this post was submitted on 17 Nov 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
Version without spoilers
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).
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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.
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- Zionism
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So, to be a different kind of doomer than the rest of the comments...
How does one do community? I realize that sounds stupid, but like... what can I do to help foster community in my... community?
I ask because tbh I'm not a community builder. When I was a kid, I was raised in a church community, and I knew vaguely what went into that, but I'm not religious anymore. So the only path to community that I'm even remotely familiar with is not viable for me anymore.
I don't need a treatise or anything, but if you have any practical introductory advice on community building for terminally online leftists with a couple small friend groups, that'd be welcomed.
We have a small area of land that is very rural. We grow a lot of vegetables and all our own chickens, fish and hunt, raise hens for eggs and more. We are regenerative.
We created community by trading with like-minded individuals. We offer one another access to our "junk piles", equipment, resources and labor. We don't really fit in where we live but we have found people like us in the middle of nowhere by just existing.
Depends on the community, I know nothing about who you are, where you're from, what kind of area you live in (a city block, a small town neighbourhood, and a rural village all have their own different challenges), or what the people around you could use help with.
First of all try to figure out if you're able to provide anything others could benefit from - time? Money? Equipment? The means to move people or property? Are you an educator? Am advocate? A tinkerer? A builder? A cook? A carer? A writer? An artist? Are you too poor/overworked/disabled and feel like there's nothing you can currently help with? Whatever the case, there is value to your being part of the community and contributing from your lived experience.
Then try and form relationships with the people around you, and from there learn how you might be able to help. Depending on your community there might be an online group, a newsletter or zine, a community centre, a place of worship, a pub - all are likely to have some leads to people already active in the community who you can join, or at the very least learn from about what's going on locally, and go from there.
The point is to build solidarity and class (and other injustice) consciousness, and to show people through actions that we are stronger together.
Maybe give some of these a read:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ronald-a-young-anarchist-agitation-community-building
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full
https://www.anarchy.no/horizon1.html
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works