Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage 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.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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" (read: Dengists) (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.
6. Don't irrationally 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
- Sexual 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 think we have different definitions what criticism is, because all you do there is explain why, whitewash.
Wait, no, unless you think this is the part when you criticize China
Because you don't. You explicitly don't criticize China in this sentence.
Edit: I checked, definition of the words are clear. To criticize is to pass judgment, or find fault. To explain is to provide context or inform or clarify. You did the latter.
How is acknowledging that Chinese homophobia exists, is a problem, and comes out of a socialist intellectual tradition not a criticism of China? Wtf are you talking about? Obviously, that falls under "finding fault."
Yes, of course I'm going to contextualize and explain it, because the person in that thread asked me for an explanation.
This is ridiculous goalpost moving. No criticism would ever be enough for you, short of going full on rainbow imperialism, chauvanism, or exaggerating/making shit up. You're being blatantly intellectually dishonest.
This is just straight up lying. Acknowledging that a problem in China is also a problem in other socialist countries does somehow make it not a problem when China does it. Fuck off with that BS.
No, literally writing "I think China is wrong on LGBT treatment" would suffice. You did NOT write that. Thats not goalpost moving, dont try to gaslight me. From the start to finish I keep claiming I have never seen you critisize China. This still remains. You're sad on SOME communist country brainworms, but you did not list that specific country in that sentence, nor your personal opinion on homophobia in question.
Heck, you can write it right now and I will be convinced and for as long that comment remains will never claim you're incapable of criticizing China.
Yeah, if you completely ignore the fact that that sentence was in the context of talking about China, if you completely ignore the parts where I talk specifically about "China's modern day homophobia" then you might not be the bold-faced liar that you are. Talking about me gaslighting you while trying to pull this shit is incredibly rich.
Liberals only ask for evidence of criticism to use it in bad faith, exhibit #1684938
Write it then. Not that hard
I think China is wrong on LGBT treatment.
Also, you are a fucking liar and asking in bad faith.
I literally said that I have and do criticize China for things including LGBT rights. That itself is an acknowledgement of fault. The fact that you were so intent on this fucking gotcha, so confident that it could never possibly be true that I'm capable of criticizing the country, it's just ridiculous. What, did you genuinely think we're bots, as opposed to that being something y'all say to just write off any perspectives you disagree with? Don't drink your own Kool-Aid.
This is the only comment of yours I have ever seen where you do critisise a country you're usually idealizing. What else am I supposed to think? Indoctrinated propagandist like on Fox news with different flavour.
Also cool it with insults.
I don't idealize China. I do "defend" it, in the same way I do with every country. If someone makes a false or unfair criticism of any given country, then I'll push back against that on the basis of it being untrue. This is controversial because it means failing anti-communist purity tests.
For decades, it has been the norm that if someone talks shit about a socialist country, nobody challenges it, for fear of being labelled a Red, a Pinko, more recently a "Tankie." Everyone remotely on the left in the West felt the need to constantly prove that they were "one of the good ones." After actual communists were sidelined, blacklisted, kicked out of organizations like the AFL-CIO, then the tests only got more stringent, until even supporting or being involved with unions at all became suspect. Finally, we reached a point where people are out there labeling people like Obama and Biden as communists.
This state of affairs has resulted in the anticommunist myths and stereotypes to spiral out of control, and it has allowed the standards of what defines someone as a communist to shift to a ridiculous degree. This strategy of caving to anticommunist purity tests has been proven by history to be an abject failure, and is a major part of how we got to the place we're in today.
In this context, there are a handful of people like myself willing to try a different strategy, of refuting falsehoods and trying to ground the discourse in reality, unconcerned about what labels may be assigned to us as a result. Because only a handful of people are willing to do this, in anglosphere discourse that is generally heavily anticommunist, it is only natural that someone such as myself will spend a lot more time refuting misinformation about socialist states than criticizing them on the points that are valid concerns.
This does not mean that I consider China some kind of utopia or that I idolize it, or think it should be a model of emulation (although there are aspects that we could do well to borrow and learn from, like their trains). China has had a unique timeline of development and has it's own unique conditions to deal with. As I said previously, I don't believe there's anything I could do to affect Chinese policy regardless of what I think of it, other than through my own government, and that is not an option I'm willing to support.