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
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
I think that would allow a "better" democracy in paper, but not much would change. Using my country as an example:
Candidats are still shit, evil persons that only care about using the government to enrich themselves (and have a history of doing so), most of the population are so bad educated that they only need to hear a few promises to vote for them.
Not implemented. Would be specially nice for the fragmentation.
We only have congress. Still corrupt, still holds most of the power, uses it to gain money through laws that benefit them and their businesses. It is very fragmented, but it doesn't matter, because they join when they need to pass a law that benefits them. Leaders of the political parties decide which laws to pass, and tell the congresspeople how to vote. If someone does't vote as they are told, they are removed from congress.
And to get to congress you have to bribe a lot of money to a lot of people, so no one would self destruct after getting in debt before realizing some earnings.
Supreme court justices are not permanent, last only 5 years, no reelections, appointed by congress. So what? Just do the things that need to be done during your 5 years. After that the new congress will place new puppets. If a major scandal is revealed, you'll be protected by congress, allowed to leave the country with all your money, and forgotten in a few years.
Bribes are illegal, lobbying is illegal. We did it Patrick! Bribery is no more! You can just get money off the table. However, here the opposite is argued. Congresspeople and the president should have the highest salaries, so that they wouldn't have incentives to take bribes (they earn so much, why risk it to get more). But even if they were
... but if even if they were to earn minimum wage, they can just, you know, take bribes? Just don't tell anyone about it. Or pass laws that benefit them.
Thanks... now I have no hope for humanity...