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Lefty Memes
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
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Sexual assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind

Is anybody an ally of you if they have other goals that are not yours???
So deep. Much thought. Philosopher. Wow.
Truly, you also participate in society, you fucking donut.
When the primary task is overthrowing the present system of late-stage imperialism, yes! I'm a Marxist-Leninist, but I consider anarchists and anti-imperialists of all stripes to be great allies. The problem with liberalism is that the underlying goals entrench imperialism and capitalism, not weaken it.
But that's the thing. That isn't the primary task. That's your primary task. Some people just need to get out of their struggle before they can help others. And if you think that will create more enemies than allies to you, then... I think you are grossly misinformed or you are lying about what you actually want.
Like, you might as well say we shouldn't have freed the slaves unless we destroyed the institutions that created slavery. Incremental progress is still good, even if it's not preferred, and people's lives benefit from it.
We can fight for benefits, but as long as we remain trapped by bourgeois ideology like liberalism, rather than proletarian ideology like dialectical materialism, then we will be hopelessly trapped by their cultural hegemony. The reason liberalism is propogated is because it rationalizes and justifies the present capitalist system, and we cannot actually move on to a better world as long as we hold to its ways of thinking except by accident. When we take a more serious approach, and actually analyze society as it truly exists, we find that overthrowing the present state of things is necessary and unavoidable.
Abolition of slavery was absolutely a good thing, but we have to know why it happend. It was mostly due to the north's desire for more proletarians for industrial labor, it was a war between agricultural slavery and industrial wage labor. In the present moment, the largest contradiction is between imperialist countries and the imperialized, as well as domestically the issue of settler-colonialism. If we don't actually take steps to combat these, we will be left wondering why conditions keep deteriorating despite putting more liberals in office.
Ah... I think I see your problem now. You think nothing can happen unless the bourgeois will it. I, frankly, don't agree with that. I think you think the world is a lot more chess-like when it's really a lot more like poker with mostly idiots. That does explain why MLs want to go authoritarian to fix the problems, though.
Anyway, the reason why you're a fucking biscuit is you don't seem to be expressing ideas to convert liberals to your cause. You have written them off as unfixable, and, well, that sort of gives you fewer allies. How silly.
No, not at all. My point is that liberalism itself supports the system of capitalism, and as such we need to shed it in order to make progress, as it's essentially how the bourgeoisie legitimizes itself.
The world isn't chess nor is it poker. Classes generally act rationally, in their own interest, and proliferate class ideology to protect their interests. Ruling class ideology is meant to perpetuate that ruling class, which is why proletarian ideology needs to replace bourgeois ideology.
I don't know what you mean by this. Marxists do agree with using states run by the working classes as a transitional phase to communism, but that doesn't mean "going authoritarian," but changing the class with authority from bourgeois to proletarian.
I don't, though. I was a liberal once. I write off liberalism itself. As I explained elsewhere in this thread:
This is the point I'm actually making. Radicalized liberals are comrades that have not yet become so, because they haven't yet shed their liberalism and as such ultimately go back to supporting the very system that oppresses them.
Liberals, as long as they cling to liberalism, do work against leftists in practice. In that sense, liberals are enemies, but they are enemies that can quite easily be turned into valuable comrades. My actual, original comment:
This is true, but I did not call them enemies outright. You've been rude this entire time, what's the point? Are you trying to get a cheap rhetorical win?
That's not accurate at all, though. I asked if liberals could truly be seen as allies if liberalism is counterposed to leftism, precisely for the purpose of sparking a conversation to have liberals question why they are counterposed to leftism. I wasn't alienating anyone, I was trying to confront liberalism ideologically. You came in insulting me, and now you're dehumanizing me because you got caught out.