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)
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
Peaceful progress would be great, and is always the preferred option, but peacefully sliding into a dystopian capitalist oligarchy where corporations can legally profit off the death of their "customers" doesn't sound like progress to me tbh.
Yes, (peaceful or violent) regression is even lower on my list of desires.
That still doesn’t require me to happily choose violence. I can do it mournfully and regretfully.
I don’t care if it’s justified. That doesn’t necessitate giving up my compassion. If I do, I feel that’s yet one more way the puppet masters are pulling my strings. It’s no win.
In my opinion this is written beautifully. There's a big difference between choosing violence mournfully and not choosing violence at all. I can see the killing of a human being - even if it is a murderer - as wrong and sad and mourn the loss of a person, while simultaneously acknowledging the immense (in a way positive) effect this had on the people, its grotesque sparking of hope, and the cruelty of the victim's actions before their murder. Both things can be true at the same time.
There's also a difference between being found guilty and being sentenced. I personally would not have a problem with the murderer being found guilty. I might be awkwardly relieved if his sentence was nullified - one day less of life in prison for every person's death the CEO has (more or less indirectly) caused. He would not have to serve one day after the verdict. Probably, though, there will be harsh sentencing, I doubt that the murderer didn't expect this. I think he very well understood that his actions would have personal consequences, but that there is a big chance that his actions would also spark something incredible for society and he must have been willing to pay the price.