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Lefty Memes
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!
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)
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.
- 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
He was compelled by law to continue the wall. He did so as minimally and I would argue, as sarcastically as possible, within the bounds he had, but go off, presidents are kings and can do anything they want.
Is Biden perfect? Gawd no. Is Biden significantly better than any Dem president in my lifetime? Sure is. But he isn't perfect, so let's make things worse.
...because "he was just following the law" and "he was just following orders" famously excuse human rights abuses and other atrocities
There it is! Everyone get in here!
This is EXACTLY what my post is about!
We've got:
Deflecting with "you'd rather have a dictator/Trump" -- that famous wild unfounded accusation
Can only conceive of either tyranny of the majority or authoritarianism
Hand-waving / downplaying human rights abuses
B I N G O!
I'm going to leave this here for you, because this user addresses this better than I can. (Not sure how to do proper links here, but you should still be able to read the comment.)
As that user said, even following the principles of our current republic, this doesn't excuse something like anti-trans laws or border camps.
And when it comes to leftist ideologies (this is a leftist community, after all, not a capitalist one), there are also other even more democratic and equitable options.
I'm very involved in my community. I sit on two city committees, I meet at least twice a year with my city council rep and email her in between, I vote in every election, I attend rallies and events like Pride and BLM whenever my schedule permits, I work for a charitable non-profit that helps people (don't want to get too specific because doxxing), and I've considered running for local office before deciding my schedule just doesn't allow it.
I'm also fairly poor, but I still donate monthly to Lakota People's Law Project and Minnesota Freedom Fund.
And even online, I try to discuss real problems and don't straight up lead with telling people to fuck off. I also don't make excuses for fascist institutions such as ICE with their border camps. I point out the troubling things Biden is doing because we need to find a way to stop these things by any means necessary.
So I do agree with your advice, but it's not a zero sum game. I can do all these things and also be online. I feel like you're just saying this as a silencing tactic and deflection.