this post was submitted on 31 Jul 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.
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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
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).
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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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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After reading this, i now understand less about socialism.
What part is confusing?
This comic makes a ton of logical leaps, by which i mean that it assumes that the reader is already familiar with certain information and leaves it implied. More broadly, it seems to assume that the audience already agrees that communism is the best. I'm particularly annoyed at the second pannel describing a command economy in a very short and unconvincing way, as if the audience already knows and agrees.
I have a rudimentary knowledge of political taxonomy and this is very very confusing.
But you know what, at least it's written in plain language. A mistake that communists often make is using their vocabulary (alienation, ideology, bourgeoisie) as if everyone knows what it means, i'm glad this isn't the case here
That's the purpose of building up dual power via leftist orgs, so that when Workers do sieze control, there are pre-existing structures. It's difficult to put all of theory into a comic.
Good example right there: i have less than no idea what this means. I'm more politicized than the average person, definitely way more than the average worker, but i have no idea what this means. There is honestly a pattern of communists being very immersed in theory to the point that they forget normies like me aren't on the same page and don't immediately get it.
By god, don't. I'm not too sure if 'all of theory' is worth putting in a book, but it's definitely not worth putting in a comic.
I've been politically active for years without really knowing theory, all it takes is talking to people and a willingness to spend an afternoon cutting leaflets. It is my honest opinion that marxist theory is as relevant to real world activism as theology, and no less arcane.
If people who make things own them, who manages the "big picture" ideas? CEO pay tells me that requires the power of thousands of ~~peasants~~ workers.
Workers are perfectly good at self-organizing without them. "I'm the ideas guy" is stated by people who do little and should not be trusted.
That's my point: no "ideas man" is worth thousands of real workers.
Elected officials and councils.