this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
939 points (96.1% liked)
Lefty Memes
6600 readers
1053 users here now
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] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require 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.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
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
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The Great Wall and Hadrian's Wall both served the same purposes:
They were not designed to stop individual peasants or merchants. Those walls all had gates to let them in and out. In Frontiers of the Roman Empire, CR Whittaker goes through archaeological records to better understand Hadrian's Wall and its role, and did not find any form of deterrence against migrants or any historical record showing any individual border control.
I am being condescending because you are being stubborn. I see no reason to be nice when you are speaking confidently about a topic you very clearly know nothing about, which happens to be one of my fields of expertise. You'd probably do the same if you were in my shoes, it is very frustrating to see misinformation spread on something you have academic knowledge of. If you are unwilling to learn and want to cling to your modern preconceptions of what a border is, then I must ask you to get the fuck out off radical leftist spaces and stop spreading your racist propaganda. You will never be welcome there as long as you hold those views.
Random thing but thanks for writing all this. The other person is probably beyond saving, but the history trivia is nice.
People will stop calling you a racist when you stop acting like one by repeating racist talking points. It's in your hands.
We have the means to feed everyone on the planet. We decided not to. You are this close to understanding imperialism and capitalism, but I'm afraid that from what we've witnessed so far, you don't have the ability to work both of your neurons hard enough to understand it.
Is it that important to you that we ourselves live to see it?
Your previous comment here also mentioned “it won’t be anytime soon” somehow assuming that that means we can neglect to express the ideals of it?
Either humanity gets there, or we won’t. Some people will do whatever they can to make sure we get a closer. Because if we don’t ever get there, why even continue the species at all?
Is to me.
The potential exists to sublimate to it in the duration of an afternoon or so.
And I do mean in a healthy way... not a tyrannical terrorising totalitarian way of "united". No more of the divide-and-conquer ploys necessary, once sublimating to an egalitarian emancipation paradigm of abundance.
Whether it's soon, later, or never, may depend on how many (and who) of us who cease seeing this as a spectator sport just washing over them. We can still mend this.
I hope you are right but i find that the desire to benefit can distract from thinking things trough.
Something i have also considered is that, if we somehow did it and can retire in a real enlightened human world, i would no longer belong. I was born and matured under the current system and that will continue to affect how i think and perceive the world even with my best intentions in mind.
I suspect that as long as we live we will carry some of the toxicity within us and only those born in the new world will truly be able to be free of it.
This too can mend.
Call me realist but our sun will die in about 5 billion years taking earth with it.
The chance that the human species or any of our constructs/ideas wil survive that long or longer is immensely small considering we have only been around for 300.000 years. The chance we do that and somehow still care to divide ourselves into different nations and cultures is 0.
Call me a dreamer, but in that time, maybe we can figure out how to preserve Sol as a type G main sequence yellow star. Not saying we necessarily should, nor that we would necessarily even have any need or want to. Just saying, that's a long time, and a big enough margin for uncertainty in that natural fate not succumbing to some yet-to-be-invented intervention. ;)
Some evidence suggests we[homo-sapiens]'ve been around far longer. And what of who we were before that, and who we may become yet, in the branchy continuum of evolution. What we yet may manage to preserve remains to be seen. Even trans-temporal conscious/technological shenanigans, transcends this mere "chance". Perhaps it better we do not leave these things solely to chance.
If rounding. But not by much rounding required at all... beyond astronomical odds. Yup. Or so it seems from here. We may be in error with our estimations.
You're a naive-realist. You think what you think is reality.
Stubbornly wilfully ignorant too.
And a [dangerous] fool, seemingly oblivious to self fulfilling prophecies.
None of this is intrinsic and irrevocable.
Existential tautologies make for uncompelling fallacies, contrary to the confidence with which you swing that cudgel to try win your argument. Self fulfilling prophecies too... more than just fallacious, are farcical. A lot of tragedy there. I hope we each and all get the healthy distance to see the comedy in that, rather than perpetrate and suffer it.