from leftistgamermemes.

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      26 天前

      Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance. For the sake of brevity and for reaching a wider audience, this is how the meme was created.

      It’s not my OC.

      • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        26 天前

        “Welfare” is shorter and substantially more accurate. Citing “brevity” is ridiculous when it involves invoking a concept that the intended audience doesn’t understand except by crass misconception. It would literally be more sensible to do sloganeering with a term like “philology,” where someone at least understands that they don’t know what it means and, if they gave a shit, look it up, rather than socialism where they will either say “Oh, welfare” and not a thing was accomplished over saying “welfare” besides perpetuating crass misconception, and that’s probably the best outcome.

        • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          26 天前

          Sure, but it isn’t as catchy. The point is that governments offer the benefits we all would receive under socialism to the few willing to enforce the will of capitalism. However that isn’t as succinct.

          • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            26 天前

            You’re just saying whatever to produce the desired conclusion of defending this poorly-written . . . what to even call this? A “meme?” It’s nonsensical and citing “catchiness” doesn’t help anything when it’s inaccurate and frankly still cumbersome anyway.

            • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              26 天前

              You’re just saying whatever to produce the desired conclusion of defending this poorly-written…

              Because there’s a specific context behind it and the page that it came from.

              A “meme?"

              Man, yet these kind of memes off that page reach more people than you likely ever had so far. Weird, how that works. While you’re over here mouthing off non-sense about puritan definitions of what “socialism” actually is instead of considering the context of what the meme, where it came from and how much work it’s actually doing.

              It’s nonsensical and citing “catchiness” doesn’t help anything when it’s inaccurate and frankly still cumbersome anyway.

              maximum reddit activated.

              • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                26 天前

                Man, yet these kind of memes off that page reach more people than you likely ever had. Weird, how that works. While you’re over here mouthing off non-sense about puritan definitions of what “socialism” actually is instead of considering the context of what the meme, where it came from and how much work it’s actually doing.

                “A bunch of redditors jerking each other off is real praxis, sweaty.” This is just bullshit for their goofy echo chamber, don’t pretend that this is what’s raising consciousness in the masses. Even setting aside that it’s a detriment to helping people understand what socialism actually is, you are utterly misrepresenting the reach and influence of what is seriously just slop. In general, slop is fine, the slop part I don’t have any problem with, but that means getting huffy about what important work you’re doing is absurd. Have you considered how little work it’s actually doing?

                This shit is like people defending their favorite breadtube liberals as being real change-makers, except those freaks do numbers sometimes and this is plainly niche. Nonetheless, even when criticizing a breadtube liberal, you don’t actually need to have more subscribers than them in order to be right, because saying that shit is just a deflection.

                mouthing off non-sense about puritan definitions of what “socialism” actually is

                All you can do is deflect and shift around because you know that if “socialism” is a floating signifier, then even if this bullshit had reach and “influence,” it wouldn’t matter because the term is meaningless. Instead you present snarl words to accuse me of purity testing because, if you actually used the phrase “purity testing”, you’d make it much more apparent that your position is ridiculous because all of us are familiar with the way the term gets abused as a permission structure for “accept whatever bullshit I present to you or you’re the problem”.

                If socialism is permitted to mean “a broken welfare system” as it does here, then your vague “anti-capitalist” gesticulations are worthless, because a positive, non-capitalist alternative is needed to actually challenge the status quo, and this undermines socialism as a positive, non-capitalist alternative.

                • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  26 天前

                  “A bunch of redditors jerking each other off is real praxis, sweaty.”

                  This wasn’t even posted on Reddit. Can I call someone a dunce?

                  don’t pretend that this is what’s raising consciousness in the masses.

                  When the fuck did I do that?

                  t’s a detriment to helping people understand what socialism actually is, you are utterly misrepresenting the reach and influence of what is seriously just slop.

                  The one meme that brought the fall of Socialism. Schrodinger’s slop. Both will detriment the cause and is misrepresented in reach and influence.

                  All you can do is deflect and shift around because you know that if “socialism” is a floating signifier

                  What the fuck am I deflecting and shifting? I have made my case clear and it very much fucking is even in scientific method of analysis.

                  “accept whatever bullshit I present to you or you’re the problem”.

                  I quite literally don’t give a fuck what you accept or don’t. Does that make it better?

                  Have you considered how little work it’s actually doing?

                  Have you?

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      26 天前

      I think the message is the fact that the government is willing to provide fully tax-payer funded benefits of healthcare, education, etc to it’s “workers” and their children based off of their service in exploitation for the imperial core.

        • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          26 天前

          Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance.

          I’m well aware of both.

      • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        26 天前

        muddying the definition of socialism

        Nobody is muddying anything. Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance.

