this post was submitted on 17 Jun 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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[–] sudo@programming.dev 78 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Patrol Cop once told me a joke about how he ran over a black kids bike. When got back to the station he saw the kid at the desk trying to report the incident. He'd carried his busted up bike the entire way. The cop behind the desk called out "Hey Rob, did you run over this kid's bike?". "Nope". Case closed. No report filed.

Edit: PS: This was one of the "good ones". He voted Clinton in 2016 because the rival faction in the Union was showing up to Trump rallies in class A's. Took him the entire Trump admin but he works retail now.

[–] YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 53 points 9 months ago (4 children)

How the fuck is that a joke?

[–] Llamalitmus@lemmy.ca 36 points 9 months ago

Aristocrats!

[–] sudo@programming.dev 14 points 9 months ago

It was funny to him. It was the moment he realized he could get away with crime.

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[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

That's the sadism they are best at.

[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world 51 points 9 months ago (13 children)

Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24%, but only while considering acts like shouting as violence. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.

The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H.., Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:

Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.

There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:

The study includes as 'violent incidents' a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn't indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c

An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:

The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.

More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, 'Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.' Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862

Yet another study "indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent)." A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF

Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to 'getting physical' (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs

[–] kungen@feddit.nu 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

TL;DR: only ~10% of police are confirmed assailants of domestic abuse!

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[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

I love how every acab post inevitably brings out a bunch of uninformed libs in the comments talking about how pigs are only bad in America (as though the term ACAB was invented in America...) or how a society without them is completely inconceivable. As though badges grow on trees, like police are just a natural thing that sprung out of the ground.

The primary function of the police is to protect private property and enforce eviction. They're state agents who are allowed to use violence against working class people, and do so to prevent us from overthrowing the ruling class and redistributing wealth and the means of production. They protect class hierarchy. They attack protestors. They use state violence against the disenfranchised and the marginalized. The "just doing their job" of the police is to protect and preserve the unequal distribution of power in society. They do so by using violence against the working class. The rest of anything else they do is a small fraction of their job and entirely secondary to their primary functions.

[–] DeanFogg@lemm.ee 18 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Every post i see seems to use lib as a slur

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, it's not a slur, but an insult? Sure. Liberals are not allies to leftists, and actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Liberals are not allies to leftists

They can be. Using traditional definitions, the Liberal / Authoritarian axis is orthogonal to the left / right axis

actively support the same systems we seek to dismantle.

Who are we? Poor non cops?

What are we putting in place of the dismantled system? Anarchy? Different cops? Something else?

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[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

When there's a power vacuum, gangs even worse than the police tend to fill it. Don't get me wrong, the entire U.S. criminal justice system is rotten to the core, and causes large amounts of pointless suffering. BUT, there needs to be some sort of "police" to enforce the laws of society (and ideally, all those laws would be just). Even the Zapitistas had a form of police.

Also, I find "ACAB" cringe inducing. Sounds like something an edgy 14 year old came up with. And I'm not sure focusing on individuals (cops) instead of the institution itself is helpful.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

ACAB as an acronym began in the early 20th century by workers who were striking in the UK. It is a term with a long, complex history behind it. Cops are the institution, so I'm not sure what you mean by individuals. Every member of the police force, from the top down, is a bastard. Every single one. There's no exceptions to this. The very nature of law enforcement is being a bastard. It is a term that is meant literally. Law enforcement functions as a means to break strikes, to enforce private property and ownership of the means of production, to enforce rent and evictions, to terrorize the impoverished and the marginalized, to collect menial tax from the impoverished who cannot fight back against them, and above all else to act as the legal arm of state violence against working class people.

Individual cops may have done good actions. I'm sure there's a cop out there who's volunteered at a soup kitchen, sure. But that has nothing to do with him being a cop. That has nothing to do with the actual role he fulfills in day to day life, with the violence he enacts, with the system he supports.

The idea that police are holding back some tidal wave of horrifying crime is and has always been propaganda. Nearly every single woman I know has been a victim of sexual harassment or violence at some time in their lives, including myself. A lot of them have gone to police before. I don't know a single person for whom that did literally anything good for them. I know 1 woman who was harassed literally across the country by people including police officers who said she was lying. The police don't prevent murder. They don't prevent violence of any kind that's literally not their job. More often than not they are the ones committing acts of violence for which there are no repercussions.

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[–] Lotarion@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That kid's getting punted across the street the next second lol

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[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 20 points 9 months ago (31 children)

Do you really think all cops are bastards or is it like a easy thing to type instead of "corrupt cops are bad" or something?

[–] nick@midwest.social 68 points 9 months ago (20 children)

All. Because the ones who aren’t corrupt fucks either look the other way, or try to report the bad ones and get bullied off the force.

[–] pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

You say "all" but I'm pretty sure you only mean the ones in specific countries. In most European countries they simply do their job and don't have a negative connotation (apart from people getting angry when they have to pay fines for speeding / parking wrongly / etc.).

Requirements and training also are much harsher here.

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[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

ACAB isn't about corruption, it's about the fact that all police enforce all laws no matter how bad, as a condition of keeping their job.

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[–] Seraph@fedia.io 21 points 9 months ago (23 children)

Enabling the corrupt ones is almost as bad being corrupt.

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[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago (5 children)

People always try to invoke "just a few bad apples" forgetting the rest of that phrase.

One bad apple spoils the bunch. Doesn't matter if you've got a squad of Clark Kent boyscout types, the fact remains that if they can deal with even one Lex Luthor being a shitass in their uniform without actively trying to put a stop to that situation, they're all suspect.

Normally it's unreasonable to expect someone to stick their neck out just for the sake of doing the right thing alone, but these people menace society with military kit and weaponry under the premise that they're the exception to that. They tell us all the time that it is their job to risk their lives to stop people from getting victimized, so it's more than fair to judge them when they don't hold themselves to the same standard when dealing with their own.

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[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 20 points 9 months ago

Cops love it when you tell them that they are free to go.

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Shame that the kid was such a threat to the cop that he needed to unload several magazines into him.

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[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Don't talk to cops like this, they will ruin your life or end it. Use that energy to campaign for electoral reform in your state so we can break the bipartisan police state.

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