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, 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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
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
view the rest of the comments
which is why we need anti piss-in-lemonade laws and limits on how much water there can be for a given number of lemons.
we don't need to remove capitalism, instead we can restrain it from harming people
Part of me agrees with you. The other part of me knows how well capitalism can pivot so much quicker than laws can be made to curtail the bad practices, that the system seems to be the issue. Maybe the government is the issue too, but it's a lot of bad faith companies that ruins the bunch. Forward thinking and progressive thinking with quick measured action could do it, but most people who are elected aren't capable of that or are too compromised to make anything work.
Regulation could keep capitalism in check.
In reality capitalists use their money to make and change laws through lobbyists or bribes, and by propaganda through owning all media.
Couldnt that be made illegal too?
It could but it's hard with the capitalism power dynamics in place.
Not in reality, but in the US. Lobbying is called corruption elsewhere and is a crime. Don't put this shit on capitalism, it's a US only problem.
We have all of that in the EU too. The US is just a few years ahead.
Absolutely not. There more than enough lobbying and corruption in our all-so-democratic EU, just most of the population denying it based on "look how much worse the US is"
That's what we've been telling ourselves for almost 200 years, and yet we are as we are...
I wanna be able to have private property though. I want that and laws that regulate corperations
btw, actually good things have happened in the last 200 years too, along with bad ones
Do you want a house to live on (Personal Property) or a house for which you charge rent (Private Property)?
Many of those good things were "in spite of", not "because of" the system.
Both depending on my situation. If I want to live in an area for most of my life, I would want to buy a home. If I plan to stay there only for a few months renting makes more sense
Also you call them personal and private property as if those are radically different, they are both owned by a non-govt entity.
You can just group all the good things as stuff done by actors outside of 'the system' in your head and believe this to be true. I wont even try to refute this because its all subjective.
There are no laws against piss in the lemonade. Check FDA for more details https://www.fda.gov/food/current-good-manufacturing-practices-cgmps-food-and-dietary-supplements/food-defect-levels-handbook and look for the term "Mammalian excreta", which means both piss and shit.
Yes, your food can be full of shit and piss and it is full of shit and piss. Enjoy the rest of your day!