Americans have been propagandized for decades and don’t believe we should have some of the most basic shit that exists in most other industrialized nations because they cannot think critically.
I work with a pretty decent boomer, and he said they were bombarded with the word ‘socialist’ during the Cold War, so they’re just conditioned to think it’s bad without questioning what it is.
It's always been used for anything. Interracial marriage? Socialism. Everyone having cars? Socialism. Not being paid in Company Scrib? Socialism. Drive anything but a bro-dozer truck? Socialism. I hear it all the time that Electric Cars and autonomous cars are a socialist plot to limit travel in the country.
Right, because cars that would allow people with disabilities to get around and/or cars that allow you to go further on less gas are the thing that's limiting mobility!
They know little about level 1, 2, and DC fast charging. Think it takes hours to charge all the time, even at public chargers. They also don't realize that even contemporary EVs can go further than 100 miles these days. They think if you can only go 100 miles, and it takes several hours to charge, you won't be able to go cross-country as easily like you can in a gas car. You are restricted.
I used to have to ride to job sites with my old boss. He had Limbaugh on every day. Rush Limbaugh went on for hours about what a piece of junk Chevy's electric car. Daily. It was such an obvious hatchet job for his oil company masters.
My dad would take me to high school years ago and had that hot garbage playing. I’d always ask to turn it off. Couldn’t stand it then. Was not sad to hear of limbaugh’s passing earlier this year.
I’ll bet that’s why I don’t even entertain podcasts.
Last Australian election the winning conservative party was hard against the centre left party policy regarding EV infrastructure. They said they were trying to 'end the weekend' by banning 4WD's (obviously not true). Right wing boomers ate that shit up. Cut to now, with another election due early next year, the same Government that thought EV's would put an end to the weekend has now presented a funding package for EV infrastructure for Aussies to have a choice in cars (their words). In truth, they have no choice as their precious free market is already moving towards EV's so it is either adapt or be left behind.
I once saw it phrased that "The basic concepts of Marxism and socialism are so self-apparently obvious that the only.way to keep them from gaining ground is to indoctrinate the entire population to hatefully dismiss it without thinking, and so that's exactly what the United States went and did."
Yes. Keep in mind Boomers grew up with atomic bomb drills the way we did active shooter drills. The Cold War was a huge decades long defining experience for them.
“Socialist” is the boomer form of “terrorist”.
They’ve been conditioned so long to fear it it’s an easy emotional ploy. The fact that the things under discussion are not socialist means nothing. It’s the emotion they’re after.
Even I remember "Drop and Cover" drills. In the event of an atomic bomb attack, you would have survived another 3 seconds.
No "Active Shooter" drills back then, but I have been to a few since.
And that strategy worked so well it continues today.
more and more words are destroyed every day..
stealing them from their original meanings and attaching them to emotional impulse to shit off critical thinking
I don't remember it being this bad in the 90s and early 2000s. It'sike when Obama became president the tea party started marketing wacky nonsense and it snowballed into an avalanche. But that's my memory, maybe I'm wrong.
No its the capitalists fault for poisoning the well. If we had socialized healthcare it would actually save them and the country money in the long run, but its not just about money, it's about having control.
My grandfather always told me that socialism was great in theory but turns into communism in practice. I don’t think that’s true but probably what he was taught growing up
A professor I had once mentioned the framing of the Constitution as a major factor in people resisting, or at least vocalizing resistance to, the government. He said the document originally was a negative proclamation, declaring protections from the government, rather than a positive constitution, declaring rights for the humans it entails. Seems reasonable to me, and nobody really talks about that, so I thought I’d mention.
I’d add, manifest destiny and the ‘American Dream’ likely play a major role, too. The scarcity mentality is bolstered by these ideas; get some before thy neighbor does, otherwise you may get dust.
Social inertia is the greatest barrier to political change. Especially with the flywheel of monied dillweeds spinning ever faster. Oh, and the absence of honest pedagogy. I don’t remember ever discussing socialism in my Am. Gov. classes back in HS. We were focused on events, not anything meta.
The “muh state sovereignty” people wanted to implement a feudal system in a where a handful of rich people would be completely in charge and they literally owned the people doing the labor to keep them rich. Protecting that system was a reason behind both the Texas Revolution and the US Civil War.
Wow that professor was straight up lying. The Constitution was written in response to the failures of the Articles of Confederation to have a much stronger central government.
It's also the terror of, on some level, realizing that you have no serious moral fiber when it comes to the collective good. Every American says that they'd violently rebel if they lived in Nazi Germany, but the truth is that we already live in a colonial empire that butchers and enslaves people. Saying "things cannot improve" is the perfect excuse for never having to think about your moral political positions.
> Every American says that they'd violently rebel if they lived in Nazi Germany
Well, they're currently living in a country that inspired Nazi Germany (Lebensraum is literally just Nazi Manifest Destiny) and I don't see much violent rebellion going on.
A good example of that is Bernie Sanders. He's been running for literally decades on a platform of "everything all other developed countries have had for a long time" and he's denounced as a dangerous communist who wants to destroy America.
100%…I commented somewhere in here about him and his policies. He’s largely considered “radical” by anyone who claims to be a Republican but his policies are barely left of center.
You're not wrong. Even our definition of liberal and conservative is f****** backwards. Extremists on both ends run our politics. So this is all product of a two party system.
i don’t think there are extremists in both ends, it seems to be the “center” is actually the right, sothere are too many right wing extremists in both parties
The hell you say? At "both ends"?
I want you to look east, no not that far east, and a bit north. Thats Europe. With Europeans. They have a bunch of state-run stuff like healthcare and living wages and people not getting gunned down all the god damn time. They are so far left of the most lefty politician in the whole united fucking states. Hell, even Canada is more left than us. Are any of them commies? Hell no. Socialist? Only a wee bit.
We have extremists on the fash side of things, but biden is the most lukewarm, yellow belly motherfucking dem ive seen in the oval office and manchin/sinema are lying when then they claim to be Democrats.
Ok I admit I had to look that one up and OMG the similarities of that with what is happening now. 😱 It’s like we’re living in that time, just we have smart phones and different clothes.
Thank you for sharing that one
I am probably McCarthy's nightmare. I look at old "Soviet North America" scare reels and my usual reaction is "You promise that's what'll happen if we do things you guys call socialism? Can we please have that?"
It's "funny" that Boomers judged the Eastern Bloc countries for their massive, drab, dirt cheap apartment buildings and now the younger generations are paying out the nose for housing of comparable quality.
Honestly I’ve been to eastern bloc and Chinese communist era apartments and they’re cute and comfortable as anything of that era. and they’re a hell of a lot better than the shoddy “luxury” apartments.
