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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
The thing the libs/"moderates"/"centrists" don't seem to understand is that this vote has long been stollen from leftists by the DNC when they decided not to run a Democratic Primary.
So for lefties it's a "choose between Charles Mason and Jack The Ripper" vote: a false choice.
The only real choice for lefties in this vote is explained by Game Theory:
What Game Theory tells us in this case, actually backed by scientific experiments carried out with actual humans, is that if Entity A divides things in a very selfish way and Entity B "accepts" rather than choose "reject", i.e. does not punish Entity A for it even at the cost of a small loss for itself, then in the next round Entity A will divide things in a just as bad or worse way for B.
It never happens that Entity A, being one that divides the cake in a very selfish way, becomes less selfish in that division after a round were Entity B chose to "accept" that division. The best you can merelly hope for as Entity B if you keep on "accepting" is that Entity A doesn't become even more selfish in the next round.
Applied to this very specific situation it means that as long as the lefties keep on accepting the choices of the DNC (who are liberals, backed by campaign contributions from very wealthy people) for who the Democrat Presidential Candidate represents the most, then for each subsequent election the choices of the DNC will be worse and worse for the lefties.
If you look at the rounds of this "game" so far - each round being an election - this is exactly what has been happenning: the only time the Democrat candidate is ever a little leftwards from the previous one is after after their votes from the left fall, which is generally when the Democrat Party loses an election.
So the correct choice for anybody on the left who wants a chance to elect a President that is more representative of their views, and that only in a future election (as the present is already lost since the DNC has already made its choice), is to "punish" by not voting (or, even better, voting a third party candidate if they find a suitable one), which does mean the DNC loses its big bet on a guy that pretty much only represents Liberals and even Zionists, even if leftis too will lose whatever tiny bit of "representation" they would get with the not-quite-as-extreme-right presidential candidate chosen by the DNC.
Do not "punish" and instead "accept" (by voting Biden) and the next round of the game (i.e. the next election) will be the same or worse.
This argument implies that Biden is left of Obama. It also ignores the very real risk that by not voting for Biden in this round there will be no fair future rounds to participate in. It also ignores all other elections and chances to influence the party.
Trump is a uniquely different candidate than McCain, Romney, Bush, whoever you want to pick. He tried to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power and there is little reason to think he would not try again if given the chance.
Real life is not so simple as game theory and attempting these simplifications is not as rational as you imply.
Please vote in the coming election for Biden. The consequences of "Punishing" the Dnc are too dire to ignore.
"The only time that something" is the logical "might something" not the logical "must something"
Also you weren't like me right smack in the middle of the Finance Industry keenly observing what Obama (amongst others such as Cammeron in Britain and Merkel in Germany) did in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash and how they did it, or were living under a rock when the suppression of Occupy Wall Street happenned, if you think Obama is in any way form of shape leftwing, center-left or even center-right: you need to go way back, before Bill "I repealed the Glass-Steagal Act so that Finance can do whatevere the fuck it wants and thus caused the 2008 Crash" Clinton to find a Democrat with even the mildest touch of merelly center-left thinking.
"We'll not-vote and then they'll give us what they want!" has worked out sooo well in the past. Eight years of W. Four years of The Idiot. Are you happier now, having lived under those disasters? Is the DNC more in-line with what you wanted, compared to Gore and Hillary?
Ie., if the game is rigged against you, the only option is not to play.
Guillotines are always an option.
Well said thank you
but Trump will end democracy!
Just say you want a trump presidency lmao
"Those who are not with us are against us" is a Fascist motto.