Recently I posted a pretty harmless meme in my DSA chapter’s Discord (see image). It was in response to South Korea’s recent spate of Fascism.

In response I had comrades jump down my throat, attacking me for critical support of AES states like DPRK and China. According to these comrades “there is no real Socialist nation.”

As tempting as it is to quit DSA I think I should stay and try to educate.

Comrades also jumped on me for a comment I made months ago in response to some right wing BS where I said “maybe Democracy isn’t always a great idea”. The point I was trying to make was that Trans rights and other basic freedoms should never be put up to a popularity contest… I’m ok with a state that defends these rights and doesn’t allow a reactionary majority to vote them away!

During this thread, people brought up multiple times that DPRK isn’t Democratic because the Kim’s have always been the figurehead, China isn’t Democratic because “reasons” (racism), China lies about their suicide rates to WHO, etc.

Frustrating. I’ll post more details in the comments.

My question: What constitutes a “real” Democracy? Is it leadership changing hands every few years? We don’t have that in the U.S. Is it secret ballots? All the nationa above have that. Is it that the people’s votes and voices actually change the government actions? We saw this in China unfortunately when people demanded ending the COVID lock downs early. It was the wrong thing to do but done for the right reason.

And is there any hope for these people in my chapter? One of them was basically racist against Chinese people and they seem very set in this “not real Socialism” mindset.

  • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    19 days ago

    I wrote this during my trip to China, it’s an excerpt from a longer entry, but I found the same line of thought you discuss here;

    I think one of the smartest things they’ve done here in China is allow the integration of western luxury brands into society. This prevents the sort of fetishism that was prevalent in the USSR, where people who bought into the (frankly delusional) hype around western brands being of high quality that contributed to (a minority) of people being willing to trade the benefits of socialism for the “benefits” of capitalism.

    All the luxury brands are here, and they hold similar status that they do in the west, eg Rolex, Tesla, Nike, etc. but because they’re not forbidden fruit, the fetishizing is not accompanied by desires to dismantle such a system in favor of those forbidden fruit.