this post was submitted on 05 Apr 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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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,

as well as 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.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I wish I knew where it came from. I've had it floating around my phone and my brain for years now.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It was instilled in me from a very early age that cops are not your friends.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

They are not. You were raised right.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

Last time I checked the FBI classifies Local Law Enforcement as the largest gang in the country...so you're not lying to your kid.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think my parents did a fine job, when me and my brothers were little we would play 'crips and bloods' how kids play 'cops and robbers' but none of us wanted to play as a cop.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Well done your parents!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

There are lots of gangs in the world but that is one of the worst.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

You'd be correct.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

That's the most vicious and insidious gang member...the class traitor!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Organized crime might be a little more accurate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

You can just say you're going to be honest with your kids...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You know, they really look like one...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

They are. Sad but true.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

In all fairness, the qualifier to be considered a gang is a low, barely existent bar when you consider all of its definitions, especially ones like "A group of people who associate regularly on a social basis."

So... Cops? gang. SCOTUS? gang. Boy Scouts? gang. Lemmy? gang. Classroom of 1st graders? gang. You and your coworkers? gang. A literal family? gang. ...you get the gist.

tldr, you (and everyone else) are literally gangsta!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I'm a straight up g.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Casting agent: "How did the job go"

Aspiring actor: "Why are my family receiving death threats?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Que

'There's something happening here. What it is isn't exactly clear...'

[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago (11 children)

May I ask, how do you want to keep criminality under control? I'm genuinely curious. Do you just let it be? Do you educate people? Do you create some separate unit to police?

Like I understand when one is let's say dissatisfied with police. But in my opinion the solution isn't to let it be. And definitely not to form some para-military organization. Reform the police, have one group in country to keep order. If the group doesn't work, fix it.

But that's just my point of view, I'm curious to read your's

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

Nobody advocated removing the police. The meme only says that currently they’re basically organized crime. So your question seems more like sealioning or JAQing off.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Just to add onto what others are saying: to what extent do you think cops prevent crime? Most of what they do is catch people after the fact, and even then many (if not most) cases go unsolved.

I don't have the statistics in front of me at the moment, but the comparison that should be made is crime prevented by cops vs. crime that only exists because of cops, including things that cops just never get prosecuted for. I understand the impulse to think that cops are at least better than nothing, but I don't honestly know if that's true.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Pay them better, ruthlessly background check for white supremacy and extremist behavior, put more money into mental health services and address chronic poverty problems are a few solutions. Also way way more training.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Law enforcement in the U.S. in its current form is a gang. The key points here are lack of accountability, lack of oversight, and a lot of unjust laws. The latter may not be their fault per se, but it is still a factor that needs to be corrected.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ok, I'd say: Education and democratic involvement.

You sleep in the bed that you make. People don't shit where they sleep.

When people make the laws, people won't break the laws.

[–] Deceptichum -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

And sex crime for example?

Edit: People downvote, but no one provides an explanation for the monsters who do shit where they sleep?

Just because a sentence sounds good, doesn’t mean it’s true.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You're downvoted because it seems like you're trolling with that sentence fragment. What exactly to you mean by "sex crime" and how does it connect with the previous comment?

[–] Deceptichum -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It’s a pretty easy to infer question from the context of the comment chain.

But as some people are apparently lacking in such an ability what I mean is how is education and democratic involvement going to stop people who commit crimes that aren’t born out of ignorance or lack of freedom?

A rapist will gladly shit where they sleep, they are not engaging in illegal acts for rational reasons (ex. Poverty or disenfranchisement).

The notion that those two thing are the solution is ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It’s a pretty easy to infer question from the context of the comment chain.

IMHO, it was less a case of what you said but rather how you said it. That made people want to not engage.

But as some people are apparently lacking in such an ability

I'd suggest you'd adapt your tone a bit. You kind of come off as an asshole with some shit like that.

As to your point: If society focuses on eradicating the reasons that lead to people becoming rapists (e.g. lack of community, need for power over other people, mental health issues, ...), rape cases should go down.

Genuine question: In what way and amount do you think is the police actually preventing sexual assault?

[–] Deceptichum 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

People don’t rape because lack of community and you can’t just magic away power desires.

Also I don’t support the police full stop. I’d like to see the whole thing abolished, I just don’t think you’ll solve all crimes through such idealistic nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Being part of a community could keep potential rapists in check, making them not wanting to shit were they sleep.

Desires of power aren't integral to humanity. They were fostered once, they can shrink again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

You can look outside of the us and readily find examples of doing most things better. Generally speaking it starts with education, workers rights, not a circus for as a government, etc. The situation the US is in has been hand crafted for 30+ years to solidify the death grip these things (read: nationalism, fascism, etc) have on our culture and government, amongst other things.

You want like an unironic peek at this shit happening just go watch Borat again and see how the crowd reacts to him in the rodeo. Shit has been cooking for years. It all needs to be thrown out, it's so perverted and rotten at this point I do not you can realistically save it by any natural means anymore.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I just love how you get downvoted just for asking an honest question with no clear malice or derision. Peak Internet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

We don't know they are honest. Many cop apologists in the world. Could be sealioning or JAQing off.