It is easy to have a nuanced position and still come to the obvious conclusion on what's happening now. The past is completely enough that a basic history lesson would suffice.
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
Okay, but what if I just throw up my hands and say "They've always been fighting so what's the big deal?" while my Congressman takes a few million in kickbacks for the next billion in military aid shipped overseas?
Doesn't that make me a serious thinking, highly educated, objective observer? Why are you waving an Israeli/Palestinian flag in my face? Don't make me pick a side, just let the military industrial complex collect its paycheck and do the big "Whatchagonnado?" face of perfect neutrality.
Well, there's nothing objective about it, is there? How could there be? You have to choose your values at some point. In your hypothetical, the values you're choosing are powerlessness and money?
fnuny meme but if you read the article i don’t think calling them “centrist” is defensible:
Mr. Aboutboul is a founding member of Students for Standing Together, a new student group at U.C.L.A. that aims to unite Israelis and Palestinians to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
so these “centrists” are doing statistically better than your representatives. the comments here talking about “only committing a half genocide” are just doing bad faith echo chamber discourse, which i don’t find the be productive.
At Columbia University, Aharon Dardik, an Israeli American student, formed a group called CU Jews for Ceasefire after finding that his viewpoint wasn’t fully reflected in the main pro-Palestinian student movement. He is a pacifist who spent his teen years with his family in the West Bank but who ultimately refused to serve in the army in Israel. He believes in working with Israelis and Palestinians toward collective liberation and a world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances.
Dr. Waxman also became a target of right-wing pro-Israel groups, including after he wrote on social media that he supported the International Criminal Court’s request for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a position he said he took as a supporter of international law.
no hate to OP but let’s laugh loudly at the ones who deserve to be scoffed and mocked, not the people who are actively supporting Palestinian emancipation. i’m sure there’s stuff to be criticized in these folks but if there is, find it and call it the fuck out specifically instead of hand-waving “centrist”—especially when doing so just deplatforms the underrepresented Jewish Anti-Zionist population.
(honestly let’s laugh at whoever wrote and approved that headline, it does no service here.)
I'm a centrist in that I think the Israelis and Palestinians should live happy, productive lives and not be shot.
It just so happens that only one side seems to disagree with that.
Only one side? Do you remember how this latest round began?
Notice I didn't say "Hamas" in my comment. Hamas attacked Israel. Israel then attacked Palestine.
Yeah how dare the Palestinians fight back against 70 years of colonization and oppression. Its always when they fight back that things have gone too far, not the ethnic cleansing. Fuck Hamas, but you can't seriously blame them for October 7th. None of this would be happening if zionists just shared the fucking land rather than stealing it. Don't blame the victims when they finally decide they don't want to be victims anymore.
Judging from other commenters here, there are radicals from both sides wilfully ignoring atrocities of the team they pick. Two state solution is the only way that would allow peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Two state solution will always end up where we are now. There is no reason to divide the land, prior to the zionists it wasnt divided and for the most part people were fine.
Two state solution is the only way that would allow peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
It seems like we're headed to a One State Solution, and that state is Greater Israel. Purging everyone of a different ethnicity from the region "solves" the problem better than letting another Arab state build up its population and economy along your contested border. In fact, you could call it a kind of Final Solution.
I think a three state solution would be a more stable one in the long run, one Israeli one Palestine and one buffer state in between which is like Bosnia which means that it have two governments a Israeli and a Palestinian.
Yep. Also calling it the“Israel-Hamas war” is propaganda. Makes it sound like the only people dying in Palestine are Hamas soldiers, which is obviously nowhere near the truth.
Centrists are literally just anti-opinion and spineless.
Free Palestine.
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” is a quote by Elie Wiesel from his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
If you don't support indigenous resistance to occupation, you're on the side of the occupation. There is no center.
When one side is committing genocide and the other side wants no genocide, you don't pick the middle and support half-genocide.