this post was submitted on 26 Apr 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

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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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

So at this stage where I live is very far from any sort of organised resistance to capitalism. Rebuilding foundational institutions of mutual aid and working class organisation such as food coops and unions is more productive than trying to march in the street for abolishing landlords. One activist was recently in the news for organising squatting which I think is rad, and he handled himself masterfully when dropped into a neoliberal shark tank on TV.

There are many laws that favour landlords: such as negative gearing, capital gains tax discounting, and absolutely fucked renters rights. Attacking these politically helps to build a movement and aids real people now. One political party is pushing for major increases in public housing, assisting them undermines the strength landlords have by reducing their power over homelessness.

I don't have a plan for Australia to ban landlords because that's far in the future, groundwork needs establishing first and that takes the form of spreading ideas, seeking consensus, aiding political allies, and participating in local coops and so on to build solidarity and class consciousness.

The end goal is imho a society organised around mutual aid, collective ownership of the means of production, and abolishing private ownership (not personal btw, your toothbrush is safe). There are any number of utopian visions for what that might look like but we have so much to do from now till then that overly fixating on a specific codified system is a waste of time. First people need to believe another way is possible and be empowered to build it.