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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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.
Assuming this isn't just shopped, which it probably is... As a guy that bakes cakes from scratch a couple of times a year, two things:
I guess it’s the same concept as a checkerboard cake just cutting the rings to make a swastika instead. But yeah why go through all the mess to make the outside that sloppy.
Because, even for Nazis, it's the inside that counts.
Nazism will even cover up for the sin of you not being white.
Fascism is, as much as anything, a process of exterminating those you don't like until things collapse. Nazism will cover the sin of you not being white - but only for a while - you'll find yourself back at the front of the queue once those more "undesirable" than you are shuffled off to the camps.
The image is so blurry… the foreground slice could have been a paper swastika cutout placed on the slice and cocoa powder sprinkled on it to create the symbol. The background cake looks partly copied from the foreground swastika.
E: autocorrect is annoying af
The partial swastika is facing the wrong direction. Or I guess the slice is upside-down. Looks like two thin sheet cakes samwhiching a glob of frosting or ganache.
It’s the right direction. Look at where the top is on the cut piece, and think of which direction you will flip it when you put it down on the plate.
Yeah, the slice is upside down.
They just tilted to the right to put it on the plate rather than tilted to the left. Does that really make it upside down?
Is tilting to the right to drop a piece of cake on a plate violating some kind of standard cake serving protocol?
EDIT or in other words, had they tilted the serving utensil to the left to drop the slice on the plate, the swastike would match the orientation you see on the remaining uncut portion of the cake.
It’s like when I hear people claim that I have to “respect their beliefs”. No I don’t. If you want to believe an ancient fairy tale over reason, logic, and science, that’s your business— and I certainly respect (and will fight to defend) your right to your beliefs, as they are also my rights to my non-belief.
But do I respect your beliefs? Only if they deserve respect. And it’s beliefs like these for which I hold my… discerning position regarding the beliefs of others.
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
I respect people, not beliefs.
Also the "traditional family values" people never seem to realize that no one pressures them to do liberal stuff. They can still be traditional.
I have to assume they project their own authoritarianism onto us liberal people.
The lament of the white conservative
If I'm not allowed to force my favorite things on everybody, I'm being oppressed.
If I'm not allowed to force the Others to not do their favorite things, I'm being oppressed.
If people who look and think like me own and control everything and the Others criticize that, I'm being oppressed.
What they want is control. With their religion they get to be right because they read the book the hardest. Except everyone else gives zero shits about their book so they piss their pants crying.
There's also the social contract resolution to the tolerance paradox. Essentially, the tolerance paradox is that tolerating intolerance erodes tolerance. This means eventually if you allow intolerance to fester, they will seize control and you lose that tolerance.
The social contract resolution is that by being intolerant, you lose your right to be tolerated. This avoids that paradox, but superficially can look like intolerance.
I hope this didn't end up too much like word salad.
I was able understand it pre-coffee so it made enough sense so hopefully mine won’t be a word salad too
TLDR a long winded version of what you said about the social contract
But to add on, like you said tolerance is a contract that only protects the parties that follow its terms
Example: (pick a group of your choice) “Hey _____ person, I’ll respect you if you respect me” Yay everyone’s happy we’re all chilling together even tho I’m 100% certain we have different beliefs down to the core
But when that contract is broken apply that to the blank above, “Hey Nazi, I’ll respect you if you respect me”. They won’t hold up their end of the deal so why should I hold up mine
Yeah, absolutely, that's a much more readable summation than what I wrote.
As an aside, I really like the social contract theory. It's a pretty clean philosophical summation of how the majority of people in tolerant democracies see the world and provides the foundation for it, even if they don't think about it in formal philosophical terms. That essentially we are implicitly bound by the rules established by previous generations, those that set the rules (both cultural and legal), until such time as we form a political or cultural movement to change those rules. Then, anyone who comes after us is bound by those rules we set until and unless they in turn change them.
EDIT: I guess I should add that in the context of this thread, "be tolerant" is a cultural rule that has developed over the recent past, and thus if you aren't tolerant there are social repercussions (and in countries with hate speech laws, even legal repercussions) as that is the current rule.
