this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
1063 points (88.8% liked)
Lefty Memes
4359 readers
495 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
So, you’re okay with not having a clean conscience? Or, other voters should be okay with not having a clear conscience? If Biden winning is more important to you than having a clean conscience. Vote for him. But don’t pressure people that choose to have a clear conscience.
Unless thought police is on your bucket list.
From my perspective, they are implying that your belief that voting third party or abstaining gives you a clear conscience makes you a self-centered, arrogant fool. Because the result of your action (or inaction) will increase the likelihood of the more bad thing happening.
To me, that's not a clear conscience. That's ignorance. That's explicitly choosing to ignore the consequences of your (in)action. That's short-sightedness to the degree that someone would expect of a preschooler. One with behavioral problems.
That’s a lot of words to say you are okay with genocide. I’m not gonna castigate voters for voting against a candidate that enables it. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I get to middle school. It depends on how long recess is.
I did not say I'm okay with genocide.
Our choices this election are genocide with a side of an untoppped baked potato, or genocide with a side of radioactive flaming diarrhea.
There is no third option. The third option is that the waiter brings you one of the two and you have to accept it.
At least one way, we get a bland potato. It sucks, but that's the way this restaurant is run. We can't just get up and go to another restaurant. But, maybe if we can just find it to ignore the genocide (which, by the way, the chef is really limited in what they can do without the support of the rôtisseur, especially when he gets a couple line cooks to side with him), we might be able to have no genocide next time we come back. Otherwise, we're all gonna get sick being close to all the radioactive diarrhea and the whole place is gonna get shut down.
I only eat happy meals.
You're implying that asking people what they think the real world results of their choices are is being the thought police? That seems a little... diluted.
Then you shouldn’t care how people vote.
I'm not getting how you got to that conclusion, can you flesh it out a little more?
If you’re okay with people voting their conscience, then you can’t be upset when they do that. If you are upset when they don’t vote your way, that’s the policing of thought.
I'm not upset if they do, nor do I expect them to vote my way. I just want to encourage them to discuss the real world effects of their choice. I just want to make sure they're internally consistent in their reasoning. For example, another commentor said they've voted for third party since 2008, and my response was for them to simply carry on doing so.
You can label discourse as "thought policing", but then that casts an extremely wide net that cheapens the term as used by Orwell.
People who are choosing not to vote for Biden are doing so because of a genocide that is happening NOW. You want to question them on contingent hypothetical real world results of a Trump presidency that may, or may not, happen in the FUTURE.
You’re trying to scare voters by telling them a dragon 🐉 is outside, when a venomous hydra is already in the room with them.
You’re concern trolling and “just asking questions,” it reeks of desperation.
Oh so they can reason about a hypothetical future if they vote third party, but they can't do so if it's about a trump presidency? That's hilarious. Or are you saying they unable reason about a hypothetical future at all?
Holy shit my man I'm asking folks to tell me what THEY think is going to happen as a consequence of their actions. If their reasoning is so shit that that question shakes them to their core, get good.
Most voters are retrospective voters. They aren’t as concerned with the future as they are with the present and past.
I appreciate you defining that, but I don't see anything that suggests most voters fall under that category - any chance you'd be able to dig that up?
Sure.
Thanks!
Do you think retrospective voters use the past to try and inform reasoning about the future?
IMO there has to be some level of this happening, otherwise retrospective voters would only have an opinion on those that already have served, and would be essentially picking from those who have not served at random.
It’s been a while since I read the study, but I think that was part of it. They used the past to inform opinions about the future.