Sadly the mod team here drinks that propaganda like water. I'm amazed this didn't get removed by them.
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
When people say Russia, do they include their government? Because the Russian government can fuck off alongside any government. I consider myself far left and I refuse to simp for any government or its leaders. Now if we’re talking about the Russian and Chinese working class, I’ll always support them.
When people say Russia, do they include their government?
I would think that would be all they are including. regular russian civilians aren't out there making a lot of propaganda, it's all either state owned media or right-wing nationalist influencers. except for the occasional video trying to convince people that pork tongue is actually good.
Well of course we should support the international proletariat, even the ones heavily propagandized to the right such as in Russia and the US.
Yeah, this can’t be a partisan thing. That’s just feeding into the same nonsense division governments manufacture. It has to cross those aisles and educate folks on the fact that all working class are in the same battle against the same collective ruling class around the world. We’re seeing authoritarian regimes forming around the world and they are working together. We have to do the same.
"We can talk about socialized healthcare and the evils of capitalism all day, but before we go any further I need you to pass this two-factor authentication by criticizing China and Russia."
"Have you condemned Hamas today?"
but that's not even what this post is suggesting we do. It's just recognizing that China and Russia are also imperialist states, so we should be mindfull of where the information we consume comes from, since they're all shoving propaganda down our throats and pitting us against one another, for their own imperialist intentions.
This comment is so real it hurts.
I just had someone trying to convince me that Russia can't be imperialist because they oppose the US, an imperialist nation.
... that's not the definition of "imperialist," my dear tankie.
Not sure if linking it so others can laugh/cry is "brigading" worthy of getting me banned off of various Lemmy communities/instances or not.
Fuck it, here's the thread:
Why not loathe the existence of every nation state on earth? The worst religion is nationalism, and there is stiff competition.
Spending time on Chinese social media has shown me platforms that read exactly like the garbage from the right wing talking heads here on Twitter. Extreme nationalist sentiment is very, very, common. I have seen soooo many memes expressing desire to just wipe out the Philippines, and just repopulate it with mainland Chinese. Memes about their eventual control over Africa, which uses surprisingly western racist stereotypes to portray Africans. So much discussion that mirrors MAGA like behavior, in many ways, but just discussing the greatness of China, instead. So many who, at least claim, to wholeheartedly believe revisionist, extremely idealized, versions of China's past, often including things that just are not physically possible. There is a lot of open talk about what China is going to do to so many of it's neighbors when it over takes the US, and NATO recedes from the region. I stopped going on their, because it was just becoming more, and more, X-China. Then my translator stopped using social media there, expect for work, as well, and now I just can't.
Friends of mine who have spent the past 20+ years living in China are reporting seeing more, and more, of it offline too, when politics was not something Chinese would publicly really talk about, especially to foreigners. However, especially in the past 10 years, they said their open expression of xenophobia, hardline nationalist sentiments, desire to take, and punish other countries, has become almost common in certain social spaces there, and it is worrying them. These people moved to China after studying Chinese language, culture, and history, for many years, including attending Chinese universities. They loved it there. Now they are talking about how it is sounding more, and more, like the rhetoric you get from flag wavers in the US.
So I do not trust China to maintain it's non-expansionism once NATO not longer controls so many of the waters around them. Nationalism is popular their, and the idea of finally taking revenge for the century of humiliation only grows.
ML discovers anarchism.
Absolutely. Of course the world isn't black and white, it's not divided into good guys and bad guys, and there's degrees to things. If micronesia decides to become highly imperialist, all of a sudden, I'm not going to care as much. If, all of a sudden, China starts invading a bunch of its neighbors, then that's a huge deal to me!
If one country is responsible for 12 million deaths abroad in its imperial dealings in the past decades, and it has invaded and bombed more countries than I care to list here (I'm not sure if lemmy has a character limit, and spelling all this out is less effort and fewer characters than the actual list of countries), then I'm going to care about that country a whole bunch more than I'm going to care about a country that's invaded two countries and whose death count abroad doesn't even hit 7 digits.
Anyway my point is pick your battles, and focussing on China over America is really missing the mark. If you go by the actual numbers on imperialism, you are focussing on a country that is literal orders of magnitudes less bad. Complete waste of time.
