"bOtH tEh SaMe"
Man, I fucking HATE centrists. Your brain is fundamentally broken if you're a centrist in this climate.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
385 points (92.9% liked)
Lefty Memes
6410 readers
1201 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, 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
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I've been studying socialist/communist theory, but I sometime worry that I might NOT find the right words. Can improv comedy help one find the right words?
The kind of enlightened centrism that’s been prevalent in these types I see as a denial of accepting the reality that we are in the midst of a vicious right-wing fascist takeover. No doubt many are just agitators trying to influence opinions by normalizing the worst sides behavior, but I think genuine centrists are just having trouble coming to grips with how bad things really are right now and will become in the near future.
In normal times, finding the faults in all sides and trying to find middle ground is typically good. Maybe even admirable. But in this climate? Wake up.
In normal times, finding the faults in all sides and trying to find middle ground is typically good. Maybe even admirable. But in this climate? Wake up.
Look at the image, none of those examples were about the current situation. So no, it is not good to be a centrist - ever.
You cannot find fault in both genocide and love, there is no happy middle ground between freedom and oppression.
Americans are so in denial, that they try to imagine everything is the problem of the current moment and if they just change that one thing it'll be perfect.
Yup.
I think a lot of the denial of what's happening is due to Americans generally living easy lives. I say that knowing there's a lot of struggle out there. But Americans have not experienced living in a nation that collapses into authoritarianism. They don't know what bad actually is. Their political decisions have never truly cost them.
"It couldn't happen here."
Said every person who lived somewhere it ended up happening.
Our society, in general, is just not good at critical thinking, and critical thinking is integral to maintaining a democracy.
AI slop
the signature in the right margin is sloptext
Lemmy and incorrectly calling everything AI, name a more iconic duo.
Here's a copy from 5 years ago, BEFORE AI could make anything such as this.
"Let's meet in the middle and genocide only 50% of the minorities."
Yeah, no. This is disingenuous at best.
a hit dog will holler
Yea because the universe only have left right and center. And anything not on your side is the other side.
"I have combined right with wrong to make a new thing called wrong" - some centrist
Look, letsjust exterminate half of your family, no vengeanceies, does that sound fair?
The design is very human
Alice: "I want to beat Bob to death."
Bob: "I don't want to be hurt."
Charlie, the centrist: "Let's compromise! Alice, beat Bob to half dead!"
Alice: "Bob died from his wounds." Charlie, the centrist: "Wow, after seeing your point of view Bob decided to compromise and in doing so, everyone got what they wanted!"
So enlightened
That's a good take on bothsidesism.
Not all centrists are guilty of bothsidesism. It may the case in some countries. In my country centrists equally hate far right and far left (certainly a false equivalence) and want compromise with neither.
That's not centralism that's just demanding reasonability from government.
Extremists from both sides of the political spectrum tend not to exist in the real world, so it's not hard to be against them.
It's perfectly acceptable to argue that both sides have a good point, provided that both sides actually do have a good point. However often times, one side (usually the right but not always) have a policy of been actually cartoonishly evil. How do you both sides that? Obviously you cannot so any attempt to do so gets you branded as a useless fence sitter.
So when people say they don't like centralists, that's the reason, because they do stuff like that and refuse to accept that sometimes one side is actually right.