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.
This is 100% how the Nazis got into power too. Hitler made all kinds of deals with the center-right, military, conservatives, and Hindenburg himself, by promising to be a bulwark against communism, unions, and the left in general. We all know how that movie ended.
Ended? You mean fled to Argentina, paperclipped to America and stayed quiet for a few decades before getting louder... And Louder... AND LOUDER.... AND LOUDER!!!!!
would someone enlighten the uninformed like me? thanks
The context given in the title: France had an election and the left union is the biggest group but still doesn't have a majority. The president is a liberal and seems to favor the Right over the Left
Would you be able to explain the difference between "left" and "liberal" in this context?
I'm not the same person, but I'll give it a go. It's confusing in part because liberal often means leftish leaning in the US but not elsewhere.
For example Democrat and liberal are pretty much interchangeable in US political discourse, but that's not what the word means. Liberalism is more of an economic strategy. In this sense Democrats and Republicans are both liberals. They are all conservative liberals. Does that sound like a contradiction? Only in modern US politics. One party is just more conservative socially and more economically liberal.
Left or Leftist is generally in conflict with liberal ideology, as a leftist believes in strong social safety nets like universal healthcare, universal basic income, etc. Depending on the type of leftist, this could mean things like a planned economy, workers owning the means of production, or even collectivist anarchy. Examples of leftists are Socialists and Communists.
This is why, to a leftist, it's so damn funny when a republican calls a democrat a radical leftist. No self respecting leftist would be a member of the democratic party.
Sorry for all the US centric shit on a thread about France but I think that's where the confusion usually comes from.
liberalism is a belief in free association / marketplace of ideas and is centrist on a global scale. the usa is generally right-leaning so the two major parties are the liberals (centrists) and the right wing
Think of liberals as centrists
The use of "liberal" has been taken by the right, from the neo-liberal they started with. Now they consider themselves the true liberals. It's the good ole 1984 newspeak strategy of taking the words out of their original meaning to make them lose their meaning, and their ideas behind.
I think that he is referring to "liberal" more in the sense of being in the political spectrum of economic liberal. Usually I see the difference between the US and EU definition of the term liberal: in the US it is a synonym of the left wing party or leaning, in EU is used for being liberal economic leaning and is different from being left party or left wing
Liberals tend to make alliances with fascists in the interest of keeping the peace.
interest of keeping ~~the peace~~ their piece
Ftfy
all libs right now. The UK is doing the exact same with less party politicking
Macron is being corrupt by working with the worst of French society.
Macron is corrupted.
Oh yeah, the lions have been out of the cage for a long time out there
Did I miss something in France? Last i checked the center and left-leaning parties formed an alliance to keep the right wing out of power.
The left alliance doesn't have the numbers to govern on their own, and Macron (the liberals) would rather join forces with conservatives.