this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Lefty Memes

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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

Version without spoilers

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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Most are referring to the way our current electoral system works. Voting 3rd party helps the Republicans even if its not intentional.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yup, and the only way out of that is Ranked Choice Voting.

Go volunteer for your local RCV group, California's is here: https://www.calrcv.org/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Obligatory: "Ranked Choice" is a specific use of ranked ballots. It's subpar. It beats what we're doing now, but anything beats what we're doing now.

What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone's second choice. Ranked Pairs would.

The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results... somehow. There is no good reason we're not using it everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Approval Voting seems to just dilute your vote the more candidates you vote for. Candidates will tell people people to only place one vote. What a silly system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Your worst-case scenario is how things currently work.

Realistically, people will just ignore that shite advice, and vote for as many people as they feel like. It works out on average.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren't likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn't provide the optimal outcome.

It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it'd be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Approval is trivial.

Ranked Pairs has the same ballots as Ranked Choice and it works the way people think ranked ballots work.

RCV has momentum primarily because people keep using the name to mean "ranked ballots."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nobody thinks its a magic bullet, we're all looking for the next rung that leads us closer to a happy democracy. None of us are looking for instant easy solutions, we're trying to iterate and be better.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

spoilerasdfasfasfasfas

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

In other words, It's necessary but not sufficient for reforming the two party system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

spoilerasdfasfasfasfas

[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is absurd. Take a look at the polls. There is only one 3rd-party candidate with double digit percentages. Do you really think JFK is taking more votes from Biden than Trump?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Taking the risk because you think you know something you can't know is what's absurd

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I never made any indication on how I'm voting. I'm just tired of this baseless claim that voting 3rd party only helps Trump. Polls excluding 3rd-parties show Trump significantly further ahead than those with 3rd-parties. Therefore, Biden's only chance of winning is due to JFK capturing conservative votes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

TIL "how America works" = "baseless claim"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What is "how America works" in this context? You seem to be trying to make the point that 3rd-party voting only hurts Biden. I'm pointing to recent polling that shows that, when 3rd-party options are included, Biden's margins get closer to victory. You should be thanking 3rd-parties if you are hoping for a Biden victory.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago

So polling, that thing that told us trump couldn't have won in 2016, makes another prediction, eh?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yet Robert Reich has said the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Maybe. A lot of folks only know him for his good environmental stance and see him as the rightful Democrat candidate.

They don't see his antivax bullshit and leaky brain from WiFi.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

A different way to think about it - most of the intended audience on Lemmy, and especially in this community, would've voted democrat instead of republican. So from the frame of reference of this post, most folks here claiming to vote third party did in fact have their vote "taken" from Biden.