Freeper weirdness...

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

HI everyone this is my first post and I'm so happy to be a full DU member now!!!

Anyways. I was just on a little freeper-watching, checking out the weirdness and so on, and I must say, the thing that keeps bothering me is the first line of their mission statement on their home page:

"In our continuing fight for freedom, for America and our constitution and against totalitarianism, socialism, tyranny, terrorism, etc..."

Can someone help me understand why the right wing thinks of socialism as an equal evil to terrorism?

:wtf:

[acmavm]

1. Because they don't understand the true concept of socialism.

I do not mean communism. I mean democratic socialism.

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

5. exactly

That's what I've been trying to tell everyone for the longest time.

[Strelnikov_]

2. Socialists Have Always Been The Enemy Of Facists <eom>

[alarcojon]

3. It's just a word

with negative connotations for a large chunk of the public, so they use it as a crude bludgeon.

As mentioned above, they don't even know what a true democratic socialist society might look like.

Oh, and welcome to DU! B-)

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

15. I think most people

don't even fully understand the meaning of the word "socialism."

[htuttle]

4. We're all actually taught that in school -- even more so 20 years ago

The US educational system generally teaches that:

Democracy is the same as Capitalism
and
Communism is the same as a Dictatorship
and
Socialism is the same as Communism (or toward it).

We were still ducking under our desks in bomb drills when I was a kid in school. I never really picked up the programming myself, but to most people in the US, Communism and Socialism are considered to be 'dangerous' almost without a thought as to what they really are.

That's what you get from 50+ years of a school system designed by industrialists for the purpose of turning out worker drones. Conveniently, the corollary rule for the business world is that Unions are the same as Socialists, and thus are dangerous too.

That's what we're working with here.

:shrug:

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

7. ugh

This revolution's gonna be harder than I thought, eh comrades? :-)

[Cleita]

9. Ask them if they taught their children about sharing.

Sharing is communism. Tell them they have socialism and communism confused with Soviet style totalitarianism. Tell them that our government is getting closer and closer to being like the Soviet Union and less like that of a social democracy.

[Ladyhawk]

12. The funny thing is Orwell was a socialist.

It was Communism he took aim at.

[salin]

6. Simplistic propoganda from the right for years

that equates democrats with socialists with communists - who because of Stalin we know is evil.

Ask if they are talking about a political system or economic system (eg socialism can be construed as both - but means very different things if considering it as an economic system or as a political system.) In brief - those tossing it around tend to have no CLUE what the words mean. Simplistic statements of ANY taxation = redistributing wealth (not paying for govt - as has been used through time - LONG before Marx was writing) = KARL MARX AND COMMUNISM. :eyes:

Read the freepers - when on a roll and calling a democrat (or liberal) a socialist they never stop there... always conflate right up to "communist." - Seems to be fueled by folks like Rush and Hannity - who say this superficial crap all the time.

[Cats Against Frist]

8. The real question is

How do they equate cultural supremacism, orchestrated by attempting to legislate their jingoistic, traditionalistic, fundamentalist narratives, with "freedom?"

[Strelnikov_]

11. Because They Have Mastered DoubleThink

and we're just a bunch of Winston Smith's who can't get with the program.

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt."

1984, George Orwell

[Ladyhawk]

13. Doublethink sounds like what fundies must to do function in society...n/t

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

14. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[joefree1]

10. Black and white tunnel vision

America today is not a real "anything goes" democracy and in fact has many socialist programs. The fear and greed hatriots hate this. They want to return to the pre-civil war days of Feudalism, i.e., land owning gentry governing a indebted peasant population. The first step in returning to a feudal society is to destroy our centralize government through huge tax cuts.

Sound like hyperbole? Just look at the breakdown of red and blue states.

Then get rid of those credit cards.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

16. Tell me more, please

I am fascinated by this subject. I think I know why, but could you elaborate on the credit card thing? Thanks!

[Krasnaya Lastochka]

17. I love you guys!!!

WOW...all of you are saying exactly what I've been trying to tell the freeperniks, fundys and bushies for years... I love DU!!!!

a big KICK for True Socialism!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[WLKjr]

18. To Some, My Post Might Be Called Socialistic by the Right

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2172523&mesg_id=2172523&page=


This is what "A Libral" writes like.

BTW, Topics and Articles like these are often overlooked by FR types......probably becuase they cannot comprehend it.