Not exactly, if Reddit is a single tree, then Lemmy is a forest of trees.
Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here?
silentjohn@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
That’s why I came to Lemmy. Sure open source and decentralized and all that too. But somebody on reddit described Lemmy as “Leftist Reddit” and I said count me in!
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Imperious_melange@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m very in favor of personal freedom and decreasing wealth inequality. I wouldn’t say either of those stances have anything to do with China or the CCP, particularly in the current context.
silentjohn@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
And what “freedoms” do you enjoy in the USA / The West (yes I realize you said you’re from Africa)? The freedom to choose between two capitalist/fascist warmongers every 2-4 years in your elections? The freedom to have the police state protect private property over humans? The freedom to wage wars on the global south? The freedom to fund and aid in genocide? The freedom to be overworked and underpaid while billionaires extract every ounce of wealth from countries and workforces? The freedom to go into lifelong debt for basic human rights (housing, health, education)?
The majority of Chinese actually believe that China is more free than the United States … this is more important than whatever a Western-funded “Freedom Index” claims.
The CPC (not CCP) lifted 800 million people from abject poverty and have effectively eliminated extreme poverty in the country. China also has higher home ownership rates than the US, higher effective literacy rate, lower infant mortality, lower rates of suicide and gun violence, lower obesity, … While billionaires exist in China, they do not (and cannot) control/influence government, and corporations do not extract wealth from key industries.
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
I would love to have a calm, rational conversation about China with someone who knows more about it than I do. This thread isn’t going to be the place for that. Can you recommend a community on Lemmy for learning about the Chinese political system, life in China, and specifically how socialism with chinese characteristics differs from other western ideas on the topic?
As a communist, and one from the US, the idea that billionaires can exist but are incapable of influencing the political sphere just… Does not compute for me. And while I do not expect to change my position to the point where I’m okay with billionaires existing, I am willing to learn. I did not understand Cuban democracy until I did.
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 days ago
This. The petite bourgeoisie cannot coexist. They must prey on society by their very nature. And they know that. As such they know that any actual socialist government is going to be set against them and will oppose it. As you have no doubt seen. The Lambs do not lay with the lion.
Unfortunately the only thing they have to offer you is equal but opposed state dogma. Excusing all repression social and otherwise because of the current infrastructure being built and the temporary uplift it brings to the people there. Once the infrastructure is built it will stagnate just like it did in the United states and elsewhere. A fact that they love to ignore. The United states for all its problems raised the material conditions of many people across the globe not just at home. Just like China currently. None of which justifies the bad they do. It’s ultimately not left vs right, or the west vs everyone else. It’s us vs the state. And anyone simping for a state is rightly suspect.
KssioAug@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Thank you! That’s the difference between rhetorical freedom and substantive freedom.
What gets me is how people will look at China’s poverty alleviation (800 million people lifted out of destitution, actual material liberation from hunger and desperation) and call that “authoritarianism”. Meanwhile, the US lets people die of treatable illnesses, go bankrupt from medical bills, and drown in student debt… and for some reason that’s perceived as natural.
And on wealth inequality, you’re right. The CPC doesn’t let billionaires write policy the way the Kochs, Bezos, or Musk do.