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!
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
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.
Found this graph online for anyone who might still be confused. I think this makes it much more clear.
In other western democracies, the US democrats are seen as the equivalent of the local conservative parties.
There is no real US equivalent for European leftist / social-democratic parties. The US republicans, on the other hand, are like the borderline illegal Nazi / nationalist rightwing parties that Putin built up and strengthened in the last decades all across Europe
Certainly feels that way
The right-left divide is a fabrication meant to obscure the fact that the actual division is capitalist-socialist. Do you support the owning class, or do you support the working class?
The funny thing is - to support the working class is to support the owning class. Because when people have more money, they spend more which makes company profits increase and stock go up.
It's more like "stupid retards who only want to hurt people vs. people who want to help people".
Personally, I want to help the working class by getting rid of the ruling class and make owning capital a community thing instead of an individual thing.
Yeah capitalism isn't interrupt about free markets and competition or investing in yourself. It's about the ownership class, and the labour class (those that work for the owner class, make all the money and get proportionally none of it). Companies are mini monarchies where you get no say in the policy, the ownership of the company is usually passed on to descendents, you live half your life abiding by the mini monarchy. You vote outside of work, but not at work, work is not democratic. Even so, governments are not mediators between workers and elite, the people that end up in government are of the elite class and have their own interests in mind. We only have our labour rights and aren't complete slaves today because of very strong socialist movements during and after the great depression and ww2. They compromised with some socialism to avoid complete socialism, but these movements are of course not too frequently mentioned in history lessons
This 100% - it's part propaganda.
Never have been.
The true irony being that anyone who ever thought the upper version was the US political spectrum also likely has no idea about a century of Dixiecrats and how Southern conservatives after the Civil War all aligned as Democrats as a "Fuck you" to Northern Republicans - Lincoln in particular. IIRC, it was post-LBJ era and push to get Nixon elected that finally flipped the labeling back, which should tell you all you need to know about him and the conservatives.
Bernie on the wrong side of centre.
The Overton Window is known to many but still most can't see how it shapes acceptable politics. What's left and right in the US is shifted so far right from most other democratic countries.
I think it's important to recognize the Overton Window is shaped by what is acceptable to voters. This means that the present state of affairs can only be the result of one or both of these scenarios:
Enough of the US voting population leans far enough right to move the window, or
Political policy is being dictated by forces other than what voters find acceptable.
the Overton Window is shaped by what is acceptable to voters
No. It's shaped by what's acceptable to the media, politicians, and their owner donors.
Much more often than not, the vast majority of voters don't get to choose beyond harm reduction by choosing the lesser evil. Which is still an evil.
Political policy is being dictated by forces other than what voters find acceptable.
Yup. 🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Bernie isn't far left by international standards, but I wouldn't put him in the centre. Nobody in the centre is trying to make radical changes to things. What Bernie is proposing is pretty radical compared to where the US currently is. And, I think if those reforms actually passed, he'd still be trying to move things even more to the left.
And Biden as "far right"? It has lost all meaning if you're applying that label to him.
He stopped a rail worker strike for safer working conditions, then six moths latter there was a massive derailment and an environmental catastrophe in Ohio. You would call that left?
Biden was a pro-business Blue. I’d put him a couple steps left of center for his green energy initiatives though.
I think politics is a bit of a spectrum in reality, so not everything politicians do fit nicely on a left/red bar chart when we’re trying to talk about where they stand.
All his green initiatives were catering to private business though. Tax breaks and subsidies with little conditional restraints. If you want left wing green energy initiatives, look at how China does it.
Idk. Simping for a fascist ethnostate sure doesn't seem left to me.
... and it's just a meme, homie.
It usually takes more than one thing to label somebody left or right.
And "it's just a meme" is how we ended up with a meme in office twice.
Do you realize how insane our politics are for people to think of supporting a genocide as just one thing on a list of policies?
Yo, the only reason Hitler is considered right-wing, because he wanted to lead the German nation to prosperity. Stop purity-testing!
/s (in case it's not obvious)
Do you mean that supporting a genocide is a centrist policy?
These memes remind me of my high school religion teacher (I went to Catholic school in Canada, "religion" was what you would call Civics) who introduced the political spectrum. He wrote the usual line across the chalkboard with left/center/right labels, and explained what they were. Then, he extended the chalk line to the right, off the board and onto the wall, and continued past the corner onto the next wall. He was about half way to the back of the room before he started writing down names of any of our political leaders at the time. I don't remember most of the names from 30 years ago, but Conrad Black was on the back wall.
I don't think I would say Hillary Clinton was to the left of Joe Biden. At least he had Lena Khan and a strong FCC. Something I don't think Clinton would have ever done. I would reverse those two.
For that matter I don't know if Obama is to the left of him either.
There is no left or right anymore. There are only fascists and antifascists.
so.. left and right then?
The ‘left right spectrum’ is a harmful concept because it makes communism seem like an extremist position even though it’s in the best interest of 99% of people, and only unpopular due to billions and billions worth of red scare propaganda by the 1%.
In a sane world centre would be 'status quo making decisions based on objective reality' yet somehow even the idea that we should base our decisions on verifiable data is like super extreme gay communism left by current standards.
Every political discussion is civil until you say “maybe states shouldn’t exist”