this post was submitted on 28 Apr 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.
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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)
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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.
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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" 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).
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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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Nobody is saying to destroy civilization.
ok so what's the plan then? how do you destroy the system but keep the tools needed for civilization to continue? It's an honest question because I see lots of doomer and boogaloo types but no one seems to offer up a plan.
Simplifying things, Anarchist praxis is to start building the new world in the shell of the old. We start building org structures we want to have, co-operatives, unions, moneyless exchange systems etc. These things naturally destabilize the existing system until it collapses under its own inherent contradictions, and then these orgs take over seamlessly.
More elaborate: https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionJ.html#secj2
And other lies you can tell yourself. Dont get me wrong, i am more aligned with anarchist thought than any other leftist denomination, but holy shit we cant be this naive.
No naivety involved. This has already happened and been shown to work.
You got some examples?
Spanish Revolution for one.
10 months. It lasted 10 months . Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful thing. But we need to look beyond siege socialism.
That's irrelevant to our topic. It also lasted 3 years
I was referencing Revolutionary Catalonia not the wider Spanish Revolution. My mistake.
It is possible to co-opt existing structures, but how do we counter outside forces, like happened during the Spanish Revolution. I could be wrong, but Horizontalism will always be weakened against organized opposition.
That's a completely different discussion. I personally don't think it's as easy to declare that such structures are weaker. The Spanish proved that by fighting for 3 years against overwhelming odds. I think the time that revolution happened was really unfortunate, but the same sort of revolution happening at the time where the surrounding nation states are weakened enough to not be able to intervene might have a vastly different result.
But at the end of the day, the destabilization works, so we keep doing it because those orgs are also the most ethical. What happens if and when capitalism collapses is a bridge that every such society crossed when it reached it, and nobody managed to pre-plan how it would go.
Fair point. Anark was on the Skeptical Leftist podcast recently talking of states and organizing, If you’re interested,
getting rid of conservatives
I'm down. How?
any means necessary
Sounds dangerous. What if someone accuses you of being conservative?
i explain that i'm not. also, i'm armed, so bring it.
The posse has more guns than you. I'm beginning to think you didn't think this plan through.
I'm old. I've lived a good life. If it means that there are finally posses rounding up conservatives, I might just be ok with it.
The only way to kill bad fascism is with good fascism?
pretty much. and once you wipe the earth clean of that scum, you step back and let an AI designed by academics in the humanities take over.
Assuming they weren't all killed by the linch mobs. Mobs are well known for studious research into the claims made against their victims before they get the rope.
perfect is the enemy of good
What tools do you consider necessary for civilization to continue?