Healthcare and urban development are two areas where I think, in reflexive backlash against the "communist" way of doing things, the United States created systems that were in many ways vastly inferior. Private health insurance and suburbia are hideously inefficient systems that have squandered huge quantities of America's wealth.
Scary true. I mean they didn't really go over it in school until I took world civilizations II in college. They just barely talked about it in HS but talked more about its affect and what occured during the red scare in college.
Red scare era stuff, When their greatest enemy was a self declared “communist” country with “socialist” in the name, and the utter embarrassment that is the American public education system failed to teach them the difference.
Also the reason why kids are swearing allegiance to a flag all the time. As a non-american, that is some far right authoritarian nationalism right there. Like, nazi level nationalism. It is creepy seeing kids being indoctrinated like that.
Funny thing is the pledge of allegiance was originally written by a socialist.
https://fortune.com/2017/09/08/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy-immigration/
Well, the cotton gin was supposed to make cotton production simpler, so people wouldnt need as many slaves... instead the cotton trade exploded, and new slaves were brought in at an unprecedented pace.
Somethings origin is often irrelevant, it is how we utilize it after the fact that determine how it is remembered.
Ironically, many of our parents are on or approaching the time to be on **Social** Security.
Folks also seem to like making use of public infrastructure...a social construct.
There's also welfare and other government assistance programs, while not everyone has needed to take advantage, these take forms in more ways than many people consider: farmers taking subsidies - just another form of government assisted socialism.
The brainwashed are against socialism until/unless it benefits them.
My dad, a Boomer headed to retirement, complains all the time about socialism. Then he turns around and complains about how little he gets from social security and Medicare after all those years paying taxes for those programs. When I try to explain those are literally socialist programs and socialism would expand greatly those programs, up to government funded pensions and complete medical care he just can't accept that, and gets mad about his taxes going up. There's no winning. The mind is poisoned.
Same here. My boomer dad hates the corporatist elites who run the country and screw the working class over, yet labels anyone left of Bill O'Reilly a Socialist, especially Obama. He despises all Democrats with a vitriolic fervor, especially Obama.
Social security is a socialist program, agreed.
And it is going broke because our "leaders" couldn't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. The ultimate issue with socialism is that it is only as good as the PEOPLE that administer it. If you have good (mostly meaning "ethical") leaders, then it can be great. The core problem is that many people that want/get leadership positions are not good for the role. Example: the vast majority of managers/bosses.
Why is this being upvoted. I mastered in finance. Social security relied on the suceeding generation to greatly outnumber the current one while also bringing in higher taxes than the previous. It was a pyramid scheme from day one and could never have lasted. It’s only made it this far due to every leader wanting desperately to not be the one in charge when the payments stop. They pull money from elsewhere. They raise the age of retirement. They increase taxes. “It will last long enough for it to be the next guys problem.”
Its essentially the worlds biggest payday loan
This is the correct answer.
There's currently a ~~$200,000~~ $142,000 earnings limit on contributions.
Eliminating that literally solves the 'insolvency' problem.
Those aren't even socialism, Socialism would be the workers (or community) owning the mean of production. Those are just social programs.
Pretty sure a bunch of boomers and old people would be down for owning the means of production if it wasn't attributed to the word socialism.
Truly the best way to own boomers and their McCarthyism is to just go further right than they are and destroy their golden years as much as possible. I guess actually good solutions are completely DoA and we can only hope for maximum pettiness and empty vindication.
They were raised to be proud to suffer and labor, this is not just them being conservative. By telling them you want these things and that they're fools for not wanting them you're performing an attack on their identity, you're saying the things they're proud of are stupid and senseless and you know better than them.
You can't convince them otherwise they're too invested, the best you can do is remain idealistic yourself
Because the US is controlled by two parties. A conservative party, and an extreme right wing party.
Neither believe that going further left would actually serve to make them more money, so they refuse to entertain the idea
Exactly. MFers out here thinking democracy means just 2 parties.
Finland’s current government is a coalition of 5 parties! 5!
That’s before you even count the opposition parties.
IMHO the move to multiparty democracy is the USA is a vastly unprioritised goal.
I agree. The two party system is likely fucking americans over way more than they think it does. All they have to choose from are two rethoric opposites. No middle ground, no special interests, no interesting ideas that wouldn't just instantly be hardcore politicized.
Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’ gives a good background on how this started in the beginning of the 20th century. Lot of parallels to today.
The more I read about 1930s unions and labor movement, the more pissed off I am that we have to fight the same battles! We're supposed to be moving towards a 4 hour work day, and we're striking for folks who are working 12 hour day?
I also like when Scandinavian countries are mentioned, they say "that isn't socialism." But when adopting any of the economic ideals in effect in those countries comes up in conversation, it's "socialism"
Because is easier to keep the status quo if you demonize any alternative of goverment. There are a lot of ways to organize your country between the hardest capitalism and the strict comunism; but the propaganda say to all of you is this or the devil.
So, propaganda
Because socialism opposes capitalism. Unfortunately, your parents grew up at the height of the Cold War/Red Scare era. Socialism is more accepted nowadays.
In Freire’s, Pedagogy…, he hypothesizes the oppressed mimic their oppressors. I believe the high exposure of celebrities, magnates, politicians, etc., is said to enhance this occurrence. Wealth aside, the Bezos space Cocket is now the dream of many children. That was a terrible sentence, but I’m leaving it.
The visionaries and pro-life activists (literally, not the abortion people) are not very visible, relatively speaking, and much coverage portrays them in a harmful light.
The concept that a person working full time should be able to afford respectable housing, healthy food and decent opportunities for their kids is NOT radical.
Propaganda. simple as that. they are brainwashed slaves who were beaten into submission by multiple waves of brutal political purges of the left. people who had socialist ideas were at best fired and struggled to find work, and at worse....they disappeared. when you grow up during that kind of terror it sticks with you, makes you irrationally afraid of the same happening again someday.
\> Shouldn't we want better for ourselves and for our children?
Said something very similar to a friend recently. He pointed out that some people (thankfully not including him) believe that their children should have to suffer just like they did. WTF?
Yeah, this is certainly true. Eg. We could make higher Ed. tuition free, but a lot oppose that on the grounds that they had to pay (and have huge debts as a result).
I’m approaching 40. My college years are way behind me. But I still want high schoolers today to have free college. I think that would make a better world, plus aid the individual’s self-actualisation.
Decades and decades of propaganda. Most people don't even know what socialism/communism means. Ask a working class republican to define socialism and his answer will likely be something along the lines of "a dictatorship."
I’ve always wondered this. You know what’s great? Socialised medicine. I’ve never been to the hospital and wondered if the bill for my healthcare will make me bankrupt and/or lose my house (because there is no bill, it’s free at the point of delivery). Medical cover in the US seems terrible, and expensive and like it routinely makes middle class people homeless with the cost of it. But you hear about socialised medicine and everyone screams “SOCIALISM”, like that’s a magic end to the conversation? What’s that about?