        I’m well aware of both.

        • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          26 天前

          It’s an extremely unhelpful framing. Just say “welfare” if you want to say “welfare.” Don’t stoop to asinine definitions that result in saying that the US is “partially socialist” and in fact even Ancient Rome is “partially socialist.”

          • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            26 天前

            Because the framing is based off nostalgia and that a few are offered the benefits we all would receive under socialist governance in exchange for enforcing the will of capitalism. Context is important.

            • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              26 天前

              Because the framing is based off nostalgia

              ???

              and that a few are offered the benefits we all would receive under socialist governance in exchange for enforcing the will of capitalism. Context is important.

              This sort of distortion doesn’t even qualify as revisionist. Do veterans control the means of production? Are they democratically represented in government? Beyond some of them getting a pension or some equivalent, is there anything protecting them from the grinding gears of the class society that they are still in the underclass of? Fuck, do they even get proper medical care, for however much they are promised it? The answer to all is no.

              I mentioned in another comment that simply reinforcing crass misconceptions at the same time as delivering the message more clumsily than if OOP just said “welfare” was one of the better outcomes. I said that in part because, if you look at how vets are treated, it goes against virtually everything socialists believe in besides a portion of them getting retirement or pension or whatever, which really isn’t much of a bar, and I think it’s pretty reasonable to read this slop as saying that they are being fed false promises of the government helping them in order to use and then neglect them, which is a more popular view of what socialism is than the sub-Bernie drivel that was the intended reading.

              To the extent that this resists the neglect reading, it’s also just inaccurate not only to socialism but to how the military operates by saying that the ““socialism”” is what enables the soldier to go enforce capitalism, because the ““socialism”” part overwhelmingly comes after, unless ““socialism”” here means the infrastructure of the US military in general, in which case you’ve reached “socialism is when the government does stuff.” Everything about this text is trash.

              Whoever made this should do a basic level of research before skipping to being the epic agitprop memester.

              • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                26 天前

                ??? This is my entire fucking point. Literally it’s a “leftistgamermeme” page from instagram that posts misquoted scenes from games. It is a form of basic agitprop that plays on nostalgia for those who grew up or played these games. Not only is this the form of context you’re missing, but i’ll gladly continue.

                This sort of distortion doesn’t even qualify as revisionist. Do veterans control the means of production? Are they democratically represented in government? Beyond some of them getting a pension or some equivalent, is there anything protecting them from the grinding gears of the class society that they are still in the underclass of? Fuck, do they even get proper medical care, for however much they are promised it? The answer to all is no.

                Fuck no. The benefits that most veterans, despite what your “revisionist” ideals consist of is a plethora of government subsidies and benefits that you get. I don’t know where the fuck this idea comes from that every baby-killer is some down-on-luck homeless veteran that lives in a fucking box. They and their children get free education, free healthcare. They get pensions, benefits; sure they suffer for it but that is one of the things they pay for in exchange for servicing the will of capital.

                All of those benefits, all of those things can be offered to all of us and our government is capable of demonstrating that despite being capitalist under a socialist governance. Regardless of the fact that it should be destroyed.

                To the extent that this resists the neglect reading, it’s also just inaccurate not only to socialism but to how the military operates by saying that the ““socialism”” is what enables the soldier to go enforce capitalism, because the ““socialism”” part overwhelmingly comes after, unless ““socialism”” here means the infrastructure of the US military in general, in which case you’ve reached “socialism is when the government does stuff.” Everything about this text is trash.

                Except that’s not at all what this saying. The context is the other posts and various content that the page has made. Soldiers are offered the benefits that would be offered to all the workers under a socialist governance but instead are offered those “socialist” benefits in exchange for service to enforcing the will of capital.

                That isn’t wrong, it isn’t “incorrect” to say that it is “socialism” even if it isn’t scientifically accurate to the word or our niche/specific political definitions. This would matter more on say, my home-instance Lemmygrad then a left-unity board especially when a lot of newer folks are on here. Words can have multiple meanings and those inflections can shift based on the context they’re being used.

                “Government does stuff” has meaning based on the fucking context.

                Whoever made this should do a basic level of research before skipping to being the epic agitprop memester.

                • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  26 天前

                  This is my entire fucking point. Literally it’s a “leftistgamermeme” page from instagram that posts misquoted scenes from games. It is a form of basic agitprop that plays on nostalgia for those who grew up or played these games. Not only is this the form of context you’re missing, but i’ll gladly continue.

                  None of this has yet justified the particular thing written.

