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
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Lots of criticism for Macron calling snap elections, but I actually think that's the right move. He needs to break through the cynicism and get people to recognize the threat they really face. Waiting won't help; it just breeds complacency.
It's been 7 years that Macron and his minions did all they could to divide french society in order to stay in power. They criminalized the mostly peaceful ecological and social protests, they (over)used all the least democratic powers (49.3 and others) they had to push through socially unjust reforms, they have cynically and with the sole aim of winning votes, lumped together the parties of the left and the far right, and have deliberately blurred the political field. They refused to stand in the way of the far right in the last parliamentary elections, allowing a few hundred of them to become MPs and giving them prestigious positions in the parliament, simply out of political expediency. They have constantly pushed far-right themes such as security and immigration into the public debate, again simply to try and divide people and win votes. For these european elections, they snubbed all other parties other than the extreme right and even gave them more credibility (and publicity) by sending the Prime Minister to debate with their representative (and with no one from any other party). Macron, who said a few years ago that he would do everything to ensure that people no longer had any reason to vote for the far right, has been playing with fire in an attempt to divide the country and keep power. He is guilty of the current situation, and the dissolution of the assembly is not a clever or courageous move, but rather a cynical act of impotence by a lonely man who now wants to play the "it's me or chaos" game. To think that if the far right wins these next elections and a PM from their ranks is appointed, this would be an opportunity to prove how incompetent they are and destroy them, is to becompletelyy delusional. It's forgetting that this would put France in a catastrophic situation for years to come, with social and ecological ruin, and above all that its main effect would be to open the Overton window even wider, making it even more likely that the far right would soon gain to the real power with no real counterweight, the Presidency.