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
I'm still feeling bitter and a fast food place last night asked me to tip, so it got me thinking that maybe this is the time to push out tipping culture. If the country wants the party of "fuck you, I got mine", then fight your own battles for your wage.
Legally, if they don't make minimum wage through tips then the employer has to make up the difference (in practice this likely doesn't happen). Maybe it will make them care more about the minimum wage if it affects them.
instead i would say you could tip and hand out union material now that would really fuck the rulling class off.
Make a bunch of those fake dollar bills the Christians like handing out as tips
I can see where you're coming from in theory, but if we rely on employers to treat employees fairly we'll be waiting a long time (they're already demonstrating that they would rather ignore the law and potentially face a minor fine, than pay the minimum wage), and the only ones who will suffer will be the sub-minimum wage employees who now aren't getting that tip either.
You make people care by building solidarity with them, not by using them as a bargaining chip.
If wait staff stop getting tips, eventually they will strike or quit and the restaurants will have to change their model. My solidarity exists that if they strike then I won't shop there until they agree to a compromise. I don't see how the existence of the US's unique tipping culture is our responsibility.
So your solution is to starve those already struggling, instead of support them and together taking the fight directly to the employer, or even better, to the political establishment?
That's a really gross and privileged take. Do the people in your vicinity a favour and don't eat out, they don't deserve to have to wait on someone who would rather see them starve before offering any support or even solidarity.
E: I've got it now - yours is the liberal version of pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
That is fighting with the employer. Tipping is what the employers want. That's why my idea of "disobeying" was that this is when the movement to end US tipping culture makes sense. Europe has restaurants and they don't have a tipping culture.
I don't get why if I don't tip that I'm the one starving the employee, and not the employer.
The cashier making MacMinimum Wage needs your political throttling ?
They are your emotional pawn because you look down at them being poor ?
They aren't a political pawn. This is what we want. This is what we voted for. It's not my responsibility to pay their wages. If they don't like their compensation, they can strike or look elsewhere for employment. Clearly trying to push for better compensation through law isn't going to work.