this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Lefty Memes
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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.
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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.
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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
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- 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.
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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).
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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.
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MODERATORS
It's not even always a MLM/anarchist split.
I've run into some terminally online-dumb shit. Look at my account age and post count for how strong a claim I'm making here:
I'm less terminally online brain poisoned and social media brain rotted than 95% of the people I find in left spaces in California. It's wild.
It's not even about real ideology sometimes. I recommended an essay about why being a cop is bullshit by George Orwell and got iced out of a mutual aid project for 'liking problematic authors', and that's not even the dumbest one. I've been called ableist about a disability I have for saying reading theory has value.
3.2k over 2 months is numbers I generally attribute to bots/shills. Is that a normal level of online in your spaces?
No, that's what I'm saying. I am buried in and embalmed with grass compared to most people I've met.
There are real problems in organizing, and I too have seen things like you're describing. I just try not to take part in such petty squabbles. If a group is too wound up with internal politics to get anything done, I just find somewhere else to put my energy.
Yeah. It means I work without other organizers most of the time, bringing people up from total disempowerment. Need to move on pretty often to avoid... excessive regard.
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Joke's on you, Mr. CIA Man, I want to be easier to penetrate
This is why I I try to focus on the right and just ignore stupid people on the left. They can be by my side as long as they throw rocks at the fascists.
This is why I work on blind solidarity. If a leftist organization organizes something and I like it I help it and assume they're better than Democrats. If I think its demonic I ignore it.
Plus I like bragging about achieving to an infighter
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It's not all CIA. In fact, in a lot of cases, it's just human nature, especially our tribalism. I have seen the same amount of "leftist gatekeepers" by ratio as I've seen fandom ones, often on the same exact beats being translated into leftist linguo.
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Some of it is just genuine infighting over orthodoxy and interpretations and whatnot. People be passionate about the holy books
I get it. I'm just saying, keep some perspective on the current stakes.
Without a doubt some of it is stoked by malicious outside actors, as you said
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Not everything is the fault of the CIA. I don't think left parties need any help in self-destruction, they are well capable in this department. 😁
It's how it is, because the left parties are democratic and discuss many ideas and people get passionate about different things. The right are usually authoritarian and people fall in line, no matter how much they disagree with the actual set of ideas, also because of the consequences.
It's the natural natural way of things.
Sure. Wrecking absolutely exploits existing vulnerabilities. Resist exacerbating such vulnerabilities.
Yes, we need to put our disagreements aside and focus on our real enemy... The People's Front of Judea!
Believe it or not, not everyone needs or wants to live the exact same way. We dont need to agree on how to live our lives to have solidarity amongst each other.
Totally true. Also true, when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, they had any Leftists that didn't sufficiently agree with them arrested; many were murdered. I have solidarity with many Leftists who have many beliefs, but not MLs; they've already proven their "solidarity" is a lie.
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Don't forget the favorite buzzword, "Tankie".
Cited the Simple Sabotage Field Manual and mentioned how it was used against civil rights organizers, anti-war demonstrators, and labor organizers.
Got called a Tankie.
Crazy how the term seems to shut down the higher brain functions for certain people.
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faction A will just say faction B isn't "really leftist" so therefore their attacks don't count as "leftist infighting"
COINTELPRO
Most of the people that you hear described as radical leftists are actually not radical leftists, which means most of those conflicts are coming from somewhere else, and they're a distraction from the potential goodness of serious radical leftist policy proposals.
Obviously there's a lot more that can be said on the topic, but what we typically see with those buzzwords is pure distraction, 100% spam, totally intentional deflection from what should be serious discussions.
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