’s literally a sucker’s game — feign helplessness, wait for someone kindhearted enough to offer help, and then take them for everything they’re worth by guilt tripping them to hell for not doing enough. You might as well stalk someone in a dark alley and put a gut to their head, functionally it's no different, just more obvious.
No, the people living in those camps are no more independent than anyone else, because they're not self-sufficient either, are they? If they were, they'd be growing their own food instead of having to rely on donations to feed themselves. So all your criticism is just the pot calling the kettle black. In fact, if you think about it long enough, no human on earth is ever completely independent, because they didn't give birth to themselves, they cannot reproduce without someone of the opposite gender, and even if they live completely off-grid somewhere and grow all their own food, they're still dependent on the weather, or might require a doctor if they fall ill. No true Scotsman and all that.
Instead of complaining that others aren't doing enough, consider why they would WANT to do anything at all. What's the point of sharing food with people who are just going to be ungrateful? Why be kind to someone who won't even consider returning the favor? That's like pouring water into a bottomless bucket.
I didn't mean give them public lands, but more recreate large common spaces for people to be able to be somewhat sufficient.
Also did you city try collecting their waste?
That sounds like a distinction without a difference, unless you are saying that in addition to land, they should also provide infrastructure for them on top.
I don’t think so, at least the last time I passed by there it was still all there. But just so we’re clear what you’re asking, picture about an acre of medium density forest land with a good 100 or so people living in makeshift tents or huts. And there’s trash literally everywhere — some of it piled up in heaps, some strewn about in the bushes, and it smells like a landfill on a hot summer day.
You would probably need a hazmat team to get rid of all that because there might be used needles, rotten food, or who knows what else in there, and more likely than not, someone would end up making a scene because some of their belongings ended up in the trash because they looked virtually indistinguishable from refuse.
It simply isn’t reasonable to demand or expect that others should take the time out of their day and clean up your mess when they’re already doing you a favor by tolerating you being there in the first place. These are grown people, not infants. If there isn’t at least an indication of goodwill and demonstrated intent to collaborate (such as them perhaps getting together and organizing their own cleanup effort, for which the city could provide trash bags and a truck to pick them up), there’s no amount of free stuff you can give them that’ll ever make them self-sufficient.