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!
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)
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.
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.
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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).
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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)
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.
I disagree. I don't subscribe to a world view where every life is sacred. Society has a right to protect itself from persons that will always endanger other people and that includes killing them. However, it has been quite clear that we cannot guarantee that no innocent people are killed. And that's why I'm OK with the death penalty only in principle, not in practice.
While I agree in principle I tend to think there are still unforgivable crimes and irredeemable people out there.
While I agree in principle I tend to think there are still unforgivable crimes and irredeemable people out there.
Then you don't agree.
I wasn't aware crime was about forgiveness.
I thought in-so-far as societies implemented systems of justice, their purpose was restitution and rehabilitiation.
No one gains anything from a person—irrespective their prior actions—being murdered and we all lose a bit of our soul each time a state execution is allowed to take place.
I really expected better from Vietnam, whose "quarantine at gunpoint" public health policies I heartily endorse.
Since when is it leftist to support the death penalty, let alone take glee in it. This is like the boomer FB shit
I'm against the death penalty in general, but I also acknowledge that in terms of tangible damage to humanity, any billionaire walking the Earth makes any serial killer who has ever walked the Earth seem positively quaint by scale.
I also recognize that we are living under class occupation. The owner class handily won the class war by convincing most of the developed world not to fight it half a century ago.
The peasants don't have the luxury of taking prisoners. We are the losers of a war, in spite of the fact that many have come to worship their occupying oppressors.
Keeping the most destructive humans locked away and well fed until they die of natural causes is a peacetime luxury for those in charge, and unless you're holding a reprehensible amount of capital, that isn't us. You might believe we are in peacetime, but if we refuse to stop them, and it looks that way, they will force our shared, communal habitat to stop us all through their insatiable, sociopathic avarice.
We love to think we're not, but we're still subjects wholly dependant on this world, even the owners activily attacking us and it simultaneously.
well fucking said.
The French revolution shows that the guilotines don't necessarily stop when the aristocrats are all dead. I'm not enthusiastic about mob justice
It is perfectly reasonable to oppose the death penalty, but the foundational event of the modern left movement was people chopping off a king's head.
I'm against the death penalty on the grounds that I don't want the government to have the authority to kill because they keep fucking it up. Either they get the wrong person or botch the execution.
There's no question that a person is a billionaire.
Since you can't make a revolution with white gloves.
billionaires aren't people. their existence requires a river of blood, and they all deserve death, regardless of the states opinion.
I think its good to remind them they can be killed. I think they forget.
The term "leftist" is too broad and "death penalty" too loosely defined.
Auth-leftists definitely support the death penalty, as in a powerful state should have authority to kill.
Anarchists don't think there should be a state therefore there is no body authorized to kill. If someone must die, it would be at the hands of an individual or an ad-hoc grouping and be called "self-defense".
Thinking things can change without the 0.1% being killed at all is a liberal idea.
This is like the boomer FB shit
Welcome to Lemmy!
I don't think we should have billionaires but celebrating state sponsored murder is fucking gross
Interesting if you read about it, while many were found guilty I think only a woman is being sentences to death while many men are just getting a decade in prison for their involvement in it.
If she was the ringleader, sure... I guess (not that it makes the state's murdering of folks alright). But odd that she gets death while all the men don't even get 20 in jail.
“We” isn’t this the case of other billionaires getting mad at one billionaire?
Maybe we can trigger a feeding frenzy...
Not a fan of the death penalty
Me neither, but killing some of the capitalist class has always been part of leftist revolutions so I can let this one slide.
I don't think the state having the power to round people up and kill them, even if I don't like the people it is being done to. It seems really dangerous.
I mean, Vietnam is a Socialist Oriented Market Economy.
86% of Vietnamese people own their own homes, 70% are farmers because the government will allocate farm land to anyone who proves they can raise crops.
Pretty impressive stats you got there, considering that 27.2% of Vietnamese people are under 18 years old.
And remember kids, 73% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Gotta serve those numbers with some sauce
Fairly easy to find looks like home ownership rose to 88.1%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
The 70% farming statistics is quite wide spread;
https://www.google.com/search?q=70%25+of+veitname+are+farmers&oe=utf-8
Wake me up when Trump sees even just a shred of accountability, or Musk, or Bezos, or ....
According to my quick Google search, there are about 100 million people in Vietnam. The average wage is $150 per month. $12.5B shared among each person is $125.
Why not make her pay that amount instead of a death sentence?
That's actually what their "death penalty" is trying to do. Apparently most of the money she stole is in overseas bank accounts and relies on her taking action to actually give it back. She has appeals and if she paid up the appeals will probably back down from the death penalty.
Also how does it get to 12.5 billion before people do something? Had they intervened with something less severe at 1 billion then there would still be 11.5 billion and a life not lost.
This is a communist country and a show trial for someone fell out of favor, not am actual fraud case
That's typical communist competitor purges, it has nothing to o with redistribution of wealth.