this post was submitted on 23 Mar 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] 42 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I agree fully, but I do want to know what the original image said before "birth lottery" was edited in

[–] [email protected] 48 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Looks like inherited is the original, but I also seen another one with "Luck"

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Luck is the most generically accurate, but ultimately it does come down to birth lottery, as someone can just be born poor and disabled and no amount of post-birth luck is going to fix that.

[–] wischi 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Post birth luck can fix it. Wouldn't call Eminem a winner of the birth lottery but he was definitely pretty lucky with dr dre

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Being lucky depends on being in the right situation and being able to grab the opportunity. Turns out that having rich connected parents means you get in more and better situations. Also, having money means a lot more chance to grab opportunities by easily moving for a job or go without income to take a chance without being evicted for not paying rent.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Right nation and not disabled (or even just hideous looking). Sounds pretty lucky to me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I mean, yeah, he was lucky in one sense but that luck wouldn’t have mattered without the skills underneath the he spent time developing. He didn’t just wake up one day excellent at rapping .

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I think luck implies random chance. Which is completely inaccurate.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

I've seen this discrepancy explained by being or putting yourself in the right situations to get lucky in the first place. You can't get lucky in the way a lot of successful people do if you never put yourself out there. I guess the very first example of this is getting conceived lol. You could have gotten lucky and been conceived to wealthy parents, or unlucky and conceived to poor parents, or really unlucky and not conceived at all, but you would certainly have perished if you chose not to even participate in the race.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I'm not rich. But I was born poor and am no longer poor. The Birth Lottery blessed me with a brain, and with that as my only asset, I learned esoteric skills which I can parley into a niche career.

But more importantly, the social safety net in my country allowed me to get an education without becoming a wage slave for the rest of my life. Without that, I couldn't have pulled this escape from poverty off.

I now run my own business. We have no employees -- only owners who have self-invested. Our business is growing and I anticipate a comfortable retirement. Haven't got rich off the working class either.

So, thank you Canada for the opportunities. I've tried to make the most of them.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So can you answer his question or did you just see an opportunity to brag about yourself.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No. I was pumping socialism as an alternative to birth lottery. Enjoy your day :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

What's that got to do with the question?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How do you run a business without employees? What kind of business is that? Just because you call someone a self-invested owner doesn't mean they aren't an employee. The only types of businesses I've heard of like this are Mary Kay and AmWay (there may be others I don't know). Basically a sales ponzi scheme where you are the wholesaler for a distributor and the "self-invested owner" bought their products from you instead of directly from the wholesaler.

I do agree with your stance on the state of education today but not in the same way. Some people party all through school and live off loans while others work during school to avoid loans. For every 1 person that takes the opportunity seriously and busts their ass to make something of themselves, there are 9 people who don't deserve the free pass. Making it free for everyone costs too much for those who have to pay for those 9.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's a specialized scientific equipment business. I build some equipment, do some customization and repairs on their party equipment, loan other equipment, train users... A high capital business where I wagered everything on my own success. It was six months between my first two customers, and now I average about six hours.

No Mary Kay ponzi shit.

E: should add, I started it because my previous employer owned the intellectual property on my prior device. I wanted to own my future work. Seizing the means of production (by quitting and going solo).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Good for you and glad to hear from a real entrepreneur.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago

r/thattotallyhappened