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.
ID: 3 stills from A Bullet for Baldwin (1956)
Alfred Hitchcock says "I've just come into possession of a cure for fascism"
He sets some bullets on his desk and says "they come in capsule form. For best results, they must be taken internally."
He holds up a revolver and says "here is the handy applicator."
All that too. But anyone who think fascism is going away without armed self defence is, at the very least, not paying any attention whatsoever.
Most armed people in the US nowadays are in favor of the main fascist, so...
All the more reason for anti-fascists to arm themselves..
USians are deluded in believing that they're the heroes of the movie.
They'll do nothing of the sort. They will endure, obey, and rat on the dissidents.
This isn't defensiveness for myself since I'm not American, or of America, being what it is, but you could say that about pretty much every country in the world, and that's because capitalism is pretty much decaying globally.
It's why focusing on superficial "fixes" like a change of administration is a waste of our collective time and energy as the working class, which is exactly what it's designed to do - keep the public busy and placated with artificial tribalism and an illusion of choice, while those at the top keep collecting and hoarding power and resources.
As long as there is a class of people who benefit from the exploitation of the rest of us, they will do everything in their power to manipulate society to serve them.
You may be right in principle, but I'm not willing to die for it for it. Sorry if that offends your purist revolutionary mind.
No one asked you to die for anything.
But some of us don't have the privilege of choosing.
Whatever you imagine my sensibilities to be has nothing to do with it, you don't get to shift the blame, it's all on you to pick a side for yourself, and live with that choice.
Oh I'm taking about armed sabotage. Also armed self defence
Oh ok, cool, so we're on the same page lol
E: I guess I'm just too used to libs suggesting boycotting individual companies as a solution to our problems..
Time for people to learn how to make and use molotovs again.
Everyone worried about paying their bills and not securing their freedom, forgetting peaceful protests didn't stop fascism the previous times.
This of course is a feature, not a bug.
It's why building solidarity and community support is essential - we need to help each other out (to enable people to make and put those molotovs to good use we also need people to help feed, help babysit, help educate, help propagandise, help as a medic, help maintain safe houses and community centres, help support and defend those unable to participate in any of the other activities due to age or disability, and so on and so on) so that we can collectively become more powerful.
We need a good poster/sticker to start pasting everywhere.
I'm down to educate, and propagandise.
Back when I was more able to leave the house I used to go stickering quite a lot, it's a great way to spread the word, and signal to other marginalised people that they're not alone! Now I mostly stick to educating folks online to the best of my ability.
It's been a while, but I had a very quick look and there are some independent places where you can get stickers and posters:
https://store.c4ss.org/index.php/product-category/stickers/
http://afed.org.uk/publications/stickers/
https://store.crimethinc.com/
https://www.activedistributionshop.org/product-category/stickers/
https://black-mosquito.org/en/fabrikat-bm/aufkleber.html
As for educational resources, the anarchist library is a treasure trove, there are also recent links like this and this that have come up on my feed and seem like great places to start!
Well I'm not gonna say this won't demand warmed conflict.
But I do want to note that I don't think the only options can be harmed conflict or an ineffective boycott of a multinational conglomerate.
There has to be other ways. And I've actually thought of several, but nothing so simple I could propose it in a single sentence and usually when I get into talking about it the some people get heated up and I'm tired of the same fights over and over. It's hard to fight alone, but I seriously think the internet would be a more powerful tool in the larger picture than personal firearms. Or at least, I very much hope so.
But life has had a way of doing exactly the opposite of my wishes.
So.
Fuck...
Gl Americans