Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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" (read: Dengists) (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.
6. Don't irrationally 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
- Sexual 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
Genuinely who has characterised environmental policies as "just wanting chaos"? I have never heard anyone of significant note say that.
Not the policies, but certainly activists like Greta Thunberg have been characterized as angry extremists (by people who are financially interested in maintaining the status quo).
With Thunberg in particular, while I agree broadly with her on pretty much all of her policy stances, I can't help but also think that a lot of what she does is performative and doesn't really accomplish much on a practical level. I'm not stupid enough to think the goal is chaos but I think I understand how some people could be led to think that.
Then you are simply uninformed about her work. I do agree that she is portrayed that way by the media you consume.
I am informed. I can see her activities. They range from very productive performatism to useless but mostly inert lip service.
For example her Gaza aid ship stunt I believe falls in the category of "very productive performatism". Obviously she is a kind of international political celebrity, and by forcing Israeli authorities to either arrest her (and cause a diplomatic incident) or allow a hole in their Gaza blockade, she's forcing the issue in a way that is both a good use of her infamy and also disproportionately impactful.
You seem to be using the word performatism in both senses of it's meaning, as performative has become a contranym. Here you are contrasting it to "inert lip service" as opposed to your earlier comment that implied the opposite meaning:
Putting the confusing nature of your comments aside, I do think it's worth highlighting very clearly that - as you yourself pointed out - performative action can be quite useful in the original sociological sense of the word. It means bringing something into being through speech/action, which is the polar opposite of "inert lip service".
Many of Thunberg's actions have inspired and informed others precisely because they include a performative aspect (in the sociological sense), and she doesn't do anything that is "inert lip service" as far as I am aware. In fact, based on interviews I've seen of her, I suspect that "inert lip service" is incredibly annoying to her as well.
Perhaps this is an issue of grammar. I use the word "performative" to describe actions where more effort is paid to the publication of the process of performing the actions, rather than any effect of the actions themselves.
And, of course, I do think that being performative does not on its own make a behaviour socially useless. That's why I distinguish between "useful performatism" and "useless performatism", which is typically just done with the goal of generating the feeling of having done something, without actually making any significant effect.
As another example, most peaceful protests are inherently performative, but they can be usefully so if they actually provoke positive policy changes.
And of course, by "lip service", I mean speeches and declarations which merely talk about the existence of an issue and one's support/opposition of it without actually taking any concrete action towards achieving one's stated goal. For example (though not Thunberg-related), I consider a city council resolution condemning Israeli atrocities in occupied Palestine to be a form of useless lip service, unless it is paired with actual actions in furtherance of that view, such as sending aid to Palestine or cutting ties with Israeli companies.
US presidents ordering flags flown at half-mast after mass shootings without offering substantial policy changes is a notorious example of useless lip service.
it might be about characterising anarchists as "just wanting chaos", because a lot of people use anarchy and chaos as synonyms..?
i'm not certain, the "you guys" in the picture could be referring to someone else entirely and not anarchists at all!
Dealing with those environmental problems requires breaking the corporate power the profits from and perpetuates those problems, and breaking corporate power does get characterized as "just wanting chaos" by plenty of people.
Do you have an example? I haven't even seen the Washington Post characterise it that way. Most opponents just talk about how these policies will "destroy the competitiveness of our industry" or "raise prices for consumers".
Ask any right-winger what they think about protests about things like BLM or Palestine.