this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
84 points (67.8% liked)

Lefty Memes

5935 readers
490 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, 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)


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:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Edit

Fixed a small typo in the alt text section.

all 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Leftist memes community

Looks inside

Basic anti-imperialist meme with 63 downvotes

jk i love this community lol

edit: it keeps fucking expanding lmao

[–] Bad@jlai.lu 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

The EU does a lot of cute PR, I understand why people get baited.

Anyone who's had to deal directly or indirectly with frontex knows what it's really all about though.

Memes like this one are important, the controversial reaction means it actually challenges how people think.

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

EU imperialism/neo-colonialism is overlooked too much even in leftist spaces, and even defended. I think memes like this are great, since it actually points out the elephant in the room, makes pro-imperialists fuck off from leftist spaces, and might change somebody's opinion :) Thank you alsaaas 🫡

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago

LMAL, here to serve 💅💅

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Real.

Tho we would probably have to defed half of Lemmy to cut down on the downvotes 💀💀💀

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago

Let them. What good is a leftist space if there's no downvotes? That's where the real good content is xd

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Should we open a cycle jerk for content like this? /hj Or you can meta post even on here IDC

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago

Good idea lol

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When you are an exploitative currency bloc that forces austerity onto people, keeps ex colonies under your thumb, enforced a deeply unjust legalistic framework of international reliations, but you have some decent regulations and don't axe literally all research.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago

A liberals' wet dream Obama on a drone

[–] FundMECFS@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

The EU is a neoliberal technocracy with social democratic aesthetics.

It literally enforces capitalism, austerity (and thereby cuts of welfare).

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Very well put, it's also a xenophobic fortress thanks to Frontex killing thousands at the border each year (and then libs whine about ~170 having died at the GDR's border). AFAIK border controls inside Schengen, justified with right-wing populist arguments regurgitated even by greens and social democrats, were introduced...

Even having a functioning (read: properly nationalised) railway is incompatible with EU law because of some BS legislation about "fair competition" 💀💀💀

Edit

changed "inside shengen" in all caps to being stylised in Markdown, since it would be spelled out by screen readers instead of being read properly

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

https://rivals.space/@deuxnise/115032733056555001 Peter Griffin at a traffic stop - the cop uses a skin color chart to tell if Peter has "schengen / freedom of movement" or if he has to submt to an "anti-terrorism border check"

transcriptPeter Griffin at a traffic stop - the cop uses a skin color chart to tell if Peter has "schengen / freedom of movement" or if he has to submt to an "anti-terrorism border check"

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

OMG that's painfully accurate 💀, feel free to post it here as well

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago

Hang on, I gotta call the based department

[–] zeropointone@lemmy.world 29 points 5 days ago (1 children)

EU citizen here. It's much worse than that. The average EU citizen can be proud of the EU's imperalism/capitalism and simultaneously believe that the EU is a socialist utopia.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

From Germany myself LOL. Lib wanna be "leftist" larpers are insufferable, their cognitive dissonance hurts, especially regarding what you mentioned

[–] zeropointone@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

Germany is the worst when it comes to this.

[–] Morningstar_bitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

🫡 that's what I'm here for :3

[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The euros are getting angry lmao.

[–] azolus@slrpnk.net 37 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)
[–] Bad@jlai.lu 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Lmao this one's genuinely great.

I'm borrowing the idea for a twist on it, thanks for making/sharing it.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sounds great, feel free sharing it here once you're done. Can't wait :3

[–] Bad@jlai.lu 3 points 5 days ago
[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago

I can't wait for your creation lol, always love seeing them A crudely drawn yellow person laughing

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago

Feel free to post that on here as well, good shit

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 5 days ago

let them seethe, they are best served well cooked 😁

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Most people cannot understand this, but imperialism bad.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No but see when you psint it red its more good and also faster.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Got anything article-length I can read about this? I've always thought of the EU as a docile-ish vehicle for US imperialism rather than its own engine of imperialism.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I can name a few things to get you started.

Exemplary keywords (off the top of my head):

Disclaimer about Wikipedia: it often has a liberal bias in the way it portrays things, but offers a good starting point to get you acquainted with a topic (read: it functions well as an encyclopedia LOL).

In more general terms: it boils down to outsourcing based on globalisation, unequal "trade agreements" and "resource/mineral rights" and the shit France is still pulling with their CFA Francs in Africa.

However you should keep in mind the following: the era of classic colonialism (and imperialism to an extent) is largely over, replaced with their globalised neo- counterparts. Officially the countries are independent, but the old dynamics have only been renewed/remade and obfuscated through the process often called globalisation.

Here is a longer article by Monthly review:

That might be a good read (I don't have the time to read it right now, but skimming it, it seems solid)

Edit: also general exploitation based on a global supply chain and siphoning off uncountable amounts of surplus value as profit or cheap prises for the global north.

[–] zeezee@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Also note this DW video of Frontex personnel enabling so called "pushbacks" (ie coastal guards with batons chasing down a boat of migrants)

and the comments are just what you would expect from a place with the motto "united in diversity"...

also idk if this is DW being dumb af or just a straight up mask off nazi moment but wtf

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

DW is basically German Radio "Liberty". It's directly part of the government, not (nominally) separate like the other state-broadcasters

[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago

nawww, thanks! ~w~

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The EU is broken and makes places worse and enforces Germanico-French imperialism upon other places. Wish it pushed back more against US rubbish.

It is still something that if the US was more like the world would be better off.

Obviously if both were substantially different and not pushing imperialism by soft, economic, and hard power we'd all be even better off.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The EU is ready to go on the knees before the USA on a whim (see Von der Leyen with recent tariff talks.) 💀

At least the concept of the EU in the sense of a common economic area and a union of peoples isn't as grotesque as that of the "U"SA. Still, the EU is rotten to the core since it's very foundation is built as a union of financial capital...

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Aye, anyone who can be blind to the truth of the EU after it deposed the Greek government and imposed austerity across southern Europe is not a person with sense.

It is a project of Capital. Not one that works for the people, not even those of Germany or France.

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Hard agree, though I would argue that EU has it's own imperial core and that the people there benefit a lot from those circumstances (compared to the (internal) imperial periphery), a labour aristocracy of sorts.

But OFC the average working people would be better off without the EU

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 5 days ago

Yes, certainly there are many people in the EU that benefit, but for most of them that's a side effect of the choices capital makes for how it runs it.

The system itself doesn't care about Human Resources managers in France. Regardless of what Jean-Luc and Laura think.