They need to respect my belief that they're assholes. I made it my religion in some way. My holy tradition.
I've found that folks with beliefs that aren't respectable, like believing that minorities don't deserve rights, tend to need to be reminded to respect other people's beliefs. Many times those beliefs hurt no one, like belief in astrology.
So they just weaponize and twist the lessons they were given to silence others so they can continue harming others.
Also I find those are people who rarely respect others’s beliefs
I still think about my white coworker who said that the 1920s were the best times. And I had to remind him his mixed wife and kids would disagree with him.
Let me guess, he's probably enjoys drinking alcohol too.
...but Gatsby! and flapper dresses! and wealthy industrialists!
It's all vibes from people painfully ignorant of the time they yearn for.
It’s like when people read or watch a period drama that takes place before the 20th century and then they wish they were born back then. They forget that they would be born as a peasant or slave working the fields or mines and every decade they and their sons are forced into the meat grinder of war.
That's not a Nazi swastika, for the record.
It doesnt matter how pedantic you try to get. At this point every swastika is a nazi swastika unless you find it in a Buddhist temple.
I find that insulting to the cultures and people who have used it for a thousand years and continue to do so. I'd rather be pedantic than dismissive of their much older beliefs.
That's on the Nazis and the people that still tolerate them and fly their symbols.
Why?
A Nazi swastika is tilted at 45°, and points to the right (though the one in this cake could point either direction depending on which side you're looking at).
A swastika in this style is a religious symbol used in many eastern faiths and belief systems, including Buddhism.
The Nazi flag used a 45° rotated swastiska. However horizontal swastikas were also commonly used by the Nazis.
Aside from the fact that the only good nazi is a dead nazi, that takes a lot of planning and effort.
Off-topic, but, if that's a real cake and the image goes all the way around, that's actually kind of impressive.
Same, that's pretty creative layering
The swasticake.
Isn't that the Buddhist/Hindu version?
From Wikipedia:
In Hinduism, the right-facing symbol (clockwise) (卐) is called swastika, symbolizing surya ('sun'), prosperity and good luck, while the left-facing symbol (counter-clockwise) (卍) is called sauvastika, symbolising night or tantric aspects of Kali.
I thought the big difference came down to the direction it was facing, but turns out both directions are the Hindu way with different meaning. And depending which side of the cake or the slice you look at it will be both ways. The other distinction between the two is that the Nazi one is usually tilted to 45 degrees.
It can go in either direction, but it's more commonly in the opposite of what is shown here
I distinctly remember debating with a person from my old Internet community. The person is anti-globalisation whereas I am pro. This was before I realised right wingers are anti-globalisation, but he blamed the rise of far left and far right in the 20th century to globalisation, and also blamed the fall of Rome to foreigners with the Germanic invasions (it is an oversimplification as to why Germanic peoples invaded but many viewed themselves as also Romans; hence why the later Holy Roman Empire is Germanic). Then after a while, the discussion turned to women's rights because I mentioned Westerners just don't have as many children and therefore immigration is necessity . The interlocutor then basically argued that women should have more children. I alluded that there was a certain political party that explicitly viewed women as baby churners in order to breed more people for their race (I'm referring to the Nazis of course, but I should have also mentioned at the time the Islamic fundamentalists also do the same).
Someone mentioned that the user I debated with changed over time within the community. I later learned that the person got banned.
Advocating for traditional values is not in and of itself wrong, but if those values impede another person's rights then those values are not worth actually worth valuing.
Tribalism is a terrible thing, and unfortunately part of human nature. Those people over there want my fucking deer meet, and this cozy cave I have: I need to hate them.
I have a feeling someone baked this cake just for the meme.
I believe in TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES like HARD WORK through HUNTING and GATHERING and COMMUNAL LIVING and DYING AT THE AGE OF 5 and BEING AFRAID OF FIRE and YEETING YOUR KIDS INTO THE FOREST WHEN THEY BECOME ADULTS.
I wish they would have done it better so I could call it the best ATBGE ever. But it looks like the basket just replaced a big block Chevy before they baked the cake.
Kind of a beat idea, I want to make a Minecraft one now