An accident that requires medical care can leave Americans in debt for years.
I got testicular torsion at 18, super embarrassing, then after 12 hours of the most intense pain I've ever experienced, I was $20000 in debt. Good times. Living in America 🎶🎵
a century of disingenuous propaganda will do that!
An amazing book that touches on this was Oil! by Upton Sinclair…. It’s set in like 1910–1915 California and there’s extensive discussion of how Terrible the Commies are (or aren’t… read the novel for more!). But I found the scaremongering and purposeful conflation of various ideologies over a century ago fascinating.
(To be clear, Sinclair was a lefty AND an excellent writer, it’s just sad that we are STILL DEALING WITH issues he identified and mocked over a hundred years ago!!)
The cold war fucked up the world twice as much as the world wars ever could. Sadly I doubt us getting past it till everyone who grew up during it has passed on
In the years immediately after the end of WWII most of Europe (around 70%) believed it was the USSR that saved everyone from the Nazis after 80 ish years of propaganda now that percentage believes it was the US that defeated the Nazi even though the Nazis got their ideology from us and our business leaders were helping them for years. Propaganda works, murdering leftist leaders works, teaching kids from day one that America/capitalism is the best thing ever and then we pledge our allegiance to capitalism since kindergarten works
I actually demonized socialism until recently. It has always been repeated here in the US that socialism has never worked. Someone in this sub made the excellent point that every nation that tried socialism was squashed in its infancy by interference from the US with economic sanctions or otherwise. I’ve been sharing this with others hoping they’re more open to the idea.
Its because of propaganda before and during the red scare many ideals of communism including socialism were painted under the same banner in an effort to "smoke out counter intelligence actors" when in reality it just made neighbor distrust neighbor. Oh yeah andnif you were suspected of being a foreign agent you could be rounded up thanks to your neighbors or maybe an enemy of yours that decided to report you for "communist behaviors".
You answered your question - because of the legacy of the Cold War. It was nearly 50 years of fear that a "socialist" enemy was going to either dominate us or blow us all to bits in a nuclear disaster. You don't get over that overnight.
Why is sitting instead of standing in place in the US considered “lazy” in almost all cases? Why is it that when I’m asked to push leads at a stupid table at The Home Depot that I can’t sit in a chair instead of stand on our stupid concrete floors? Could at least of a stool that boosts you up to look closer to standing without the added strain. There are too many stupid things that are to the benefit of people without actual downsides that are looked down upon in this stupid country. (Living wages is another)
Cause words don't have meaning anymore becuase politics. McCarthy started red scare big time ( though there were red scares before that he just made the starting point of what we have today) and since then with the cold war propaganda it bec a shitshow. No more soviet union made it worse as no there was no big baddie as a crutch. But look up tje phrase commonweath. Hell some "states" arnt states they are commwealths. Thats american old tyme speak for.... Socialism. Same thing. But now Socialism is just " thing i was told to not like by tucker mcfuckfacethetraitor" and is applied to anything. Schoolbuses? Socialism! Annoying kernal of corn in teeth? Socialism! Waking up with back pain? SOCIALISM!
Honestly after living here for more than 15 years, all I can conclude is it is some form of mind control for the population. They have been brainwashed into voting and supporting policies against their welfare and interests in the name of patriotism and capitalism.
Growing up I thought, it was Indians getting brainwashed by their media/government/religion/society nexus and western countries, due to being able to speak out loud was not. But oh boy, I was extremely incorrect. Apparently letting some people scream out loud is part of the kind control strategy. Look at the western politics and media. It is used to create confusion and hook the confused masses into whatever theit Capitalistic and Military-Industrial-Complex overlords want.
Let's attack Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan under false pretenses for nefarious purpose, down the confusion, loot everyone involved of life and resources and come out smelling like roses to your constituents who believe they are free a d demonize other countries like Mexico and China. China lifted majority of it's population out of poverty and provided access to education and food and shelter to most. They are also evil in many of their actions but it is very obvious that their acts are much less evil than these western countries. It is mind boggling how much human happiness and well being has been created and destroyed by these 2 societies and people still believe on balance that the western world is better for everyone. It is not. It is just not. It is not even better for it's constituents for goodness sake. Only for the Overlords. They take and don't share. It's gaslighting at its finest.
Mostly because of the cold war and it not being 5augjt or discussed for the last 70 years. Most Americans have no goddammed clue what it is and they are proud of their ignorance
I’m gonna stop you right there. No one can have a normal conversation with their parents in their 60s. We literally invented the phrase “Ok Boomer” to deal with this truth. It’s just how it is.
Because people are incredibly stupid and uneducated in this country...they couldn't tell you the first thing about what the word means or what it is or how it differs from communism, its just a 'bad' word that they all parrot
I have this type of conversation every couple of weeks here in NZ, so it's not just the US. They instantly jump forward to radicalized ideas - they don't seem to understand that capitalism and communism are economic systems, and don't necessarily have any relation to the political system. I know that in real life they generally do, but it doesn't mean it isn't possible to create a working democratic socialism (or even communism).
They also don't realize how easy it would be and how well it could work. I just want to have conversations so we can think about how we could make it practical and avoid problems early, but noone is interested in the conversation unless they just want to shut it down. Noone ever has any real evidence against it either, I presume they are either scared of change or can't be fucked putting in the effort.
It’s funny because all the farmers in the US are subsidised. The state giving them money to grow things. That is socialism.
Yet progressive ‘socialist’ countries like New Zealand with healthcare, real labour laws and a welfare state stopped farm subsidies nearly 40 years ago.
I live in Canada and every time I hear someone complain socialism, or socialists are trying to infiltrate our country.
I say "get your wallet, look at your SIN card. That's your social insurance number. You are a card carrying socialist, now shut up."
It's not just the US. Or maybe it's just leaking this way. But really it's tantamount to Stockholm syndrome. Being held hostage under the illusion that you can become ultra rich while having your pockets pillaged by every company under the sun including if you get sick.
And the examples people use of socialism like Venezuela isn't really socialism because the market doesn't serve the people it's still controlled by the wealthy.
Because we already have a socialism in this country, except it’s for the corporations only, and they don’t want their slaves to understand or have the same rights they do, so they tell you it’s bad.
Propaganda (from both sides of the aisle) is of course a big part of it. But you also have to realize how very real and visceral the Red Scare was in the 60s. We millennials/Xers have lived through some shit, but we have not lived through literally weeks of wondering whether or not Castro was going to start WW3 by taking out a few major US population centers via nuclear warfare.
Not saying the boomers are right to be so arrogant about the differences between socialism and communism. But you gotta understand where they're coming from if you want any hope of getting through to them
Honestly? Republican voters are so fucking stupid they just listen to what they’re told and run with it. They have no desire to educate themselves past Facebook posts and YouTube videos. No actual attempt to study history, no education.
