this post was submitted on 19 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

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,

as well as 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.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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evergreen meme (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

As an outsider, I’m curious why there is such a focus on liberalism in leftist circles?

Liberal politicians in the US tend to be deeply connected with the industrial and media elites. So we get a recurring cast of candidates who are milquetoast on a slew of popular issues, while they're lauded as "The Most Leftist Politician To Ever Think About Running For Office" in headline after headline.

Leftists who run are regularly denigrated as unrealistic, unelectable, and disastrous for the domestic economy by the same industrial tycoons and media magnets who push unpopular candidates and their dismal policies. So we're in this constant state of tension during election season, with a candidate like Joe Biden who receives enormous stacks of cash and tons of DNC support fighting against an outsider like Sanders or AOC who divert time from expressing generally popular sentiments to argue over whether they're well-dressed enough to win over a rust belt used car salesman.

What’s the relationship between liberalism and leftism?

Liberals tend to campaign as leftists and govern as conservatives. So they initially attract a lot of leftist voters, and then end up having to argue that said voters shouldn't ask for anything from the party once the election is over. Leftists tend to live on the political outskirts, looking for anyone remotely attractive to rally around, only to get taken for a ride by con-men in the liberal party until they finally burn out and stop engaging with electoral politics.