this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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Lefty Memes

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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

Version without spoilers

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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

lefty memes look inside red liberalism

[–] imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Two things can be true at once. You can remove that part to look more like you know what you're talking about.

[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's not about the literal meaning of the statement it's about the meta i.e. how it's been used in the last decade or so as a way of trying to get away from the uncomfortable challenges that much of the world is essentially forced to react to US beligerence at all levels. So when liberals say Africa is corrupt and that's why the West has to do what it does and leftists say that the corruption commonly referred to in many African states is actually the result of the the West hand picking the leadership and creating all the incentives for corruption and actively working against any accountability that comes with asserting sovereignty, the liberal will say "two things can be true at the same time" as a way of saying "But I'm not wrong that it's actually the fault of the corrupt leaders" when in fact the challenge is trying to say that the US is the cause of both the immediate suffering caused by the overt actions of the US and the US is also the cause of the corruption that the liberal is trying to displace blame onto.

I get the vibes, they aren't exactly deep, but the sentiment is weakened for failing to account for its internal inaccuracy.

It's delivering its message poorly.

[–] Pajonk@szmer.info 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You know that we have more imperialistic regimes?

China, far right wing Russia and Israel, and some smaller players.

[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Lol don't mention any Western European country 😂

Don't want people to know France has control over several countries and regularly deals arms to Africa

[–] Pajonk@szmer.info 1 points 9 hours ago

I literally said smaller players.

There's France, and other countries and what they are doing in Africa. Almost all or all (i don't know about Norway or Sweden) had imperialistic past, and some are still doing shit in Africa and so on.

Situation in Africa is quite complicated, so it's hard to remember every single country that is ruining that place. But still it's no the same scale, as Russian, Chinese, USA, and Israeli imperialism.