this post was submitted on 10 Apr 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
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
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Eeeeeh, mixing a lot of apples and oranges on that one. At least in a few of those they have problems way beyond US intervention. Others don't get accused of being wrecked by socialism because that "US backed coup" ended up setting up a fascist government for ages instead, so that kinda muddles the meme as well.
Along with mixing up socialism and socialdemocracy I find sometimes online leftists tend to get overprotective of nominally socialist regimes regardless of what obvious issues they have for unrelated reasons. That seems self-defeating to me, it gives reactionaries fodder to lump all left of centre or progressive governments and only target the worst of them for a cheap rhetorical win.
Apples are a fruit with thin edible skin and firm white flesh. Oranges are a fruit with a thick inedible skin and soft pulpy flesh.
Apples can be compared to oranges.
What on earth are you talking about? You can totally eat orange peels. They're not great, but become very special if cooked properly.
Given enough processing, apples and oranges are practically the same thing.
Now try bananas and naked mole rats!
Given enough processing, bananas and naked mole rats can both be turned into mush.
In the modern day, it’s usually not that we’re just mad at them for being socialist; the days of pointless bloodshed like Vietnam and Cuba belong to a time several generations ago. Ever since the 1980s, it’s usually been just that they have something we want, and socialism doesn’t enter into that equation as much. We’re just as comfortable coup-ing Honduras as we are invading Afghanistan, but not for reasons of ideology. We just want their stuff.
Check out “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” for an in depth look at exactly how fucked and criminal the entire system is.
I bet you're real fun at parties
Direct US intervention is only part of the puzzle. The constant extraction of resources and funding of the people who keep the populace down through less obvious means is the main thing putting down a lot of the nations who are not US and EU, particularly in the global south.
I don't think it's unrelated at all to point out that it just so happens that (most of) the rich nations have or had a colonial history, and the poor ones were colonized.
Finally, this is a meme, you're looking for too much nuance.
On that last part we can agree. Although maybe the next good question is whether we should be pushing political ideas via memes.
We're collectively maybe a quarter of a century late to that conversation, though.
Memes can be imperfect but in the current landscape they're still very effective in agitation.
You want agitation... without nuance? What use are you? There's enough shit sticks. Have the backbone to say you didn't think the meme through.
to grow a tree you must first plant a seed
Unfortunately for you, we're not here for memes but pointless internet arguments.
PS i am less mad than you
lemmy commenters when a meme post on a meme channel doesn’t have the rhetorical nuance of a three hour video essay: 😡😡😡
Seems alright to me to discuss the memes in the comments