Lefty Memes
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
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:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(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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Judaism is - mostly - not a religion of conversion, that's why it's always complicated to separate the religious aspect from the ethnic side when talking about 'Jews'.
Even if the ancestry is muddled in millennia of mixing with other local populations, I suppose most Jews can still claim that they descend from Israeli ancestors at some point, and it makes sense.
By this logic anyone can claim their right to seize African land
Or understand that remote ancestry doesn't necessarily give you a right to some land
Ding ding ding! Right answer!
Although I'll be the first to admit that what happened to first Nations and indigenous populations during modern colonization is completely unfair and the reservations system is completely broken and it's recent enough that it's perfectly fair for them to fight it, but claiming you're owed a piece of land because your ancestors (allegedly) got kicked out millennias ago? Nah.
At least they have a reservation system.
Native Americans south of the us-mexico border stop being native Americans once they move out of the ejidos (aka communal community and the closest thing to a reservation in Mexico) and the ultra fine gradient that separates a Mexican from a native American is too fine for the American and Canadian systems to handle.
It's especially galling in my situation because DNA says I'm 75% native American but I didn't qualify under the American system (Canadians have a similar system) which means I can never access to the healthcare, education, and housing aid due to the simple fact that Americans genocides the people I descend from them out of existence on the American side the border; but left them mostly alone on the Mexican side of the border.
Yeah, I'd be inclined to agree with your last point too. Especially when you consider the Holocaust, and how the Jews were forced to relocate or die. It's like what do you want them to do in that situation.
Are you aware of the history of the state of Israel beyond what affirms a bias? The modern state of Israel was formed after Jews around the world started purchasing land in modern day Israel. 28% of Israel was purchased this way, and that's most of the land the original waves moved to. Arab states surrounding that 28% had a huge issue with Jews existing in that space considering every one of those nations had genocide the Jews from their borders and even aligned with Hitler during WW2 (including the Palestinians, who allied with Hitler and whose leaders were eventually sent into exile by the British for doing so).
So, because the Arab states already had designs on the area of Palestine (they were going to annex once the British left), and they couldn't tolerate Jews existing in the area... The Arab nations attacked. And lost, soundly. And Israel grew much, much larger. Israel seized more land by fighting off a war than anywhere else. That's what happens when countries lose wars of aggression which they start; they lose territory. That's what Ukraine is doing to Russia right now and they'd be foolish to ever give it back.
But sometimes they do give some or all land back. Which Israel did. They gave a lot of the land back in exchange for peace.
There's no perfect entity in the world, and definitely not one in the Middle East. But please, spare us the Boogeyman one sided tales. The Jews fought for Israel so adamantly because they were exterminated from the region long before any fascist rose to power in Germany. They were forced out into diaspora several times, too. It's all complicated and unfair and it isn't as simple as Jews = European and don't belong there.
Palestinians need to bite the bullet. There are generations of people born there now and Arab states are not going to exterminate them again. So a two state solution is what they better seek unless they want to lose it all with their constant aggression. Is it ideal? No. Would it secure an actual state and begin the process of normalization? Maybe. But first they need to purge terrorists from their leadership. And that's the real stickler considering that shit runs deep in many Arab Nation governments. The two are intertwined just like emergency companies are in the west.
Fair enough. However, i don't know about Zionism being fascism. It's simply Israeli nationalism. Sure, there are a few far right Zionists, but they are in the minority.
Actually Judaism is a religion of conversion since ancient times and to this day.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-09-30/ty-article/.highlight/cleansed-by-the-torah-why-these-afrikaners-became-jews-and-moved-to-israel/0000017f-e2bb-d9aa-afff-fbfb151f0000
Compared to other religions, conversion to Judaism is quite complex and sometimes not allowed at all. The proselyte culture is a lot less developed than for other monotheistic religions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Judaism
Yet the Edomites were forcefully converted to Judaism in the 2nd century BCE https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-edomites
It is a religion with converts even if they are pickier about who is converted, and being the oldest of the Abrahamic religions its converts go back millennia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Judaism
with modern converts even stirring debate over their right to "return": https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2013-02-19/ty-article/.premium/peruvian-converts-denied-aliyah/0000017f-f79e-d887-a7ff-fffea6480000