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!
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).
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.
ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:
Warner asks "What happened to the tolerant left?"
Elle replies, smiling "Who said we were tolerant?"
Warner continues "I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!"
Elle looks confused "Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?"
That's pretty reductionist and also untrue.
It's hard to reconcile, but here are actually Republicans and conservatives that aren't bigots.
They're a minority, and a quickly fading one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Remember, the Republican party of today was formed post civil rights. People cling to their identity and ideas long after reality has left them behind.
Does that make them stupid? No more or less than anyone that clings to any party affiliation past when the party changes.
But there is movement away from the Republican party by those that weren't bigots that bought into the whole idea (falsely claimed) of reduced government control and free market ideals.
While I tend to think those stances are pretty fucking dumb to begin with, it isn't bigotry.
The other problem is that as those leave, even more bigots pull off their masks and some of the extremist bigots that weren't previously engaged in the political structure jump on board.
People are very stupid. We all are in some way or another, usually multiple some ways. One of those forms of stupidity is thinking that change from the inside is the only choice. Another is that you have to pick someone to vote for. Another is that you can resist bigots by engaging with them. And all of those are common among the non bigot Republicans.
I keep running into Republicans and ex Republicans and having to remind them that the party as it exists is not the party they thought it was, that it has used dog whistling and other tools of the so called southern strategy so long and so well that it has transformed into something even worse than the left thought possible.
But they are not all bigots.
That being said, there's also a good bit of ACAB present too. Those non bigots are still part of the problem, they're just as responsible for it happening. I would call it ARAB, but that's a pretty horrible initialism lol. But that's why identity politics is a horrible thing.