this post was submitted on 15 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.
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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,
as well as 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).
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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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.
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(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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Weird gotcha. What is this the early 2000s when smartphones were rich people toys?
Late 80s !
Globally, they still are. Almost half the world doesn't have one. And children still lose their limbs mining the cobalt etc.
I guess the question could be better phrased as "and what are you personally giving up to ensure that as many people as possible are fed?"
Yea I assumed that your main point was some kind of sacrifice, not the smartphones themselves. If it weren't for the smartphones you'd be phrasing your gotcha around TVs, or washing machines, or fridges, or indoor plumbing. I've seen this very conservative argument before.
Progressivism and leftism aren't some kind of ascetic christianity and nobody needs a morality preacher. Social progress is not about individual morality. And it's not a zero sum game either.
There is enough food production and wealth in the world to eliminate hunger and extreme poverty already. I could be a selfish asshole not willing to part with my sneaker collection and that would still be the case.
Maybe there is a future where carrying around a smartphone isn't necessary because we've rebuilt human connection in communities. The damn things are addictive misery machines under capitalism anyway. But that's very different from going around wagging the finger at people that say "we could feed the hungry".
Indoor plumbing has actually done wonders in the developing world.
It's weird though, when the argument is billionaires should give up their stuff, that's fine but when it's we who might have to make sacrifices, that's morality preaching? Seems incredibly conveniently selective.
I get that no one likes thinking of themselves as complicit but that seems a pretty poor foundation for ideology.
Nobody is talking about billionaires "giving up their stuff" or making a "sacrifice". This is about wresting ownership of the means of production away from the capitalists. I don't know exactly what you mean by "complicity" in this particular discussion, you'll have to clarify.
Unclear. Are you referring to human rights abuses in cobalt mining? Are you talking specifically or abstractly? About a specific industry or generally? Individually or at the national level?
However also, for many many people smartphones are their only way to access the internet, and it's the primary device for computing in poorer nations I believe
If there's one "essential" electronic device these days, it's the smartphone.
Yeah not as much in the rich world.
There are some folks sure but for the majority of people wasting time on Lemmy, I doubt that's the case. And yes, we can make up a heartbreaking example and just as easily I could point to a billionaire like Bill Gates who has done more to improve the world than most governments achieve. Or, as much as I dislike him, Elon Musk or more accurately, Statlink, without which Kyiev would have fallen months, maybe years ago.
The point though is that it's super easy to rail about billionaires but in reality serious change comes from the people. We're the ones who make sweatshops a thing, who eat so much beef that it's a huge contributor to global warning, who fly and drive everywhere for vacations etc. But that would take self reflection and maybe cause an ounce od shame so instead, "boooo billionaires."