this post was submitted on 19 Jul 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.
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If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
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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)
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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.
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Aren't liberals leftists though?
Cannot tell if this is meant sarcastically? Probably?
Just in case you are serious:
Often debated because neither is well defined and liberal is used by different people to mean totally different things. As I would use the term, liberals are in favor of liberating markets and nothing else. Leftists are people who are in favor of progressive and emancipatory politics. So for me, liberals are definitely no leftists.
It was serious, in my head both were just terms for left wing further left than central left but not like extremist left wing.
Ah OK, really depends where you live. In Germany, for example, the liberal party is notoriously anti-left and usually allies with the main conservative, right-wing party. When it was founded after WW2 many Nazis joined it.
And it also depends what you mean by left vs right wing. In the US, the democrat party may be considered left leaning? But in comparison to many European left wing parties, it might be more of a centrist or even right-wing party. None of these terms can be really pin pointed down to an exact meaning and they are usually relative to other positions surrounding them. For me, defining liberal as market liberal seems like the most sensible definition, but then you might consider the US american Republican party to be liberal as well? Confusing!
And what is extremist left wing? Some people even consider human rights and medical care for everyone to be extremist left. Again, these terms always go in relation to other position like described via the overton window.