this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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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!

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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).

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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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(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] 158 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (11 children)

Same bullshit logic that helped many support the genocide of those "barbaric" Native Americans because some actually had the gall to attack the colonial invaders.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I wonder how few will draw some of the parallels of the colonial expansion in Australia and the West in general.

I love the types that say others should go back to where they come from ignoring their parents and grandparents were not that far removed from the boat that brought them here.

Then they don't want to acknowledge that these groups were probably not that thrilled at being slaughtered and their kids taken away from them to make way for their colonial ancestors.

It's a amazing trait to me that humans can hold such diabolically opposed ideas as the same truths for them.

[–] Yondoza 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Eurasian empires have been shaped by this for millenia. Nomadic horse tribes harass existing empire until it starts to crumble. Tribes annex land and establish new empire/ruling class and give up the nomadic lifestyle. New nomadic horse tribes show up and start harassing. Rulers who are only 1 or 2 generations removed from living a nomadic lifestyle and conquering call new group "barbarians" and "uncivilized" for their brutality. New horse tribes topple empire, rinse and repeat.

To list a few: Mongols, Turks, Huns, Scythians... It was like a revolving door until gunpowder showed up.

Each generation completely ignoring the atrocities of their forebears while also framing their successors as monsters. Tale as old as time.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Justifying current atrocities by pointing to previous atrocities misses the point.

The point is at some point it should stop. Yes, America and Australia and Europe and everywhere commit genocide, committed atrocities that are now considered war crimes, but responding to current calls for it to stop by making some attempted Gotcha at perceived hypocrisy is worse than saying nothing.

Edit: to be clear, my ancestors were monsters. What they did to the natives her in America is deplorable, and the fact that Andrew Jackson's dickface is on anything but textbooks on the Trail Of Tears and lists of most evils leaders in recent history is a current stain on my country's reputation. I don't know enough about Scottish history beyond my ancestors coming to the US, but I'm pretty sure they were on the oppressed side of most engagements for a good long time. None of that changes that I think any people who commit genocide (except genocide of mosquitos) are monsters, and I want them to stop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Some would point out the same before the Colonials came too. In the other examples it was all out war with promises of more, not treaties ignored when it became inconvenient or as bait to disarm.

There were also commitments made that are only starting to be honoured in some cases today.

It's the atrocities from the higher standards of the "right God" Fearing and "more civilized" peoples that came to into replace everyone. There was no honour in it which was supposedly the basis of some of these societies They were supposed to be better often were not even for their times.

Unfortunately that's a tale as old as time too...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

After the Bronze age collapse, the nomadic Habi-ru people came out of the wilderness and conquered the Cannanite people who no longer had the protection of the Egyptian Empire.

Also, I'd say that the first dynasty that follows your example are the Gutians.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder how few will draw some of the parallels of the colonial expansion in Australia and the West in general.

I wouldn't be surprised if the western countries defending Israel start using that excuse themselves, once all the others fall apart

Oh and just checking, did you mean diabolically (evilly) or diametrically (opposite) opposed? Either works just wondering

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh and just checking, did you mean diabolically (evilly) or diametrically (opposite) opposed? Either works just wondering

I kind of mean both. Is there a word that works for that?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Diabotricelly.

[–] PsychedSy 1 points 10 months ago

People also over-emphasize the importance of being born here.

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[–] [email protected] 148 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"We demand the return of our hostages, which is why we're going to bomb where our hostages are to fucking rubble"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Are the hostages even still alive? I somehow doubt that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Real question is did they end up dying in one of the saturation bombings

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I don't think it matters which murderous asshole kills you. This trend of trying to assign more blame to one side is ridiculous. It's civilians being caught in a war and that needs to stop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If not, it's because Israel keeps wiping where they supposedly are off the map.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (8 children)

I get what you're going for but if you want to be realistic, the hostage taker wouldn't be surprised/upset in the third panel. Israel is undoubtedly committing war crimes but Hamas has made it pretty clear they don't give a shit if Palestinian civilians die.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Yea, except there should be like 50 hostages and one guy with a knife, and then the pink shirt guy blows them all to bits

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yes very good

[–] PsychedSy 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Nah. In 4 they should be shooting both of them through the hostage.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I love the analogy if your loved one was being held at gun point, would you support the police firing through your loved one to kill the criminal? Yeah criminal is dead but like wtf.

Hey someone is robbing a bank, better blow it up. The customers and workers will die but at least we got the bank robber.

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[–] lingh0e 15 points 10 months ago

Yeah, panel 5 should be pink/green high-fiving.

[–] ImFresh3x 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Also: bringing up “Deliberately killing hostages”

Hamas is like “yeah we do that, too, and we will do it again.”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Israel: we don't give a shit about the lives of Palestinians

Hamas: We don't either LOL

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I get what you mean but it's not because the terrorists don't care if you kill the hostages that you can kill them

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Seeing as how Israel isn't letting civilians leave the war zone, there's plenty more human shields to choose from!

[–] winterayars 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Israel has made it pretty clear they consider everyone in Gaza to be their military enemy.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You can't just perfectly sum up a very complex geo-politocal issue in 1 meme like this, but you did anyway

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

First panel is straight up nazi propaganda. Completely buying into the 'human shields' narrative the zionists use as an excuse to deliberately murder civilians

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Yep, they said the same thing when they would bomb neighborhoods in Iraq and kill dozens of civilians, that they were being used by insurgents or whatever. It is decades old propaganda always used against any non-state militant group.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

And thats the true,

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