[ In fake Scottish accent ] They're natural enemies. Like fascists and leftists! Or neoliberals and leftists! Or moderates and leftists! Or leftists and leftists! Damn leftists! They ruined leftism!
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, 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:
- 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
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
You leftists sure are a contentious bunch.
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Anti capitalism is just anti capitalism. That's not a theory for how a society free from capitalism should work. Those theories will of course be diverse, and there will be disagreement.
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Divide and conquer works for detroying social movements, and is one of the ruling classes favorite weapons of class warfare. It's easy to get agitators to derail the conversation or movement as a whole. There are fundamental differences in what anti capitalists believe should be done and how power should be distributed. I don't believe all leftists think the same thing, but I believe that the vast majority of "leftist infighting" is just agitation by the ruling class.
I'm gonna have to disagree. Here's my essay on why:
Nah leftists true enemy is the luke warm centrist who will agree in theory but not in action. Fascists are atleast honest and easy to spot. Its the people in the middle who bothsides evey argument till we are sitting here watching genocide happening before our eyes and still nothing is done to stop it.
That's why even if I have my own personal views, I identify primarily as an anti-sectarian Leftist. Whether Marxism, Anarchism, or some other flavor of Leftism begins to truly lead the movement, it will be more important to push the movement forward than to spend effort on infighting.
Only a mass worker movement can get any real change.
I can get behind that. I'm not nearly as left as a lot of folks on this platform but in the US we're so far to the right that at this point we should all just be pulling left. We can duke it out once we move the Overton Window a bit.
I would even argue that open discussion of ideas is fantastic and shouldn't be discouraged, but that this shouldn't stand in the way of praxis and collective action.
If Marxist groups are leading the charge and Anarchists spend more time disagreeing with Marxist principles than actually moving forward, or vice-versa, then those people are no better than Counter-Revolutionaries.
Again, if the Revolution doesn't exactly take on the character I want it to, I am still supporting it far more than criticizing it, because movement to the Left is the primary necessity.
Of all -isms that's probably Platformism. Whatever helps reach the goal. I find that pragmatic and rational.
CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual
This should be required reading in every school
CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual
https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf
for anyone interested :)
The real lefty nemesis are all the feds who pretend to be leftists until they see any leftist doing any real leftism and then they immediately shove the boot all the way down their gullet
I slightly disagree with you here so obviously YOU are the fed!
/s
I am also here for the fedjacketing.
You just triggered all the tankies. They're now chanting "nuke the west".
This is the third time this week.
This is the third time ~~this week~~ in the last hour
MLK was spot on about the white moderate.
Malcolm X had similar things to say
You lefty’s are a contentious people.
You've just made an enemy for life!
damn leftists, ruined socialism.
Like a Scot and a Scot
You lefty’s
This bothers me more than any political disagreement ever will.
Holds 94% of the same political views, but misuses an apostrophe. Burn him!
The Judean Peoples Front. Or is it the Peoples Front of Judea?
Those damn splitters!
Reminds me of when I was still religious lol. I was a part of the confusingly named Christian Church denomination (or something like that). But hey, because some churches believed in "once saved, always saved" we didn't get along! Which is hilarious because being away from it now all three of these very devisive topics
- Once saved, always saved
- You can lose salvation
- Pre destination
All are really talked about the same way. If you don't act in what people believe is a god fearing manner then you were never actually saved to begin with.
But for real, basically every other part of the doctrine is the same. Jesus was the son of God who was fully God and fully human who died and was resurrected 3 days later. But because they taught sprinkling instead of immersion for baptism oh my god what a horrible misunderstanding of the scriptures!
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
--Emo Philips.
There's a reason for the "joke": if you put 3 leftists in a room out comes 5 political parties.
Feels sadly true sometimes
Don't forget leftists that actually share all the same views but describe them in slightly different ways.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
skill issue, i <3 my 94%ers
This joke is old, but isn't 'leftism' is generally understood as aknowledging different and unique instead of cutting everyone to the same template?
The authoritarian "lefties" are more interested in authoritarianism than being leftist. They're praising economic systems like China's, which produces plenty of billionaires, or North Korea's, which cannot even keep its lights on.
we are currently experiencing this in France for the european election (and also the previous elections...), not funny when the far-right is at 30%.
Next at 5: Watch tankies, democratic socialists, and anarchists engage in a full blown shit flinging contest!
We take the whole "You have my sword. And my axe." trope a little too literally.
It’s the differences that define us. I share 99.9% of the same opinions as Republicans, but where our opinions differ we are irreconcilable.