this post was submitted on 31 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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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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Oh you mean like is currently happening right now without socialism?
I think they're referring more to historical events. Like the great depression and the dust bowl.
Wait, you're telling me that a preindustrial society, the successor state to an empire that had 10 famines a century, had one last famine during some failed policy of land collectivisation and then ended hunger for 300 million people? How does that make the USSR look bad?
Better luck next time.
Again with the ahistorical bullshit.
First of all, the process of dekulakization was only state-directed, but it was primarily peasant-enforced. There were some guidelines to the process, but it was poor peasants who organized themselves, who decided which kulaks to expropriate, and who oversaw the process. But the poor peasants were so extreme towards kulaks because of how they had been exploited by them, that the soviet government had to introduce maximum quotas of percentage of kulaks per region, in order to prevent poor peasants from going overboard.
Additionally, the elimination of Kulaks didn't mean the elimination of each individual Kulak, it meant the elimination of the social class. A kulak getting a death sentence (or, more commonly, being killed by the poor peasants) was a rare thing, and forced relocation to Eastern territories was a much more common penalty. The vast majority of Kulaks survived dekulakization. But you couldn't bother to read a book and your here spouting ahistorical nonsense.
Isn't happening in well functioning capitalist countries
Because they continue what they have historically done: outsourcing the most extreme poverty and suffering to the countries they exploit for resources.
You do know that hunger and malnutrition in the US impacts millions of people every year, and Cuba has eliminated food insecurity for its entire population, right?
If not, now you do.
That's not data, that's a newspaper article. Come back with serious sources.
Give us the numbers, my dude.
He literally countered a baseless claim, which would have the burden of proof and could have been dismissed, and you still want more?
The article is the classic example of concern-trolling.
Instead of showing statistics or actual data, it talks about this "economic crisis" of Cuba, it interviews a particular person to make people feel pity, shows a few pictures of people selling produce on the streets (normal in Cuba since the 1990s' periodo especial)... The writers don't know about Cuba, and don't care about Cubans. It's just a wannabe hit-piece to create concerns in the West about the conditions of Cubans. That's why I'm dismissing it. The claim "there's hunger in Cuba" requires statistical evidence supporting it.
Perfect, so why not say this directly? And why not provide evidence for the other side?
Only focusing on what we do not believe is a big part of how we got to the shitty situation we are in today. Such a bias really hurts us and we must constantly remind ourselves that the other side is just like us.
I said well functioning.
I don't consider the US well functioning by any metric
I agree, which countries do you consider well functioning?
Canada, Sweden Denmark Australia
7 million Canadians going hungry under capitalism: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/new-food-banks-canada-research-shows-7-million-canadians-report-going-hungry-833281882.html
And aren't Sweden and Denmark famously more socialist than other developed countries?
Edit: also I find it interesting that Socialism is judged by the worst example you could find, but Capitalism can only be judged by "well functioning countries". US is peak Capitalism, it is exactly the direction Capitalism goes towards.
All capitalist countries are well-functioning, it's just some are exploiters and some are exploited. But that's not a malfunction, that's there by design.
Or, to quote Chomsky:
Exporting your poverty and starvation to foreign countries where you super-exploit and plunder does not mean that the cause isn't with the "well functioning Capitalist country."