Lefty Memes
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
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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
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.
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or 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
Found the source:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/biden-moderate-democrats-republicans-conservative-study-john-kasich-aoc-a9699431.html
Okay I read the source now and what I found funny is the part where people describe how "moderates" on dating apps are just conservatives. An observation I can regard as true in my experience, they are just self-aware enough to not be dismissed outright, but not self-aware enough to actually change a thing about themselves and become a better person.
Remembering how dating apps for conservative people tend to go down (only dudes, because what chick would engage with those guys...), I find it funny to see this echoed here again. There is, after all, no middle ground on most social issues anymore and we do good to see moderates as just another trick of conservative rebranding to obfuscate what they truly are.
There never was, unless you consider supporting desegregation but not interracial marriage a middle ground I guess.
Middle ground on social issues: "Separate but equal"
This is DEEPLY VALIDATING thank you
and being condescending to leftists especially when they are correct and it makes you annoyed you can't come up with good rhetorical counter arguments that hold together logically... is the MOST important!!
Some of them genuinely seem to be in some weird form of denial I can't understand. I lost a friend from his slide during covid who would fit this. Self identified moderate who only ever defended right wing views and the worst of the grifters.
I experienced this recently with a coworker who talked himself in circles about how he cared about facts and logic and agreed with both parties on different issues. But...he spat out Republican grifter speech over and over (basic biology!) and talked about how he watched these "debate me" idiots online who showed how Democrats "barely ever back up their arguments with logic" while the Republicans apparently do (you probably know the ones, they're famous grifters but I don't remember their names), as if these guys wouldn't simply edit out everything but the most extreme people to use as evidence for their claims.
I have a line from a song I like to use when talking about these sorts of people: Spread the facts out like a fan on the floor, throw away the ones that make you feel bad.
Cognitive dissonance is a requirement for this kind of thinking.