this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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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
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).
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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.
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Humans don’t create prosperity. It was already here. Polluting the planet with artificial products and stealing resources intentionally for imagined prosperity is the act of humans and is not natural but a consequence of having free will and contemplative consciousness. Cutting off necessary resources for survival is cruel.
Humans absolutely created prosperity. The thing that was already here was nomadic hunter gatherer tribes that were perpetually one bad winter away from death.
Cutting off necessary resources is cruel. But refusing to acknowledge that those resources are provided by man made systems doesn't help you. Going to bed hungry is very natural. Wild animals do that all the time. Tap water is not natural, everything about how that water got from the river into your tap was man made.
Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's better, and just because it's man made doesn't mean it's bad.
Prosperity is an idea not a reality. You have prosperity because you created an idea called wealth. And with that idea comes another idea called poverty.
Were the cavemen prosperous? OFC. If they weren’t then we wouldn’t be here.
Humans didn’t create anything. They manipulate what’s already here. They make illusions seem real.
By that reasoning there is nothing preventing you from being prosperous except your own greed.
Go out into the wilderness and be prosperous like the cavemen. Having your tapwater taken away shouldn't hinder you, those prosperous cavemen didn't have the luxury of any modern amenities. Just the streams they could find and the food they could scavenge or kill.
Abandon your greedy insistence on enjoying modern luxury and go prosper. You're the only thing stopping yourself.
And I'm sure you'll have no trouble staying connected when you find the cellphone tree. After all, if humans didn't create anything then everything must be naturally occurring. It's just an illusion that modern technology requires creation of parts that could never exist naturally.