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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
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.
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.
It's honestly baffling to see people actively support Gaza whilst simultaneously supporting Israel as a serious international partner.
The amount of times I've read "Yeah but the dems will never drop Israel because they're a key aly" without questioning why they're a key aly is too damn high lol.
I mean I hate to be critical on a comm that doesn't seem meant for it and I'm already in the middle of one longwinded discussion with folks in another part of lemmy so I dont want another one, but like...
We also love purity testing our fellow leftists, and all kinds of people who absolutely pass the test of being nazis 😅. I think we're kinda horrible at accepting even minor differences in political thought
The point here is supporting genocide or not. You can have this discussion about other things. But you could probably have left this comment unposted in this context.
I mean, it can be effective. It works for the GOP: you basically can't get elected as a Republican if you're not anti-abortion or if you want to raise taxes, and thanks to those purity tests, every time they get in power they take steps towards those goals.
With the 'big tent' Democrats all you get is basically a small rollback on the worst excesses of the previous Republican president (to the point where you really can't call them 'left' in any serious way).
Politics is simply anything to do with decision making in groups. We should celebrate our differences. We need each other, as long as there's tolerance. The flexibility allows us to meet new challenges. New ideas keep us fresh and nimble and helps us catch those who fall through the net. Authoritarianism, including Nazism is nigh impossible to collaborate with. We come from the wild, we are not meant for boxes. Living things cannot thrive while contained. While our differences are our greatest strength, our enemies will exploit it and try to divide us with it.
https://itsgoingdown.org/announcing-new-zine-red-flags-before-you-join-that-org/
Yeah this is a problem with the left. So many splintered factions just within communism, within socialism, within the more leftist forms of anarchism, itd be nice if we could get along long enough to get a win in every once in a while.
If only it was like that, and not harassing people for not being leftists 10+ years ago...
broadly gestures at the million leftist communities that believe basically the same things but also would kill each other given the chance
LOOOOL so fucking true.
Okay but you cannot possibly expect me to read all that to pretend im a good person when i can just go do some hot yoga or order a smoothie for lunch.
This is why nobody likes you damn dirty commies.
Is sending the entire race of uyghurs to a concentration camp ethnic cleansing?
Holy shit. Shut the fuck up. We don't live in China during the 2010s. People can care about an active genocide supported by their tax dollars and elected politicians and not be hypocrites for not mentioning "China bad" before every post.
Yes, obviously is it. The PRC has done, and continues to do, bad things. The racist imperialism in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, as well as Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi is bad and should be denounced.
Now, what's your actual point?
The actions of the PRC do not excuse, and are less genocidal than what is Israel is doing with US support in Palestine, or the attacks on indigenous people in South America and India, taking place due to capitalist expansion (Or indeed the killings and destruction brought about by capitalist expansion of the PRC in Myanmar and Laos).
Hell, if the state of the US keeps up the way LGBT people are treated in the US will become more genocidal than the PRC's treatment of ethnic minorities. The way the US has treated American Indians may not be quite as culturally corrosive right now, but that's because the destroy their culture and get rid of the intellectual who speak out part has thankfully, grown less severe over the last 80 years (in part because it had been felt a success by those who wanted to force Indians to integrate and assimilate (read: sinicise (read: be culturally destroyed)).
My point is to expose the hypocrites, who only use the genocide as a talking point when its convenient vs the people who actually have morals.
If youre willing to call it genocide, im not criticising you
You certainly picked a doozy of an example, as I think I only ever see it mentioned by people trying to drum up China hate - who usually go on to ignore Palestine, India, Brazil, and I'm sure many ethnic cleansing cases I'm forgetting.
Oh thats interestng can you point out an example?
Ive never seen that, but I do see tankies constantly not care about genocides in china and only seem to care about it happening in other countries.
Tankies are very good at ignoring anything even possibly non-ideal in the PRC and USSR (and sometimes even Russia too!).
I'll try to remember to link it in a new reply to you next time I stumble across it being used in order to deflect from the US or draw criticism to China over the topic at hand.
Are Uyghur people a "race" now?
Since when?
"They're a Turkic ethnicity."
Does that phrasing pass muster?
Sure.
I guess it must be hard for people who were raised from birth to only view the world through the lens of race to distinguish between the two, eh?
Seeing as "race" is a social construct, and the word is generally synonymous with "ethnicity" in common parlance...
Congrats for coming up with a purity test, I guess?
Sorry... what?
I'm starting to think you have reading comprehension issues. Have you gotten checked for dyslexia?
Oh look... the liberal who can't win an argument is resorting to ableism.
Have you learned to stand for anything yet?
"acts like a duck quacks like a duck" your words.
So that's a no, then?
Edited for clarity.
Race is a social construct.
The word "race (n.)" is used as a synonym of "ethnicity (n.) in many people's everyday speech.
Thanks.
The word “race (n.)” is used as a synonym of "ethnicity (n.) in many people’s everyday speech.
Is this a US thing? That would explain a lot.
Maybe, I think it's an older carry-over from days when people would say the admittedly yikes sounding "German race" or "Anglo-Saxon race" or "Gaelic race". ("Hhmong race", "Han race", "Amazigh race", "Mexica race" all sound less yikes.) I think that makes it clear enough to understand, and according to the OED it can mean a whole raft of genetically linked people, from the clear genetics and culture of direct family upto fictional and orientalistly imposed ideas of unity of people who live in other parts of the world.
