this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Lefty Memes
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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.
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- Ableism
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- 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
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None of that was objective, and you concluded that point by saying "just because I say I am right and Marx is wrong doesn't mean Marx wasn't a Socialist." Like, I would love for you to provide me with a point to discuss, but you didn't so we can't.
You continue to just say you're correct, there's nothing to respond to here.
I understood your point on Beaurocrats in Worker States. Correct me if I am wrong, but your central claim is that hierarchy inherently results in class distinctions, yes?
The problem with that statement is that you equate management to ownership, falsely. Capitalism is bad because it results in exploitation due to the central conflict between workers and owners, in Capitalism, the workers have no say or ownership of the products of their labor, Capitalists do, who through competition seek more and more share of Capital at the expense of Workers.
In a Worker State, this does not exist. Competition does not exist, and Workers democratically direct their labor. Instead of all profits going into the pockets of Capitalists, who purchase more Capital in a never-ending M-C-M' circuit, in a Worker State beaurocrats assist with planning and distribution of resources. These beaurocrats are elected by workers, the entire state is of the Proletariat, and rather than going into the pockets of Capitalists, profit is distributed towards social safety nets by the workers.
The fact that you see hierarchy as the central problem of Capitalism, and not competition, the profit motive, and worker exploitation, is why I said you don't understand the fundamental issues of Capitalism. Hierarchy isn't class.
It's incredibly rude to simply state that I just don't understand your points and then snark, rather than addressing mine in return. Rather than having a productive conversation, you just wish to be divisive and sectarian.
You're not really engaging with my points but are rather interested in writing walls of text. Probably to show off how smart you supposedly are. You can continue to do so. But I'd rather not engage if the other person likes to read their own words that much. Have fun!
What did I not engage with? At the very least, confirm whether or not I correctly interpreted your point about hierarchy, like I asked. You gave me nothing to work off of.
You're constantly misunderstanding me and prefer to lecture me to actually engaging with what I said.
Tell me where I misunderstood, maybe we can dig a constructive conversation out of this.