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!
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.
Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.
look, could it be better? yes. is it nothing? no.
Or is it the state just protecting and strengthening itself while using language to pretend it is on the side of the people?
The state will never execute, or legislate, our way to a better society.
youre not wrong, but sometimes they kill a billionaire to look good, and that doesn't take us to a worse society.
like how the USSR drastically raised standards of living for the working class in the american empire just by existing. they didn't mean to. they didn't care. it was just a side effect of their dick waving.
Only the heartland.
And indirectly.
Much as it also lowered the standard of living across much of Africa and Central Asia due to the proxy wars and coups.
Plus normalising executions does make the world worse.
I'm not saying its generally good. I'm saying the bad guys are killing each other, hooray!
I'd much rather it happened to it without warning, just an RPG to its helicopter or some hero with a knife out of an alley, I feel like the effect of that would be better, but this isn't a bad thing.
Edit: I'm being harsh, you're just having fun. Internet misses tone of voice, so it's easy to be at off wires, I'm being too nitpick and I'd probably agree if we spoke face to face. Sorry for being an online argumentative berk. Enjoy your day.
Original: Bad guys? 🤨
Even Thatcher and Reagan had families.
Always remember: the means are the ends.
in my experience, monsters having families should not be a point of sympathy.
they dont tend to treat us well. we're usually better off without.