this post was submitted on 26 Jun 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.
7. 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
(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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This is your programming speaking. Fear, uncertainty, doubt.
People don't unite under solutions. They unite under ideas.
There are a million fucking problems, each require their own solution. Each need to be defined, examined, and tested. No one can sit there and say, "just do this."
The work we are doing, and the work that needs done are in opposition to each other. Right now we are working to feed the system. We need to be working on maintaining the system to feed the people.
Solutions start with ideas. If you are someone who can't turn an idea into a workable solution then why would I follow you? The world is full of people who want to be idea people, yet they have no understanding of practical reality. That's another thing that's missing from the current leftist movements: understanding of practical reality.
Also I would stop generalising people. I follow solutions, not just ideas. That's how any engineer should think. After all we are the people who turn lofty goals into reality.
Leftists are at their best when they can see practical problems that everyday people have, and explain why they happen in the context of the larger system and its flaws. Some leftists are great at this. What you need to do is take the next step and propose how you could change, improve, or replace the system and how that would solve the current problems without creating bigger ones. If you can't do that then ultimately you aren't going to win in the end, even if you manage to get popular support, even with a revolution.
This is again another type of programing. People arent an engineering problem. Politics will never be removed from emotion.
I've told my solution but you instead want a silver bullet. Everyone wants a silver bullet. The silver bullet doesn't exist and will never come.
We need to build our communities stronger, and need to stop being divided by people with obscene wealth; the people with something to lose if we do just that. Thats what will get us to the next obstacle.
Instead you will wait around for a charismatic leader with the answer to all your problems. Who has come to save us all.
You haven't done that.