Possibly it comes from translating, especially East Asian languages, into English. Maybe just from being less immersed in precise Anglophone Leftist thought? I'm figuring you're university educated European.
May I circle back to asking you (this and) the reworded question? Do you accept/believe that ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur ethnicity is taking place in Xinjiang?
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of how Anglophones have used the term "race" in the past - the concept of "race" just had to be conflated with nearly everything, including, but not limited to, nationality, ethnicity, religion and even geography. It is quite strange to see people still using it in that way, though - even from Anglophones.
I’m figuring you’re university educated European.
Lol! Nope.
Do you accept/believe that ethnic cleansing
No, I don't. There does seem to be a lot of forced cultural assimilation going on, which is not the same thing as ethnic cleansing. According to the original meaning of the term "genocide," enforced cultural assimilation most definitely does count as genocidal, though. What the scale of China's actions against the Uygher people are, though, I can't say. Right-wingers don't do themselves any favour by calling this or that a genocide - just look at the (supposed) "genocide" they invented out of whole cloth (supposedly) occuring in South Africa.
No, I don't. There does seem to be a lot of forced cultural assimilation going on, which is not the same thing as ethnic cleansing. According to the original meaning of the term "genocide," enforced cultural assimilation most definitely does count as genocidal, though.
You're right, I should've gone with genocide here, I've been to used to swapping it for ethnic cleansing when talking about Israel and wasn't switched on enough to properly look at the differences.
just look at the (supposed) "genocide" they invented out of whole cloth (supposedly) occuring in South Africa.
Fully agree. White farmers having to finally pay recompense for decades of oppression and undo the dark deal where the ANC gave up it's economic policies in return for a peaceful handover of power is not a genocide, ethnic cleansing, or even cultural oppression.
how Anglophones have used the term "race" in the past - the concept of "race" just had to be conflated with nearly everything, including, but not limited to, nationality, ethnicity, religion and even geography.
Scientific racism has a lot to answer for. I get that the word "race" has a lot of baggage these days, and do try not to use it myself, but I also recognise that there are plenty of not necessarily problematic uses of it, especially amongst the wide range of dialects and variants English comes in. So if it's clear it's just being used as it often has been and still is as a synonym for ethnicity, I don't think it's a huge problem. On the other hand, if someone brings up race as linked to skin tone or some other racist rubbish, I'm very quick to point out the lack of science and falsitity of it.
What is your mother tongue, if I may ask? I'm intrigued to how it differs across the words used for the topic.
White farmers having to finally pay recompense
Lol! Nope. They're not paying squat - except for the poverty wages they've always paid their workers (if even that). And there's very little chance of that changing any time soon.
People have some weird ideas how things really work here in ole' South Africa - and that includes most South Africans, I'm afraid.
What is your mother tongue, if I may ask?
My mother tongue is Afrikaans - I'm one of those people Trump says is being "genocided" here in South Africa.
Not even finally having to maybe give something back? Wow... Even more of a nothingburger than I'd thought. I am quite ignorant of the reality of South Africa, and the whole southern hemisphere I think. (I can however imagine Trump claiming, if it had passed, that the Australian Aboriginal Rights law was an act of genocide on European Australians.)
Did hear that the ANC is continuing to have a lot of internal strife with Rhamposa and the previous leader who was removed for corruption. Is Rhamposa any better? And does the nation as a whole feel like it's able to try to move to better things? (Can't imagine it does from you saying it doesn't look like white land owners will have to pay out any more than poverty wages on the near future.)
Did hear that the ANC is continuing to have a lot of internal strife with Rhamposa and the previous leader who was removed for corruption. Is Rhamposa any better?
No, they didn't remove Zuma because of corruption - our entire political establishment is about as rancid as a defunded sewer system. He was removed because his faction lost the internecine infighting endemic to the ANC.
Ramaphosa is an interesting case. My dad actually knew him when he was just a junior union guy in the mines - that was, of course, before he became a mining boss (a very politically charged term here in South Africa) himself and betrayed the mineworkers and (literally) sicced murder-pig on them back in 2012 in front of the world's cameras.
Sooo...
And does the nation as a whole feel like it’s able to try to move to better things?
...no. We're just headed deeper into crushing neoliberal dystopia - and our entire political establishment (which includes the ANC and all the so-called "opposition") thinks that's just fine and dandy. Even our (supposed) public infrastructure is now "run like a business" - and I mean that literally. South Africa is a reactionary time-bomb - and throwing poor immigrants under the bus (like they've been doing since 2008) will only work to keep "business as usual" going for so long.
Oh, that's rubbish (to put it mildly).
I had assumed Ramaphosa (thanks for correct spelling) was akin to Starmer or Nick Clegg in British terms - didn't realise he was such a traitor and as well as scab. Thanks for the insights in to the South African situation.
Sure thing.
Hello grammar police? there is an ethnic cleansing going on maybe like read a wikipedia article abouit it or something!
People's conception of "race" says a lot... what do you think yours says about you?
What does it say about me? Youre walking past genocide to argue semantics, I think that says a lot about you
Let me take a wild guess - you only care about genocide when your white supremacist friends tells you it's a genocide, right?
Howzabout that (supposed) genocide taking place in South Africa, eh? I bet you like talking about that one, too.
No, Im not a commie, I actually care about genocide everywhere.
So that's a yes, eh white supremacist?