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] 113 points 5 months ago (2 children)

some people died but i got rich. sue me.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sues you and wins but it only costs the company 5% of their normal monthly profits

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

And then the company never pays and you have to sue again but you are now too broke and tired.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

Alex Jones has entered the chat

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

Some of you may die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take!

[–] [email protected] 67 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And the US "Supreme" Court: looks great, let's do more of that!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago

... we regulate ourselves too and nothing has gone wrong with that!

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago

You should see the lines go up though!

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

The problem with using the Love Canal was that it was the local government that really fucked up.

For the time, Hooker Chemical Company disposed of the chemical waste in a somewhat responsible way; a clay lined canal that they later topped with clay to prevent water infiltration. If the town wasn't dead set in developing the land, we likely would have never heard of Love Canal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's immediately what I thought whem reading it. The company did the right thing, it's the government who wouldn't listen to reason.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The company did the dumping and then sold it off for $1 for a school to be built upon it. They were held liable. They also created other environmental disasters elsewhere. White Lake Michigan, for instance.

Hooker Chemical Company gave no fucks, and should not be given tacit approval or any credit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

Hooker Chemical sold for $1 and a list of conditions because the local government was threatening eminent domain after the company gave several warnings.

And I'm not going to defend Hooker in other locations.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

They were forced to sell under threat of eminent domain. That's why they tried to sell it for $1 along with a list of conditions on what it could be used for to highlight the danger. The Government then rejected this offer. Rather than trying to blame some random company just because you think all companies are evil, maybe go and read the history instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

More importantly it was the 1950s before the Clean Water Act. Where both entities involved existed under the framework of industry self-regulation that is being directly criticized here.

The issue isn't a company or government is responsible: it is that the system of self regulation results in failures with significant collateral damage.

Regulation also binds government, believe it or not.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure it does, but you were directly trying to blame the company, and not the government that screwed it up. Stop shifting goalposts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I established they were held legally liable, which they were, in response to a comment that stated the government was the one who fucked up.

Ain't no zero-sum binary brained scenario.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Second picture should be Bhopal.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Americans would shrug it off as a foreign problem. We're idiots like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Unión Carbide. I was very young when that made headlines.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

I actually grew up next to the Cuyahoga in the '70s, and it's mind-boggling how disgusting that river was. Used tires and rusted steel chemical barrels everywhere, and the surface covered with a sheen of oil or who knows what the fuck it was. The concept of a beautiful rivers edge was laughable back then, as the river was lined with various plants and factories with big drainage pipes jutting out over the water discharging ... stuff. And this was about 30 miles from the part that actually caught fire (which was in Cleveland). I really don't understand why that river wasn't just on fire all the time.

My parents founded an organization that cleaned the river up (at least the part of it in our town) and turned it into a beautiful park and walking trail. I'm so proud of them for that, but sadly these victories are never permanent.

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

I work in aerospace regulation and the latest media coverage has been quite upsetting for me. There is a huge difference between delegation (how the aerospace regulator gives approval power to people in companies) and self-regulation, but I'm not clever enough to summarise them in this format. So instead I'd like to share two facts that can summarize the outcome instead.

  1. An airliner is a chunk of metal full of people 30,000 ft in sky propelled to near the speed of sound by burning kerosene in a tube. With all of that is safer than driving in your car or going for a swim. That's aerospace regulation at work, and it has always included delegation. It's almost the safest industry there is even when you include Boeing's criminal fraud and attempts to abuse the system.

  2. Boeing had to ground their fleet for years and now is being charged with criminal fraud for deceiving the FAA (the aerospace regulatory body in the USA). Self regulated industries rarely face consequences.

I'm not saying it's perfect, and I wish I could explain the process better but I think it's very effective and has a proven track record across the world. Almost all modern countries use the same regulatory framework because it delivers incredible safety at a reasonable (by aerospace standards) cost to the government.

I hope more industries transition to a similar framework. If we had an FAA for finance and environmental protection, I think we could end scam shell companies and illegal pollution in a decade. But it would probably be "big government socialism" so there isn't much hope.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I think the narrative is about how Boeing used to be the gold standard, but with money grabs for years the check is now coming due - hopefully before its too late & there is a crash.

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