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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, 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
All. Because the ones who aren’t corrupt fucks either look the other way, or try to report the bad ones and get bullied off the force.
You say "all" but I'm pretty sure you only mean the ones in specific countries. In most European countries they simply do their job and don't have a negative connotation (apart from people getting angry when they have to pay fines for speeding / parking wrongly / etc.).
Requirements and training also are much harsher here.
Just assume anyone making a post on the internet in English is American, because they have the majority of the publicly discussed issues and post most of the English content.
You'll be less confused and not lots people off by studying a "well aktchually" in where it's not needed.
Pretty much everyone is making posts in English because I'm pretty sure literally everyone on Lemmy can speak English. You can't assume someone's nationality / first language just because a post is in English.
Woo, I disagree. I mean, statistically that can't be true.
Do you have a proposed alternative to law enforcement?
There are all sorts of ways to make police less shit. Maybe police should not have the means and freedom to arbitrarily apply violence. It doesn't take much imagination to think maybe acorn cop shouldn't have a gun.
Regulate law enforcement.
That's a much more convincing and realistic way to improve law enforcementn than calling them names.
ACAB is some insecure schoolyard taunt that doesn't help anything or affect the social conscience.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Other guards...this question was never as profound people thought it was.
I teach Latin and read comic books, what are the chances a similarly socially handicapable nerd would serve me up this phrase?
Not my job to convince you of anything.
I don't even know what you're talking about.
Read again but actually try to understand
Which part are you confused about?
See this is what I'm talking about
Questions? Or me directly addressing what you're talking about?
You seem very confused about both
Sure, let's start with not making armed thugs the first line of defense. Your average traffic cop, contrary to what the bastards will say, doesn't need a gun. The presence of one only intensifies the situation.
Easy counterpoint: traffic stops are dangerous!
Counter to the counterpoint: they're only dangerous because cops are jumpy. A person being pulled over for a traffic stop is being interrupted - UNDER THREAT OF STATE SANCTIONED VIOLENCE for what most likely boils down to either a speeding ticket or an excuse to ID the driver. Naturally someone in that situation may do something rash.
Wellness checks. Those are a big one, too. Glen's suicidal, got his gun to his head? What should we do? Call 911 obviously! They'll send out someone with some mental health training. A paramedic at least! What do you mean they sent out a jacked up jackboot who won't stop shouting "drop your weapon"? He's already got a gun pointing at his own head, what's another gun do to help this situation?
I'm not a legal scholar. I don't claim to have all of the answers, and honestly yes - an armed protection force is probably a necessity, from a societal safety standpoint, but they absolutely do not need to be the first line.
I've been arguing for reform and regulations being a better answer chanting taunts in the other comments.
I agree with all of your proposals, especially the mental health suggestion.
People desperately need mental health and well-being support in the states.
Southern Occupation style military police detachment,
A soldier fresh out of bootcamp has more trigger discipline and de-escalation training than your typical blue bastard anyways, and the federal military answers to the federal government, so they can't negotiate qualified immunity agreements or any of that shit, and their funding is already provided, so no quota meeting traffic ticketing.
I agree about trigger discipline and de-escalation training, don't they also have training to dehumanize their opponent?
Maybe I'm missing something, what exactly is " Southern occupation style military police detachment"?
I will say right off the bat that I completely support way more training for police officers and a far more rigorous screening.
The post civil war occupation of the south.
It was basically a brief golden age for black leadership in the south because that's how "not letting anyone fuck around" the union occupation force was with the traitors.
It was so effective at cock blocking the terrorist little shitbags that the red second they had enough political leverage they had them disbanded and proceeded to immediately kick off the first golden age of the klan.
But you still think it's a good idea to use MPs in civilian metropolitan areas?
I'm not totally against the idea if only because there's so much more training.
Like you say, I'd be a little wary of retaliation with even more heavy-handed law enforcement.
If it's good enough to keep the racists rightfully terrified for their miserable lives, it's good enough for the rest of us to have a law enforcement infrastructure that actually protects and serves us.
It's at least worth looking into, although at this point I can't say I trust the civic virtue of the military any more than I trust the civic virtue of the police.