this post was submitted on 24 May 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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[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you’re okay with people voting their conscience, then you can’t be upset when they do that. If you are upset when they don’t vote your way, that’s the policing of thought.

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

I'm fine with people voting with their conscience, but I just want folks to acknowledge whether or not their vote makes a trump presidency (therefore more genocide) more likely. Most people just seem to think "I'm not voting for genocide so my hands are clean and I'm good!" and stick their head in the sand.

I'm not upset if they do, nor do I expect them to vote my way. I just want to encourage them to discuss the real world effects of their choice. I just want to make sure they're internally consistent in their reasoning. For example, another commentor said they've voted for third party since 2008, and my response was for them to simply carry on doing so.

You can label discourse as "thought policing", but then that casts an extremely wide net that cheapens the term as used by Orwell.

[–] TokenBoomer 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

People who are choosing not to vote for Biden are doing so because of a genocide that is happening NOW. You want to question them on contingent hypothetical real world results of a Trump presidency that may, or may not, happen in the FUTURE.

You’re trying to scare voters by telling them a dragon 🐉 is outside, when a venomous hydra is already in the room with them.

You’re concern trolling and “just asking questions,” it reeks of desperation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

People who are choosing not to vote for Biden are doing so because of a genocide that is happening NOW. You want to question them on contingent hypothetical real world results of a Trump presidency that may, or may not, happen in the FUTURE.

Oh so they can reason about a hypothetical future if they vote third party, but they can't do so if it's about a trump presidency? That's hilarious. Or are you saying they unable reason about a hypothetical future at all?

Holy shit my man I'm asking folks to tell me what THEY think is going to happen as a consequence of their actions. If their reasoning is so shit that that question shakes them to their core, get good.

[–] TokenBoomer 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Most voters are retrospective voters. They aren’t as concerned with the future as they are with the present and past.

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

I appreciate you defining that, but I don't see anything that suggests most voters fall under that category - any chance you'd be able to dig that up?

[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sure.

Unlike voters in many other industrialized countries, Americans tend to vote from this “retrospective” perspective. Studies show that Americans view elections – especially presidential ones – as a referendum on the past performance of an officeholder, a political party or the current administration.

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

Thanks!

Do you think retrospective voters use the past to try and inform reasoning about the future?

IMO there has to be some level of this happening, otherwise retrospective voters would only have an opinion on those that already have served, and would be essentially picking from those who have not served at random.

[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 4 months ago

It’s been a while since I read the study, but I think that was part of it. They used the past to inform opinions about the future.