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.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
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.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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
"Our Glorious Eastern Soldiers"
"Their heathen rapist genocidal evil brutish westoids"
The message is good, the title is needlessly inflammatory, as if ANY major country has clean hands.
Russia is leveling cities in self defense I swear.
Three diverging things can be all correct at the same time.
is this the infamous whataboutism? we could probably attribute stuff like this to "eastern" soldiers as in any war. however, the scale isn't even comparable.
no other group of countries did as much of this in history by a long shot if not for the evil brutish westoids. no other empire commited as much violence on a global scale.
the US's military budget in comparison to the world only begins to tell the story of misery and poverty westoids rain down upon us here in the places they claim to be protecting right now.
The level of historical knowledge that is only possible to achieve by registering at .ml
plugging your ears to the level of destruction western powers sponsor won't make it go away. and it makes me wonder if i'm really in a leftist comm.
because god forbid we point out the crimes of the west without going "but these orientals are still bad tho!!!"
Lol, claiming that Russia is oriental is pretty wild. That is just about as accurate as saying America is Indian.
Russia is a western nation that brutally colonized its eastern territory. This doesnt make them Asian, just like European colonization of America doesnt make it native American.
There's actually a long history of Russia being orientalized due to orthodox christianity. Their culture is othered and generalized through this lense. Do look into it, it is an interesting subject if you like that sort of thing.
Russian orthodox christianity is separate from oriental orthodoxy practiced in places like Syria or Armenia, who follow nicene Christian traditions. They may be othered by their western European counterparts, but eastern orthodoxy is fairly normal in places like Greece. I don't think it would be appropriate to label them as oriental, especially in the modern understanding of the word.
In the modern context the orientalization of eastern europe is less severe for sure and Russia orthodoxy is more understood but I think its arguable that everything east of germany has experience with being orientalized
Ehhh.... I'd have to disagree with that. The meaning of "the orient" has changed drastically over time, but even in the early days the furthest west it would encompass would be the caucuses, and even that's pretty rare.
Oh boy, you’re gonna be pissed when you find out the continent Russia is located in…
It's both, so what's your point?
How can you be so confident, and yet so wrong about everything?
You say that like the modern polity/culture didn't grow out of Europe and spread east or like minority ethnic groups in Asian Russia aren't treated worse then Muscovites and ethnic Russians.
Ahh.... So when a white person lives in Asia they are oriental?
Yes. Oriental has nothing to do with race, and you would know that if you had spent 3 seconds googling before you made this snarky statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient
Saying something is from the orient means its from Asia.... Calling a person or a group of people like an army oriental is saying they are Asian.
Read your own source..... Or just use common sense?
When have you ever heard of a European living in Europe being referred to as oriental?
Russia is in Asia…
And in Europe...... It's a transcontinental country. However, its asian territories are a product of European colonialism.
You are so close to getting it lol
This you.......?
My dude.... Youve had soo many wild takes on this subject you should just stop.
Lol, I see you deleted the one where you claimed none of Russia was in Europe. Embarrassing.
Americans really not beating the illiteracy allegations 🤣
Lol, the irony is neither of you even read the source.....
Lol....I would have deleted that too....
Don’t be chiding other people when you literally just used the word oriental without bothering to check what it actually meant.
Lol, I am Asian.... I know what oriental means. If you would read your own source, you would know what oriental means as well.
From your fuckiing source.....
Yes, but whenever someone hints that an "eastern" country might not be the best, whataboutisms fly out everyone's collective asses.
If it's okay to criticize one way, it should be okay to criticize (when appropriately applicable) the opposing way.
You do see the fucking irony here, right?
I do, but apparently pointing it out gets me down votes.
You didn't point it out though
Reading comprehension is clearly low in this thread.
That is, indeed, you completely missing the irony. The exact opposite of "pointing it out"
You, and most of the comments here, are literally whatabouting out of your collective asses because you heard a hint of critism of western countries.