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.
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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
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).
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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.
The most middle of the road opinion on Israel-Palestine issue is the two state solution. It worked on Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement and it should work between Israel and Palestine. Many scholars from both sides also want to use NI peace deal as the blueprint. Compromise is the key just like with Protestants and Catholics did in Northern Ireland.
The problem is, of course radicals from both Palestine and Israel do not want this because-- well-- they're radical.
Yeah those radical Palestinians, not wanting half their home cut off for colonizers.
You could say the same to most modern states. Colonisation is wrong, but mistakes were made and recognised. It's impractical to deport people back to their ancestors' homeland. You can't expect white Americans and South Africans to return to Europe, or black people in the Americas to return to Africa. That's like trying to abort an already born baby. Go far back enough, and we all came from Africa and you might as well say all humans should vacate the rest of the world and return to Africa.
Countries who support Palestine also support two-state solution. Israel is there to stay and Palestine has the right to exist. It's simple as that. Frankly, any one who does not support two state solution are radicals. That goes for Israeli, Palestinians and outsiders who don't support two state solution. Someone mentioned Hamas 2017 charter, but it still doesn't recognise Israel's right to exist. And if Hamas really want a two state solution, they would not have taken hostages, many of whom are foreigners with no dog in the race. Is this really the act of freedom fighters? Had resistance fighters in World War 2 killed civilians? Last time I asked this rhetorical question to someone, the person said it's justified as price of freedom. If your answer is yes, then you are a radical and need time to think about your life.
Most people, specifically outsiders who don't even live in the region and feeling safe behind the rule of law, too opinionated on Israel and Palestine issue, don't really have a clue when they are prodded down to the kernel. They consume information from what I would call "fast food" sources and from biased ones, and thus adopt radical stances. Two state solution IS the solution.
If you don't support indigenous resistance to occupation, you're on the side of the occupation. There is no center.
Where do you stop? At single called organisms, or when they invaded the earth?
Next you're going to tell me the Cardassians were the bad guys.
Yep. Also calling it the“Israel-Hamas war” is propaganda. Makes it sound like the only people dying in Palestine are Hamas soldiers, which is obviously nowhere near the truth.
Centrists are literally just anti-opinion and spineless.
Free Palestine.
Centrist just support the status quo. So if the status quo is genocide then they just support genocide.
Thats and worse. They do what they are paid to do. DNC centrists heard from their consultants that whoever had the most money tended to win elections, so they sold out in every way they could. Theyve almost abandoned the idea of having a party platform at all. Youd think that means we could just gofundme some government action, but you have to gofundme an amount that beats the corporate donaters' preference. Good luck with that. Centrist will do anything to simply win, which leads directly to oligarchy.
So you agree the people in the article are not centrists and that the post is all a shame then? Because they don't support the status quo and want a ceasefire and peace talks.
Calling them centrists was a lashing out against people they didn't know and the views of various people that weren't the same.
Overall I would argue this post is pro war, pro genocide propaganda.
When one side is committing genocide and the other side wants no genocide, you don't pick the middle and support half-genocide.
More accurate would be "Committing genocide" and "Wants to commit genocide but doesn't have the guns", with the majority of the actual population on both sides (rather than the politicians and emboldened extremists) just wanting to not be genocided. Personally I'm picking the "chuck the politicians in a hole and let the people live" option. No idea what the ideal solution looks like but I feel like getting the fascists and religious extremists on both sides out of the equation would be a good starting point
Hamas wouldn't exist if Israel didn't commit genocide. You can't win a war on terror. You can stop "terrorists" without hurting a single person though.
At my university the police literally threaten anyone who tries to be pro Palestine… every Jewish group is pro zionist
What I've seen plenty of those alleged "centrists" doing is the opposite - removing the nuance. For example, conflating the four sides (Israelis, Palestinians, State of Israel, Hamas) into two.
How is "Everyone needs to end the violence and seek an ideal solution for everyone involved." a nuanced position? That's what I expect every person to believe when they first start thinking of Israel and Palestine.
How is "Everyone needs to end the violence and seek an ideal solution for everyone involved." a nuanced position?
It's not nuanced, just naive. You'll never get Israel as it currently exists to willingly acknowledge that Palestinians deserve human rights, which is exactly why the non-violent option already failed multiple times.
We must only kill half the Palestinians.