Lefty Memes
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
view the rest of the comments
So you have no proposed solution, just a diatribe? Not even arresting perpetrators of crimes when known? And don't say that never happens, I happen to personally know some people who were victims of ipv whose abusers are now in jail. You have some great model for crime prevention before it happens? Let's hear it.
You might know someone who has, I sure don't. I've been in rehab, I've been in women's shelters. I've been in homeless shelters. I've met a lot of people who have been victims of violence. Loads who have gone to the police for help too. I cannot name a single person for whom the police did literally anything beneficial whatsoever. There are a lucky few. Mostly white mostly middle class people.
But that's all besides the point. And you're choosing to continue to ignore that this is not the purpose of the police. A side action that they are occasionally asked to perform, and which they very rarely do anything beneficial towards. More often than not police are themselves perpetrators of physical and sexual abuse (their daily job is literally commiting acts of violence and using the threat of violence, it's not surprising). The primary purpose of their job has nothing to do with violent crime or with violent crime prevention.
My point being getting rid of them isn't going to change all that much if they don't actually do all that much anyway. Women get raped every day. Sexual violence is essentially a given for the majority of women in our society. The number of victims is staggering, especially when you poll people indirectly. Police do nothing about this. It's literally not their job. I know a girl who was sexually assaulted at 15 by a man in his mid 20s. Not only did the police fail to do anything, but the justice system actually supported the man and absolved him of all wrong doing just because. She was harassed by members of law enforcement who were friends with the man and local members of her community to the point that her family literally fled out of the country out of fear for her safety. Hers is just one story in a mile high pile.
There are millions of women who have been victimized again when trying to report crimes that happened against them. Being a woman or a minority immediately dispels any fucking notion that the police are there to protect you. That's not the point of their job. It literally isn't that is literally not why police were conceived of nor is it what they spend their time doing. I don't have to come up with a system that ends all violence. No such system presently exists.
If I'm being asked to replace the police then I'm sorry your question doesn't actually make sense. I'm an abolitionist, I don't believe that the police should exist at all. I'm also an egalitarian who believes every hierarchy is coercive and we should dismantle all of them. I think that dismantling patriarchy as a concept and giving women and non-binary people equal power and respect within every realm of society would do many times more to prevent sexual violence than any amount of coked up gun toting militaristic assholes with shiny badges will. When it comes down to individual instances of violence, I believe how it is handled should be decided by those in the community in question, those directly impacted. I believe that violent crime warrants some kind of response but it shouldn't be up to some uninvolved unempathetic judicial system to decide how.
So when your roommate's crazy girlfriend shoots him in the face with a shotgun (thereby killing him), what do you do? Accept this happens everyday and continue to go on about your life, with the crazy girlfriend still residing in the blood stained room?