Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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" (read: Dengists) (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
- Sexual assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
view the rest of the comments
I'm guessing this is mostly rhetorical.. But my 2¢: They failed at everything since kindergarten: education, socialisation, relationships, career, finances; everything they've tried they failed or they feel like they failed.
They need therapy, but that costs vulnerability and money, and their parents or peers told them it was for the weak. So instead, they get angry, and look around and on the first page of Insta, YouTube, and Facebook they find people like Shapiro, Fuentes, Petersen, Crowder, Southern - all telling them that someone else is to blame, not them, and then pointing at ~~immigrants~~ illegals, ~~blacks~~ inner city youth, and ~~Jews~~ globalists.
So now they're looking for that someone else to punch down on to soothe their extreme insecurities, shame, and anger at the world (and themselves), but they're still that doughy, insecure 'failure' that they haven't done anything to change.
When i was around 18, some 20 years ago, there was a town close to where i grew up, and they had a nazi problem. They had a bunch of weirdo neo nazis there and their numbers would grow over time. I hated it, because instead of going out and having a good time, a lot of our weekends were spent beating up neo nazis and making sure they don't "claim" certain bars and establishments. I kept wondering what their appeal was, and how they even find new people.
Suddenly it was pretty clear, they just accepted everyone with open arms. People who had trouble finding friends, people who didn't feel like they belonged anywhere, outcasts and misfits. Or just people who are so shitty that they never found friends. That shit made me so sad, because me and my friends were misfits as well. Just a bunch of nerds who found each other through music and smoking weed and being weirdos.
From what i gathered later on, like 90% of them grew out of it and lived a normal life. Some of them have to live with the shame of having a swastika tattoo or a Hitler bust somewhere on their body. And some of them just die on the hill of being neo nazi scumbags.
Surely, not everyone lol
Thanks for your story. I'm a misfit nerd also, so it resonates with me.
I'm sure its something we can fix at large scale with government-funded mental health care, social programs, funding for community centers, and integrating mental health and social science studies into education, amongst many possible solutions that would get us to a society where everyone can find somewhere to fit in, and everyone has better options than the snake-oil salesmen when they seek help or are angry at a personal situation.
Unfortunately we presently live in the era of the techofeudalists, and eyeballs on ads and keeping users consuming are pretty much all they care about - not only do they not care if the media they promote and put ads alongside happens to be divisive alt-right hate media, they also benefit from the conservative (anti-regulation, small government, anti-tax) parties being pushed to power by these groups. It's a frustrating feedback loop that we need to break free of, and governments worldwide seem ill-prepared to broach it.
Ugh. For context, I'm currently trying to steer a younger family member out of the alt-right pipeline and angry about how hard it is to beat constant access to thousands of videos / talking points pushed into their feed daily, with the couple hours I see them a week to attempt to 'deprogram' them.. without trying to come across preachy or put them off learning alternative viewpoints (evidence-based reality). Its a struggle.