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.
Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.
The death penalty is always wrong.
Murder is not a punishment and once you've stripped her of her ill-got gains there is no longer any reason to kill her.
I hear you but if I’m honest, and tomorrow America announced it was going to execute every billionaire, I’m not going to put up too much of a protest.
Take the money, sure. Then they're no longer billionaires and there's no need to kill them.
In other words, you don’t murder disarmed prisoners of war.
During class war they are the enemy and deserve what comes to them. If taken alive and their weapon of war removed, they don’t need to be dealt with the same way.
Once they are no longer a threat you can work on rehabilitation and restitution.
First off, I agree with you.
But...second...I struggle with the rehabilitation bit. Some people cannot be rehabilitated. It is a hard truth I have learned, coupled with pain and regret, many times in my life. I'm just curious what you think the course of action should be at that point?
I'm not suggesting death/murder, but I do struggle with the idea that if they're miserable, and the people around them are made miserable, and the people trying to help them are made miserable...what do you do?
You can't know that. You only have evidence for people's inability to've been rehabilitated so far.
Not murder.
...drugs?
You do everything you can for them (whilst making sure they're not a danger to other people), give the caretakers / wardens plenty of time off, and you give them the option for assisted suicide. In my ideal world, everyone would have the option for assisted suicide though