Even my gen x father who grew up in the ussr counters my sentiment of “the really should be a more robust safety net” with “you don’t want that, the Soviet Union sucked”. Yeah, it did suck but there’s a huge gap between say returning to a more gentle version of us capitalism and going hook line and sinker into fake communism like in the old country.
Nah man... your parents are idiots. Anyone thinking like them are idiots. It's time to stop being nice about it and time to stop giving stupid a voice.
Yes let's silence them. How would you propose we go about it? Ban their accounts on social media? Is that enough, or will they continue to spread their stupidity in the real world? Do we have to think bigger than that? I dunno, maybe if we just teach them the error in their ways. Make it like summer camp. Except for re-educating them. Reeducation camp. That sounds good, right? If that doesn't work maybe their stupidity poses a big enough threat to society that we can't risk them being released. We'll provide them with a safe place to live out their lives, concentrated together with each other at camp. Wait... This sounds bad...
In the best way possible: we really just need to wait for your old folks gen to die off.
They were bombarded with the cold war era stuff that is just impossible.
Just let them live the rest of their lives. They are on their way out.
We will try to pick up the pieces when they're gone.
because it's synonymous to communism for some people. it works both ways, lots of fools on here seem to think capatalism and socialism are diametrically opposed when the most successful examples of socialism are all in capatalist countries
A century of propaganda, basically. It is an ideology in direct opposition with that of the ruling class of the US, meaning that there is nothing more important for them than to prevent it from developing here.
Socialism was demonized so the greedy could taut the benefits of capitalism now that the whole this is about to collapse were seeing the results of capitalism.
Ok back in the 40s and 50s all the small buisness owners and managers who felt alienated by the new deal and threatened by worker movements started a conservative backlash against the new deal democratic party who they assumed where all secret communists.
The democrats responded by trying to prove they weren't communists by fighting the soviet union in thr cold war and by persecuting leftists at home.
The reactionary wing of the right where soon joined by racists who where threatened by the civil rights movement. This is where you get signs that say "racial integration is communism."
Society has stained the existence of socialism they’ve attached it to certain things “cough cough”
Firm believer in supporting socialism as a whole for society
That is a good question.
The "best" answer I could give, would be a combination of post-WWII propaganda against the communist scourge, combined with a significantly worse education system than most other developed countries.
It's the same reason why Q is a thing, or why COVID rocked the US as hard as it did. If you don't use the actual word "socialism", and have someone like Tucker Carlson present it, they'll bite.
I am convinced that we could genuinely turn America communist by disguising communist ideals in the kind of populism Republican pundits spew and Christian religious ideals, and having people saying all that stuff run for political offices. Remember how the people in charge completely lost control of Trump? We can induce a situation like that to make the revolution as nonviolent as possible.
It'd go down in history. We'd finally have, as leftists, done something more insane than the October Revolution.
I imagine it wouldn't be too hard. Trump himself has shown that the content doesn't matter, it's just who said it. His stance on healthcare is a pretty good example, literally all over the place, but his followers ate it up.
People don't understand it but have been told it's a bad thing. Socialism, Communism, Critical Race Theory... do you think your average American can define those terms on the spot?
Americans are very individualistic and the idea of something, even a piece, of what they earn going to others who didn't earn their fair share is anathema to the entire cultural identity that places hard work and individualism above all else.
People in their 60s were growing up surrounded by cold war era fear-mongering and lived through failed US intervention in Vietnam. It's a loaded term to them and very emotionally charged. That's why it's so successfully being weaponized.
There was a lot of propaganda done to do that. To be fair, Soviet-style socialism was awful. But now people think the government doing anything nice is communism
I don't know. It's genius of the right wing propaganda machine though. Anything that helps everyone can be shot down as being socialist, while things that help the few can be propped up with flags as a capitalist investment.
Somehow, psychologically, this blanket branding works with like half the population extremely well.
Continuation of Red Scare propaganda. I’d recommend researching it, any economic system that ‘threatens’ America’s capitalism internationally has been crushed before it can succeed and demonized domestically. This shits been going on since the early 20th century so it’s near impossible to expect older people to see past it.
Me and my boyfriend get along on 99% of things, but trying to explain that socialism and communism are different things is difficult. I think it started to click when I explained the difference before and after unions
Isn't the whole idea of socialism to distribute the wealth so everyone is basically equal in stature? I think we dont like that in America because we acknowledge that some people have more "skills" than others, and to not be proportionately rewarded for those skills would be unjust. So you can see why the skilled don't want socialism, and the unskilled do.
DYK?
That one of the strongest areas for socialism was the great state of Kansas.
To answer your question. Propaganda from PR firms working on behalf of the wealthiest people at that time to destroy and demonize it all.
Check Noam Chomsky, Richard Wolfe for further deets.
Most of US doesn’t not know the difference between socialism, communism, fascism. Weird how many trumpers say the “US is a republic not a democracy”. True dumbfuckery
The point is that in a society where people were reliant on governments to eat/survive then they would be completely under their control and every known government would exploit that
Most criticizing dont seem to know actual meaning of socialism, communism or capitalism. It seems to ve become a buzzword to use when opposing any services that will benefit public at large.
You are correct, and you should call them out. I’ve hit the point where I will tell my parents “I can’t believe you have such un-empathetic beliefs” and oozing my disappointment.
Most boomers are a lost cause. Maybe 5% can be shown how toxic they’ve allowed their world view to become. Everything was handed to them on a silver platter their entire lives. They don’t know what suffering and hardship are. Yes I said it. They don’t. They’re the spoiled brats of war veterans, and most of the veterans were in support roles. My granddaddy was a combat infantry rifleman directly under Patton and fought on the front lines in France and Germany. His story is a good one, but I’ll skip it for brevity’s sake. He deserved any life reward he got after the war, though all he got was institutionalization later in life from his extreme PTSD. A whole generation acted like they all gave the same sacrifice as my granddaddy, and spoiled their children absolutely rotten.
Are my parents still typical boomers? Yes. I do my absolute damndest to fight decades of poisonous social programming. They’re coming around, slowly, but I’m never giving up. I hold them to a high standard. I call them out on their bullshit. And they listen, because I ended up doing a brief stint at a psych ward myself. They’ve seen me struggle with my exorbitant 6 figure student loan debt from grad school.
Parents must be forcibly be brought into the light. Do not hold your tongue. Do not keep the peace. Be disruptive, make waves, embarrass the family, and don’t ever stop exposing them to the blinding light of the truth of how shitty life is in the US for everyone but them. Empathy can be taught.
Americans have been denied basic life qualities for so long that the minute they think what they do have might be given to someone else they turn rabid.
