this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
709 points (96.8% liked)
Lefty Memes
6020 readers
14 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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Depending on how the coming crackdown they’re planning plays out, I am not sure it’s true we’ll be better off with him dead. This is the main problem with political assassination as a political strategy.
That crackdown was coming regardless. Idk how to tell y'all any more clearly, but the fascists are going to escalate no matter what we do. Your options are to either fight back or roll over.
They decided a leftist killed Charlie before his body was even cold. Reality doesn’t matter anymore.
This has always been the Republican platform: "It's all their fault!"
They just keep screaming it, no matter how much proof you may have that it's on them. They know what they're doing, they're just lying. Like trickle-down. It's obvious bullshit, but they're more than willing to lie to enrichen their billionaire overlords.
As I said elsewhere I have no doubt they would try but this is allowing them to go further and muting criticism of their crackdown. It clearly increases the chances of success for their power grab.
I swear so many leftists have literally no understanding of politics or how public opinion influences political outcomes. It is maddening.
I never said don’t fight back. But fight smart. Killing Charlie Kirk isn’t fighting back, it’s just an expression of self-destructive rage from someone who probably wasn’t even a leftist.
It's weird how you seem to be aware the killer wasn't a leftist, but are scolding leftists for not "fight[ing] smart" anyway.
Because people here are trying to make this killing into some brave act of resistance when it clearly was nothing of the sort.
Interesting how opinion was different with Luigi
Kirk didn’t have enough power perhaps? Soft power sure but didn’t sign war treaties or insurance denials or vote in Congress or w/e. Maybe that changes the general perspective. Also compare disappointment at presidential assassination attempt. Neither Luigi CEO nor president incidents had many people here worried on their behalf
Well, my personal perspective on the two was similar and I got a lot of flak for it.
But from a broader perspective I think the difference is that partisan politics have become deeply associated with a personal, tribal identity. The reaction to Kirk has been different because conservatives feel personally threatened by his death. This fear makes them react much more violently. I think journalists have also amplified this because even if they are not on the same side, they rightly perceive that they could be next if this turns into a tit for tat exchange.
In contrast, while most people didn’t support the murder of Thompson it was more of an academic crime. They don’t identify personally with a CEO in the same way.
Plus Trump wasn’t president and he wasn’t able to fan the flames as effectively back then.
Trump put a ton of troops into DC to "combat crime" despite it being lower than any time recently already. They don't care about reality. This doesn't really make it easier for them. If they needed an excuse, something was going to happen that they could use.
I agree people should be more focused on public opinion. That should be the primary goal. The more we can change that the better chance we have to accomish what we want. I don't think this hurts that goal though; his death will be forgotten by most people in a month, along with all the other gun deaths in America.
Potentially it helps, though I doubt by much, because Kirk was capable of pushing this air of reasonableness with fascist politics. He cleaned up their image and made people feel like they could support Fascists and not be evil. Currently I don't think there's anyone else who fills this position. Almost all of the other are the "righteous rage" Fascists.
Again, it’s less about what he’ll do and more about what he can get away with and how much backlash there will be. Frankly, I don’t think most Americans know crime in DC is low. This is due to a media ecosystem that manufactures consent for fascism.
You can say this would happen anyway but I think the media’s sympathy for Kirk as a fellow media person also has a big impact on the way this incident has been covered and how they’ll respond to the coming crackdown. Look at how many left-leaning journalists and media people are being fired right now. That will have an impact on coverage going forward at minimum.
Regarding Kirk and his value to the fascists, I’m unsure because these people are all so repugnant to me. I want to say he’s just an empty suit that will easily be filled by the billionaires who funded him but truthfully I can’t say if he had some unique appeal because I wouldn’t see it even if it was there.
I think it's important to keep in mind that the "political strategy" aspect of it doesn't really apply since leftists didn't do it and thus had no choice in the matter.
In fact, as far as political strategy goes, the only one on the table appears to be "blame the left for all violence anyway, even blatantly falsely." Strictly from a game theory perspective, if leftists are going to suffer the negative effects anyway, they might as well commit the things they're being accused of so they at least capture the positive effects too.
Fair but I’m speaking to the people who are here saying that we should do more of this kind of thing… perhaps including you? Whether the shooter was or wasn’t a leftist isn’t relevant to that talking point.
I don’t agree with the second statement. Some fools will believe anything but a lot of fence sitters who might defend us may not if we really do what we’re being accused of.
Hoping that the "fence sitters" will ally with us if we "act right" is as perfect of a self-defeating strategem as offing right-wing talking heads all over the place, methinks.
Public opinion matters. You don’t win political struggle without allies, and that means speaking to and persuading people who are not true believers. You don’t have to like it but you are going to have to contend with it.
Or don’t and lose. The left has been great at that for the past 100 years.
Fence sitters are useless allies... at best. When you need them, you'll find them doggedly staying exactly where you found them the first time - on the fence.
At worst...
...you'll discover what the left seemingly has to rediscover over and over again every damn time - fence sitters very rarely sit on the fence because they are undecided. Or, as Malcolm X put it...
I mean fence sitter as in prospective supporters. Not people who are neutral between leftism and fascism (there are few such people).
I’m talking about people who will act as supporters sometimes and not at others. These people possess the vast majority of political power on the left.
What, because your preferred strategy of doing nothing is working so well?
Wake the fuck up.
I didn’t realize the only two options were nothing or pointless acts of impotent violence. Funny, for some reason I thought there were other possibilities but I guess I was mistaken.
You need to wake the fuck up and get serious about political strategy instead of just reacting emotionally to the news. You’re not going to assassinate your way out of this one.
Why is this framed as a political assassination when fuckhead wasn't a politician? He was just some asshole.
because the rich assholes behind all this mess own nearly all media outlets, the narrative must be controlled. hence recent move to try and censor various private companies whose lines of communication arent (as) under their thumb.
exactly. but we don't have to call it a 'political' assassination. it was more like, some asshole getting shot because he was calling for violence.
he was the face of tpusa, definitely political...if he didn't spread bullshit for a cpac he would still be alive.