ID: photo of Martin Luther King Jr. waving at the crowd during the March on Washington, on it is his quote: "He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
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)
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.
Jesus christ, I wish I had access to the military grade copium you are on right now.
Hey idk, maybe if half the energy that was spent blaming and shaming voters; into using their only legal collective bargaining power to endorse a party that they don't actually want, that doesn't even pretend to work in their interest or that of broader humanity, that is currently voting away your rights right alongside republicans, and fucking lost the election anyways; was instead spent on building up an actually functioning independent left wing party, movement, or undercurrent; on building up independent aid networks and leftist coalitions; the situation would be different.
Maybe if instead of running defense for genocide and complicity, we showed the people that alternative forms of engagement that are actually rewarding, do exist, and build up enough power to stand up for ourselves and show the left wing of the capitalist class that actual action is necessary if they want to keep up their charade; or to take their place when the people see the charade for what it is; we would have won some concessions and actually improved people's lives instead of the best we can collectively hope for being that they don't get worse.
You are correct. We are not out numbered, we are out organized. Spending your time pushing anti democratic propaganda in promotion of the Democratic party is not going to magically organize the working class or make the Democrats less right wing.
No, but be my guest, go and work with the Democrats and see where that gets you. You're definitely the first leftist ever in history to have thought of using the supposed left wing party as an actual left wing party and definitely aren't going to be spit out and blacklisted by the party, which is completely captured by the capitalist class, as soon as it tastes any hint of legitimate anti-establishment or anti-capitalist sentiment. The powers that be just have zero mechanism of maintaining their dominance over the ruling class, and this is really how the Democratic party just organically formed on its own with zero influence by capital. It's just human nature that the people in power in a democracy where anyone, including leftists, can supposedly wield power, would just stop using that power to materially improve people's lives even in order to get elected! I've never spoken to actual leftists organizers who have successfully accomplished anything or read a fucking book written by one in my life, and I can't possibly see what could go wrong, because my political engagement begins and ends at the ballot box and complaining about how other people use their democratic rights on online forums. /s
If the democrats want to shoot their own party in the foot by all but abandoning populist rhetoric, fucking let them. Use the opportunity of the biggest threat to leftist organization and revolutionary optimism, finally stumbling over their own incompetence and contradictory interests, to build up and defend a party that will actually stand for your rights.