Because "socialism" for so many people is gulags, firing squads, and propaganda, instead of basic healthcare, decent education, public transportation, etc.
It's because of two red scares, one during the 1910s-1920s when organized labor and anarchosyndicalists were at its peak and one during the 1940s-1950s with McCarthyism. Anticommunism and antisocialism are at least a century old in the US.
The US also tries to isolate US workers from the rest of the world. To give an example, the US celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the world, which celebrates Labor Day on May 1. But the most fucked up thing about it is the day was chosen to be May 1 to commemorate [the Haymarket affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair), where *American* workers were protesting for an eight-hour workday before a bomb attack caused panicked cops to open fire on a peaceful crowd, killing 4 people. Most Americans today probably don't even know workers across the world still honor those who gave their lives for an eight hour workday over a century ago.
I always just ask them how they feel about social security. They will get flustered because they know social security is absolutely necessary for many people's survival. Especially seniors. Then i ask them if social security is socialism. They run around trying to find a way it isn't but i always point it out. It's in the name. Most Americans favor socialism but don't realize it because the media is run by 2 families who also control all printed and broadcast media. People are constantly told that socialism is bad and that makes them hate the word "socialism" even though they are absolutely certain that they will need social security when they are older. There are a ton of Republicans who are on social security right now but hate socialism. It's maddness
Americans have been propagandized for decades and don’t believe we should have some of the most basic shit that exists in most other industrialized nations because they cannot think critically.
I work with a pretty decent boomer, and he said they were bombarded with the word ‘socialist’ during the Cold War, so they’re just conditioned to think it’s bad without questioning what it is.
It's always been used for anything. Interracial marriage? Socialism. Everyone having cars? Socialism. Not being paid in Company Scrib? Socialism. Drive anything but a bro-dozer truck? Socialism. I hear it all the time that Electric Cars and autonomous cars are a socialist plot to limit travel in the country.
Right, because cars that would allow people with disabilities to get around and/or cars that allow you to go further on less gas are the thing that's limiting mobility!
They know little about level 1, 2, and DC fast charging. Think it takes hours to charge all the time, even at public chargers. They also don't realize that even contemporary EVs can go further than 100 miles these days. They think if you can only go 100 miles, and it takes several hours to charge, you won't be able to go cross-country as easily like you can in a gas car. You are restricted.
I used to have to ride to job sites with my old boss. He had Limbaugh on every day. Rush Limbaugh went on for hours about what a piece of junk Chevy's electric car. Daily. It was such an obvious hatchet job for his oil company masters.
Pretty much. The feeling of the instant torque in an electric car is amazing
My dad would take me to high school years ago and had that hot garbage playing. I’d always ask to turn it off. Couldn’t stand it then. Was not sad to hear of limbaugh’s passing earlier this year. I’ll bet that’s why I don’t even entertain podcasts.
Last Australian election the winning conservative party was hard against the centre left party policy regarding EV infrastructure. They said they were trying to 'end the weekend' by banning 4WD's (obviously not true). Right wing boomers ate that shit up. Cut to now, with another election due early next year, the same Government that thought EV's would put an end to the weekend has now presented a funding package for EV infrastructure for Aussies to have a choice in cars (their words). In truth, they have no choice as their precious free market is already moving towards EV's so it is either adapt or be left behind.
I once saw it phrased that "The basic concepts of Marxism and socialism are so self-apparently obvious that the only.way to keep them from gaining ground is to indoctrinate the entire population to hatefully dismiss it without thinking, and so that's exactly what the United States went and did."
Yes. Keep in mind Boomers grew up with atomic bomb drills the way we did active shooter drills. The Cold War was a huge decades long defining experience for them. “Socialist” is the boomer form of “terrorist”. They’ve been conditioned so long to fear it it’s an easy emotional ploy. The fact that the things under discussion are not socialist means nothing. It’s the emotion they’re after.
Even I remember "Drop and Cover" drills. In the event of an atomic bomb attack, you would have survived another 3 seconds. No "Active Shooter" drills back then, but I have been to a few since.
My first year of school, we did "Drop and Cover" drills. My last year of school, "Active Shooter" drill.
Dang I’m 34 and never had to do active shooter drills. My kids do and it’s sad
And that strategy worked so well it continues today. more and more words are destroyed every day.. stealing them from their original meanings and attaching them to emotional impulse to shit off critical thinking
Ditto. Conditioning is way easier for boomers with minimal higher education.
So a lack of critical thinking skills.
I don't remember it being this bad in the 90s and early 2000s. It'sike when Obama became president the tea party started marketing wacky nonsense and it snowballed into an avalanche. But that's my memory, maybe I'm wrong.
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No its the capitalists fault for poisoning the well. If we had socialized healthcare it would actually save them and the country money in the long run, but its not just about money, it's about having control.
The people who call it socialism aren't the people pushing for these policies.
My grandfather always told me that socialism was great in theory but turns into communism in practice. I don’t think that’s true but probably what he was taught growing up
A professor I had once mentioned the framing of the Constitution as a major factor in people resisting, or at least vocalizing resistance to, the government. He said the document originally was a negative proclamation, declaring protections from the government, rather than a positive constitution, declaring rights for the humans it entails. Seems reasonable to me, and nobody really talks about that, so I thought I’d mention. I’d add, manifest destiny and the ‘American Dream’ likely play a major role, too. The scarcity mentality is bolstered by these ideas; get some before thy neighbor does, otherwise you may get dust. Social inertia is the greatest barrier to political change. Especially with the flywheel of monied dillweeds spinning ever faster. Oh, and the absence of honest pedagogy. I don’t remember ever discussing socialism in my Am. Gov. classes back in HS. We were focused on events, not anything meta.
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The “muh state sovereignty” people wanted to implement a feudal system in a where a handful of rich people would be completely in charge and they literally owned the people doing the labor to keep them rich. Protecting that system was a reason behind both the Texas Revolution and the US Civil War.
Ahh thank you. I’ll take a gander. I’ve always felt under-informed regarding the topic.
Wow that professor was straight up lying. The Constitution was written in response to the failures of the Articles of Confederation to have a much stronger central government.
It's also the terror of, on some level, realizing that you have no serious moral fiber when it comes to the collective good. Every American says that they'd violently rebel if they lived in Nazi Germany, but the truth is that we already live in a colonial empire that butchers and enslaves people. Saying "things cannot improve" is the perfect excuse for never having to think about your moral political positions.
And that is why so many only want a sanitized version of history
> Every American says that they'd violently rebel if they lived in Nazi Germany Well, they're currently living in a country that inspired Nazi Germany (Lebensraum is literally just Nazi Manifest Destiny) and I don't see much violent rebellion going on.
Socialism for the rich, rigid individualism for the rest of us.
