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.

Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!

Rules

Version without spoilers

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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] The_Terrible_Humbaba@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yes, you build up Anarchism, a network of horizontal structures, from the bottom up. You build up Marxism by building dual power via councils, unions, and other democratic structures that can replace the Capialist state. These are separate concepts with similar but distinct goals.

Right, but so it seems we agree? This post's explanation of socialism excludes anarchism, among other forms of socialism, which was my criticism. It only focuses on ML, but titles itself "What the heck is Socialism?"

Perhaps I expressed my self wrong at some point, or misinterpreted something, but that's the point I was trying to make from the start.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Right, but so it seems we agree?

Mostly, the end-goal is different, however. Marxists view managerial roles and administration as tools to be used by the Proletariat (even as the Proletariat erases itself). Anarchists disagree, and want horizontalism the entire way through, like a spiderweb.

This post's explanation of socialism excludes anarchism, among other forms of socialism, which was my criticism. It only focuses on ML, but titles itself "What the heck is Socialism?"

I agree, it is focused on Marxism. However, if it were to also include Anarchism, it risks being too complicated and lengthy. Additionally, nothing shown is ML specific, MLism gets into the idea of a Vanguard Party, Imperialism as the primary antagonist of Communism, and more, Lenin is just shown as an icon, like Picard is later on.

Perhaps I expressed my self wrong at some point, or misinterpreted something, but that's the point I was trying to make from the start.

No worries, I think we are mostly in alignment, except with different ideas of what Marx was describing as Communism vs the Anarchist vision of Communism. If you ever have questions about Marxism, feel free to message me and I will do my best to help answer them.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago

Perhaps I expressed my self wrong at some point, or misinterpreted something, but that's the point I was trying to make from the start.

Glad to see that this got figured out. This is a perennial issue in interpersonal communication, especially text.