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!
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.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/11258523
American Democrats try not to support a fascist agenda challenge (impossible)
I wish I had a cookie for every time a Democrat told me the concentration camps are good ackshually
Fuck your border and your president
FYI I'm not American so I won't be voting for either. But I think you are contradicting your own argument when you say:
What I was arguing was that the Democrats (aka liberals) are further left than the Republicans (at least in some key social areas). So, while you have defined the difference here as right/further right, that is still an acknowledgment that they are to the left of the Republicans, even if they are "not-quite-left-enough" to qualify as leftist from your ideological perspective. So, it still makes no sense to treat them as equally bad options - there are still degrees of 'bad' we should be concerned about to minimise harms.
It seems to me that many people on the left are currently earnestly trying to destabilise the US by pushing it even further towards right wing fascism, in the hope that it'll eventually provoke some sort of domestic revolution or an international backlash to US influence. This seems to me like a high-stakes strategy that could horribly backfire in so many ways, and I just can't get on board with it.
I fail to see the contradiction tbh. It is precisely bc I am aware that the Dems are more progressive than the Republicans, that I said "I'd vote for the dems" (despite both of them serving capital).
And ofc the Dems are not leftists if we define the status quo as capitalism and leftism as the progressive opposition to the status quo (and those are the definitions I uphold).
Also I (unfortunately) am not posting from a socialist agitprop centre. I am under no illusion that my (shit)posts will destabilize anyone or anything. They are meant for other socialists and are a way of venting frustrations among other things.
tl;dr: one can recognize the Dems as the "lesser" of two evils, while still heavily criticizing the fact that the only choice is between two (or more under multi-part bourgeois "democracy") evils in the first place...
"If voting changed things systematically, it would be illegal"