this post was submitted on 29 Nov 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.

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] 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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Western perception of “Social credit” largely propaganda btw and if you believe it isnt then you got manipulated.

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[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

The US has both:

The Chinese Social Credit score is where your Facebook and other social media are scoured by HR before you are hired. But if you are rich, your Facebook posts don't matter because your Dad made you an executive the company.

A Credit Score is pure capitalism. You can be a racist asshole and get the best deal from banks because you have money.

China is no different with their Princeling "Fuerdai".

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Two things can suck at the same time.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 2 weeks ago

If you lack sufficient Internet points you cannot discuss that here.

[–] ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Not to say credit scores are fun, but comparing the two is kinda absurd. Credit scores are calculated by private companies and used by banks to determine your eligibility for a loan. Essentially, it's an averaged history of how good you are at repaying debt, and it's used to determine if you will repay future debt. The people who calculate your score have no interest in how it affects you. The social credit system is a government score and has tons of things that can affect it, and there's plenty of opportunity for fudgery to screw you over. There are tons of ways in can negatively affect you. Worst of all, it can be used to deny international flights, and in effect your ability to escape the system. Since this is actually run by the government, it creates an avenue for punishing political dissent and control that just doesn't exist with credit scores.

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[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Two things can be bad at the same time.

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This thought-terminating cliche is getting so tired. You may as well just say "let's just agree to disagree".

It's telling that this cliche is most often applied when western whataboutism is correctly called out, and all it does is serve to legitimize the act of manufacturing consent against China.

USA invents credit score way back in the 50s

credit score is immediately used to pull off the most calculatingly misogynistic, racist, and classist financial enforcement in modern history.

china implements a technically similar system that aims not to control working people's financial agency, but to strengthen public trust.

the west immediately spins up the presses and releases dozens of hit pieces a year that manufacture consent against China by portraying the Chinese social credit system as an orwellian nightmare that will rip a child out of their parent's home if the household spends too much time on videos games.

leftists identify this whataboutism and correctly call it out

liberals drop one of their various thought-terminating cliches to (not so) subtly bolster the western narrative - thus manufacturing consent against China.

You've been effortlessly oriented by the State Department and its various propaganda apparatus.

[–] HellieSkellie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If you believe China's social credit system is a good way to "strengthen public trust" then I want to know how you feel about people like Xu Xiaodong, whose social credit was destroyed for exposing fake martial artists and refusing to apologize to them.

[–] InevitableList@beehaw.org -1 points 2 weeks ago

If you violate a court order in my country you get sent to prison. China is so progressive that you aren't even put under house arrest for the same offense.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems -1 points 2 weeks ago

I like that you brought up an example that can be analyzed. The court ordered him to apologize and he didn't follow through, there has to be some consequence to disobeying a judge. But it seems to me they could benefit from less hegemonic judges.

[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So credit scores are... good?

I hate you.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Could at least argue credit shows your payment history and debt to income ratio, social credit score could be literally anything. Both can suck at the same time.

[–] clot27@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Isnt social credit system just a meme?

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

No, it effects a lot of ways in which you are allowed to live

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[–] uncouple9831@lemmy.zip -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (6 children)

What the fuck is this nonsense?

Nobody likes credit scores but it's at least marginally financial measurements that are used for financial decisions.

It's regressive, but only because our society is regressive. A middle class person who overspends and doesn't pay their bills on time is probably gonna get treated better than a poor person who needs groceries and fails to pay their grocery bills on time, yes. But it's still financial.

The poor person isn't being stopped from buying a train ticket. They might not have money to do so, but that's a different societal fuck up.

At least compare apples to apples.

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[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You say western but I live in the UK and while credit ratings exist here I have never had a reason to care about them. Never even had a credit card. Only time I borrowed money is for my mortgage.

[–] dogbert@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

You say western but I live in the UK

You’re fucking with me right? …

Edit: My bad, did not understand the point you were making.

My new response is no shit you don’t gotta worry about credit score if you never owned a credit card lol

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The usual response I get to not having a credit card is that I must get a credit score to rent or buy a house. Nope.

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[–] Datz@szmer.info 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Is the UK not considered the West? I don't understand.

He's claiming this whole credit problem is US only and not the rest of the West.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yes the US is the only place that the FICO credit score is so ubiquitous. It's been pushed onto US allies too but the allies generally don't pay it backward all the way to their citizen's purchases.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah pretty much. Or at least the severity of the problem is largely the US. As credit does exist here but you can also completely ignore it. A fairly large percentage of adults don't have credit cards here.

[–] Datz@szmer.info -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

(Relatively) free healthcare and education probably helps (Poland here). At the same time, the housing crisis means a lot of people need credit for houses, but I don't follow the system here to know how bad it is for that - barely anyone complains on this topic at least, seems like people who need credit get it.

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