Any independent thinker should indeed seek to critically understand multiple perspectives, yes. Although even just being able to formulate perspectives of other countries, or being willing to challenge blatant misinformation will get you accused of being an imperialist by left-posturing Western chauvanists.
You can make the argument for Russia but I really don't understand how China, a country that has been at peace for over 40 years and which is developing an alternative economic sphere such that countries are not forced to accept whatever conditions the West imposes, could possibly be considered "imperialist." I'm guessing people will just be like, "Well what if they invaded Taiwan? The things happening purely in my imagination prove China bad."
Had me in the first half, ngl.
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/territorial-disputes-south-china-sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan
Ask literally any average Southeast Asian citizen about China’s influence on their country, and you’ll get a sense of Chinese imperialist ambitions.
I’m brushing over the long history of Han ethnic expansionism and the literal war with communist Vietnam over their supposed vassal-state of Cambodia.
Edit: Read up on the Chinese Ethnic Unity Law: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/ethnic-unity-and-progress-law/
Whom will likely benefit the most: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China
More complicated than what most people think considering the history of Taiwan. Imagine if fascist in your country seized a region via ethnic cleansing and then created a break away state. Would your country be happy to recognize it as an independent nation? The only thing that complicates this is they eventually established a somewhat democratic government, after +40 years of violent authoritarianism.
Ask literally any average Southeast Asian citizen about China’s influence on their country, and you’ll get a sense of Chinese imperialist ambitions.
Eh..... Comparatively I think you would hear worse if you asked them about western ambitions.
China is a superpower, you don't get to that status without flexing that power. The reality is that every superpower in history regardless of what social economic system they utilize has to compete with an established hegemony to upset the status quo. You can label that as imperialism if you want However that opens the debate on how we quantify imperialism, and the only real way to do that is by comparison.
Compared to the leading superpower I'd hardly say their activity in their own backyard really can't be compared to what the US is currently doing to control a waterway right now.
I’m brushing over the long history of Han ethnic expansionism
I think Han chauvinism has long been an issue within China, even Mao spoke about it during his time in power. Do I think it's as dire as it's depicted in western media? No, but I do hope that the CCP takes more steps to integrate ethnic minorities into positions in higher government like the politburo. That being said, is the treatment of ethnic minorities on the same level or worse than in western nations.....? Not really, which leads me to believe that ethnic chauvinism isn't really a problem specific to any government or economic system.
war with communist Vietnam over their supposed vassal-state of Cambodia.
Which the CCP openly admits was a misguided mistake, and apparently unlike other superpowers was something they actually learned from.
Read up on the Chinese Ethnic Unity Law
Some exerpts:
Article 4 In advancing the building of the community for the Chinese nation, economic, political, cultural, social and ecological-civilization development shall be coordinated; common prosperity and development for all ethnic groups shall be fully realized; the people of all ethnic groups shall be ensured the ability to jointly act as masters of the country; a shared spiritual home for the Chinese nation shall be built; all-round mutual embeddedness and extensive interaction, exchange and integration among all ethnic groups shall be promoted; an ecological home in which humanity and nature coexist in harmony shall be jointly protected; and the Chinese nation shall be developed into a community with a stronger sense of identity and greater cohesion.
Article 5 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law. All ethnic groups in the People’s Republic of China are equal. Discrimination against or oppression of any ethnic group is prohibited.
Article 6 A sense of community for the Chinese nation is the foundation of ethnic unity. The state shall increase commonality while respecting and accommodating differences, promote mutual support and harmonious coexistence among all ethnic groups, and safeguard the great unity of the Chinese nation. Acts that undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic separatism are prohibited.
Article 8 The state shall uphold and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy and safeguard national unity and ethnic unity.
Article 9 The state shall govern ethnic affairs in accordance with law, protect the lawful rights and interests of the people of all ethnic groups in accordance with law, strengthen publicity and education concerning the Constitution and laws, enhance the awareness of the state, citizenship and the rule of law among the people of all ethnic groups, safeguard the unity, dignity and authority of the socialist rule of law, and modernize the system and capacity for governance of ethnic affairs within the framework of the rule of law.
