Based on this meme shared by Azolus, had to remake it as a smuggie because I wanted a cleaner version to share in french places and tbh I just can't wait to see people pissed off by it
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Lefty Memes
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founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[identical castles and ships are facing eachother, one side with EU colors, the other side with USA colors]
[EU side]
- OUR BLESSED EUROPEAN UNION - Our enlightened union
- Our glorious lobbying democracy
- Our noble asymmetric trade deals
- Our heroic Frontex
[USA side] THEIR BACKWARDS UNITED STATES
- Their barbarous federation
- Their wicked technofeudal oligarchy
- Their primitive imperialism
- Their brutish ICE
https://thebad.website/comic/good_imperialism_and_bad_imperialism
I approve of this great Bad meme!
Thanks a lot for coming up with it, it's simply perfect ❤️
I hope this will start a trend of HQ and OG edits/memes here (a girl can dream ~w~)
Oh if that's something you actually want, hit me up whenever you think a meme deserves to be upscaled and if I have time I'll do it.
Remade this one too but I don't think it needed a quality upgrade tbh it's just for fun/to enlarge my collection of image replies:
I like the writing on the arm.
Also: what kind of tools do you use/what's your method?
MSPaint and a mouse lmao.
When making OC stuff I start with a physical doodle pad and have some style guidelines, but for redrawing already existing things (like memes) it's simple enough to put them on one screen and draw them on the other.
Maybe I should try to muster up my motivation and just jump into Gimp more often...
Go for it!
I used to draw like this two years ago, and like this a year ago, it's never too late to get into drawing. If I started from literally nothing in my late 30s, then so should most other people, it's all about regular practice. Even simply drawing silly stickmen comics every single day will eventually get you somewhere.
What helped me get better recently are this free book and this other free book + doodling a lot every day all summer (so many full sketchbooks). If you get into it seriously, you can actually improve really fast. For example, I've been working on illustrations for a card game I'm working on, here's where I was a month ago vs current card designs. Do it, jump into Gimp!
☺️☺️☺️
Thanks for the wholesomeness, motivation, advice and resources! asklvhbaslkdj
Wow, will try to keep that in mind :)
Incroyable 🫡.
Your graphic design efforts are appreciated.
Absolutely goated and based effortposting! ^w^
So, we're doing the false equivalence "Both sides bad" posting on this level too, now? It was bad enough when it was dissuading American leftists from voting by both-sidesing GOP and the democrats, now we're supposed to believe Frontex is as bad as ICE and EU trade policy is as moronic as Trump's baseless tariff farts?
Note, this is not an invitation for you to tell the class the bad things Forex has done. I'm well aware. They're not patrolling European streets rounding up people who don't "look right", without identifying themselves, in flagrant violation of the law, and without ensuring their ~~kidnappees~~ detainees receive due process.
This meme is proving itself true. People romanticize the EU too much and/or don't know about what's going on in here.
I spend a lot of my free time helping migrants in my home country (France), they do get rounded up and sent in camps called "Centre de Rétention Administrative", some really really really bad places. Our police has been controlling IDs of parents outside schools, doing surprise ID checks at workplaces, etc. for a very long time. What ICE is currently doing isn't new to us. For example, earlier this year, we had a very public and pretty big ICE-like operation, and believe it or not, the general public cheered.
Mate you tell me to not talk about Frontex, well too bad, I will. The official death count is now at 66 519 as of 2025. That's just the documented death count, imagine what the real one is. We're not even counting Libyan torture camps and other similar lovely places paid for by our taxes. Some of my friends lost family members because of Frontex, I won't shut up about it just to please you. ICE is bad but it's not an exclusively american evil, it's a standard and expected incarnation of capitalist imperialism.
Yes, I'm happy to be living in the EU rather than in the USA. I do think the USA is a much worse place right now. But the difference is much easier to argue about when you're not on the wrong side of those massively murderous policies.
TL;DR: We have our own camps. Greece has one that's reminiscent of your Alligator Alcatraz. Chill tf out.
I can't even think of a cynical support remark for this, your comment took me on an emotional rollercoaster first of despair and emptiness that then gradually turned into a cold, burning hatred...
It's an accurate write-up that takes you back to the bleak, cold truth about capitalism:
The Deserter: The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world... (he's silent for a second) You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know.
You: What?
The Deserter: That the bourgeois are not human.
(If it's inappropriate to quote Disco Elysium here, please tell me)
But please don't take this as a pretence for inaction and hopelessness!
What does the entire history of socialism and of all modern revolutions show us? The first spark of class struggle in Europe, the revolt of the silk weavers in Lyon in 1831, ended with a heavy defeat; the Chartist movement in Britain ended in defeat; the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in the June days of 1848 ended with a crushing defeat; and the Paris commune ended with a terrible defeat. The whole road of socialism – so far as revolutionary struggles are concerned – is paved with nothing but thunderous defeats. Yet, at the same time, history marches inexorably, step by step, toward final victory! Where would we be today without those “defeats,” from which we draw historical experience, understanding, power and idealism? Today, as we advance into the final battle of the proletarian class war, we stand on the foundation of those very defeats; and we can['t] do without any of them, because each one contributes to our strength and understanding.
The revolutionary struggle is the very antithesis of the parliamentary struggle. In Germany, for four decades we had nothing but parliamentary “victories.” We practically walked from victory to victory. And when faced with the great historical test of August 4, 1914, the result was the devastating political and moral defeat, an outrageous debacle and rot without parallel. To date, revolutions have given us nothing but defeats. Yet these unavoidable defeats pile up guarantee upon guarantee of the future final victory.
- Rosa Luxemburg, Order Prevails in Berlin (January 1919)
(It's a short pamphlet and a very worthy and educating read!)
Hey man, just wanted to drop by and say thank you.
It is actually crazy how nationalist we have become as europeans and blinded by our own propaganda.
Our complicity and inaction in face of the genocide in gaza has opened my eyes as to how much i romanticised this shit. Not that i wasn't critic, we have all been ooooooh soooo critical. But to what end?
I hope more people wake up to this shit but for now even my friends cheer on our rising militarisation.
"We need to be ready for war by 2029" How much would peace cost please?
Frame it as a false dichotomy instead of false equivalence. Then two things become obvious:
- Cat shit is not elephant shit.
- Cat shit is still shit.
You're concerned people might fall for #1. That's fair; but OP is telling people to not fall for #2.
In other words, OP is a reminder that we shouldn't shield the EU and its actions against criticism, just because Canadian Mexico does it worse. They might be different on level, but some of the former are problematic for the exact same reasons and causes as the ones of the later. And yet people do it all the time, trying to "sell" the EU as if that entity was the good guys, and USA as the villain - no you muppets, it's dark grey vs. black, both are villains.
They're not patrolling European streets rounding up people who don't "look right", without identifying themselves, in flagrant violation of the law, and without ensuring their ~~kidnappees~~ detainees receive due process.
Not yet... The far right is rising fast in the EU. They're maybe one election cycle behind the US before Frontex is doing the same.
Yep, the EU being politically a better place is just propaganda. All the terrible things , invented somewhere else, eventually come here. As a repressed minority (hopefully just locally), I have no idea where to even go.
As many other liberals, you seem to only be concerned about "unlawfulness towards citizens", not humanity, justice, or ethics.
I don't know anyone who thinks Frontex is heroic.
I like this, but a minor nitpick on execution: I think the texts should be the other way around heightwise. Frontex and Ice are the boats patroling the mediterranean and the mexican border. And the imperialist systems they serve should be up in the towers.