Lefty Memes
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
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
view the rest of the comments
I don't think it does. A choice fostered upon me at the threat of violence is not a choice at all. I refuse to participate and therefore legitimize such a farce.
You’re free to do nothing, but smart people choose to minimize harm when there are only bad choices in front of them.
Who said I'm "doing nothing"? Voting isn't doing anything. Only actions outside the ballot matter.
Voting isn’t doing anything? Did you not see what happened when Trump got to pick three Supreme Court justices? Roe is gone dude. This stuff matters.
It really doesn't. This is the momentum of your country either way. Or did you forget that your democrats had chances to put Supreme Court justices and they just...didn't?
What are you talking about? The senate has to approve them. The GOP controlled the senate. I get you don’t understand our system but before acting so smug I’d make sure I understand what happened.
Also they’re not “my” democrats.
Hrc won the popular vote. How did voting harm reduction then do anyone any good?
Folks that stayed home to prove a point made sure the SC would get the three. Failure to Vote resulted in the harm. Had those folks Voted, harm would have been reduced. You the failure of your own position.
Right, because the dnc totally didn't ignore Bernie Sanders, or Dennis Kucinich. Again, please.
I don’t understand the question. We don’t elect based on popular vote.
I'm saying hrc votes were worthless; throw away votes. Hence a non vote was the same, and a third party vote was at least as valuable, and when enough people support a third party candidate, it will be worth more, because it shows the two major parties they have something to worry about.
This is also a good point. I think we'd have a better shot at electing a third-party candidate than we would of pushing an establishment democrat left.
Dems have made it abundantly clear they are willing to move further right than a centimeter to the left. Also my American compatriots see socially left and assume economically left when that's just not the case. Socially left is great, until everyone is homeless, hungry and sick, equally.
Not to mention that even the "socially left" is highly questionable. When I see a leader who's willing to throw other marginalized groups such as Palestinians, refugees, and BIPOC under the bus, I have no doubt he'd have us LGBTQIA+ people lined up and executed if he thought it would help him win elections. Establishment Democrats are not allies, no matter how many rainbows they project on the White House.
This is a great point. I've said you're either human rights or rights for me and mine, not thee and thine." If you're pro black but not pro women, pro women but not pro lgbtqia, etc.
Nope. The folks that Voted remained in consideration as there was another Election. Those that didn't Vote were ignored. One of the primary reasons Biden got the Nod to be the Candidate in 2020 was that those that did not Vote could not be counted on to show up and thus the potential Candidates they would support were ignored from the considerations as they couldn't be counted on.
You act like Bernie wasn't ignored anyway. Please.
Non-participation is not the same as doing nothing. If she chooses to date neither, neither is in her life. If you do nothing, you still get trump or Biden. The analogy doesn’t hold.
And so I refer you back to my first comment in this thread
I have read it don’t be an ass. Make a point or don’t.
My point to this kind of comment is made in that post. We're just looping at this point.
If the comment was sufficient we wouldn’t be here. It’s a bad analogy. Accept that it has flaws or make your case. Don’t keep pointing to the same insufficient comments as if the only answer is our lack of comprehension. Several people clearly disagree with it on the same grounds so maybe consider you’re wrong.
It fits. You say the analogy doesn't fit because "we don't have a choice". I tell you to adjust the analogy so that the woman doesn't have a choice either.
You could adjust it to talk about arranged marriages instead.
~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~
That's a good point actually. Arranged marriages existed for thousands of years. Women and girls were usually not given a choice, but even if when they were and chose the "lesser evil" it did nothing to end the tradition and evils of arranged marriage.
Arranged marriages are still a thing. My Indian friend was quite happily a bachelor at 23 until his parents presented him with a choice of three brides or be disinherited and kicked out if the family business and family home compound. He traveled to India to meet his choices and returned married. I'm not sure either of them are happy, but they are parents. That's got to be good for their child, right?
If you and I choose not to vote for Trump or Biden, who do we wind up with?
If she says no to both guys, who does she wind up with?
If the woman doesn't choose any, who does she end up with? What should she do about it? You clearly see the absurdity when presented as an analogy, but you cannot see the similarity because the violence of the politicians is many levels removed from you.
And the point is she doesn’t have to have anybody. We do. We have 2 people and 1 of them will be here whether we like it or not. We can’t opt out.
Again, assume she has the same lack of choice. What should she do? Why does that differ from what we should do?
If she has the same lack of choice, she should absolutely choose the lesser evil for now and do what she can to rectify the situation after. She can bide her time with the "nice guy" while devising a plan of escape. If she gets stuck with the the abuser, she very well may not survive long enough to make the attempt.
You're right, it doesn't differ from what we should do: mitigate damage now to buy time to develop more meaningful solutions.
I live in the gulf coast. The violence is not removed from me. It’s arguably worse here than anywhere else in the US, they test those insane policies here. You know nothing about me or my family.