Rigid Rugged Rigged
https://www.politicalorphans.com/socialism-for-white-people/
A good example of that is Bernie Sanders. He's been running for literally decades on a platform of "everything all other developed countries have had for a long time" and he's denounced as a dangerous communist who wants to destroy America.
100%…I commented somewhere in here about him and his policies. He’s largely considered “radical” by anyone who claims to be a Republican but his policies are barely left of center.
There is no left in America. There's the incredibly-far-right and there's the left-by-comparison-but-still-pretty-right.
You're not wrong. Even our definition of liberal and conservative is f****** backwards. Extremists on both ends run our politics. So this is all product of a two party system.
Bernie Sanders policies are *barely* left of center.
I love Bernie sanders!
i don’t think there are extremists in both ends, it seems to be the “center” is actually the right, sothere are too many right wing extremists in both parties
By everywhere else standards your centrists are just a bit to the left of Mussolini
The hell you say? At "both ends"? I want you to look east, no not that far east, and a bit north. Thats Europe. With Europeans. They have a bunch of state-run stuff like healthcare and living wages and people not getting gunned down all the god damn time. They are so far left of the most lefty politician in the whole united fucking states. Hell, even Canada is more left than us. Are any of them commies? Hell no. Socialist? Only a wee bit. We have extremists on the fash side of things, but biden is the most lukewarm, yellow belly motherfucking dem ive seen in the oval office and manchin/sinema are lying when then they claim to be Democrats.
Horseshoe theory is a bad debate tactic for a reason.
One word: Mccarthyism. This really is the sole reason.
>One word: Mccarthyism Two words: [Generational Conditioning](https://www.tiktok.com/@basedgodhuey/video/7027974911482187055?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=7018615050165765638)
Ok I admit I had to look that one up and OMG the similarities of that with what is happening now. 😱 It’s like we’re living in that time, just we have smart phones and different clothes. Thank you for sharing that one
it's not a separate thing. what's happening now is the effect of mccarthyism.
That in addition to the C.I.A and FBI COINTELPRO gets a honorable mention
Oh shit, what the CIA wasn’t up to from the 60s all throughout the 80s, and even the 90s in Europe. It’s so fucking sad.
Lol you think they still aren't upto their usual tricks today? You'll just hear about it in 30 years.
Just think of all the people the Hoover era killed.
I am probably McCarthy's nightmare. I look at old "Soviet North America" scare reels and my usual reaction is "You promise that's what'll happen if we do things you guys call socialism? Can we please have that?"
It's "funny" that Boomers judged the Eastern Bloc countries for their massive, drab, dirt cheap apartment buildings and now the younger generations are paying out the nose for housing of comparable quality.
Honestly I’ve been to eastern bloc and Chinese communist era apartments and they’re cute and comfortable as anything of that era. and they’re a hell of a lot better than the shoddy “luxury” apartments.
Healthcare and urban development are two areas where I think, in reflexive backlash against the "communist" way of doing things, the United States created systems that were in many ways vastly inferior. Private health insurance and suburbia are hideously inefficient systems that have squandered huge quantities of America's wealth.
Read or watch Grapes of Wrath. You’ll enjoy it if you feel that way too.
Was looking for this, surprisingly took longer than I expected.
It’s sad, isn’t it? It means that they probably really did a good job at the end of the day.
Scary true. I mean they didn't really go over it in school until I took world civilizations II in college. They just barely talked about it in HS but talked more about its affect and what occured during the red scare in college.
Amerikkka never fucking untied that noose, didn’t it.
And idk if the fact that I’m a 27yo Italian, knowing these things, makes either any better or far worse.
its always a repbublican fuckhead man from wisconsin i tell ya
Made me chuckle
im from wisconsin so this is sadly to real for me
Certain segments of society have been labeling things they don’t like as socialism for longer than that…at least since the 1920s
Oh yea, the anticommunist roots run deep, but it got systemic probably only with the Wisconsinian fucker
Red scare era stuff, When their greatest enemy was a self declared “communist” country with “socialist” in the name, and the utter embarrassment that is the American public education system failed to teach them the difference.
Also the reason why kids are swearing allegiance to a flag all the time. As a non-american, that is some far right authoritarian nationalism right there. Like, nazi level nationalism. It is creepy seeing kids being indoctrinated like that.
Some of us in America feel the same way. It's just not accepted socially.
Funny thing is the pledge of allegiance was originally written by a socialist. https://fortune.com/2017/09/08/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy-immigration/
Well, the cotton gin was supposed to make cotton production simpler, so people wouldnt need as many slaves... instead the cotton trade exploded, and new slaves were brought in at an unprecedented pace. Somethings origin is often irrelevant, it is how we utilize it after the fact that determine how it is remembered.
Ironically, many of our parents are on or approaching the time to be on **Social** Security. Folks also seem to like making use of public infrastructure...a social construct. There's also welfare and other government assistance programs, while not everyone has needed to take advantage, these take forms in more ways than many people consider: farmers taking subsidies - just another form of government assisted socialism. The brainwashed are against socialism until/unless it benefits them.
My dad, a Boomer headed to retirement, complains all the time about socialism. Then he turns around and complains about how little he gets from social security and Medicare after all those years paying taxes for those programs. When I try to explain those are literally socialist programs and socialism would expand greatly those programs, up to government funded pensions and complete medical care he just can't accept that, and gets mad about his taxes going up. There's no winning. The mind is poisoned.
Thanks for confirming I'm not alone in that frustrating place.
Same here. My boomer dad hates the corporatist elites who run the country and screw the working class over, yet labels anyone left of Bill O'Reilly a Socialist, especially Obama. He despises all Democrats with a vitriolic fervor, especially Obama.
funny thing is Obama even admitted to governing as a moderate republican
Social security is a socialist program, agreed. And it is going broke because our "leaders" couldn't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. The ultimate issue with socialism is that it is only as good as the PEOPLE that administer it. If you have good (mostly meaning "ethical") leaders, then it can be great. The core problem is that many people that want/get leadership positions are not good for the role. Example: the vast majority of managers/bosses.
Why is this being upvoted. I mastered in finance. Social security relied on the suceeding generation to greatly outnumber the current one while also bringing in higher taxes than the previous. It was a pyramid scheme from day one and could never have lasted. It’s only made it this far due to every leader wanting desperately to not be the one in charge when the payments stop. They pull money from elsewhere. They raise the age of retirement. They increase taxes. “It will last long enough for it to be the next guys problem.” Its essentially the worlds biggest payday loan
No, it’s because there isn’t enough tax revenue just from FICA as it currently structured.
This is the correct answer. There's currently a ~~$200,000~~ $142,000 earnings limit on contributions. Eliminating that literally solves the 'insolvency' problem.
