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] 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
view the rest of the comments


The fact that they're lecturing us from the same position lol. That's what made me want to comment in the first place.
But it's fine, I was trying to get past that with my edit calling for everyone to work together. But I guess as usual leftists working together proves impossible. Big part of why the world is so shit.
Salamence:
Clearly not the same position. You assumed the person posting was in the same position, which was incorrect.
Solidarity is good. But people in the imperial core can't expect solidarity if they don't give it.
They're in the same position of ignorance about the people they're arguing with and criticizing online as I am.
What kind of solidarity would you like to see from me that you feel is lacking?
Salamence made a post with a meme criticizing American troops who murdered people in the third world. That's not a position of ignorance, everyone knows what happened there.
I mean the title is clearly directed at random American civilians, not just military folks. Although yes, they are ignorant about people who are in the military too.
Is this seriously a reply where the first sentence attempts to avoid seeming like a defense of soldiers while the second sentence is an overt defense of soldiers?
Really? Is it that clear? Don't soldiers vote for Kamala too?
I'm not defending soldiers. I do think the position that it's wrong to join or support the US military is obviously correct. But of course that doesn't change the fact that we have no direct knowledge of why people do these things on an individual basis. Since you brought it up I thought I'd point that out. But I feel like now we're arguing just to argue.
It seemed clear to me. If that wasn't the intention then I don't know?
I'm just really sick of all of the finger-pointing between people about very insignificant actions people did or didn't do that may or may not have led us to this moment. I'd rather talk about how we get out of it.
That's fair and good, but people (especially victims of the US empire) also have a right to post about how we got here, including just to vent. The first step to fixing things is knowing how they broke. I think trying to tell Salamence that there's shared blame here between victims and bystanders or perpetrators is counterproductive to this goal.
Really? From this reply you made clear what you want is to share the blame
Everyone shares blame, that's just the reality, whether people want to admit it or not. It means me, yes. But it also means you.
I don't know why no one will admit that yes, they are partially to blame. I think that IS the first step to working together. If people don't feel responsibility to act because it's someone else's responsibility, then they won't.