Reply #11: Here's an interesting link:

[meganmonkey]

I haven't read this whole thing yet, but it looks pretty good...I was trying to find info about a guy (who's name I forget) who essentially created a campaign in the US in the 30's to make 'socialism' a a bad word, and I think he was hired by the gov't to do so - but since I can't remember his name I am getting nowhere. I found this, though:

http://danawilliams2.tripod.com/american_socialism.html

"The only thing most American know about socialism is they don't like it. They have been led to believe that socialism is something to be either ridiculed as impractical, or feared as an instrument of the devil."

- Leo Huberman

The above Huberman quote is one that rings very true of my experience with other American's perception to "socialism". For instance, when talking with an American about socialism (even in passing reference), their eyes squint, face contorts, and a scowl usually passes over their facial expression. Often a facial tick of some kind is elicited. In short, the average American's physically reaction to the mention of "socialism" appears to be the product of systematic, negative conditioning.

The United States is one of the few countries (if perhaps the only country) to have been primarily founded by joint-stock corporations. This unique origin contributes to an attitude and system that prevails today, with the emphasis of society on brash individualism and profit. Not surprisingly, the ideas of socialism have been thus smeared and downplayed in the US and, even if Americans wished to engage in a realistic discussion over the merits of socialism, the cultural environment and conditioning make such a discussion horribly lopsided and ill-informed.

In mentioning "socialism" to a foreigner, there is usually never the look of insurmountable horror that one receives from an American (which is often akin to profanity expressed in the presence of one's grandparents). People who are not born and raised in the United States have different impressions of socialism, and while this does not, of course, mean that they always agree with socialist ideas, they do not discount it out of hand, nor recoil in shock from its very mention.

Part of the reason for such shock on the behalf of Americans is the effect of years upon years of anti-communist propaganda. Ever since the rise of socialism as a formidable force in Europe and the growth of labor unions in the US, corporations have been fearful of their risks should the public at large decide that they want a complete overhaul of the economic system. The government propaganda, which often came from private sectors, such as the John Birch Society, accelerated when revolution hit Russia. This propaganda was primarily used to deflect the premise that there were other alternatives to capitalism that were legitimate and realistic. Many European states have popular Socialist or Left parties, with active welfare states and aborad, functioning social contract.

Although, later the US wouldn't need to bend the truth all that much when it talked of dictatorship and mass murder, immediately around 1917 the US was afraid that the example of overthrowing the wealthy and aristocratic classes of society was feasible and convincing. Thus they often made up the "evils" related to communism, and by association, socialism. There was a remarkable shift in the propaganda in the early 1940's, where the US was shouting about how Americans should unite together with their Russian brothers and sisters in fighting Hitler's Reich. Even though this campaign was short-lived, it speaks of the remarkable lengths that policy makers will go to (even in contradiction), to achieve a certain political end, international or domestic.

more at link...

http://danawilliams2.tripod.com/american_socialism.html