Counterpoint

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!
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
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.
Counterpoint

Is this the praxis I keep hearing about?
Propagandize me bitches
Australian here: can confirm that all kangaroos are tankies.
Anarchocommunists in shambles.
"We should have One Big Revolution!"
"Noooo! We should have a bunch of itty bitty revolutions!"
"Okay, fine. Let's do Trotskyism as a compromise."
"Sure thing brow, just turn around real quick"

Basically, but I'm golem/smeegoling my way through it all
I wish. The world would be a much better place if the left could agree until we differ
Of course it would but see only my ideology gets that!
The problem is Trotskyists and Marxist-Leninists and anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists and …
/s
And don’t even get me started on the anarcho-engineers!

You leftists sure are a contentious people.
Nah anarchists and non-ml communists get along great because we want the same thing.
yep, this is just the standard “hey leftists! fight each other now! don’t have the revolution until after you fight each other as much as possible!”
Unless it’s the Spanish Civil War, where the Comintern spent more effort killing anarchists/social democrats than fighting the fascists.
This seems like the most likely scenario in the US. America is full of idiots raging for the machine
America is full of idiots raging for the machine
Underrated comment.
Or the Ukrainian theatre of the Russian civil war, during which the Bolsheviks tried to kill Makhno no less than four times, in spite of his movement fighting the whites alongside them.
SEE!?
Everybody? See?
The authoritarian's know what side they're on.
Time to stop falling for pitchforks vs torches. Time to stop allying ourselves with our authoritarian counterparts.

The communism-anarchism conflict often resembles the divide between urban and rural society.
It isn't insurmountable.
Yup. Sure isn't.
Easier yet, as we can (and shall) build things differently, to what the economic imbalances of industrial capitalism drew forth. And as emancipatory technologies are availed (to each and all).
That's one hell of a furry costume