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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
You either agree that it's justified to murder the entire American middle class, or you don't. It's pretty simple.
I don't really care if you assessed me as being intellectually dishonest by linking someone's answer to a question I posed. You can call that a flawed point if you want, but they were the ones who -rather shockingly- choose to embrace democide of millions of people - including presumably themselves, their family, and friends - in the name of class warfare.
So yes, the existence of people like that shapes my view of this platform, as does this interaction with you rushing to defend their position (despite the fact that you don't seem to sold on it yourself, since I'm guessing YOU'RE not prepared to be personally murdered for the sake of global justice and eternal class warfare).
I don't consider it a meaningful debate AT ALL.
I consider it a tiresome debate with someone who is truly fucked in the head. Someone who I later identified as suffering from sociopathy, or antisocial personality disorder.
I could have (and possibly should have) dismissed them based on their earlier comments, when they engaged in genocide apologetics, and denied the existence of the Holodomer (actually claiming conditions in the 30s were somehow "pre revolutionary). Especially after that NUT JOB blamed the Holodomer on American yellow journalism, because no number of first person (primary source) statements from Ukrainians WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE are to be believed.
But I choose to see how they'd respond to my personal litmus test, which was, for me, the final nail in the coffin of communism: The killing of the kulaks. I frame it as the American middle class, because that is the local equivalent of the kulaks. Small time landowners, a few minor landlords, farmers. The American dream involves property ownership, and getting rid of the small time property owners, the somewhat successful peasants whose lives were made worse by communism, was the goal in that particular move.
It is possible to be a communist who believes that dekulikization is a step too far - Trotsky famously was. But that's not the position "our friend" chose to take.
Personally I consider the killing of the kulaks to be a much more appropriate line than the one used to label tankies - which was the use of tanks in Hungary to quell a COMMUNIST uprising by Hungarians who simply wanted communism without the Soviet occupation. In other words, communists who reject stalinism. Personally I prefer PEOPLE who reject MASS MURDER, and communism had failed that test DECADES before the people in Hungary revolted.