this post was submitted on 15 Sep 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, 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)
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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- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
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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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Lol, I love "bootlicking" on Lemmy, as far as I can tell it's used the same way trump uses rigged, that is to say "I don't like it!"
I mean, on climate change, farming is one of the biggest contributors and as fat as the fat cats are, the 333 million non billionaire Americans eat a boatload more beef than the 750ish billionaires. Meanwhile, in terms of say, children losing their limbs mining the cobalt for our phones, the 333 million are way more responsible. Same story for sweatshops. Same for air travel, oil consumption etc.
But man, actual change on our part would be hard. Way easier to rail about billionaires online and feel snugly superior rather than actually doing the work.
Oh wow has Lemmy gotten big enough that now people bring it up in every comeback post the way people do with Reddit? Awesome. That's gonna so fun.
Call it whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that you complaining about Americans eating beef will change nothing, while enacting policies punishing the corporations producing the bulk the waste on Earth will. But hey, I'll bite, I don't eat meat, and I don't drive a car, since I work from home. So what else should I do to make you happy? Not have a smartphone, because smartphone bad? I've had the same one since high school, but sure, I'll stop using that too. Now, what? Absolutely jack shit. I'm not feeling "snugly superior". What I'm feeling is tired of randos, probably in my own damn tax bracket, defending the corporations and billionaires literally producing everything being consumed. Good luck convincing those 333 million Americans you googled to stop eating meat and dairy, which they have been convinced is necessary to live due to misinformation campaigns. Good luck convincing them driving the cars that those companies have and continue to lobby infrastructure for. Good luck convincing each and every single individual to basically halt their entire life as it currently is, one by one. Those Americans who have a very rich history of listening to others. That will be much, MUCH easier than targeting the corporations, and DEFINITELY much more effective.
You came to try to shame me and apparently all of America for refusing to do the work, because you interpreted me saying "corporations and billionaires are a bigger problem" (because they are) as "we shouldn't take any individual responsibility". But I'm the one being snugly superior lmao. Dunno why, but this is always argument people with your viewpoint make. Nobody said we shouldn't take individual responsibility. On the contrary, I think we should all stop driving cars, and cut back on the insanely bloated levels of consumption in this country, alone. But I can only do so much. I can't do shit about what you or every other person in this country is doing. And when people call for changes, especially involving policies for the some of the biggest polluters on the planet in a country whose politicians frequently block any such change, sauntering into the room and going "oh wow but you have a phone lol" doesn't amount to anything but bootlicking. Because you're not advocating for anything; nobody is arguing against personal responsibility. But when will it be their responsibility? They didn't ask for your help, and they certainly don't need it. So if it ain't bootlicking, it's just fucking pointless.
I literally have no idea what you're trying to say.
I figured.
all of agriculture makes up about 20% of our ghg emissions.
Which is pretty huge and mostly discretionary.
we need to eat. lets dismantle the fucking prisons, banks, and armies first.
We don't need to eat beef.
And banks have been instrumental in one of the largest rises in human living standards in history so dismantling them seems pretty cruel to those who don't yet live as well as we do.
probably not but it's really small potatoes compared to the systems that actively kill people instead of feeding them.
i don't see any reason we can't help people without banks.
this is not evidence, it's handwaving.
this, too, is not evidence.
this is not evidence that people cannot be helped without banks
that same bank also impoverishes developing nations with crippling debt.
but you haven't shown that people can't help each other without banks
when liberals get the bullet, too, I guess you won't need to worry about how we take care of each other
I'm waiting for the mods to read their reports
did you try abstaining from beef? the meat industry grows every year. did you try abstaining from smartphones? sweatshops? air travel? your decisions made no difference.
I do abstain from beef. Which is difficult as hell as I rock weights at the gym and beef is incredibly protein efficient. But it's the least I can do. So I eat a boatload of chickpeas and chicken.
My smartphone is a shitty ancieng refurbished one as that's the most ethical I could find.
I haven't bought sweatshop clothes in years. So yeah, my fashion sucks as it's mostly thrift shop but I dont feel evil. (Though, my boxers are falling apart and it's getting kind of desperate. Sadly, because other people don't give a shit there are very few ethical underwear options.) Similarly, every piece of non electric furniture in my place is second hand, except for my bed frame.
Gave up on cars more than a decade ago. Finally got a second hand one but bike, bus and train almost everywhere.
I've taken a 30 - 40% pay cut to work in the non profit sector. Which makes it unlikely I'll ever buy a house but my work helps put kids through school.
My individual decisions don't make a difference but it's like voting. If others lived similarly, the world would be significantly better. We can all do better, it's just harder than whining about billionaires online.
is just as effective. if you want to change things that are wrong, you need to go to where they are and stop them.
Why are Americans eating so much beef?
Advertising, paid for by the rich.
Subsidization, this would have been lobbied for by the rich.
Health advice. Being British, if I told my doctor I ate beef daily they'd strongly advice against my daily beef eating. In America health care is a for profit system, its not profitable to have healthy citizens.
There's probably a bunch more but case and point the issue is out of the hands of most working class American's.