Article 15 The state shall comprehensively promote and popularize the standard spoken and written Chinese language. No organization or individual may obstruct citizens from learning or using the standard spoken and written Chinese language. Schools and other educational institutions shall use the standard spoken and written Chinese language as the basic language of education and instruction. The state shall promote the learning of Putonghua by preschool children and the basic mastery of the standard spoken and written Chinese language by young people who complete compulsory education. State organs shall use the standard spoken and written Chinese language for official purposes. Where documents are required by relevant laws to be issued in the spoken and written language of an ethnic minority, versions in both the standard spoken and written Chinese language and the minority language shall be provided. Where state organs, social organizations, enterprises, public institutions or other social organizations need to use both the standard spoken and written Chinese language and the spoken and written language of an ethnic minority in a public setting, prominence shall be given to the standard spoken and written Chinese language in terms of placement, order and other respects. The state shall respect and protect the learning and use of the spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities, promote their standardization, normalization and digital development, and support the preservation, collation, study and use of ancient books and records in minority languages.
Article 16 Schools and other educational institutions of all types and at all levels shall carry the requirements for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation through the entire education process and incorporate them into an education system combining classroom instruction, social practice, themed education and online education. Schools and other educational institutions of all types and at all levels shall use state-compiled textbooks in accordance with relevant state provisions. Education administrative departments shall implement the requirements for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation in the preparation and review of teaching materials. The departments of the State Council responsible for education administration, ethnic affairs and related work shall organize the preparation of series of textbooks or readers concerning the community for the Chinese nation.
Article 29 The state shall enhance mutual learning and integration among the cultures of all ethnic groups and encourage all ethnic groups to appreciate one another’s fine traditional cultures and learn one another’s spoken and written languages. People’s governments at all levels shall support cultural workers and relevant entities in creating and presenting literary and artistic works that are grounded in Chinese culture and reflect interaction, exchange and integration among all ethnic groups. People’s governments at all levels shall support libraries, museums, cultural centers and stations, memorial halls, art museums, science and technology museums, workers’ cultural palaces, children’s and youth palaces and other public cultural-service entities in conducting exhibitions and exchange activities concerning the history of the Chinese nation, national prosperity and development, and related subjects. People’s governments at all levels shall draw on the Chinese nation’s rich cultural, sporting and other resources to encourage and support exchange activities, including traditional festivals of the Chinese nation, folk culture events and sporting competitions, that are welcomed and jointly participated in by the people of all ethnic groups.
So scary for our government with mandated representation of minorities to wish to encourage cultural exchange while instituting a common tongue to allow for our social and physical mobility while continuing to encourage the teaching of minority languages and writing systems. 😱
You can make the argument for Russia but I really don’t understand how China, a country that has been at peace for over 40 years and which is developing an alternative economic sphere such that countries are not forced to accept whatever conditions the West imposes, could possibly be considered “imperialist.”
Any conflict between the US and China in the Pacific Rim is described as "US Imperialism" from the Chinese perspective and "Chinese Imperialism" from the US perspective.
Any claim China makes along its border regions is Imperialism. Any naval actions made by the Chinese military is Imperialism. Any police action inside the recognized territory of China is imperialism. The entire 1.4B person population is routinely described as a Han monoculture.
The national economic plan is at once a failed project, doomed to collapse within the year, and a sinister plot to steal global market share for the most villainous purposes imaginable. China is, at once, the world's biggest polluter and the perpetuator of a string of environmentalist "hoaxes". It's producing commodities, like consumer electronics and cars and steel girders and plastic widgets, too cheaply and quickly. But it's also dogged by inefficient bureaucracy and COVID restrictions and an inherent cultural disinterest in entrepreneurship, so the country is constantly lacking essentials.
So they need to go out and steal other people's stuff, whether its Taiwanese semiconductors or Middle Eastern fossil fuels or East African mineral wealth. And the government accomplishes this by tricking idiot liberals into doing business with them, while secretly infiltrating their societies with the most black-handed saboteurs and spies and assassins.
China is ontologically evil. Its politics is so authoritarian that the people don't even realize they are being oppressed. But also the people DO realize they are oppressed and yearn for freedom. And if you don't understand all of this to be true, you're either an idiot or a LLM programmed to ignore the obvious and trick other people just like an Evil Chinese would.
