What are you talking about have you never heard of emperor Comrade Puyi?

Really good book! A little bit inaccessible in the first two chapters though.

Jokes aside, a good start is to join a socialist org, participate, and start developing yourself politically. I believe cowbee has a good reading list.

But only if you’re doing what needs to be done.

Not a dude, please don’t “bro” me

Here is another helpful link, on citizen perception of the importance of democracy and whether their government is democratic.

It was founded by a former NATO secretary so it has a pro-western bias.

https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index

Here is a chart sourced from its its 2024 report. As you can see Chinese people have more faith in democracy and the democratic nature of their government than westerners do.

The whole brainwashing thing is nonsense, as Cowbell pointed out you misread the data on the 11 percent. It seems like you are misreading data to support your preconceived notions.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/

China is a democracy, even studies by conservative western institutions show Chinese people have higher satisfaction with their government, more belief in the importance of democracy, and more belief in the democratic nature of their government than western European and American citizens do for their own governments.

They have a more comprehensive democracy too. Consultative processes and deliberative processes are enshrined in institutions in a way that they are not within western bourgeois democracies.

You do understand that free speech that doesn’t threaten the government is tolerated everywhere, right? Us having more free speech here is just a function of the US government feeling more secure in its power, you can still find examples of free speech being punished in the US when it has threatened its power.

Sorry, I often fail at snark perception

“Both sides” is when you equivocate two things which are not equal, you’re looking for “whataboutism” which is not an actual fallacy, claiming “you’re doing whataboutism” was a PR tactic first used by British colonizers when Irish people brought up British violence in response to anti-IRA propaganda.