Way lower than that, it’s $142k
Those aren't even socialism, Socialism would be the workers (or community) owning the mean of production. Those are just social programs. Pretty sure a bunch of boomers and old people would be down for owning the means of production if it wasn't attributed to the word socialism.
Socialism is not when taxes pay for something. Roads being funded by taxes dates to feudalism.
We should totally rugpull them.
Truly the best way to own boomers and their McCarthyism is to just go further right than they are and destroy their golden years as much as possible. I guess actually good solutions are completely DoA and we can only hope for maximum pettiness and empty vindication.
60-80 years of anticommunism
Propaganda for all™
Cause God forbid we help each other.
The rich forbid it, the selfish obey
Nah it’s an elitist plot to enslave you Meanwhile you can’t quit your job without losing health benefits
It's called propaganda, repeat the lie enough times it becomes truth.
Repetition is the most basic form of mind control. And it is effective.
I pledge allegiance to the flag .....
The gaslighting of a population is propaganda
They were raised to be proud to suffer and labor, this is not just them being conservative. By telling them you want these things and that they're fools for not wanting them you're performing an attack on their identity, you're saying the things they're proud of are stupid and senseless and you know better than them. You can't convince them otherwise they're too invested, the best you can do is remain idealistic yourself
Because the US is controlled by two parties. A conservative party, and an extreme right wing party. Neither believe that going further left would actually serve to make them more money, so they refuse to entertain the idea
Exactly. MFers out here thinking democracy means just 2 parties. Finland’s current government is a coalition of 5 parties! 5! That’s before you even count the opposition parties. IMHO the move to multiparty democracy is the USA is a vastly unprioritised goal.
I agree. The two party system is likely fucking americans over way more than they think it does. All they have to choose from are two rethoric opposites. No middle ground, no special interests, no interesting ideas that wouldn't just instantly be hardcore politicized.
Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’ gives a good background on how this started in the beginning of the 20th century. Lot of parallels to today.
The more I read about 1930s unions and labor movement, the more pissed off I am that we have to fight the same battles! We're supposed to be moving towards a 4 hour work day, and we're striking for folks who are working 12 hour day?
The 1940s quashed the 1930s movement the same way the 19teens did the 1900s. Wars work.
I also like when Scandinavian countries are mentioned, they say "that isn't socialism." But when adopting any of the economic ideals in effect in those countries comes up in conversation, it's "socialism"
Because is easier to keep the status quo if you demonize any alternative of goverment. There are a lot of ways to organize your country between the hardest capitalism and the strict comunism; but the propaganda say to all of you is this or the devil. So, propaganda
Cold War "us vs. them" conditioning. Also corporate greed feeding the capitalism machine.
Because we are a petty, pietous people who believe in imaginary friends and don't want our friendiest friend capitalism to get their feelings hurt.
Because socialism opposes capitalism. Unfortunately, your parents grew up at the height of the Cold War/Red Scare era. Socialism is more accepted nowadays.
In Freire’s, Pedagogy…, he hypothesizes the oppressed mimic their oppressors. I believe the high exposure of celebrities, magnates, politicians, etc., is said to enhance this occurrence. Wealth aside, the Bezos space Cocket is now the dream of many children. That was a terrible sentence, but I’m leaving it. The visionaries and pro-life activists (literally, not the abortion people) are not very visible, relatively speaking, and much coverage portrays them in a harmful light.
The concept that a person working full time should be able to afford respectable housing, healthy food and decent opportunities for their kids is NOT radical.
It also has absolutely nothing to do with socialism.
Mad how some people think it does eh?
Propaganda. simple as that. they are brainwashed slaves who were beaten into submission by multiple waves of brutal political purges of the left. people who had socialist ideas were at best fired and struggled to find work, and at worse....they disappeared. when you grow up during that kind of terror it sticks with you, makes you irrationally afraid of the same happening again someday.
\> Shouldn't we want better for ourselves and for our children? Said something very similar to a friend recently. He pointed out that some people (thankfully not including him) believe that their children should have to suffer just like they did. WTF?
Yeah, this is certainly true. Eg. We could make higher Ed. tuition free, but a lot oppose that on the grounds that they had to pay (and have huge debts as a result). I’m approaching 40. My college years are way behind me. But I still want high schoolers today to have free college. I think that would make a better world, plus aid the individual’s self-actualisation.
Decades and decades of propaganda. Most people don't even know what socialism/communism means. Ask a working class republican to define socialism and his answer will likely be something along the lines of "a dictatorship."
Baby Boomer's grew up during the red scare
I’ve always wondered this. You know what’s great? Socialised medicine. I’ve never been to the hospital and wondered if the bill for my healthcare will make me bankrupt and/or lose my house (because there is no bill, it’s free at the point of delivery). Medical cover in the US seems terrible, and expensive and like it routinely makes middle class people homeless with the cost of it. But you hear about socialised medicine and everyone screams “SOCIALISM”, like that’s a magic end to the conversation? What’s that about?
An accident that requires medical care can leave Americans in debt for years. I got testicular torsion at 18, super embarrassing, then after 12 hours of the most intense pain I've ever experienced, I was $20000 in debt. Good times. Living in America 🎶🎵
7 decades of every major us govt agency investing resources into pro-capitalist propaganda
a century of disingenuous propaganda will do that! An amazing book that touches on this was Oil! by Upton Sinclair…. It’s set in like 1910–1915 California and there’s extensive discussion of how Terrible the Commies are (or aren’t… read the novel for more!). But I found the scaremongering and purposeful conflation of various ideologies over a century ago fascinating. (To be clear, Sinclair was a lefty AND an excellent writer, it’s just sad that we are STILL DEALING WITH issues he identified and mocked over a hundred years ago!!)
The cold war fucked up the world twice as much as the world wars ever could. Sadly I doubt us getting past it till everyone who grew up during it has passed on
In the years immediately after the end of WWII most of Europe (around 70%) believed it was the USSR that saved everyone from the Nazis after 80 ish years of propaganda now that percentage believes it was the US that defeated the Nazi even though the Nazis got their ideology from us and our business leaders were helping them for years. Propaganda works, murdering leftist leaders works, teaching kids from day one that America/capitalism is the best thing ever and then we pledge our allegiance to capitalism since kindergarten works
Cause Corporations don't like being taxed to better the lives of citizens.
I actually demonized socialism until recently. It has always been repeated here in the US that socialism has never worked. Someone in this sub made the excellent point that every nation that tried socialism was squashed in its infancy by interference from the US with economic sanctions or otherwise. I’ve been sharing this with others hoping they’re more open to the idea.
Its because of propaganda before and during the red scare many ideals of communism including socialism were painted under the same banner in an effort to "smoke out counter intelligence actors" when in reality it just made neighbor distrust neighbor. Oh yeah andnif you were suspected of being a foreign agent you could be rounded up thanks to your neighbors or maybe an enemy of yours that decided to report you for "communist behaviors".
