'Westerners'
Kinda broad
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.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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
Didn't then and don't most Americans now see the Vietnam war as wrong and hated it from the beginning? Many calling returning soldiers baby killers. I've always heard/thought that but it could just be anecdotal to my experience.
They don't see it "wrong" as much as rather a "mistake." Had they been able to subdue Vietnam, there wouldn't have been need for any introspection.
It was wrong bcs it also killed THEIR people.
And what you say is exactly the kind of 'horrible' detail what people are supposed to remember, that some people dared tocall their baby killers baby killers.
They all lick the boot.
In a few years they can do that for this kind of scum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers
The Vietnam war was broadly supported through most of it. We tend to rewrite stuff like that to make ourselves feel better. To give you an idea of how screwed up public opinion was, on the Kent state massacre, “A Gallup poll found 58 percent blamed the Kent students for their own deaths. Only 11 percent blamed the National Guard.”
most Americans
"Most"? Really?
Actually googling it, it was around 50%, and several polls show more support for ending the war and being anti-war than for continuing it.
Jeez, if our generation could protest half as much we'd get twice as much done now. But no, the latest generations of Americans are poorly educated authoritarianist lovers who don't even know what they're simping for.
Unironically why I give a political damn. This movie was formative for my political alignment, right from my childhood.
Some of us actually got the message.
In the original Star Wars, the Empire was based on the American empire and the rebellion was based on the Vietcong according to George Lucas.
We lost a lot of good men on the death star. Did you guys know I was supposed to be on it, but I missed my transport. I should have died that day.
Mark Wahlberg said if he was on the Death Star it would not have gone down like that.
He'd never make it in the academy. Aims too good.
Kind of ironic that the Star Wars franchise became worse during the time the US became even more like the Empire.
Andor S2 was good though.
I'd argue that it hasn’t been truly good until Andor.