Let’s be honest, no government is trusted and truthful.
Some are obviously worse than others, but to trust any of them blindly is stupid.
[murdering thousands of people] guys do you realize your leaders are as bad as mine? can you be serious? i’m trying to elect White Obama 3
What?
Or even if it’s American but leftist, because if it indicts the antifascist bonafides of the Democratic party then it must be dastardly Russian lies
All American media is Israeli owned propaganda now thanks to Ellison
You fool, you absolute bingus. You have fallen for one of the classic blunders, for I, in my infinite wisdom, know that all states are bad. And all equally so at that. 😎
Facebook vibes
You see yourself in the pic and don’t like it
What pic?
The rhino pooping pic. The “I’m in the picture and I don’t like it” is one of the default options for reporting things. Was a joke
You’re in the rhino pooping pic?
I love it! ha ha!
Classic hamid with the idiot take.
Classic I don’t know or think about you with the even more of an idiot take
Thought enough to reply <3
I will never see another one of your posts again though, please block me or better yet delete your account so no one has to see you. Trust me no one wants to.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Want fries with your salt?
I don’t trust any of these mfs, and you shouldn’t either
I can understand not trusting the US Empire, Israel, etc, but why not trust the PRC? I’d rather trust a socialist country with a functional democratic governance over capitalist countries.
with a functional democratic governance
I swear none of you guys have actually lived in China haha.
The Chinese political system is nepotism first, plutocracy second. Just like the US. The only difference is they’re much more sane in public. The benefits of a shame based society.
If anyone can beat 7 years in Kunming, let me know how I’m wrong.
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
The US Empire, on the other hand, has private ownership as principle, with top-down “democracy.” Candidates are pre-selected, and term limits ensure that even if a genuine socialist won, they would not be able to sufficiently change the system. It’s designed for maintaining the dominance of capital.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
With all due respect, and apologies for not reading the book first (I will get to it when I have time). Have you just read the theory, or have you lived the implementation?
Because unfortunately, they can be different in practice. In my experience of the discussions I’ve had with my Chinese friends, and the amount of gossip I’ve heard about local political dynasties and KTV prostitutes, I think the ideal and the reality is very different. Something you could also say about the US.
China isn’t perfect, none of us pretend it is. I hear and partake in the gossip too, the stories about connections and KTV backrooms (and more you’ve probably yet to even hear of). But here’s the thing I’ve seen firsthand, especially when I visit family in the countryside: the villages that had dirt roads and no running water when I was a kid now have high-speed rail stops, 5G, and clinics that actually stock medicine.
And yeah, people complain, gossip, spread rumours. Of course they do, we’re human too. But the trust isn’t blind. It’s earned. When a pilot program for rural healthcare or poverty alleviation works in one county, they scale it to the province. When something fails, they tweak it or scrap it. You see it in the towns that went from abject poverty to being connected, electrified, and lifted up in a single generation.
Even the sources you’d expect to be critical can’t ignore it. Harvard’s Ash Center ran the longest independent survey of Chinese public opinion, interviewing over 32,000 people between 2003 and 2016. They found satisfaction with the central government at 95.5% in the final wave. Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer put China at 91% trust in government, the US at 39%. These aren’t state media. They’re Western institutions. They see the same trend we feel on the ground.
That’s possible because of how our democratic system actually works. Democracy isn’t just about voting for different parties or the spectacle of elections. It’s about whether people are heard and whether their lives get better. If you think Chinese people aren’t being heard, or that the feedback doesn’t translate into action, you’re plainly wrong. The proof isn’t in the theory. It’s in the roads, the rails, and the fact that trust stays high even when the gossip is rampant (who doesn’t love a bit of gossip).
Thank you for that. I really appreciate this post and it resonates with me. I wouldn’t have stayed there for so long if I didn’t love it too. But I can’t deal with the rhetoric on .ml that acts like it’s a utopia with no justified dissent.
There is absolutely a functioning democracy, but it isn’t immune to nepotism or greed, just like everywhere else. It’s also capable of manufacturing suffering.
The two people who remain in my thoughts the most from my time there were the 80 year old couple who worked as parking attendants in my building so they could stay in a single room partition in the garage with a kerosene heater. This was in 2011, in the center of Kunming. Not one of the rural villages in the mountains. They could have been provided for but they weren’t. It’s not a utopia, but it is a great country full of wonderful people.
That couple in Kunming. No amount of progress erases that. They deserved better.
