this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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

Version without spoilers

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] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility


(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)

We encourage 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" (read: Dengists) (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.


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.


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

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not to mention all the progress traps capitalism stepped into

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[–] grandel@lemmy.ml 51 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The planet won't die, but we will

[–] athatet@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Not a fan of comments like this because it ignores all of the species that we are taking with us. Sure the planet will bounce back eventually but we really fucked the ever loving shit out of it.

[–] Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

Even if humanity doesn't go extinct, we are one of earth's big extinction events. If anything it could be argued that humanity being wiped out would save more species in the long run.

To e clear I don't disagree with you, I just don't see the point in enshrining species alive now as the most deserving over potential species in the future simply because they have emotional value to humans that will be dead.

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[–] SourDragon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The dragons will rise again! (But in all seriousness, this whole situation does really suck)

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 38 points 2 weeks ago

Who knew that you could turn an entire planet into a gas chamber?

Venus.

[–] PumaStoleMyBluff@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Okay but why does the picture look like someone put their phone on a flatbed scanner

[–] uselessartifact@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Or they took a picture of another screen and the camera's refresh rate caught the display's scan line.

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[–] nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz 27 points 2 weeks ago

Let's be fair, we've made plenty of species extinct just for the love of the game.

[–] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

It’s not capitalism per se. It’s the lazy, stupid populace that allows the system of regulatory capture we have.

The fossil fuel industry also gets a metric fuck ton of tax payer funded subsidies. That’s not capitalism. That’s a quasi state economy.

In a true capitalist system, we’d see more competitive forms of energy taking off, like solar and wind which are cheaper than fossil fuels at this point. But because the government keeps fossil fuels going, we’re not getting off them.

[–] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think it's inevitable of any human system that it eventually is undermined by greed and selfishness. Some systems are just more prone to it.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

If a system were to work, it would have a way to deal with the psychopaths and other cluster b folks. It's always been us vs them, throughout history.

[–] A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Genuine question. how are the voters supposed to keep their leaders accountable?

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

I hear the French have ideas

[–] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

By voting. The US has set term lengths at every level. If the leaders are not fulfilling their job properly, they get fired.

For representatives it’s every two years.

That requires having an informed and active constituency though, which we do not have.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 8 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

And it will never happen because the people who control the resources also control the narrative. They promote their candidates, who change the laws in their favour, and progressively make things worse for your average person.

The system you describe is a pipe dream, and it's a nice dream, but it's not reflective of the world we live in today.

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[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

And what happens when the elections are not-so-subtly influenced by corporate lobbyists and whoever has more money to spend on campaigning?

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[–] Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 weeks ago

200 species a day!

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 weeks ago

the fossil gas problem is only about 50 years old. before that, levels were increasing but still manageable. carbon taxes were designed to be a solution compatible with capitalism

[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Capitalism only works when there's a big bad Soviet state that they have to compete against in a popularity contest in the global stage, and if they go mask-off it scares all the fence sitting nations into communism.

If 2008 had happens in 1968 everyone involved would have been tried as Soviet saboteurs or something in a big red scare purge. "Using capitalism against itself" or something....

Not to say anhydrous communism is the solution either. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle of ⅔ communism for natural monopolies and necessities, and ⅓ capitalism for luxury goods and comoddities in purely elastic markets.

A tank of gas and a TV cost the same amount of money because competition legitimately worked for the TV, and fucking didn't for the gasoline 🤣

unregulated captialism..

it wasn't always unregulated.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

It's hard to know if the world would still suck the same under a different system.

But I agree lol

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

"Why...there oughta be a law!" /s

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

There oughta be enforced laws. There’s plenty of laws, just rich people have enough lawyers that they make prosecution onerous. Nobody has the balls to cut through the bullshit because rich people will apply all kinds of pressure to a system that has become more and more vulnerable to the pressures wealth can exert.

[–] A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago

once you control a large percentage of a given currency, you become above the law

[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

To be fair, what we have in most of the world isn’t actually raw/pure capitalism, most of the time called Laissez-faire capitalism. Most of the world has a mixed economy of different capitalism implantations across the board in different areas: state/regulated/corporate capitalism and best of all crony capitalism.

Regulated capitalism may actually work if we regulated it fairly and didn’t have megacorps writing the laws. But I don’t have that much faith in human nature to not keep fucking it up like we’ve done so many times.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 weeks ago

Regulated capitalism may actually work if we regulated it fairly and didn’t have megacorps writing the laws.

Here's the thing....that's true for literally every form of governance/economic planning you can conceive.

The problem with {socialism|capitalism|communism|anarchism} will always be "the ones with all the {de facto|de jure} power".

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I'd go one further and note that environmentalism isn't exactly endemic outside the capitalist sphere of influence. The USSR was dirty af. Chinese Communists were openly antagonistic to environmental movements until the early '00s, when air quality in Beijing got so bad that the national leadership was forced to reconcile with it.

The real virtue of socialist policy is in it's ability to adapt democratically, while capitalists are bound up in authoritarian modes of production. But if the public at-large doesn't see the benefit of a good policy, there's nothing inherent to the mode of production that makes it cleaner.

Regulated capitalism may actually work if we regulated it fairly and didn’t have megacorps writing the laws.

Regulated capitalism is just a tiger by the tail. As soon as you lose you grip, it eats you.

The only way to keep mega-corps from writing policy is to abolish them. Otherwise, why wouldn't wealthy people try to beg, browbeat, or business plot a state government?

At some point, you need to eliminate the bourgeois class entirely. It's us or them, over a long enough timeline.

[–] Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

It's extinct species per minute not year, there are a lot of unique species most of them still undiscovered going extinct.

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