ID: line drawing of an upright bunny with a black bandana tied around their neck, holding a lit match in their mouth like you might a toothpick. The text says "we can't just vote fascism away, the time has come to disobey. (be brave!)"
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.
The word you're looking for is: civil disobedience. Break laws, get attention. Our grandparents did the same thing during Vietnam.
No, the word you're looking for might be civil disobedience, but there is nothing civil about what I have in mind, nor should there be.
I reserve my civility for those who extend it to me, not for fucking fascists and Nazis who want to kill marginalised people for who we are.
Also, considering how long the Vietnam travesty went on for, and how little, if any, impact the protests against it had, I wouldn't be so quick to use them as a reference.
These are technical terms. There's legal protest, then civil disobedience---this is how we ended Jim Crow; a lot of people had to go to jail to fight the system---and then there's domestic terrorism. If you don't think civil disobedience is going far enough, then you're advocating for terrorism.
Yeah, and got whatever shit still remains today, including systemic white supremacy and slavery.
As for the imaginary line between "protest", "freedom fighting", and "terrorism", it is one your oppressor has defined to make sure people like you turn your backs on those actually brave enough to take on them and their system in the only meaningful way there is to oppose it. Maybe consider thinking more critically about the world and who defines its rules for you.
So while we're bringing up grandparents - I'm going to take my lead from some of my own, who were armed partisans in the Polish forests, and armed fighters in a ghetto rebellion, shooting Nazis because they knew it is the only way to defeat them. (E: and if you're only ok with people fighting back once they're in the cage, you have chosen the side of those doing the caging)
Enjoy your sit in, those of us directly in the firing line don't have time to learn our lessons from the white washed history those who want to suppress us teach.
E: oh, and while we're here, and since you brought up Jim Crow, maybe consider the words of MLK, and where you fit in on the demanding order over justice scale: