To those of you who consider yourselves a socialist(in any degree)

[iamthebandfanman]

Poll question: To those of you who consider yourselves a socialist(in any degree)

I was looking at youtube comments(ahh!) and noticed that there is alot of misconception about socialism and fascism. they seem to get confused and turned into the same thing. i see people call anything that goes against free ideals socialism when clearly fascist ideas are being represented.

so my question is,

what do you think is the main reason for the bastardization of the word Socialism and the uneducated view that it and fascism are one and the same?

[Ordr]

1. I don't agree with some of it...

...but Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" book made some very interesting parallels. That might be where a lot of that sentiment is coming from.

[RDANGELO]

2. The cold war.

[iamthebandfanman]

3. u can put that under the right wing i do believe ;) n/t

[Occam Bandage]

6. Before that. Socialist-bashing was a blood sport in the late 1800s/early 1900s.

[Echo In Light]

4. Corporate culture IS right wing culture. They've dominated the talking points/propaganda for decades

And to amazing effect! Prevailing notions of these systems speaks to the efficacy of thought control in our democracy. Hence the widespread misconceptions of nationalistic socialism/libertarian socialism, or anarcho-syndicalism. Anarchism has also been strategically maligned/disavowed by the Name Brand corporate political/media system.


"A federated, decentralized, system of free associations incorporating economic as well as social institutions would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism. And it seems to me that it is the appropriate form of social organization for an advanced technological society in which human beings do not have to be forced into position of tools, of cogs in a machine, in which the creative urge, that I think is intrinsic to human nature will in effect be able to realize itself in whatever way it will. I don't know all the ways in which it will." ~ Chomsky

Noam Chomsky - The Relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5bYAEs29cs

[Occam Bandage]

5. A 120-year corporatist campaign against leftism?

[iamthebandfanman]

10. do you think it was american fascist

or do you believe it was a global fascist effort to do so ? cause by right wingers, i guess im really saying american fascists ;)


do you think it started with hitler using the socialist banner only to make it part of the most evil regime the words seen?

[Occam Bandage]

16. Almost purely American. The word is untainted in much of the world, though of course

there are many who have fought socialism tooth and nail across the globe. Corporatists have been denouncing socialism here in America since the late 1800s; many socialists were jailed in the WWI years for "sedition" and "treason" (for daring to suggest that the war was not a good idea). Anti-socialist paranoia got a shot in the arm with the Russian revolution. During the Great Depression people softened to the idea a bit, but the post-1945 fear of the Soviet Union more than undid any gains socialism might have made in America. Nowadays we're perfectly comfortable with socialist ideas--welfare, medicare, medicaid, social security, public schools, workplace safety regulations, public health codes, minimum wages, etc.--but we just can't call it 'socialism.'

(Hitler started with the "socialist" banner because he got his start in politics working for the National Socialist party--which was, before he showed up, a true socialist organization, albeit a small fringe one with only a few dozen members. He showed up, quickly rose to the top, and turned it into the fascist organization it became.)

[unpossibles]

7. all three of the other choices don't/didn't help

I do think too many folks don't understand how the political spectrum/compass works at all, and I also think that people like Hitler & Stalin blurred the line for many, either because of propaganda/naming, or because of their authoritarian bent, but most of the fault lies with our right wing propaganda from the past several generations.

I don't consider myself a Socialist, although I am very much in favor of certain strong social programs and some Socialist ideas, and find it sad that something which makes sense, like Socialized Medicine, cannot even be discussed because of latent McCarthyist Cold War posturing.

[iamthebandfanman]

13. do you think hitler purposefully did so ?

i mean, do you think he adopted the socialist banners while not really ahering to ideaology for the sole purpose of making the term synonmous with evil?
no telling how deep the conspiracy goes when it deals with the rights fight against their arch enemy.

[Occam Bandage]

19. I'm not really going to buy a theory suggesting that Hitler

created an ideology out of German heritage, shoddy genetics, linguistics, and anti-Semitism, rose to power, consolidated a broken nation, turned it into a modern Sparta, started a worldwide war, murdered tens of millions, destroyed his country, shattered the continent, and surrendered half of Europe (and, indirectly, China) to Communist control, all to make socialism in America slightly more of a dirty word than it already was.

[iamthebandfanman]

25. well i wasnt saying that

im sure everything was already going to happen regardless of what he called himself... but he did purposefully go under the sociolist banner to deceive people...i just wonder if by doing so he understood hed be bastardising a leftist term.