But, so much has changed since then. Even just since 2021. Housing market cooling down, 996 ruled illegal by the Supreme People’s Court, new protections for delivery riders rolling out in Zhejiang, Guangdong. And the corruption crackdowns, “Tigers and flies” clearly wasn’t just propaganda.
On .ml people seem tired of the constant negative spin on China, so they swing hard the other way. Sometimes too hard (though I’ve yet to see it too many times). And, even folks here can still slip into old “China bad” habits (seen a lot of this recently). Like saying China does nothing for the Global South when you’ve got the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, Gwadar Port, vaccine donations, debt relief and much more showing how patently false that is.
I’ll just say it plain. I think China’s model, the way we do democracy, foreign policy, the whole political economy, is the best working option we’ve got right now. Not because it’s perfect, but because it actually moves the needle for hundreds of millions. It’s not even playing the same game as the Euro-Amerikan hegemony that’s been exporting crisis forever. Why throw out the good, or spend all day demonizing it, when so much worse is happening way closer to home for most people on here. Stick in their eye vs a speck in mine, yknow?
Edit: a graph just to show how much things have changed
I have never lived in China, no, but the textbook I provided is an overview of the real systems that exist, flaws and all, combined with the theoretical reasoning for the structures and the reasons they have changed over time, their history. That’s why I added that socialist democracy is imperfect, but it stands in stark contrast to the utter failure that is capitalist democracy, and I listed the reasons why.
The Anna’s archive link on that page is dead unfortunately, I’ll try to find it but do you have one handy?
Memes aside, you know it’s all propaganda though right?
Even if you want to gloss it up as the “the revolution protecting itself” the PRC isn’t going to go out and admit “there’s flaws in our system”, much less “our government is run by a bunch of horny greedy assholes just like everywhere else”.
–edit–
Though I agree the damage those assholes can do is limited by the system much more than the US which is a failed state.
I don’t have a link, unfortunately.
Either way, the PRC does admit to flaws and problems. The method of criticism and self-criticism is applied in China. Further, the government isn’t run by a “bunch of horny greedy assholes.” Corruption exists to a certain degree, but the CPC regularly cracks down on this, rather than allowing it to flourish. It seems, above all, that you’re letting your distrust of government in general cause you to magnify problems in China beyond their real existence in order to equate it to capitalist states.
We have comrades within China who lived there most or all of their life, yes.
And I am unfortunately in contact with real Americans who won’t shut up about the glorious Trump regime too…
You do realize you’re using anecdotes to dismiss China, but don’t tolerate anecdotes that counter that? It’s almost like you already made up your mind.
Go and read sources, check how most Chinese people consider their government democratic according to western NGOs (so you can’t blame the government for bias/meddling), same as with Vietnam, and how low western liberal democracies score in the same reports. Check statistics of the insane material harm that Japan and western regimes did to these countries, and how they still recovered, how China lifted 800 million out of poverty, how their lives keep getting better day after day while most people in our countries infrastructure is crumbling down. Or how most Chinese people own their homes, while most of us can only hope to own a house if we come from wealth or got enough support and luck to end with a very well paid job (and a mortgage that we’ll pay for years to come).
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What’s wrong with Marxism? Why not engage with Marxists? Further, I know many Lemmy.ml users are anarchists or even liberals, we aren’t all communists.
Lol this has the vibe of “Just FYI, don’t try to fight those trained kickboxers”
It’s funny how deciding which side is truthful is based on which side you belong to. It’s also amusing seeing how people come up with myriads of proofs their side is right when the only true argument is “my interests go along with theirs”. And it’s tragic that both sides kind of tell the truth at the same time however contradicting it is…
Well there’s one side that’s based on science and one side that’s based on idealism (the belief that all people are jedi and can control reality with their minds alone).
Thomas Jefferson raped a 15 year old girl and enslaved her offspring. Scream this at every American you meet. Now that’s proper propaganda
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“Teehee i support multiple nazi armies, u mad?”
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Lmao just saying words, truly everyone is 12 now
What we do with our butts is none of your business
Yeah!
Very fitting name lmao
Not Liberals, simply stupid and ignorant people which believe everything what mainstream media say. With a cultured and informed people, the USA would be a full democracy and Trump in jail since years.
No, this cannot exist in capitalism, and it is not a problem of culture, but the mode of production.
Dumb fuck is dumb
Cope liberal
