this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
704 points (93.1% liked)
Lefty Memes
4407 readers
16 users here now
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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's your local representative, as in he represents your area and his job is generally to bring more money to your area. They don't represent your political views. For that you need to pull your weight at the election to open up space for views more aligned with yours at the elected body level (example the house or senate for national elections). You might be surprised to hear this but MOST of politics is deciding what money to collect and where to spend it. A TINY percentage is what most people consider "political" stuff. When it comes to that, when you pull your weight you open up space for different views that are better aligned with how you think. It's not about how YOUR representative thinks, it's about how the entire house and Senate think. Your representative will generally be pushed to agree with the overall party position or risk being replaced.
If we all pulled our weight the elections would look like this. How many more progressives and leftists enter the ticket in this world? How many Bernie Sanders, AOCs and Ilhan Omars? Or whatever your political views are (scared to ask honestly)...
Pull your weight today, or drop the rope and be unrepresented for another round of elections.
You edited your comment from "so who represents me" to "third party okay". Third party is like attaching a new rope and pulling to the side. You're not doing much. Maybe better than nothing, but often not.
seems as if the United States electoral system has become systematized where using ones democratic right to not vote or vote third party is now an attack. in the UK where i am based we had a push to spoil ballot papers, this was a democratic protest against an unchanging system which many see as failing them. this election spoke for itself with the lowest voter turn out since 1918. how have we gone the Orwellion rout of framing democracy in such an undemocratic way.
either way good luck in your election i hope the Democrats neither the orange man gets in.
You're playing yourself.
It's almost universal in the west that the higher the voter turnout the more left the government. Just look at France, first round, typical low turnout: far right won. Second round hight turnout massive: leftist win.
Spoiling the ballot is just not voting. When I was young, I used to think that you could make a point by not voting, or by spoiling the ballot. By waiting until the perfect representative showed up. Then I saw elections where the winning party got 43% of the votes with 40% voter turnout. Then I realised that 17% of people just forced us into another garbage right wing government and that spoiling ballots wasn't even reported in the news AT ALL.
Vote EVERY TIME. It's a tug of war, the harder you pull the more the whole thing shifts to your side. Look at the right in the US, this situation was impossible a decade ago, but they kept voting and the window kept shifting. And now it's fucked up.
Don't let your side down just because some of the people pulling don't agree with you on where we should stop. Pull your weight, we can't accept fascism.
Like I said, we had the lowest voter turnout since 1918. We've been under a Conservative government for 17 years, and now we have a Labour government that's sticking to the same austerity measures—removing rent caps on social housing, increasing utility prices. Essentially, nothing has changed, and in some ways, things are getting worse.
I'm not a liberal so there isn't much rope for me to pull.
I want real change, so I organize with a socialist party. I've gone door-to-door with TUSC candidates in the run up to the general election, spoken at counter-demonstrations, shown up at pickets, and helped set up community outreach throughout my local area. Just last month, I attended an international meeting in Germany, so it’s not like I’m some ill-informed internet loony. I'm more than happy for people to vote how they like, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from doing so, but I also won’t use vapid slogans like “not voting is a vote for Trump.”
How can it be any other way? The fewer little vote the more likely Trump is to win. In the American system not voting IS a vote for Trump.
I'm sorry change is too slow for you. The first round of liberal/leftist victory is often crap. They barely win, or they don't have his leftist candidates. Every election with a massive turnout on the left opens up space for leftist representatives. I think I've said this before. Change is slow. Right now the window is WAY over to the right. We have to bring it back by voting in droves until we're represented. It's simple math, but we keep losing because we don't get what we want right away.
If a new socialist party can work in the UK then more pretty to you. I know some European countries have 20 parties with elected representatives and the most any party can hope for is 20%. But in countries with two parties you have to change them from the inside. Each situation is s different battleground and we have to optimise our strategy. And we don't win by attacking eachother for starting simple facts because they're not true everywhere.