this post was submitted on 01 Jul 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

Version without spoilers

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] 152 points 5 months ago (43 children)

And this is why the right accuses us of misusing the word fascist. No it wasn't "always" fascist.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

i mean theyve always been openly couping and subjugating the rest of the world. its just been successfull for their own population for most of this time.

as the meme says, its just ran out of space to expand and its now fucking over their own people and allies instead.

what fascists are doing right now in the us is not much different from what they have been doing to south america, africa and east asia for quite some time now.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Imperialist ≠ fascist

America was often imperialist, only had periods of fascist political movements and has been transitioning for a while.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 5 months ago (10 children)

I think it's stupid to say they have always been fascist, but people definitely don't grasp what fascism is, they think it's people marching in nice grey uniforms on the street and concentration camps out in the open and if you try to call anything that's not that they call you stupid and overreacting

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

"All men are created equal"

is slave state

Always has been

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

Would you say it might apply to an openly genocidal state conquering its neighbors?

How about when that state also has up to 30% of its population by region in racial chattel slavery?

How about when the genocide is done and the slavery ended but it still enforces apartheid politics?

How about when it overthrows the government of any neighbor it disagrees with?

Invades other countries and kills millions?

But, hey. It's not technically fascism as long it's white men voting to do that, right? They usually weren't even Italian! It's stupid to call it fascism when it doesn't come from Rome!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (16 children)

Those are definitely trait you'd expect from fascism, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to be fascist. Fascism is not just doing a bad thing. It's a very specific set of traits, which the US does not meet —in my opinion and any other informed opinion that I've seen.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Doing evil things =/= fascism.

Fascists do evil things, so do others.

I think this is the best video on fascism https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng?si=Bfyx8qpyz9EbuFQX

I don't disagree that fascism has been part of the US always but it has been everywhere, it never went away, but it really came out with trump whether you think Trump is a fascist or just a useful idiot/ opportunist capitalist is up to debate imo. But his following has a large group of fascists.

They worship trump to an almost religious degree, they use fascist symbolism, they are predominantly white and believe they have a right to rule and be on top just because, they accept minorities and some lgb (not T) people as long as it lets them get into the position of power, then turn on them ( as seen by the many leopardsatemyface posts about gay republicans)

Fascism is a specific political ideology that has some telltale signs not just a collection if evil deeds, what's the point of using words if we bend the definition to whatever we want to say?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Best not to use to academic language when dealing with those that Academia has failed so thoroughly. Or the ones who already know and don't care cuz they got enough of a kickback from kicking down.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (4 children)

To be honest, it's not even the "they came for you" bit, they are just coming for themselves now. I mean, if the orange idiot succeeds in dismantling NATO and imposing sanctions on US trade, China will def be the new leading superpower.

NATO is what props the dollar up. They are trying to undo the change in foreign relations the US made in WWII, and they will def get back to the pre-WWII US as a result.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Including segregation, no rights for women and no labour rights. Basically back to the days off the robber barons. And the morons will still be blaming the libruls as they lie in their bed, unable to afford a hospital while dying from silicosis.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

Someone made a good point on YouTube. What does Trump mean by "black jobs"? Aren't they just jobs?

He can't even not be racist at the best of times

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Tell me that you don't know what fascism is without telling me you don't know what real fascism.

What the USA has been for a long time is an oligarchy, and there are literal Princeton studies to support it. It's only now that it's following Russia into becoming full-fledged dictatorships.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (6 children)

brain dead take.

Always a racist slave state? sure. A military cult since like 1910? sure. A broken oligarchy? sure.

Fascist? defs heading that way. Not always.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

France going the same direction.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately much of the world is going in the same direction… really worrying to see. A third great war seems inevitable in our lifetimes

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Are you saying a country built upon colonization, Genocide and slavery has a systemic problem of oppression?

We just need to vote harder for Genocide!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We could start by agreeing on the definition of the term. Because 30s fascism is no more, and that is a fact. What constitutes fascism in todays world? As an Argentinian, the USA meddled with my country via dictatorship whthin operation Condor. That amounts to fascism, or at least, a subtype of it. I think Frank Zappa warned us about this...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

It's authoritarian tribalism based on nationality. In other words the forced elimination of opposition, because of the belief in one's superiority. And since one's superiority derives from their nationality, it inevitably has to include some traditional values. Any in fighting is just arguing over the meaning of their nationality. I don't understand what people don't understand or how they keep getting it wrong.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

As per the wikipedia definition, it does seem the USA has been fascist towards the rest of the world, just not towards its own citizens (overtly) until now...

So if we agree fascism can apply internationally but not domestically (which is not usually how the term is described) then the meme is accurate

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