this post was submitted on 01 Sep 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.
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
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Would you be able to explain the difference between "left" and "liberal" in this context?
I'm not the same person, but I'll give it a go. It's confusing in part because liberal often means leftish leaning in the US but not elsewhere.
For example Democrat and liberal are pretty much interchangeable in US political discourse, but that's not what the word means. Liberalism is more of an economic strategy. In this sense Democrats and Republicans are both liberals. They are all conservative liberals. Does that sound like a contradiction? Only in modern US politics. One party is just more conservative socially and more economically liberal.
Left or Leftist is generally in conflict with liberal ideology, as a leftist believes in strong social safety nets like universal healthcare, universal basic income, etc. Depending on the type of leftist, this could mean things like a planned economy, workers owning the means of production, or even collectivist anarchy. Examples of leftists are Socialists and Communists.
This is why, to a leftist, it's so damn funny when a republican calls a democrat a radical leftist. No self respecting leftist would be a member of the democratic party.
Sorry for all the US centric shit on a thread about France but I think that's where the confusion usually comes from.
That is such a stupid mindset. In many states you have to be a member of the party to vote in their primary. If you are not voting in any primary then you are letting people that you disagree with decide who will be in the candidate in the election. And considering that not voting is effectively voting for the candidate that you most disagree with, all the leftists that refuse to associate with the democratic party are effectively voting for the people they disagree with.
In most countries you need to be a party member to engage in internal party politics. The idea that the heneral public makes direct choices for private political organizations is, honestly, kind of weird.
But also, which states require you to be an actual card-carrying member to participate in the primary? I was under the impression that most merely required that you register with the electoral office as a party supporter.
Being a "registered X" is very different from being "a member of X". Members get to do things like go to convemtions where party policy is discussed and voted on. Members get to vie for party nomination. They're part of the internal machinery of the party.
Yhey're not just voters with a party banner.
OK, if you want to look at it that way, it's still the same basic argument, refusing to participate in the party just effectively increases the representation of the people you disagree with.