I just gotta pop in and say: thank you, comrades, for absolutely making my morning by dunking on some capitalists’ useful idiots.
I don’t know what it is about this post in particular, but the threadiverse isn’t sending its best 🤷
Edit to add: Some of them were so angry that they broke out their alt accounts to downvote some more.
I think some of the Reddit refuges honestly think Reddit sucks because Spez Man Bad. There’s no analysis of what creates Reddits and Spezes, and therefore they don’t recognize who made this platform and why.
I have to believe ultimately some of these people will come around, so that’s good at least.
Many do come around, Lemmy is quite good at radicalizing and educating in my experience.
Freedom with the most people in prison
They’re not always in prison, sometimes we let them do their forced labor outside.
Agreed, the US prison system is legalized form of slavery
At least “you have right to remain silent” :)
What the fuck does this even mean lmao y’all scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard it’s now a tube
They’re just throwing phrases out like right-wing think-tanks, and seeing what sticks.
Yes, both countries have serious problems. At least Americans can discuss theirs openly.
Tell that to Malcolm X, MLK, or Fred Hampton
And it’s not like those were one-offs, COINTELPRO was crazy in scope and did massive damage beyond just the murders.
It’s not like that’s all in the past either, just look at how the Palestine protests were handled as well as the Floyd protests.
At least Americans can discuss theirs openly.
Lol have you seen what’s been happening to pro Palestine protestors? BLM protestors? Anti Trump protestors? Julian Assange? Edward Snowden?
So do Chinese citizens, though. The state exerts control over private media and the speech of wealthy capitalists, but there’s broad diversity in political thought and discussion.
Really? So Chinese citizens can go out and publish an article about why they believe Xi Jinping is actually betraying socialist ideals?
Some have. They’d be wrong, so it’s not super common, but it’s possible, assuming they aren’t a wealthy capitalist or something.
You’re free to discuss anything you want as long as it doesn’t actually threaten the status quo in any way lol
Just don’t demand or try to enact real lasting change
You are free to protest as long as we can tuck you in the corner and ignore you
The freedom to shout into the void and have none of your concerns addressed.
Not to mention the fact that China has far more open discourse than the US and its media organs / capitalist controlled platforms allow.
I’ll take “things foreigners say when they’ve never been to China” for 500 Alex
I’ll take “sexpat that’s been to China, never left his bubble and is a China expert now” for 500 alex
Never claimed to be any kind of China expert but it’s absurd to claim “much more open discourse” if you’ve spent any appreciable amount of time in the countries being discussed. You can literally just walk + talk in public and see the difference.
Like all these asserted freedoms it just magically happens better and free’er but you definitely can’t verify it because “media”. The open political discourse I see and hear in major EU/US cities pales in comparison to the uh… hidden… open discourse in T1/T2 Chinese cities? Definitely heard some first/second hand political discourse but it was never, ever, ever a public forum.
By all means, give me evidence to the contrary. Maybe I just keep catching China with a bad case of the Mondays. Have you been? Can you point to any discourse on domestic politics? Where is the asserted diversity of opinion on hotbed issues? Can you show me any strong opposition to the party line on a public stage?
I guess you’ve never been on weibo westoid
I have! Have you been on it in China? Have you contrasted the foreign feed to a citizen’s? Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political discontent vs mundane petty scandals? Because it kinda sounds like you haven’t if you think that’s a killer response.
I have! And I have my Chinese friends feed too. Inside and outside of china. There’s definitely differences, but that’s how algorithms work
Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political disconten
Yes i have seen it. They solve things pretty fast e.g. COVID lockdowns when minor protests broke out, petit bourgeois real estate protests, etc. doesn’t look like you pay attention to things like that
Chinese too, and openly in the US currently not so much. People in China are heavy controlled by the Gov, but they have more civil rights and services as citizen in the US
Complete list of banned books in the US. (Autoscroll enabled, due to the hugh amount of those, stop/start with mouseclick)
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/a45012950/banned-book-list/
US Freedom and Human rights only exist in Fox News.
Complete list of banned books in the US
Lmao what? Do you know what “banning” a book means? It’s just not on offer in schools or a library for that specific state. It’s completely normal to just buy it for yourself and there are even organizations dedicated to distributing banned books.
It’s hilarious to try and dunk on America with this of all things. Media restricted/censored in China is entirely unavailable. It’s actually very interesting how the censorship manifests in daily life, but I imagine any .ml reader will discard those anecdotes (or any verifiable reports) and try to redirect back to the West somehow.
Chinese average citizens can freely discuss what they want, the “disappearing” is just western propa
Really? So Chinese citizens can go out and publish an article about why they believe Xi Jinping is actually betraying socialist ideals?
China? The US is currently more compeeting with North Corea respect freedom and human rights.
and who supports north korea?
both are. have fun fighting eachother in the mud.
All states are authoritarian, in that they are instruments by which one class oppresses the others. What this doesn’t say anything about alone, though, is which class is in power. In the US Empire, the capitalists are in power, and use the authority of the state to crush workers when workers rise up. In the PRC, the working class is in power, and the state keeps capitalists in check and appropriates their capital gradually.
The only way out of authoritarian control by any class is to get rid of classes entirely, which requires full collectivization of production. China is actively building towards that, the US Empire is opposing it. Until we get to a classless society, it’s better for the working class to be in charge.
In other words, class struggle will continue to exist even after the proletariat takes control. All of the tensions from class struggle continue to exist, only they are resolved in favor of the working class. This is what “authoritarianism” looks like, class conflict expressed in state response.
“the working class” meaning the (one) party tho, lol.
Yes. Democracy isn’t about choosing between parties, but having substantive input on direction that results in the will of the people being carried out. This is true of China, policy is typically driven from the bottom-up, a process called “whole process people’s democracy.” This is expressed, as an example, through Five Year Plans that are the result of mass polling and suggestions among the populace. The CPC has over 100 million members in a country of 1.4 billion.
The state isn’t a class in and of itself, it can only serve as representative of a class. In the PRC, that class is the working class. The communists beat the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, and from that point on the working class has been in control.
US is in a situation where even the Chinese government can make fun of how undemocratic it is. I think this explains a lot.
