Republicans have no Clue what Socialism and Communism means

I return periodically to the topic of how the right wing in America is murdering the English language, one word at a time. For instance, if you listen to them, you will find out that the words "appeasement" or "appeaser" are applied anytime a politician advocates any solution to an international disagreement other than a full military assault on the country with whom we have a disagreement. See an earlier article of mine on this here

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_061013_appeasement___republ.htm

The latest lexical victims are "Socialism" and "Communism". The Republican and Conservative right in America now liberally apply these words to anyone who is center and center left, including all Democrats and President Barack Obama. You can see/hear this happen with regularity on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and on the website Free Republic www.freerepublic.com . In fact, the owner of Free Republic recently issued a missive warning the site's members to stop writing posts threatening President Obama and said missive was laced with proclamations that Obama is a Communist or Communist sympathizer. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200093/posts . Here are some prime excerpts from this gem:

Regarding salty talk aimed at the president (or other officials) vs visits from the SS
March 5, 2009 | Jim Robinson

Posted on Thursday, March 05, 2009 3:43:09 PM by Jim Robinson

Unfortunately, we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. Now I remember when America used to fight against communism. It wasn't that long ago. Many of us on FR are veterans of wars against communism and some of us believe that American citizens who are communists are the enemy within, ie, the domestic enemy we've sworn to defend against. American citizen? hmmmm... that may be a loophole for Obama.
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So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service. And even though your visiting agent may agree politically, and may take his oath to the constitution seriously, he's still sworn to protect the officeholder and it's his duty to take all threats seriously. And that may include serving me with a subpoena to turn over your IP address. Now I'm duty bound to protect your privacy to the best of my ability, but I cannot defend against stupidity.

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Here is a generous hint to my feebleminded right wing friends. It is impossible to be a Socialist or a Communist if one is not calling for the nationalization of entire industries. Now, I used a lot of big words there that right wingers reading this may not understand, so I will make my hint even easier to comprehend (note: comprehend means "understand"). If a government or a leader of a government is not taking over complete ownership and control of every business that has a certain function (i.e. does similar things), then you do not have a government or government leader that is Socialist or Communist. There is a similar relationship with property rights. If a government or leader is not advocating or actively taking private property rights away from people, you don’t have a Socialist or Communist government or leader.

The closest we are coming to doing anything remotely like this right now is with banking. There are people out there who are advocating temporary Nationalization of the banking industry, including some Republicans. Obama is an opponent of this idea. (Note to right wingers, "opponent" means, he doesn't like the idea of doing this).

In fact, no Democrats are Socialists or Communists (at least none that understand what it means to be a Democrat). If any of us were, we would leave the Democratic Party and join one of the many Socialist or Communist parties that exist in the US. The fact that we are Democrats means that we believe in Capitalism albeit with appropriate oversight and rules.

An amusing discussion of this entire topic, "Who you calling Socialist" was penned by Harold Meyerson who is a self-proclaimed Socialist http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/03/AR2009030303207.html the entire article is a masterpiece, but I particularly like:

Take it from a democratic socialist: Laissez-faire American capitalism is about to be supplanted not by socialism but by a more regulated, viable capitalism. And the reason isn't that the woods are full of secret socialists who are only now outing themselves.

continued>>.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Republicans-have-no-Clue-w-by-Steven-Leser-090308-590.html

they not only want to end big government, many of them want to destroy government completely allowing a feudal type of system to prosper. This is why they are quickly becoming marginalied.

What makes me mad is that those so-called journalists on news TV and talk radio don't pull them down and make them explain themselves and what they mean. I feel if we ever got rid of the models and actors on those programs and replaced them with real journalists who don't mind asking the hard follow up questions, those pundits who lie and spin so unashamedly today would all disappear.

Socialist and Communist policies and that includes union busting as well. That's what built our military industrial complex and nuclear weapons programs. It's been going on for a long time.

as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, i hope more people will understand that no socialist considers obama a socialist. I am glad Meyerson is speaking out and assuring people that "Laissez-faire American capitalism is about to be supplanted not by socialism but by a more regulated, viable capitalism." Clarifying the meaning of Democratic Socialism is one of the tasks our Detroit Local is attempting as well as our National. People before Profits is a great one-liner to open any discussion about socialism.

thanks for the post


http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html

It quickly became evident he did not understand that capitalism/socialism/communism are economic principles and democracy/fascism/dictatorships are political principles. I explained the concepts to him, how you could have a socialist democracy or a capitalistic dictatorship (along with examples of each), and how democracy DOES NOT equal capitalism and how communism DOES NOT equal dictatorship.

People like him make my head hurt.

If he got it, and he talks to his friends about this concept you have been a catalyst for change.

and many other concepts developed since 3 BC.

maybe ridicule is the best response. These jackasses go on how any tax increase or federal spending is socialism. Jim Robinson is a disgrace and it's a mark of how little many righties respect themselves that they look up to someone who spews childish piffle like "America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist."