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!
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.
Seems like a good spot for this:
Nonviolence works the same way: if you're engaging with someone / some group who isn't violent, there's an expectation that you'll also remain nonviolent. If they pull a gun on you and you happen to be packing (and a quick shot) and shoot em dead, that does NOT bring you down to their level.
From the German constitution:
Anyone who abuses the freedom of expression, in particular the freedom of the press (Article 5 para. 1), the freedom of teaching (Article 5 para. 3), the freedom of assembly (Article 8), the freedom of association (Article 9), the secrecy of letters, mail and telecommunications (Article 10), the property (Article 14) or the right of asylum (Article 16a) to fight against the free democratic basic order, forfeits these fundamental rights. The forfeiture and its extent are pronounced by the Federal Constitutional Court.
Exactly. I don't get why this simple concept is so hard to understand. I've had many people claim Germany doesn't have freedom of speech since you are not allowed to salute Hitler. By invading other's rights, you give up yours. It's not hard to comprehend.
Based
There also is this section:
Parties that, according to their goals or the behavior of their supporters, aim to impair or eliminate the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany are unconstitutional.
Does the paradox of tolerance even exist?
If you tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group of people until those people are gone
If you dont tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate the group that hates a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group that hates the group of people until those people are gone
Because there is no way to become a tolerant society until one of the 2 groups is gone, the easiest way to become a tolerant society would mean getting rid of the easiest group you can get rid of.
Which group would be easiest to get rid off:
Anything else wouldnt matter since the society will remain intolerant
PS: by "get rid off", i mean remove people from the group, not specifically kill
Does the paradox of tolerance even exist?
If you tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group of people until those people are gone
Exactly: there is no paradox there if you don't think of tolerance as an absolute. This blog post put it pretty well:
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
Love that, thank you.
If they pull a gun on you and you happen to be packing (and a quick shot) and shoot em dead, that does NOT bring you down to their level.
What if they start by shouting "He's got a gun!" and then pulling a gun and firing at you? And then what happens if the news media reports the killing as "Brave hero defends neighborhood against armed criminal" while encouraging other people to behave in a similar fashion? And then what happens if the people shouting "He's got a gun!" and shooting, as an excuse to engage in a kind of localized ethnic cleansing or social repression, are members of and friends with the local police department?
How do you resolve the paradox of tolerance when you aren't in a position physical, social, or political of dominance?
But, I love bashing the fash.
Sorry, that means you're just as bad as the fash. You should be engaging them on the marketplace of ideas, just like people did in WW II when they stopped the fascists with kindness and debate
Does anyone actually advocate for this?
The fascists
All of mainstream media? Where have you been?
Once, someone threw a milk shake. The NYT was wringing hands for weeks.
I mean of course I was being hyperbolic but I've had several people tell me something equivalent to pretty much like this. "Using violence against fascists is stooping to their level" is another classic.
edit: aaaaaand here we go, there is now at least one person in these comments saying exactly this
There's been a push for decades that everyone should be respectful and peaceful and not bother anyone when they protest in any way. The entire country forgetting how we've accomplished almost every major societal change.
Liberals
As satisfying as it may be, the problem is that the fash gets back up after the bash. There was a pretty extensive study done on this in the 1940s, and they found quite a few methods for better handling the fash.
This is slander and I will not stand for it: I bet Jadzia would be down for a nice fash bash
The sad thing is, this argument originates from fascists, they just managed to gaslight a whole generation of people that "hypocrisy" is the worst thing to ever happen to humanity, and people should hold the moral high ground to a stawman version of their ideology.
Hypocrisy IS the worst thing to happen to humanity, but intolerance of intolerance isn't hypocritical, it's necessary.
There's a name for this I just can't remember what it is.
It's all about following the social contract. If you break the social contract you are no longer protected by the social contract.
So if you walk around advocating for the harm of others, you've violated the contract and your rights are forfeit.
Obviously there's nuance but the point is there.
Maybe you mean the peace treaty thing? I mentioned it in a couple of earlier comments, here's a copy-paste:
Here's a blog post on this, and a relevant quote:
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
Maybe that's it. Sounds about right.
Don't be a dick and you won't have to deal with the consequences of being a dick.
Fascism is intolerable and should be resisted by any and ALL means. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Fascism is intolerable and should be resisted by any and ALL means.
True. But also...
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s were routinely described as bigoted, fascist, and psychotically violent. This lead to a country-spanning crack down on civil rights organizing in the 70s and 80s, and the functional extinction of national movement by the 2000s.
We had a brief resurgence of civil rights protests following the Great Recession, which peaked with the BLM protests of the late 2010s. But media slanders quickly tarred these protest movements as violent and dangerous, while a rapid police response supplemented by our advanced national surveillance crushed the leadership in short order.
The Gaza protests were quashed even faster and with still greater violence, while news media had Palestinian peace marchers tarred as Hamas terrorists and Russian double-agents.
What do you do to resist fascism in a fascist nation, without being targeted and labeled a fascist yourself? What weight does the term "fascist" carry when it serves as nothing more than a label to legitimize state and vigilante violence?
Yeah fuck this apologist bullshit. The only good fascist is a fucking dead fascist.
Imagine not wanting to kill neo-nazis but be fine with Isreali war crimes, involving the genocide of many innocent lives
Call me the last fascist in hell then. Y'all can string me up for my crimes when we've eliminated all the threats. Keep your hands clean and I'll shut the door behind me.
Funny, I guess both my grandfathers were fascists when they kicked Nazis in the teeth.