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.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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
view the rest of the comments
You don’t apply this logic to nazis do you? Their victims were worthy enough for you to dismiss excuses like this, but not the victims of modern imperialism. One group of victims were white Europeans, and the other group are Arab/Muslim. I see exactly who you are. You’re not slick.
Yes I do in fact apply this same exact logic to soldiers in WWII - just as it applies to many of the people who made up fighting forces in the past. There is a long, loooong history of using dogma, duty, brainwashing, even intoxication, to manipulate people into fighting to the death.
If you read firsthand accounts from German soldiers (or really ANY nationality) during WWII, you will quickly realize that they were heavily propagandized in a way we can only begin to understand today. Young German men during WWII had grown up under Nazi rule and had it drilled into their heads at every possible moment. And the choice was to conform or to be shunned (or more likely killed). This does not excuse any of the atrocities they committed, but gives context to their actions and shows how blaming only the soldiers misses a big part of the picture. The same goes for atrocities perpetrated upon the German people by the red army, or for atrocities carried out by IDF in Palestine, etc...
Also, I think you should reflect on the language you use in your comments. I am attempting to be polite, but your comments are outwardly rude.
Sorry if I’m not the kindest to a person that is defending nazis.
Also you’re framing my point as being only critical of soldiers and not the administrations that use them, which is just incorrect and a poor read of my comments. Truly insane what you’re trying to minimize right now.
there's a difference between defending nazis and understanding how the nazi takeover worked. the banality of evil is what underlies the entire system of violence we exist in. the more people are raised not to see the evil the more they will stand idly by or go along to get along because their mind is absent of any morality. if we want to combat the nazis we need to know what strategies work to resist the colonial mindset that underpins fascism. being scolds of people locked into the propaganda doesn't work. producing propaganda to counteract it does. and when that fails, you pick up the gun. attacking people who explain the propaganda mechanisms is not picking up the gun. it's maintaining the divisive mechanisms that benefit the right.
in other words.
don't be a virtue signaling shit lib.
You would be the one virtue signaling, with your enlightened coddling of murderers, not me.
My desire to treat soldiers like dog shit and pray they get PTSD is not “virtuous”, it’s rather crass and upsetting for many people. I do it for the love of the game though.
Typical lib.