this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Lefty Memes

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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.

Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.

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

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] 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.



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

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The fuck is a purity test?

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

it's a democrat pejorative they use when people say, for example, they wouldn't be willing to vote for gavin newsom as president because he's a transphobe. in other words, a dog whistle for bigots.

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[–] roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Bit of an oversimplification but: "if you don't agree with me on 100% of the issues you're just as bad as the person who disagrees with me on 100% of the issues."

Often cited as a big reason why we can't come together to defeat the far-right influenced right who do come together when it matters to get in office.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I mean, obviously candidate X is terrible (his platform is literally to give everyone aids), but I can't vote FOR candidate Y in good faith. You see, world hunger a huge problem and it barely even appears in candidate Y's platform! Similarly, there's no support for people with alopecia, from which my dear friend suffers.

All the dermatological apologists want you to just vote for the person who doesn't want to give everyone aids, but it's time to send a clear message by not voting at this critical time because it was very effective the last time we did it, and the time before that, and the time before that. If you want me to vote, then give me someone to vote FOR! I really don't want to just yell into the internet and not vote for anything, but what choice do I have? I have to stand for something by doing nothing!

[–] RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Easy to see when there's a proxy argument or flamewar going on because few of the comments engage with what's actually been said 😅 A couple things I see:

  1. There's a false dichotomy between saying "I don't want purity tests" and being 100% hell-bent on 'perfect purity' of some sort. For example, I came back after a break to see people in Linuxy communities fighting against 'purity testing' a blatant racist, among others. On one 'side' I see "Purity testing is bad!" and on the other 'side' it's "Okay but open bigotry maybe a little bad too???"

  2. People seem to be seriously insisting that everyone sit down, shut up, and blindly support the US Democratic Party? Never call anything out, never seek 'better,' only accept what's offered from above 🐎🧟 (pretend that's a donkey, okay? 😅 ) Anyway, maybe I'm out of line and "lefty" is farther from "leftist" than I think buuuut... no. The left is about a better world, not quiet acceptance. Maybe try hanging out with other liberals and moderates? Could be they're less eager to argue their own ideas or against what they see as wrong.

tl;dr: True purity tests are for auth garbage but I think what's going on here is people crying "zomg ur the real nazis" when somebody calls out a bigot.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)
  1. Some purity testing is good, infinite depth purity testing is not practical.

  2. Incremental progress is better than no progress or backward steps. Even for house seats, we have a year or year and a half to push candidates more left or vote for candidates who are more progressive. When election day arrives, again, it is time to be practical.

There are plenty of us on the left that would rather take a practical stance than let the country eat itself to say "I told you so". The DNC can go fly a kite, but I'd like my trans and brown friends to not be harassed and disappeared?

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Seeing like decades of progress torn apart like tissue paper over less that 2 years of the current admin is driving a lot of people insane. The occasional 2 steps forward and 1 step back, followed by 2 steps back and 1 forward was replaced by a lit match on a pile of wood and gasoline.

The system by which you gain incremental progress was just visibly broken for people, and they saw all the rights they had fought years or decades for backslide into nothing in weeks. Def a bit crazy-making and I can see why there's a clash between Clinton liberal-moderates and the people the marginalized people they were supposed to protect, and the people who care about protecting those marginalized people.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Purity tests are fine. Requiring Zero parts per trillion levels of purity is a problem. Those people don't exist.

[–] SaltSong@startrek.website 44 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't want purity tests because we, on the left, are incapable of reaching a consensus on much of anything. If we can't agree to tolerate a limited amount of disagreement with each other, we can't work together on the things we do agree on, and those things tend to be kind of important.

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[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Jesus Christ, a meme unironically supporting purity tests, what the actual fuck.

Can any of you that support purity tests actually pass all the purity tests?

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

The people on lemmy complaining about purity tests are typically the ones to rally to the defense of a US marine and Blackwater merc with 4 tours in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan and a tattoo of the SS skull because he is running as a democrat.

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Are you describing some actual person or is that a hyperbole?

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

That's pretty funny. I checked the tattoo and yeah dude got (accidentally or not) a Nazi tattoo. Pretty funny if he didn't know about it lol

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[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yes. By lying.

The fucked up thing us I often fail left purity tests for being too far left.

That said: too many red flags and I'm out, even if they got stars or tools on em

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