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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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
Except they do. Dems have been telling leftists to get fucked for decades and some decide to bow to them in hopes they can maybe one day have an imaginary crumb. Those people are the ones keeping things from getting better when everyone needs to unite and literally fight against capitalist parties and their supporters instead of figuratively and performatively fighting them.
If you want to go to war with this fascist government with half the population supporting it. Go right ahead. It's not going to end well. Trump is doing a great job at destroying the country and it's going to come to a point where everyone is on the same page. That's when action makes sense. In the meantime I'm going to my best to put the spanner in the works.
The country being destroyed started LONG before Trump. He's just a convenient scapegoat for do-nothing libs to point at this time like Manchin and Sinema were last time.
Are you minimising the amount of damage Trump is incurring? You're talking like a conservative.
Not minimizing, just saying he's not unique in regards to damaging this country. He's just as evil as every other pro-capatilist politician from either party. This country is getting fucked by him just like it was getting fucked by Biden, Obama, and Bush.
Call me whatever labels will help you sleep tonight though.
What is your own personal vision of action in the next 4 years if you don't mind me asking?
Violent uprising by the working class to take everything back from the rich that they've been stealing from us for decades. No more peaceful negotiations. They either comply or become worm food in an unmarked grave.
Fair. Any ideas in addressing the high social entropy to bring about the spirit required for such actions? This is something that has always been on my mind. That and the mechanism of transformation.
Working and growing anarchists groups both local and far away is how I've been going about it. Educating everyone you know and those you don't on how violence is what actually brings about positive change. Telling those that feel they must protest to bring something to defend themselves from the powerful and using this time to sabotage anything they can get to that will disrupt the system even a bit. We've been past the point of "peace" and "love not war" for a long time and it's time we act like it instead of continuing to live in La La Land.
Oh nice! I'm from a very rural area so I don't have access to groups like that. Just the online communities. I'm more focused on changing hearts and minds through example. How effective that is is hard to say. But I believe we need enough working class to realize we're really in a class war to make critical change.