this post was submitted on 01 Jul 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

Version without spoilers

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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Which dictionary are you reading? A key component of fascism is a dictatorship. You can argue about controlling oppositional voices or segmentation of society in the US, but a dictatorship is pretty core to fascism in any definition I've seen. And yeah, our voting system sucks that still doesn't make it a dictatorship.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

dictatorship was happening outside their own borders for the longest time. kind of why you guys pay so much money to keep a military almost bigger than every other in the world combined.

inside the us the blacks have seen the boot way more. ask any awake black person if its been a democracy for them.

or ask central, south america, africa and east asia if the repeated coups over the decades are anything less than dictatorial.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's grasping really hard. Even if we assume the it isn't a democracy because voting was unfair, it still isn't a dictatorship because power was being passed around to different people. Also, outside has nothing to do with the definition of a dictatorship.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

its not. look up your own history of installing brutal dictatorships in the aforementioned places.

and of bullying the third world into neoliberal capitalism with very exploitative terms or else. it doesnt matter we have "elections" if the us is the one always calling the shots.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Dude, that is not fascism. That's imperialism. Those are totally different things and Fascists are not the only imperialists, nor are Fascists imperialist by definition. Fascism is something specific, not just "evil" government.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

they do implement fascism out here. both sides of the same coin.

fascists are the only ones to practice imperialism to nearly this extent after the industrial revolution.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

fascists are the only ones to practice imperialism to nearly this extent after the industrial revolution.

How did you come to this conclusion? This is absolutely made up to make your argument seem stronger than it is.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Monarchies have been for most of history. I get you put in the stipulation of after the industrial revolution, but still monarchies are top dog. Yeah, Fascists did too, but I'd say the US did more, although you're arguing that the US is fascist, but you're arguing it because the starting point is Fascists are imperialist.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

its just that the worldwide reach of the regime makes it easier to insulate the in-groups from ever seeing any of it happen. for this reason north-americans have a hard time grasping at how miserable you guys are truly making our lives, and how brutal the genocides you sponsor for money and influence truly are.

the genocide and general oppession of brown people outside the imperial core looks very fascist to me, its a step up from just imperialism.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago

I know perfectly well it's bad. A "step up" from imperialism? It is imperialism, although it's less brutal than historical imperialism. Just look at India under British rule, for example, or the sugar plantation islands under all the imperialists of the past. Imperialism has always been horribly brutal. That doesn't make it all fascist. I don't think many would argue the British monarchy was fascist. It was an imperialist monarchy.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Which dictionary are you reading?

I like Umberto Eco on this one. I'm in my 50s. We've checked many of these boxes throughout my life, and for some others you can point to various moments in our history, many but not all of them recent. Certainly enough to satisfy the meme.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto_Eco

https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, those are traits of fascism, not a definition of fascism. Anyway, yeah the US has met many of them throughout its history. So has almost every other nation. The term is useless if you just call everyone fascist. The US has not met most of them at any one particular time. You can't just take that list and say some traits were met in this period, some others in this other period, etc. and then say they covered all the traits at some point in time so must be fascist. That's not how that works.

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I was talking about the forceful oppression of opposition. That is an element that has existed in the US for a long time.

US has had no dictator yet but a president has much more power than a prime minister.

If you consider fascism to be a spectrum, then US has always had these elements. Dictatorship is basically the end of said spectrum.