[unpossibles]

20. yes, but not for that reason

I think he used the Socialist banner as a recruiting tool of sorts, to help get popular support, much like how our modern Republican party tells people that it is looking out for individual rights and is the friend of the common man.

I don't think Hitler saw, or wanted others to see, his own Party as "evil" so that would not make sense. In his mind, and in the warped minds of many, apparently, he was "fighting the good fight" against people he saw as inferior. In other words, I'm not sure he cared if his methods were good or bad as long as it accomplished what he wanted, which mainly was power.

[LSdemocrat]

8. The Soviet Union - notably its blurring of the line between communism and socialism

[The empressof all]

9. More specifically it is right wing corporate America

The pejorative connotation began pre WWII with the Labor/Union movements. Hitler just was the icing on the cake that sealed Socialism as synonymous with the devil and anti American.

The capper was the fact that we were all pretty much taught in school in the 60's that The Soviet Union (our sworn enemy out to nuke us) was a Socialist country.

[salvorhardin]

11. Missing option: other

Overly simplistic ideation (often at the hands of those who call themselves socialists), anti-intellectualism, reactionary populism... There's so many reasons why socialism has taken on a negative connotation. The right wing merely exploited all of that, along with fear. So yeah, I think you can blame the right but the real issue is our societal structure.

[iamthebandfanman]

14. there ya go ;)

put in other for ya

[harun]

12. Still recovering from a cold war hangover (n/t)

[El Pinko]

15. The fact that corporations directly run or heavily influence almost all institutions in the US.

It is against their interests for Socialism to ever be portrayed accurately, so it must be consistently associated with negatives like rigid conformity, poverty, drabness, despotism, Orwellian propaganda/groupthink, etc.

Never mind that capitalist societies are filled with all of those things - capitalist societies have extremely sophisticated marketing and advertising industries that reinforce the idea that products will make you cool, beautiful, young, fun, happy, attractive, slick, loved, immortal(?), and by extension we are sold the message that the corporations that provide these products are therefore benevolent.

Our public schools peddle soda pop and junk food to our kids. They show them McNews with commercials on "Channel One", and they definitely teach only the pro-corporate view of history and society.

Our "news" networks routinely refers to Venezuelan president Chavez as a despot and dictator, but seldom applies those terms to even the worst right-wing dictators (so long as they are friendly to US corporate interests.


I don't think your answers really hit on it. I would say "right wing" but that's my viewpoint - that both US political parties together represent a right wing, and we are a nation utterly lacking any left wing.

But clicking that choice would make people think that I blame "the republicans", but it's not that simple. Democrats and liberals are generally as hostile to socialism as republicans are.

[unpossibles]

22. "we are a nation utterly lacking any left wing"

true, and we all know what happens to something with a damaged or missing wing - it falls.

[Nederland]

17. The four greatest mass murders in history

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot were all self identified socialists. That pretty much cooks the goose.

Now it's true you can argue all day long about whether or not they were "real" socialists or not. Fact is though, they called themselves socialists and they will always be a heck of a lot more famous than anyone else trying to reclaim the word in a positive light. Face it, the word socialist will always be tainted because of these people and there is not much anyone can do about it.

The good news is that words are just that: words. Call the concepts something else and move on. After all it's the ideas that matter, not the word.

[bryant69]

18. Socialism is almost a meaningless term - and Fascist isn't that much better

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[KansDem]

21. My stepfather used to pooh-pooh US media using the term "Marxist rebels"

...for every hot spot in the world, when it was really groups of poor people and workers wanting to throw off the shackles of foreign overloads who enslaved them.

All through the 1960s and 1970s, it was:
"Marxist rebels in Central America..."
"Marxist rebels in South America..."
"Marxist rebels in SE Asia..."
"Marxist rebels here...Marxist rebels there...etc. etc"

My stepfather wondered if the "Marxist rebels" really knew anything about Marxism, or if they were simply trying to make a better life for themselves.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

23. My husband had a teacher in high school in Texas

that asked him to write a paper comparing/contrasting communism and democracy. My husband, who had just moved from New Jersey, patiently explained that you don't compare an economic and a political system, then went on to explain. The teacher failed him. I told my husband that I would have gone to the school board and questioned the ability of the teacher to know anything. This was in the '60s, and I doubt if it has gotten any better in schools. Either teachers don't know or they are afraid to teach anything about socialism.

[iamthebandfanman]

24. yeah, thats an ugly common misconception

that alot of people fall into.

people simply do not understand that socialism, fascism, and capitalism are economic policies and can all of which can co-exist with democracy... tho with fascism thats harder to say than do(a false democracy usually exist).