Interesting you dropped off that SCOTUS discussion. You seemed pretty smug and sure there too.
The fact that you're continuously dodging the questions is not lost on me
Yeah nah mate. You have the right to not vote. But if you choose to exercise this right you don't get to whinge about the person elected by those who did vote.
Society is not composed of you and you alone. It is composed of many. You took yourself outta this decision but it's still being made freely by everyone else and no, it doesn't impinge on you to accept the democratic consensus of the many
I understand that I'm living in an oppressive system enforced by violence and that my life is shaped at the threat of state violence. you don't need to reiterate that to me. It's why I'm not legitimizing it by participating in this farce of "democracy" and instead dedicate my life to changing it.
Whichever puppet is on top doesn't change all that whatsoever. Nor will your platitudes about be "accepting the democratic consensus of the many" when I don't have the alternative due to said violence.
Well said. As someone who is going to vote for Biden to keep Trump out of office, I harbor no ill will towards leftists who choose to reject the whole charade. One way or another, we need to bring down the system, and I don't see any evidence that voting for centrist democrats is likely to incrementally move us towards a better system.
On the contrary, it seems more likely to me that Trump would potentially accelerate the evolution of society by fucking everything up so badly that we would have no alternative but to make radical changes.
However, given that I am unable to be certain of the future outcome of each timeline, I believe that voting for Biden minimizes the risk of a worst case scenario. But again, I don't approve of shaming leftists for abstaining, because the reality is that both parties are colluding to maintain the status quo, and ultimately if Trump wins the election its not the voters who will be to blame, but the Democratic party for failing to produce a credible challenger.
You've got some good points. Keep up the good fight
roflmao, sorry, that is just absurd.
until the UN General Assembly says that the right to share an opinion only applies to people who vote, you are totally wrong.
i’ll exercise my universal right to complain and have self-determination in government by not voting for genocidal maniacs, thank you very much.
You can refuse to vote but you're still going to end up with one of those two as your president. Are you OK with not having a say about which one it ends up being just to make a point to nobody in particular?
Abstention makes a point to everyone in general through the tracking of voter participation levels.
Indeed. Vote your conscience or don’t vote at all.
Yes. While there's nothing wrong with sex work, if you're forced into it to survive when you'd rather not (marriage or cohabitation because it's either that or sex someone to get a low or higher paying job) it's still forced prostitution, and once Mr. Nice Guy has you, it's mask off, 100. Even if you willingly choose Mr. Nice Guy, and the mask comes off, it's a bait and switch, rather than duress and still scummy.
To put it another way, if your choices are die from dehydration or drink poisoned water, dehydration may be less agonizing than drinking from a brackish source.
You shouldn't not vote. Vote for someone else instead. Vote for the person you want to represent you.
I might register to vote just to write in “thanks for counting the votes” for president - or I guess I could vote for Cornel West, but what’s the point? The abstention would be more representative of my views, at this time, I believe.
Consider this:
Republicans win big this election, including the presidency. Democrats were just very nearly beaten out. They look at who else got votes, and investigate what their platform was. They realize they could co-opt some of those ideas to try and get some of those voters next time. But, if you haven't voted, they have no clue what platform you support or what policies they can adopt to win you over next time.
Swap the parties if it suits you, I'm not trying to make a statement for one versus the other, I'm trying to convince you to vote at all.
appreciated
I get what you are saying, but I’m not yet convinced. You did make a dent, though. I’ll let it percolate a while.
I spent 20 years voting like that and the democrats have utterly failed to listen to anything other than the social justice issues.
The republicans are fundamentally right about some things (this is a democratic REPUBLIC, afterall) but so fundamentally wrong about other things, that they similarly failed to listen to.
So now, I’m mostly content being in the “no one is listening to me” category.
edit: fwiw, i do occasionally write to representatives about topics that i am knowledgeable about
Life is full of choice forced upon you, thats unavoidable short of choosing to stop existing. I am forced to choose between where to work. If I say "fuck it, I'm not going to legitimize this capitalist system, I'm making no such choice", I've still made a choice, one that will end up with me being homeless. The threat of violence came true anyways.
It's in my best interest to choose, and in the meantime work to dismantle the capitalist system that is threatening me with homelessness. But when it comes to voting, it's worse because the lives of others are on the line.
You don't have the luxury to stand by and do nothing when people's lives are on the line.
How many trans people will die as a result of suicide or outright killings as a result of Trump coming to power? Their blood will be on your hands, how much are you ok having on your hands? You have the opportunity to vote for a candidate that isn't going to ban GAC, who isn't going to condone or pardon violence against trans people, who isn't going to shift the culture towards more hatred.
And you're choosing to stand idly by and let the harm happen.
You are participating regardless. You are simply letting others decide for you.
Abstention has historically been a way to declare your distaste for all options and, outside of America, is regarded as honorable. For some reason Americans don’t get that a massive absence at the polls isn’t just about “having better things to do”.