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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, 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)
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.
- 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
And this is when you vote for a third party. IMO the mentality of “having to vote one of these two” is toxic for a democratic system.
It’s a trap and these two parties massively profit off of it.
Its the fundamental death of democracy. There is only ever one "correct" choice on the ballot. No real decision except to show up and vote straight ticket or suffer guilt or derision from your peers.
This works just as well on Republicans as Democrats. You don't see any dark horse Buchanans or Perots on the ballot anymore. Conservatives know any vote for someone other than Trump will be seen as a vote for the Democrat, just like Liberals know the opposite. And when the top of the ticket sucks (as with Hilary in 2016 or Romney in 2012), turnout sags and upsets happen.
The bitter truth Dems can't face is that they ran bad candidates on weak platforms after disappointing terms in office. And this is what drove down turnout. Not insidious Arabs or nefarious Jill Stein voters or Russia. If they'd had a candidate as appealing to voters as Trump, running on the left side of the ticket, they could have won. Instead, they shed 15M votes chasing the Liz Cheney endorsement.
Bingo
This is cuz of fptp not cuz of parties
The modern party system is a product of FPTP, and it's leaders will fight to defend FPTP for their own preservation
The parties enforce and secure fptp from any alternatives, given they massively profit off of it.
I hate that you're not wrong. Gotta get rid of the current "winner take all" electoral system first though...
Mandatory vote, ranked choice, popular no electoral
Apparently star is better?
I'm not sure I caught the reference.
STAR voting system
From a glance it seems so yes.
Ranked choice was on the ballot in some state and it was voted down
Yeah, people are dumb we get that.
Im with you. If such trap can exist the system is wrongly setup.
You're not wrong, but there's no way to get there from here that doesn't involve the American political system becoming something else first.
That's not possible in the current electoral system. Therefore voting third party needs to happen first.
Or really, the thing we can't say in the Internet anymore and the thing that you liberals hate more than the thought of losing capitalism itself.
My understanding is that for third parties to become viable at the presidential they have to have first become viable in other levels of government. A third party presidential candidate should be the culmination of bottom up building, not a once every 4 years thing.
You're correct. The US third parties have never been acting in good faith, with few exceptions.
So close, and yet so far.
The third party isn't going to save you from the toxic system, nor stand a chance to fix it.
You can't reform the system, nor fix it from within no matter how hard you participate. It must be completely eradicated from the root.