Lefty Memes
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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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. Please post agitprop here)
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
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You speak English better than me. My mum is from Poland and she migrigrated after the devastation of the war but Australia was big on assimilation/white Australia (and Poles hadn't yet been granted whiteness) so she never taught us to avoid persecution/isolation.
I can't even talk to most of my family :( I'm so dogshit at language.
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that :/
"Poles haven't been granted whiteness" reads so fucking batshit crazy like WTF...
(My Russian is unfortunately not up to a regular native level and most of my family is in Moscow and only know me under my deadname LOL)
The thing is, whiteness isn't about melanin, it's about belonging to a purity culture in a color coded society. In a white supremacist culture, you will never be white so long as you identify as having some connection to a culture that does not simply label itself as "white" (or whatever the supremacist culture in that domain calls itself). In most of the western dominated world, "white" is really "white-anglosaxon". Anyone who doesn't carry those cultural markers and behaviors gets denied access to whiteness in some way, shape or form. White supremacist fascism plays an interesting trick where it tricks people into joining the coalition of hate by covering up what whiteness is long enough to get people to act against their own best interest. It's the problem with sublimating into the white culture: no one will ever be white enough, and eventually the purges will reach everyone but the aristocracy.
So almost no slavs, celts, or even nords get access to whiteness even if they're pale as hell. They can be deputized into whiteness if the coalition of hate doesn't have enough access to power to gain control, but once control is gained, they will be purged.
This webbook does a really good job of explaining the elements of a white supremacist culture. It's also important to understand that I am speaking on western white supremacy as that's the kind I've spent a lifetime trying to burn down, but other empires also engage in their forms of white supremacy. They just don't call it white supremacy. What you need to look for are the signs of white supremacy:
If you see any of those, dig deeper, look for:
British colonial racism was just a whole other thing. Australia was explicitly white supremicist for a long time and in the British sense that meant that everyone east of the Rhine was a bit sus and the further south or east the more sus.
It wasn't really till the Greeks and Lebanese people started coming over during white Australia winding down that we become "some of the good ones".
The one that always get me was the racism against Irish decendent people. Just baffling.
Truly a great country run by sane and balanced people.