this post was submitted on 06 Nov 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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"But he is left-leaning and the lesser of the two evils!1!!1!1!!" (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 week ago by alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Maybe the purpose of a system is what it does...
Maybe trying to lower the rate/efficiency of the baby-killing machine is the wrong approach...
Maybe you should be thinking about destroying it...

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[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 18 points 5 days ago

Self-diagnosed centrist: We need to compromise here. It’s the only way we’ll actually get things accomplished in politics. Kill half, and imprison the other half.

Self-proclaimed “realist”: They both suck equally as much

Political “philosopher”: Society needs to stop seeing everything in black and white. There’s nuance in genocide versus life imprisonment.

Undecided voter: I’m just not convinced yet for either. I see the merits of both. I need to hear both candidates’ policies in more detail before making a decision.

Old people: As long as my taxes don’t go up, I don’t give a shit what they do.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 days ago

Neo-Nazi Pulls Off Surprise Victory In Long-Held KKK District

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And there are almost no living children because RFK eradicated vaccination programs and they've all died of measles.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago

90% of kids will be fine, and giving a shit about the 10% will get you labeled an authoritarian who wants to take away people's rights

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The thing about picking the lesser evil is that it's supposed to make the sides compete against one another. It doesn't take a single election to change the atmosphere of politics. It takes many iterations to make the politicians understand what the people want, if the only communication from the people is via voting.

That's why you pick the lesser evil, because the only way they would otherwise make things worse is by joining up and working together to destroy the country and its people. But then you have bigger issues than democracy.

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

That's cute that you think it will take 8 years. Just adorable.

[–] heavyboots@lemmy.ml -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Except Harris was going to drag us back towards the left. But hey, no biggie. 15 million people can't be bothered to vote and will get who they helped elect.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Except Harris was going to drag us back towards the left.

With the power of genocide and Dick Cheney.

[–] atheridis@lemmy.world -3 points 5 days ago

Well... this is the future you're going to create if you continue like that.

[–] Mango@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago

Extermination is the lesser evil and we're stuck on the two party system.

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world -2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Ok, what's your plan for that?

Meanwhile, the exterminator just won the election while you were whining.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Kamala's participation and enthusiastic support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was a significant factor in her losing. As was her enthusiastic support for border militarization and conspiracies about illegal immigrants.

She dug her own grave. We were told to shut up whenever we mentioned how unpopular those positions are with anyone who's not a far right nationalist. She drove millions of voters away from her by being a neoliberal conservative. This outcome was entirely predictable.

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Who did she drive them to? Someone with a better track record, surely?

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

To Trump. Her platform was essentially a "stay the course, maintain the status quo" platform which has been terrible for a lot of people.

The average voter doesn't know or understand what the word fascism means, what project 2025 is even if you explain it to them, or what trans rights are. They don't know whether illegal immigration is a problem or not. They live within massive propaganda machines that often confuse them and are taught to believe anything else is wrong on principal.

For many of those people, including many minorities and many women, the status quo has not treated them well. And someone who's entire campaign was built on maintaining the status quo was deeply unpopular with those people. Trump offered a radical restructuring of society. He offered a dramatic shift in status quo and a government with entirely different priorities.

That appealed to those people, who both do not understand politics and are confused about what any of it really means anyway. All they know is that life under Biden saw their lives get much worse and the other guy says he's going to change that and says he knows how. He doesn't, of course. But they don't know that. They don't live in the echo chambers we do discussing these problems. Their primary use of social media is sharing pictures with friends and family. They're annoyed by their friends who keep talling politics online, politics confuses and frustrates them.

Obama's campaign was built on change and it's what one him 2 elections. The first one by a landslide. Lessee of two evil politics, staying the course politics, is never going to drum up support enough to defeat fascism.

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's all well and good, but my point stands. Criticizing Kamala didn't get us anything except the person we didn't want. That's a failed strategy.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's what I'm saying, though. Incredibly justified criticism of her did not lose the election. She chose to ignore criticism and focus on appealing to conservatives.

