Who cares if the Seeseepeepee has a 90% approval rating. China doesn't have a blue party that reverses everything the red party does every 4 years, therefore China is a not democracy. Sorry, tankies.
65% of Americas have confidence in small businesses
I HATE JEFFERSONIAN SMALL HOLDERS
As I’ve gotten older, small businesses are just hilarious to me
I worked at one in high school, made minimum wage and they had me go to Walmart to buy their ingredients. Turns out all you need to start a small business is some generational wealth and ignorant teenagers you can underpay. I will always shit on small businesses, I don’t give a fuck if they’re marginally better than corporations.
I honestly hate small businesses even more than big corporations. Big corps act more consistently, and individuals inside them don’t usually benefit from fucking you over.
Renting an apartment in a corporate complex >>>>>>>> an individual slumlord. The corporation actually hires maintenance staff that doesn’t gain anything by cheaping out. When my dishwasher broke here they ordered one the next day, the only delay was because of supply problems. When my dishwasher broke in my apartment owned by one lady it took months and I had to pester her and she tried and failed to fix it herself multiple times first.
Small businesses just let you pay more money for worse services who often treat their employees way worse to enrich a local tyrant instead of one further away
Plus, although this is a silly reason bc it’s not like a revolution is close, but big corps can be much more easily transitioned to socialism. Amazon and Walmart are gigantic centrally planned economies that should be nationalized
blue party that reverses everything the red party does every 4 years
we don't even have that in the US
Yeah, more like blue party that stops doing half the most comically evil stuff. And does the other half a little less publicly.
a blue party that reverses everything the red party does every 4 years
This would unironically be a huge improvement on the blue party we do have
I want a 2nd party that undoes every decision and action of a party here.
70% of Chinese citizens also believe their country is democratic as opposed to like 40% of Americans lol.
Like, obviously perception doesn’t mean much. But one country claims to be free and democratic, and the citizens claim to be free and democratic, but when asked about their country more than half of them hate everyone who runs it and their policies. It just makes you look like you’re in denial.
i remember in like 2022, my boss who i thought was slightly cool asked me how i was doing and i said, "well, my faith in our society's institutions is at an all time low" and apparently that was a radioactive take, because during COVID he became a build back better kool-aid drinker. a year later he is completely baffled by cynicism among workers (who have received raises far below inflation rates for 3 years in a row), has cultivated a wildly dysfunctional turnover rate, and is racing towards a supernova of people vacating positions for other organizations / early retirement. and he's way too Mr. Magoo to see it coming. i would feel bad for him, but somewhere in the last years he stopped listening to people below him and started taking everything the do-nothing suits above him said as gospel, so he absolutely did this to himself.
Most trust is for small business owners? Remind me which class is the social base of fascism
Democracy is not an ornament to be put on display, but an instrument for addressing the issues that concern the people. Whether a country is democratic or not depends on whether its people are truly the masters of the country. It depends on whether the people have the right to vote, and more importantly, the right to participate; what promises they are given during elections, and more importantly, how many of these promises are delivered after elections; what kind of political procedures and rules are set through state systems and laws, and more importantly, whether these systems and laws are truly enforced; and whether the rules and procedures for the exercise of power are democratic, and more importantly, whether the exercise of power is genuinely subject to public oversight and checks. If the people are only engaged with to solicit votes and then are left in the dark, if they must listen to grandiose election slogans but have no voice when the elections are over, or if they are only treated well by candidates during elections and are ignored after, this is not true democracy.
from https://redsails.org/xi-on-democracy/
also seen this stated as:
Whether a country is a democracy or not depends on whether its people are really the masters of the country. If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.
but I'm not sure if this is another instance of the speech, an abridge translation, or what