                  Fuck no. The benefits that most veterans, despite what your “revisionist” ideals consist of is a plethora of government subsidies and benefits that you get. I don’t know where the fuck this idea comes from that every baby-killer is some down-on-luck homeless veteran that lives in a fucking box. They and their children get free education, free healthcare. They get pensions, benefits; sure they suffer for it but that is one of the things they pay for in exchange for servicing the will of capital.

                  All of those benefits, all of those things can be offered to all of us and our government is capable of demonstrating that despite being capitalist under a socialist governance. Regardless of the fact that it should be destroyed.

                  You are decades out of touch on the state of VA bullshit if you think you can simply say they get free healthcare, but even if they got free healthcare they would still not have democratic control of the government and of the means of production and would still, on average, be in the underclass, which sort of undermines the pitch of what socialism is.

                  Except that’s not at all what this saying. The context is the other posts and various content that the page has made. Soldiers are offered the benefits that would be offered to all the workers under a socialist governance but instead are offered those “socialist” benefits in exchange for service to enforcing the will of capital.

                  I think you just misread what I said here. My point is that, besides debt forgiveness (which I left out before, my bad), the various benefits are mostly relevant after someone has already served in the military, making it clumsy to say that they enable the soldier to be a soldier.

                  If your agitprop “meme” requires reference to other agitprop “memes” from your Instagram page, it might not be good agitprop or a good “meme”, or else the way that you’re presenting something out of context is doing a complete disservice to the project. That said, I don’t think the other content on the page would especially change things here.

                  That isn’t wrong, it isn’t “incorrect” to say that it is “socialism” even if it isn’t scientifically accurate to the word or our niche/specific political definitions. This would matter more on say, my home-instance Lemmygrad then a left-unity board especially when a lot of newer folks are on here. Words can have multiple meanings and those inflections can shift based on the context they’re being used.

                  It seems to me to be the most important thing to have even basic heuristic definitions for socialism for newer people (though I don’t think that many newer people are on HB, it’s a very insular board). Something extremely basic like “economic democracy” is a much better framework to present people to not just generate confusion as to what you’re even talking about.

                  “Government does stuff” has meaning based on the fucking context.

                  “Socialism is when the government does stuff” does have a meaning, in fact it has several, and the pertinent meaning that I was hoping to draw your attention to is that when you let socialism become a floating signifier or let it become slurred into some bullshit that we already have another word for, it gets in the way of people understanding socialism and even understanding capitalism! We should be helping people to understand rather than being weird intellectual tailists who pander to misconceptions that are literally the most core reason for people not understanding our position. It’s literally one of the biggest problems for socialism in America (for example) that no one knows what the fuck it is, and even our “left” (like Bernie) seems intent on promoting confusion. We’ve seen over and over in spaces like antiwork that vague and overly-negatively-oriented “anti-capitalism” is a failure of ideological framing that is instantly just co-opted by liberals, but what framework do you even have for saying that such a thing is bad? If the liberals get more updoots to the left, then aren’t they doing the work while we should sit our asses down and listen to their insight? People liking red flags is not productive if the flags don’t mean anything, and in fact it is counter-productive because it muddles communication and gets in the way of education.

                  I half-remembered before, but now I actually remembered the breadtube comparison that I wanted, which was Contra going “[tankies] only want to critique power, rather than gain power”. Congrats Contra, you gained power, or at least fame and riches, and you did it by avoiding leftist critique like the plague and being a slay queen neoliberal slimeball. Nothing gets better if you capitulate on ideological engagement while farming post engagement. You become unable to win any sort of victory for progressivism, and instead are just winning victories for your own career as a phrase-monger.

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      26 天前

      Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance. For the sake of brevity and for reaching a wider audience, this is how the meme was created.

      It’s not my OC.

  • fox [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    26 天前

    Socialism is when you blow your leg off killing brown children and then the government claims it’s a pre-existing condition but they’ll offer a low interest loan to study film so you can express how sad you were killing the brown children

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      26 天前

      I think the message is the fact that the government is willing to provide fully tax-payer funded benefits of healthcare, education, etc to it’s “workers” and their children based off of their service in exploitation for the imperial core. Extends beyond soldiers too.

  • godlessworm [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    26 天前

    @people who are bothered by the framing here, i think we all are, but its also important to recognize your average person doesnt know what socialism is and in that framing this in great critique and an easy way to point out a problem. is it based on a false definition? sure. the premise is correct tho and thats what most people seeing this are understanding and what’s important. those people can learn what socialism is after they learn what the US military actually is.

      • godlessworm [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        26 天前

        its not antisocialist tho, its pro socialist. its just not sure what socialism is lol.

        its saying people are offered “socialism” (painted as good things like housing and healthcare) to go abroad and defend capitalism

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          edit-2
          26 天前

          That’s not the only way to interpret it. It can also be interpreted to say benefits should be taken away from them.

              • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                26 天前

                I think it’s also important to use the clues and context from the material like with literally any other piece of literature, media or literally anything else you would ever consume. Obviously, I’m not a right-libertarian.

                Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance to the average American. I think this would reach them better from personal experience than a 4-page theory block condensed into a meme.

                Once you are close with, are talking to, etc with a person, feel free to drop the 4-1000s of pages of theory on a governance controlled by the working class.

                This reminds me of my friend when I posted a quote from a Soviet sniper saying that a “Good nazi is a dead nazi” and my friend starts going off on me about “how that’s the same kinda thing fascists say”. Literally use the context.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  26 天前

                  If you expect normies to use context clues to sus out the true meaning of your memes you aren’t going to reach them, they’re just going to interpret it through the dominant ideology and reach right-wing conclusions. They’ll conclude that it’s unfair that veterans get to have benefits and think we should take those benefits away from them or that everyone should be forced to serve in the military so that they can all get healthcare. They aren’t going to make a leftist critique and jump to the idea that everyone could have healthcare, they’re just going to feed their brainworms and metabolize this meme from the right.

                  That doesn’t mean we need our memes to be 4-page commie blocks of text, we just need to be careful is all I’m saying.

      • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        26 天前

        Unironically, it is a part of it. It’s capable of showing what a worker-controlled governance could do for it’s people if it was a socialist model. There is a scientific definition of socialism and one that could be used to refer to a welfare/public service part of governance to the average American.

        They’d be more receptive to this message than me sitting there and explaining 50 pages of theory on a 4-page meme. There is a reason the channel/page that makes these is popular.

      • godlessworm [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        26 天前

        they already have the wrong definition of socialism. they just learned a new perspective about capitalism tho. you didn’t always know the correct definition of socialism. seeing a meme on the internet doesn’t grant an eternal curse on you that disallows you from ever learning what the correct definition of socialism is

        • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          26 天前

          But why would you take your extremely limited audience with a passing viewer as a chance to reinforce a nonsense definition when it’s genuinely one of the core difficulties socialism faces that people are systematically misinformed on its basic nature? Why assume that they’ll have the inclination to unlearn this false definition that we are contributing to for the sake of this useless “anti-capitalist” gesture? Have we not seen the ideological capture of places like antiwork that failed to have any sort of positive alternative and end up just becoming, to be generous, socdem liberalism?

          The very first thing that a socialist should do is try to explain, even in the most glancing terms, what socialism is, and that will on average get more interest and more productive engagement than another “capitalism bad :P” post to go on the pile of decades of liberals nebulously complaining about capitalism.

      • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        26 天前

        What part of the meme that I didn’t create that is a screenshot of an old video-game that already misquotes the games themselves do I push the entire copied text of Grundrisse?

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      26 天前

      I think the original framing and context is that soldiers are offered the benefits that would be offered to all the workers under a socialist governance but instead are offered those “socialist” benefits in exchange for service to enforcing the will of capital.

      That isn’t wrong, it isn’t “incorrect” to say that it is “socialism” even if it isn’t scientifically accurate to the word or our niche/specific political definitions. This would matter more on say, my home-instance Lemmygrad then a left-unity board especially when a lot of newer folks are on here. Words can have multiple meanings and those inflections can shift based on the context they’re being used. More importantly, I think people hand-wringing and griping about it have more of an issue with puritanism with a bit of a lack of comprehension of context speaking that it’s quite easy to just click on a user’s profile and take a bit of a deeper dive. In fairness, I’ve done it myself with being too hasty. Some things I learned while here, I suppose.

      In another meme made by the same creator, it’s clear what they meant. Not “socialism is when government does stuff” but clearly capitalists and the ones they choose from political will enjoy the benefits we all would under socialist economy. Pretty clear.

  • Le_Wokisme [they/them, undecided]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    26 天前

    I think the message is the fact that the government is willing to provide fully tax-payer funded benefits of healthcare, education, etc to it’s “workers” and their children based off of their service in exploitation for the imperial core.

  • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    26 天前

    The socialism: excellent rates on Ford F-150 ownership and a home out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere where you’ll raise kids to be just as soulless as you (if you didn’t crush them with the F-150 that is) spamton

  • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    26 天前

    I think this is a good meme because

    1. Government do (welfare/investment) stuff is literally a part of socialism

    2. It can be understood by the masses

    3. It does not portray America’s imperial adventures in a good light, and correctly blames “enforcing capitalism” rather than idealist factors.

    OP, good job.

    • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      26 天前

      It isn’t even mine! Lmao, people are acting like I haven’t been on here for two years.

  • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    26 天前

    socialism is when you know the thing

    but I think what we should really be focusing on is that flag looks more like the UK than the US