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)
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
view the rest of the comments
This is exactly what I see. Many people see critical support and assume it as uncritical support, then extrapolate nonsensical views from that. Like, if someone says they think it's cool that China has high speed rail, that doesn't mean they wish 100 Tianannmenn massacres annually and to personally fellate Xi.
Nah dude you got it all wrong, Tianannmenn square was a western psyop. and all those "prisons" in xianjiang are just really secure hotels or something idk.
Execution vans? never heard of them m8
No cap, fr, fr
Username does not check out.
But the same people will say that Israel has to be 100% opposed, even though they are a democracy where lots of people disagree with the current actions of the government.
So China's problems are ignored but Israel's are not. That's the definition of bias.
I don't really think this is an equivalent statement. Israel isn't opposed because it's a liberal democracy, but because it is an aparthied state carrying out a genocide and propped up by the US to protect its business interests.
The people who give China a pass are who I'm talking about. They don't oppose the Chinese government either.
For some people the thought process is:
Oppose "the West" = good
Support "the West" = bad
The countries making up "the West" change from person to person and day to day.
I think this is an unintentional oversimplification of their views.
Put another way, if someone considers China a lesser evil than the US, that doesn't mean they are giving China a "pass." I would argue that there are no truly good states right now, so everyone is ultimately picking a lesser evil.
If I say China having high speed rail is good, that doesn't mean I agree with the homophobic legislature in China.
Israel is not a democracy, they are a theocratic apartheid state.