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] -2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I hate to be that guy, but not always exactly this. I have relatives that were born dirt poor but are now rich. You can definitely say they exploited people to get that way but the birth lottery gave them nothing financially

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

For every example like this there are a million examples of poor people staying poor.

Social mobility is much less than we like to pretend it is.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Not sure your point. Yes you can get rich ONLY exploiting the poor and don't need to be born rich.

I guess the op should have made it more of a venn diagram.

There are no innocent billionaires. They all trade human lives for profit every day.

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

My point is that oversimplification and being incorrect matters.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It gave them birth in a advanced nation and no disabilities

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

Which many other people including myself had and yet I'm not rich

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

The chart says that 50% get rich by exploitation and the other 50% by inheritance.

Edit: NVM, Im dumb and misread the meme. Still I doubt they were litterally "dirt poor" so birth lottery still applies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

For sure, never ever trust a wealthy person's origin story. Even trump and Musk claim to be self made.

Much better to go with the evidence of our eyes and ears.

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

They are self-made. It just took a small loan of a million dollar

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

Except I wasn't glorifying them. I actually think they aren't great people but go ahead and jerk yourself some more

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You know nothing. I'm describing my great uncle, so I would have no reason to lie. No one else in the family is what you would call rich. I'm simply providing a factual counterexample because generalizing is the surest way to not understand nuance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Speaking of lacking nuance, claiming people "know nothing" isn't exactly the smartest thing you've ever said.

We have two things here:

A: I'm describing my great uncle

And

B: so I have no reason to lie.

How does one relate to the other? Is it unusual for people to lie about great uncles where you're from? Does this rule apply to, say, regular uncles? How about a great aunt? Does it apply to them too?

More seriously, the factual real world examples that can be proven and aren't just "trust me bro" all point to never being able to trust a wealthy persons origin story, even if it is someone's great uncle. However, that doesn't mean its literally untrue in every instance or yours.

The point is, even if 100% true in every capacity, it's so ultra rare and against such a rigged game that it might as well not be true. That is, if we plan on appreciating the true nuance of the situation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Idiot, the person I referenced claimed you can't trust a rich person's origin story. It's not my story

You're just mad the simple narrative was threatened. I couldn't give a shit less what you believe

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

What a childish and hilariously ironic reply. I'm the person who said you can't trust a wealthy persons origin story. I said it because its true.

You challenged nothing. All you didn't was tell a baseless story that anyone could have made up. You give yourself too much credit if you think you either challenged anything anyone said or made me mad by it. It's pretty pathetic to have to pretend you've upset people.

Even if it was true, its like me saying "don't jump out of a 10 storey building, you'll probably die." and you replying "yeah, well, my great uncle jumped out of a 10 storey building and he didn't die." Like, cool story bro but you still shouldn't jump out of one and, also, no one cares about your tales.

How about second cousins, would you lie about them?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I wouldn't have had a good come back for what i said either.

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

You are dumb I agree. Because that's what it takes to make up stories about other people's lives to make yourself feel better.

These were people that literally grew up without indoor plumbing or electricity for years, in a community where owning a car meant you were rich. They were sharecroppers so they owned nothing and slaved away to make rich people money.

But sure they weren't dirt poor because some dickhead on the Internet wanted it to not be true so they could keep generalizing people different than them as all the same.

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

From your other comments I gather that these people were born about 2 generations ago. In a time of economic growth and prosperity, I count that as luck. Also, I said "I doubted it" mr. nuance.

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

Doubted based on nothing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I can almost guarantee you do not know a “rich” person per db0’s viewpoint

One does not reach the top by “treating employees fairly.”

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

I mean, I consider having 13 cars and 3 houses rich. But yeah it's a relative term