this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
932 points (85.5% liked)
Lefty Memes
4298 readers
1298 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
I for one am glad we here have the police forces and am honestly terrified by the comments in this thread here. I mean, okay, maybe in your country or local sphere you have more corrupt police forces than, say, over here in the middle of Europe, but I dread the day police would be on strike or get understaffed even more.
Society even here has gotten so violent and just morally and ethically bad in the last years I perceive the police forces as one of the few stabilizing instances left. Social engagement nowadays only gets you into trouble and I have been mugged more than once in the last years, whereas this never has been occurred before that. On the streets you can see gang-like groups of "young males" roaming the streets, littering everywhere, making especially the women feel unsafe and bad. Society has got a punch and it has become more difficult to strike up a conversation or feel safe or just well when in public. Police? Hell yeah. We definitely need more. And better judges which don't let illdoers back on the streets. Society is no battlefield. There are rules to obey for the better of everyone.
I don't know in what country you live. I live in The Netherlands, one of the richest countries, with police which is very mild compared to other countries. They are 'trained' to de-escalate, to use the least amount of violence, to try to talk first. A force they 'try' to be inclusive, with a reasonably high percentage of women and different ethnicities, promoting to be open to LGBTQ+.
I can tell you with certainty, they are biased and racist as fuck, corrupt, abusive, above the law.
I assume you view the world through (male) white glasses from a rich country within the EU? The cops are there to protect your rich white privilege, you don't have a clue what it is like for poor people and people of color. Police is not what it is supposed to be in an ideal world. They should be abiding the law, enforcing the law, protect ALL citizens, be unbiased, treat everyone the same whether they are rich, poor, whatever their religion or ethnicity, whatever gender, political view, etc. They fail on all these points. Even in progressive countries like The Netherlands or Germany.
Next to that, the far right is on the rise. They love to enable and use the police to enforce their will.
Look at all the protests. The protests by the left are struck down with brute force and loads of arrests. Protests of the right are mostly left alone, with maybe one or two arrests if any. Here in the Netherlands farmers were left alone to lock down the entire infrastructure of the country, for many days, with loads of destruction (including driving a tractor into a municipality building) with barely any arrests or consequences. The cop who opened fire on a tractor which drove at him fast and refused to stop got into trouble, not the guy driving the tractor.
A hand full of climate activists blocking a single road were beaten and arrested with brute force, after which they got hefty fines.
So fuck the police.
I was at a peaceful rally a week ago, police showed up and acted as intimidating as possible. We stood around and listened to some very powerful speeches from Palestinians, the police left momentarily so that they could come and assualt the crowd from the side.
They pepper sprayed children. Fuck every cop who ever did their job.
What's the age limit when a child is allowed to learn from an adult's example about peaceful activism
There are plenty, too many, cases where police have "intervened" wrongfully
"If it was peaceful, why did the police show up?"
"If you were innocent, then why were you arrested?"
Bad arguments are bad.
Police violence is something different then peaceful protesting. It turns into non-peaceful as soon as the police starts to use force without a proper cause. It's called "abuse of power". Cops love to get violent, especially when the protesters do not (so they won't hit back).
Yes, it was completely peaceful as it has been for the past 30 something weeks that these rallies have been held.
If you've ever been to a demonstration you'd understand that all the police do is show up and cause violence. No one needed protecting from us, we walked down a goddamn street. Last time I checked that wasn't exactly a violent act. But people sure needed protecting from the police...
It was a peaceful protest. The only danger was from the -checks notes- boys in blue sworn to protect them? That CANT be right.
Children came to support a peaceful rally, they weren't in danger until the police showed up.
There are many young people who care about things and want to help, many are refugees themselves and have just as much of a right to be there as anyone else. People are there to share stories, raise money for relief funds and to show our goddamn solidarity for people being murdered in their homes.
These rallies have been running for months now and no one at them has caused any issues, but the cops sure fucking have.
It's irresponsible for the police to abuse their power and use pepper spray on children at a peaceful protest.
Going outside has a risk of getting hit by a car. So now it's irresponsible to take your kids outside? It's not normal to get hit by a car, but it's also not normal for police to use violence on non-violent protes.... Oh wait, yes that indeed IS normal now, depending on the religion, ethnicity, political statement of the protesters.
Imo it's irresponsible to have kids in the first place by the way, it's not irresponsible though to bring your kids to a peaceful protest as no one expect police to pepper spray your kids without cause. Or at least, that is how it should be. When you claim it's irresponsible to bring your kids because you can expect police to use violence without cause, to abuse their power even though you are there because of your constitutional right, you acknowledge the police violence without condemning it.
You are victim blaming.