this post was submitted on 09 Dec 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
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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Voting typically has a lower risk than trying to overthrow the government. (assuming elections are still somewhat legitimate, that is)
Direct action isn't directly "trying to overthrow the government" It's trying to improve one's own life directly, instead of begging the elites to do so for you.
Oh I read that comment as you saying "don't bother voting", which I hope that isn't what you meant.
It is what I mean. I consider nation-state parliamentary voting useless at best and counter-productive at worst.
Sorry, but I'm gonna have to disagree with that.
Not voting allows bad actors to take over the government and impose authoritarian rule.
Example: USA and Project 2025
Democrats might be useless and doesn't do enough to help people, but Republicans are actively trying to make people's lives worse, not to mention, their climate denialism and disregard for the climate, which its effects could echo throughout the world, since why would other countries try to fix the climate when the most powerful nation in the world (in terms of military strength) doesn't even care about the climate. Everyone would follow the US's footsteps and just start ignoring any environmental damage.
Voting doesn't always bring immediate positive results, but its still important to vote, or else you end up with a society that goes backwards.
I don't know where you live, but suppose you were a US Citizen living in the US, and saw this shitshow of a fraudster trying to become the country's leader, would you refuse to vote in the election to allow the wannabe fascist to take over the country and ruin so many lives?
Voting doesn't cost you anything, and you can still do whatever "direct action" you need to do at the same time, it's not mutually exclusive.
Voting legitimizes the act of voting being helpful and therefore justifies the millions on manhours wasted on electoralism, which is leaving people practicing it burnt out and disappointed at the end and doesn't stop society sliding into fascism as is the final stage of capitalism.
You can disagree with me all you want. Voting doesn't work. It's a waste of time. Do literally anything else and don't even waste any time thinking about it.
Lol the "leftist hate leftist" joke is so much funnier considering our disagreement right in the comments below that same meme
Edit: Not to hate or anything, but just disappointed you don't see things the same way I do, oh well, I hope your one missing vote doesn't flip any election results. fingers crossed