It's time for Americans to stop living in fear of the socialist bogeyman

[Ardent15]

Seriously, by talking to conservative Americans today you'd think that the Cold War is still going on, or that Barack Obama is a Marxist agent sent forth by the ghost of Lenin.

Also, this applies to the completely blown-out-of-proportion threat of Islamic terrorism.

It's time for Americans to stop cowering and rolling over on command whenever a pundit or politician stirs the pot of fear.

When will Americans see through the bullshit?

[HughBeaumont]

1. Only a die-off will release that epoxy-strengthened cling.

It's mostly the grizzled and ancient duffers, with merely a scattering of the young and stupid, that are still tossing "Teh Red Menuce" burns from the Reagan era. They probably think Andropov is still in power or something with his hand on some mythical button and Big Bad Reagan Daddy will be there to layeth the mushroom-cloud Armageddon smack down. It's comical, really.

Most of these people just say these words and have really NO idea at all what they mean. They're just trained like dogs to think "SOSHULISM" = "Democrat". Pigs.

You know what phrase I just LOVE from them? When they say "Socialism will fail because you eventually run out of other people's money", while not looking at 28 YEARS of what their unbridled corporatist "leadership" did to our debt and economy. Amazing. REALLY.

[PDJane]

2. Americans have been brainwashed.

Thank Edward Bernays for starting the whole mess.

Of course, people like Reagan, who was a senile criminal, didn't help things either.

[The_Commonist]

3. They'll stop when they turn off the Television.

That, and all the God-fearing stuff...

[maxsolomon]

4. the great mass of americans never learned anything about marx

or the history of socialism in 'murka when they were in high school (if they even completed high school). and in college, so many are on technical paths (engineering, science, medicine) that they have no time (or desire) to learn anything then, either. & i bet 90% of MBAs never take a course that looks at capitalism from a marxist critique. with a BFA & an MARCH, any understanding i have of socialism is entire self-acquired or from listening to The Clash. it's simply off the radar for the american education system. we're still living witht he fallout from mccarthyism in our schools.

so what you have is a population where the vast majority cannot even tell you that marx was german or who eugene debs was. they don't know the difference between social democracies in n. europe and the USSR under stalin. pol pot and sweden, same difference. and they are proud of their ignorance - they mistake it for wisdom.

[anonymous171]

5. What do you mean by socialism?

People on DU tend to have strange ideas about what Socialism is and isn't. Most here seem to think that it just means higher taxes and more government services.

[Johonny]

6. Particularly since conservative appear to be adopting "people"

as a term. Such as the "peoples" seat or I broke into the "peoples" office.