this post was submitted on 04 Apr 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, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!

Rules

Version without spoilers

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)


0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility


We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.

We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.

When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.


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.



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

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is a balance that needs to be struck. Back when we were peak union in the UK in the 70s their leaders would hold the country to randsom. They'd tell politicians that they want them gone and would instigate bi-weekly blackouts until they got what they wanted. Every household was well stocked with candles and wood logs due to the number of orchestrated blackouts.

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction in recent years. Now professions with strong unions like train drivers are among the only people who have had their wages keep up with inflation over the past 10 years.

Some jobs don't lend themselves to having unions but they are the minority. Even software developers probably should have unions these days - if people don't want to be part of one they can always work as a contractor instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

My wife is a data analyst for what's essentially a tech firm, she's unionized and in her particular circumstances it's amazing. Fully remote, 3 raises last year LoL, great benefits etc etc. I work with unions and many are not nearly as good for their members as others.

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

I’d agree with this generally. Again, my issue largely have this idea of unions as being this magical, fantasy like interpretation of collective bargaining that magically and suddenly solved almost all employment related issues.

I’ve been in several unions. Some were very good. Others I feel were genuinely bad to operations and employees. The vast majority of them simply didn’t really do anything

Unions are great in theory! But the mob of already well paid computer scientists who rush up on Lemmy and act like they’re this magical solution other workers simply didn’t think of is obnoxious.

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

Yeah would agree with that assessment. Every human organization is liable to dysfunction/corruption if run badly and organized labour is not immune to this.