this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Lefty Memes

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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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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,

as well as 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.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (14 children)

For those who don't seem to get it:
No, this meme does not mean that you can't temporarily halt fascist electoral victory, but rather that fighting symptoms and portraying that as a "victory over fascism" completely disregard the root cause (as liberalism often does)...

Tho I'm ngl, the NFP seems to be pretty based, at least relative to the usual neolib bs

ie.: Fascism is a built-in function of capitalism and thus bourgeois "democracy". Capitalism turns to fascism when threatened, so as long as you aren't ready to give up the private ownership of the economy, you will not be able to get rid of fascism (paraphrasing Bertolt Brecht here)

sheesh, I often forget, that libs and revisionists actually believe in bourgeois democracy. If you are open to changing your mind I can recommend "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxenburg

EDIT: @[email protected] made me aware of an ebook-specific link

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've learned that using the term "bourgeois" just confuses half of liberals and convinces the other half that you must be a tankie - I just call it liberal democracy and they get it (it does send them into reactionary fits, though).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That just exposes them as being politically illiterate reactionaries and staunch defenders of capital

Those who are open-minded will interact in good faith and ask for clarification (the thread of my overarching comment might be an example)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Found it If you click on author name it only gives you the web version, for epub you need to go to this page:

https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/#ebooksinenglish

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

thx for providing the link!

(I don't frequent marxists.org, since I get all my ebooks through Anna's archive)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I had to read that a couple of times before I understood what you are trying to say. At first glance, it seemed like you were calling democracy itself bourgeois, but I think you meant it as a specific thing that isn’t actual democracy… e.g. it’s an illusion of democracy because capitalism gives the wealthy the ability to steer the whole ship, as it were. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Exactly that. Capitalism is incompatible with democracy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm glad you took the time to read and understand it in good faith!

And yes, under bourgeois "democracy" (be it multiparty or bi/mono party dominant) you only get to choose between various representatives of capital

The system and it's laws are inherently designed in such a way, that no matter whom you elect, you still live under the dictatorship of capital

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It seems so. Capitalism fundamentally unequal, which is opposite of real democracy.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

aggressively mashes vote into box

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What they managed to do is pretty cool though. Like yeah all the structural issues remain but centrists working with leftists to keep fascist out of the gov? Pretty rad! Broad leftist unity on the ballot at least? Pretty rad!

I'm pretty sure the leftists know the stakes, don't shit on solidarity.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

centrists working with leftists to keep fascist out of the gov?

This was voters siding with left-liberals when faced with the choice of an unpopular centrist incumbent, an increasingly deranged nationalist movement, and a coalition of moderate progressives. Macron's original stated gamble was to allow National Rally power to govern in order to prove their policies were unpopular. But he miscalculated how unpopular LePen's movement actually was and handed a plurality to Melenchon instead by mistake.

I’m pretty sure the leftists know the stakes

People routinely vote on vibes. Hence the Obama-Trump voter or the wild swings between Tory and Labour in the UK. I would not bank against a momentary coalition falling apart as soon as Macron is asked to compromise on some pro-business policy or step towards increased at-cost domestic production.

I certainly would not bank on the largely right-wing owned domestic media whipping local French citizens into a hysterical lather over the advent of the Evil French Communists taking a few Parliamentary offices. Public opinion can turn hard right with even a marginal economic downturn if news media is there to scream blame at migrants, (((bad actors))), and brown people loudly enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Eh, I don't really bother reading political takes by usasians.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

usasians

Lolz

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That's just the first phase of the fight, in the second phase they get a lot more damage resistance and their moveset gets quicker. Much tougher fight.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is there a third phase? I HATE when there's a third phase. I'm looking at you Elden Ring DLC spoiler.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Ffs, how does that even work? I didn't play much Sekiro.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Ackhually, this was phase 2.

Phase 1 was won by the far right last week.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Second phase of the fight is trying not to lose votes to fascists who pretend to be the democratic opposition while trying to enact socialist policies under neoliberal constraints and inevitably making a mess :(

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Green Party cough

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