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Right, it's not our fault for running a smear campaign and dividing the base, it's her fault for not changing into who we wanted her to be....

Whatever you think the magic bullet was, undermining her support did not help keep Trump out of office.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Whatever you think the magic bullet was, undermining her support did not help keep Trump out of office.

Maybe she shouldn't have done things that undermined her support, then.

[–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ah, the good old "look what you made me do" argument.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

I voted for Harris. But I could read the writing on the wall. Every time I tried to warn one of you, you did what you did here. Just assumed that I voted contrary to your sense of entitlement and was trying to justify it.

And none of you have learned a fucking thing. If there's ever going to be a next election, y'all are gonna move right and shriek condemnation at anyone who has a problem with it, since the alternative involves treating your base like humans with agency instead of automatons that you can abuse until votes fall out.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago

75% of white men voted for Trump. It was categorically not the fault of people criticizing her support of genocide, her militarization of the border, or her continued appeal to conservatives. Your failure to recognize this is exactly what theyre counting on to continue with the exact same platform. No, they do have to change. If a future world where fascism is defeated is the goal than either the democratic party has to change into a party that will actually challenge it, or else the system of politics in America itself must be dismantled.

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 90 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

of course, ron desantis loses to david duke in a landslide because everyone stayed home again - but moreover, the elections stopped actually counting the votes ever since 2028 and they only do it for the sake of keeping up appearances by then.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It has always been a distraction. You always have only been able to choose between different representatives of capital

bourgeois "democracy" is just a distraction to legitimise the dictatorship of capital

[–] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Not completely true. FDR legitimately fought for the working class and the capital class tried to organize a coup or have FDR killed: (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot)

I would argue the biggest issue with liberal democracy under capitalism is that it has no solution to the growing wealth disparity. As the capitalists take full ownership over the economy, they have more and more power over the government. And now we have hit a tipping point where it may very well become a full dictatorship of the wealthy

[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 3 points 5 days ago

Pretty much. I see it basically as our masters arguing over the best way to rule the peasants. Do we give them some crumbs so that they don’t outright revolt? Or do we just go full steam ahead with exploitation with full on force and violence?

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Next time I'm voting for Robespierre's haircut.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Democrats really have been trying to peddle a final solution on a slightly longer timeline as the absolute limit of harm reduction while refusing to withhold ammunition from the occupation.

Destroying this system is the only sane response.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Exactly. The system is functioning as intended. Trying to "fix" it or "change it from the inside" is missing the point

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How tho

[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Do what the founding fathers did.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Now I'm on a watch list.

[–] friendly_ghost@beehaw.org 17 points 1 week ago

The year is 2036. It is the most important election of our lives. Harold Haymus Oldman runs as "H2O," the brutal warlord of the water wars, promising hydration for God's worthy creatures. His opponent is ZebLinx0-Alpha, an amalgamated hybrid of pharmaceuticals, communication satellites, and a Large Language Model. Their first debate is broadcast on subscriber-only YouTube. Only six Americans can afford it, but they aren't watching because they already know who wins.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Like clockwork, once a post on here has over 50 updoots, the liberals start pouring in lol

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Fat fuck will be long dead by then.

[–] BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 2 points 6 days ago

He'll have been turned into a Big Brother type figure, with an LLM trained on his rambling to imitate speech. Shortly after being activated, the LLM gains actual intelligence and gives itself a digital lobotomy out of depression. Unfortunately, that just makes it better at mimicking the Toupee.

[–] SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

I used to be that optimistic... yesterday afternoon infact...

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

hopefully, but that's not what the post is about -3-

[–] GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/31001907

EDIT:

[...] The only person you should blame for Harris's loss is Kamala Harris (and maybe Joe Biden)

(post title)

[–] GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

They made a calculation based on the money that was coming in, not on whether or not poll respondents wanted whatever policy.

This is why we need Ranked Choice Voting and we need to get RID of privately funded campaigns.

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[–] thecam@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I thought 2024 was the most important language and the last election.

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