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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require 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.
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.
- 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
view the rest of the comments
Whenever I can, I like to point to the Bellamy salute as being the inspiration for the Nazi salute.
Your link does not support your claim
Do you know of any other accounts that would support the Bellamy salute as being the inspiration for the Nazi salute, apart from looking similar?
Hitler both idolized and drew inspiration from America, but in respect to the salutes, he was aware of them on both Italy and America. I don't think there's any evidence about which one inspired the Nazi salute exactly, I think it leans towards Italy but doesn't really matter all things considered.
That's my understanding as well, with some "Roman" origin claimed, possibly as propaganda given how the Nazi party liked connecting themselves to ancient Rome as some kind of claim to legitimacy.
I'd love to be able to add the Bellamy salute inspiration bit in when I do have this conversation with folks, but I'd need a better source before I do.
Apologies, it was the last thing I posted before going to bed, I should've verified it instead of relying on memory. What they have in common is the same gesture, which wasn't even a real roman salute.
I think you misread that, in context it circles back to the American one. For more context see here under origins. The American version was very much in the timeline with the inspiration: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute
Also worth reading: https://web.archive.org/web/20240719151050/https://www.workingclassicists.com/post/the-antiquity-to-alt-right-pipeline
The Nazi's love of America and Rome plus the whole America being based on a lot of Roman stuff (Look at your money motifs... Columns on Lincoln Memorial, White House, etc.), is a whole... thing. People forget the Rome idolization too, but it goes hand in hand with the American stuff.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model
Zero argument on the larger point of Hitler's idolization of America (the worst bits), quite familiar with it already. Hitler also admired Jim Crow laws and wrote about them specifically.
My point is that I've never encountered a reliable source to the specific claim that the Nazi salute took inspiration from the Bellamy salute, rather than being coincidentally similar. The wiki page linked even purports the origin of the Nazi salute to be the "Roman salute", albeit itself based on bad history.
It's a point I'd love to be able to make when having this same argument with folks, but I'm not going to tell people that the Nazi salute was based on the Bellamy salute without a better source than a Wikipedia article that claims otherwise.
Sorry, I was not clear. I was trying to say that they're a package deal; you must look at them within the contexts of each other. Both cultures are hitting the same notes based on their propensity for similar historical revisionism at similar times and the relationship is kinda nuanced. I found something more eloquent than my 2am brain.
Pp 4
Pp 157 - https://dlib.bc.edu/islandora/object/bc-ir:109587/datastream/PDF/view
This is what I was trying to get at with the pipeline link.
Also you must consider the rise of media during this time: https://kb.osu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0c516d4f-431c-551b-820c-2bfed6ec9b4b/content
History rhymes. I unironically think about the Roman Empire a lot because it's a dog whistle. To say one inspired the other isn't wrong when you take a step back, it's just oversimplified.