this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
1208 points (96.8% liked)

Lefty Memes

4112 readers
905 users here now

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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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,

as well as 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.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Oh hey, also the same thing with environmental issues

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Thing is, the research into direct cash transfusions and other straight basic income has shown that poor people generally have a very good idea of what they specifically need to do to get out of poverty, be that a gym membership to shower, good clothes, a bike or car, an apartment, someplace to keep documents and medications where they won’t be thrown out by cops, getting a GED after their parents threw them out for being gay, a preschool because their minimum wage job won’t let them keep a baby around the building, or other prerequisite to getting a job / a job that pays well enough for an apartment, they just don’t have the money to actually do any of it.

A person have a good community kitchen they can go to and get free food, and as such food stamps are worthless to them, but they can’t spend that same pittance on something that would actually help them get out of poverty like clothes and a gym membership or saving up for a small car where they can store their stuff and get to jobs, all because a government commite of people and lobbyists who have never lived outside of a gated community have decided what each poor persons budget should look like and coincidentally they all look the same.

People know how to learn to catch fish, they just can’t do it without the right tools, or because they have to be back standing in line at the shelter by 3PM each day.