Can we reclaim the term Socialism?

Is it possible to redefine and reclaim Socialism? It has been vilified for decades and used as a pejorative. Socialist policies have great worth. Will we forever as liberals and leftists have to tip-toe around promoting aspects of Socialism without ever getting the opportunity to clearly define its merits? Will there be a viable National Democratic Socialist Party?

And, when do we get to deride and ridicule and demonize the Free Market Capitalists? They are the oppressors, they are the ones who have broken this country. They are the opposition.

Will it ever be possible to be a proud and open Democratic Socialist(outside of Vermont)and be successful at promoting the agenda?

History text books, at least the ones I grew up with, didn't even bother to define socialism aside from a brief treatment of it. For that matter, they do an even worse job of defining capitalism or even comparing and contrasting the two systems. They even do a terrible job of covering the labor history of American workers over the last 200 years from the Civil War through the Guilded Age into the 20th Century that included the Labor Movement, the Great Depression, etc.

We literally have a workforce in America that is virtually missing its labor history, like a mass lobotomy has been performed.

It is a war of information. The schools are a major front that has been ceded to the capitalists, for the most part. Now, with NCLB and the invention of charter schools as a backdoor to privatization, we are on the verge of ceding this territory permanently.

And the other obvious avenue of attack is smashing the news monopolies. There is no serious discussion of socialism allowed on TV. Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky combined get less airtime than Sean Hannity alone.

I'm not asking for basically taking these textbooks and rewriting them all so that they are all slanted in the opposite direction. What I ask is a sober, dispassionate presentation of the facts associated with socialism and the facts with capitalism. In a fair presentation, the best idea will win in the end.

Just a reccomendation. It would never happen.

It would kill so many Fox News Memes...

That is the problem. The term has been misused and perverted. How can we reclaim it?

So I don't think it can be reclaimed for a very long time.

Never being open about the truth. It's sad that Leftists have been so vilified in the US. Great things could be done.

We they socialists?

This is what I am referring to.

Of course only the Communist Party of the USSR was allowed to run for office

Stupidity/ignorance stops it here.

Socialism carries too much weight with it to be usable in a general sense.

Bryant

we do it quite simply by not shrinking from the terms...We have let the other side take what are good qualities and turn them on us. If we stand up for them with confidence and pride we will take them back. Perception is everything and exuding confidence is an instrumental tool in shaping perception.

because this is an important discussion

who votes Democrat because there isn't a viable Socialist party in the United States. A direct quote from my 87 year old mother. She raised me right.

and relentlessly attack the actual effective socialist parties -- whether the French Socialist Party, the Democratic Socialists of America or the South African Communist Party -- you know, the kind who actually get stuff done.

Right now, lunatic Trotskyite cultists give socialists a bad name.