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.
ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:
Warner asks "What happened to the tolerant left?"
Elle replies, smiling "Who said we were tolerant?"
Warner continues "I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!"
Elle looks confused "Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?"
The problem I found with the American left this past year as an outsider looking in, is that they all splintered into groups and started seeing the other group on the left as “just as bad as trump”, nobody was “left” enough to be an ally for anyone’s rigid tastes. The left fought among itself for labels, while the conservatives on the right were united.
I understand a lot of it for the younger left had to do with gaza but to anyone else, it’s clear Netanyahu and Musk and other oligarchs planned this out and the American left bought it and let Trump win.
All you can do is unify and strengthen and cut out fascists and fix your country, stop trying to be world police if you can’t even fix yourself.
ah right, its not that genocide is wrong in all cases, its that the dumb left was the victim of propoganda, which you are clearly too smart to be influenced by. Which is why you voted for genocide.
Makes perfect sense.
If only the dumb left had voted for genocide, Biden the hyper zionist would have been reelected and he for sure would have stopped the genocide, right?
And then you go on to say:
How is funding a genocide "being the police"? oh.... wait I see. You mean the US police go around doing crimes with impunity and no accountability. OK, you're right on that one.
You can hate the Biden/Harris stance on Gaza as much as you like (and there's good reason to). But if you failed to vote for the obviously less bad option, you are partially responsible for the actions of the obviously even worse option.
You could go into all manner of discussions about how being all but forced to vote for the lesser evil because of a broken and corrupt electoral system is terrible and a major systematic issue. And there's a lot of merit there as well. But at the end of the day, those systems were not on the ballot.
You actively failed to do the bare minimum for the people of Gaza, along with many other groups of people inside and outside the US just so you could watch the suffering from a slightly higher horse.
yeah I dont agree with many things in your comment, but I dont think you're open to any legit conversation on the matter, and I'm not interested in a slapfight. You go try to have yourself a nice day, centrist.
'But being world police is the only thing that helps us forget about our problems!'
-People who consume too much propaganda
This is a direct result of the same propoganda networks that fed trumpism. Primarily, youtube and tiktok because they feed the populate with video after video that the algorithm chooses for them. It amplifies any divisiveness we have to split us into factions.
Yeah, I’ve started watching some YouTube lately for the first time ever, and it certainly seems to want me to be conservative incel.
Previously I never watched YouTube because the ads were so intrusive and annoying, now I’m about ready to give up because most of what the algorithm shows me is offensive. Whether it truly thinks I’m conservative, such as based on demographics it shouldn’t have, or knows I’m not but thinks stirring up outrage will keep me coming back, they might be wrong
As a leftist I cannot stand most leftests. Typically ones from blue states because they tend to have a very warped view of why some of these red areas are the way they are. When you grow up isolated from the rest of the country and your only connection is the internet and the one racist uncle who lives near one of the bigger cities of the state you are going to have some fucked up views.
Honestly, I have no idea how I did not end up being a republican.
Edit: case in point; the down votes. If you do not understand your enemy all you can do is lose. And I am someone who hates them.
Grew up in a conservative religious household, ended up a lefty because people who understood how to talk to outsiders without being fucking assholes about it made me question my beliefs.
I see the same problem as you with many lefties today: they have no ability to understand conservatives, and seemingly no desire either. They will choose the dumbest fucking hills to die on (drag queen story hour for example) instead of attempting an ounce of empathy.
You could talk to conservatives about corporate welfare or how inequality causes the economy to slow down rather than grow, leading to discussions about taxation, unionization, maybe even shorter workweeks! Nope gotta focus on some obscure identity shit: putting gender neutral bathrooms in city hall while your city's homelessness doubles is a sign your priorities are stupid. Focus on material, actionable things and actually talk to people: conservatives will respond to that.