this post was submitted on 17 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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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)

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,

as well as 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.

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

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The state doesn't keep you safe from thieves now. The police are a reactionary force that shows up after you've been robbed and then do nothing to help you. The most you get is a police report to refer your insurance company to, if your stolen belongings were insured.

[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

A very real risk of punishment by the state if you happen to get caught is what prevents theft. Your argument conveniently left that important part out and presented a straw man argument.

The rest of these comments talk about unenforced theft like white collar crimes and other class war-like theft. Which just reinforces the idea that only state-executed enforcement of law is actually any good at preventing theft.

[–] interrobang@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not needing to steal is what keeps most people from stealing, not fear of punishment.

[–] cobra89@beehaw.org 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you think the homeless and hungry are the only people who steal?

High end crime happens ALL the time, and it's not out of necessity, it's out of the human condition of greed. Theft happens more often by rich individuals than it does by poor.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 4 points 5 months ago

It's a good thing the state takes that "high end" crime as seriously as smoking weed.

[–] pop@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

mob justice did that before states existed or even humans. Now the state protects one class and loots the other. And guess what? thieves fear a mob more than the state. Things change, bad people find loopholes. How laws work needs to keep changing

Your first argument works in a perfect state, which will never exist. Your second paragraph makes no fucking sense.