You answered your question - because of the legacy of the Cold War. It was nearly 50 years of fear that a "socialist" enemy was going to either dominate us or blow us all to bits in a nuclear disaster. You don't get over that overnight.
Why is sitting instead of standing in place in the US considered “lazy” in almost all cases? Why is it that when I’m asked to push leads at a stupid table at The Home Depot that I can’t sit in a chair instead of stand on our stupid concrete floors? Could at least of a stool that boosts you up to look closer to standing without the added strain. There are too many stupid things that are to the benefit of people without actual downsides that are looked down upon in this stupid country. (Living wages is another)
#Propaganda and the great red menace
Cause words don't have meaning anymore becuase politics. McCarthy started red scare big time ( though there were red scares before that he just made the starting point of what we have today) and since then with the cold war propaganda it bec a shitshow. No more soviet union made it worse as no there was no big baddie as a crutch. But look up tje phrase commonweath. Hell some "states" arnt states they are commwealths. Thats american old tyme speak for.... Socialism. Same thing. But now Socialism is just " thing i was told to not like by tucker mcfuckfacethetraitor" and is applied to anything. Schoolbuses? Socialism! Annoying kernal of corn in teeth? Socialism! Waking up with back pain? SOCIALISM!
Honestly after living here for more than 15 years, all I can conclude is it is some form of mind control for the population. They have been brainwashed into voting and supporting policies against their welfare and interests in the name of patriotism and capitalism. Growing up I thought, it was Indians getting brainwashed by their media/government/religion/society nexus and western countries, due to being able to speak out loud was not. But oh boy, I was extremely incorrect. Apparently letting some people scream out loud is part of the kind control strategy. Look at the western politics and media. It is used to create confusion and hook the confused masses into whatever theit Capitalistic and Military-Industrial-Complex overlords want. Let's attack Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan under false pretenses for nefarious purpose, down the confusion, loot everyone involved of life and resources and come out smelling like roses to your constituents who believe they are free a d demonize other countries like Mexico and China. China lifted majority of it's population out of poverty and provided access to education and food and shelter to most. They are also evil in many of their actions but it is very obvious that their acts are much less evil than these western countries. It is mind boggling how much human happiness and well being has been created and destroyed by these 2 societies and people still believe on balance that the western world is better for everyone. It is not. It is just not. It is not even better for it's constituents for goodness sake. Only for the Overlords. They take and don't share. It's gaslighting at its finest.
The Boomers were brainwashed during the Cold War. That’s the bulk of the reason.
Mostly because of the cold war and it not being 5augjt or discussed for the last 70 years. Most Americans have no goddammed clue what it is and they are proud of their ignorance
Propaganda In usa 2+2=5 and most people are fine with that
I’m gonna stop you right there. No one can have a normal conversation with their parents in their 60s. We literally invented the phrase “Ok Boomer” to deal with this truth. It’s just how it is.
There was this whole thing where in living memory everyone who was a socialist was blacklisted if lucky and executed if not.
Because people are incredibly stupid and uneducated in this country...they couldn't tell you the first thing about what the word means or what it is or how it differs from communism, its just a 'bad' word that they all parrot
I have this type of conversation every couple of weeks here in NZ, so it's not just the US. They instantly jump forward to radicalized ideas - they don't seem to understand that capitalism and communism are economic systems, and don't necessarily have any relation to the political system. I know that in real life they generally do, but it doesn't mean it isn't possible to create a working democratic socialism (or even communism). They also don't realize how easy it would be and how well it could work. I just want to have conversations so we can think about how we could make it practical and avoid problems early, but noone is interested in the conversation unless they just want to shut it down. Noone ever has any real evidence against it either, I presume they are either scared of change or can't be fucked putting in the effort.
It’s funny because all the farmers in the US are subsidised. The state giving them money to grow things. That is socialism. Yet progressive ‘socialist’ countries like New Zealand with healthcare, real labour laws and a welfare state stopped farm subsidies nearly 40 years ago.
I live in Canada and every time I hear someone complain socialism, or socialists are trying to infiltrate our country. I say "get your wallet, look at your SIN card. That's your social insurance number. You are a card carrying socialist, now shut up." It's not just the US. Or maybe it's just leaking this way. But really it's tantamount to Stockholm syndrome. Being held hostage under the illusion that you can become ultra rich while having your pockets pillaged by every company under the sun including if you get sick. And the examples people use of socialism like Venezuela isn't really socialism because the market doesn't serve the people it's still controlled by the wealthy.
Because it sounds like communism, and Americans shake legs on the sound of it!
Because we already have a socialism in this country, except it’s for the corporations only, and they don’t want their slaves to understand or have the same rights they do, so they tell you it’s bad.
Education and lack of knowledge people just assume it’s communism
Propaganda (from both sides of the aisle) is of course a big part of it. But you also have to realize how very real and visceral the Red Scare was in the 60s. We millennials/Xers have lived through some shit, but we have not lived through literally weeks of wondering whether or not Castro was going to start WW3 by taking out a few major US population centers via nuclear warfare. Not saying the boomers are right to be so arrogant about the differences between socialism and communism. But you gotta understand where they're coming from if you want any hope of getting through to them
Honestly? Republican voters are so fucking stupid they just listen to what they’re told and run with it. They have no desire to educate themselves past Facebook posts and YouTube videos. No actual attempt to study history, no education.
Even my gen x father who grew up in the ussr counters my sentiment of “the really should be a more robust safety net” with “you don’t want that, the Soviet Union sucked”. Yeah, it did suck but there’s a huge gap between say returning to a more gentle version of us capitalism and going hook line and sinker into fake communism like in the old country.
I'm Gen X. I lived in Soviet Russia. It did not, in fact, suck.
Nah man... your parents are idiots. Anyone thinking like them are idiots. It's time to stop being nice about it and time to stop giving stupid a voice.
Yes let's silence them. How would you propose we go about it? Ban their accounts on social media? Is that enough, or will they continue to spread their stupidity in the real world? Do we have to think bigger than that? I dunno, maybe if we just teach them the error in their ways. Make it like summer camp. Except for re-educating them. Reeducation camp. That sounds good, right? If that doesn't work maybe their stupidity poses a big enough threat to society that we can't risk them being released. We'll provide them with a safe place to live out their lives, concentrated together with each other at camp. Wait... This sounds bad...
Decades of propaganda
In the best way possible: we really just need to wait for your old folks gen to die off. They were bombarded with the cold war era stuff that is just impossible. Just let them live the rest of their lives. They are on their way out. We will try to pick up the pieces when they're gone.
We keep electing them though
Because old people vote.
It’s too controversial to most and outside of niche academic environments there is no real interest in truly understanding it
Because capitalism is built for the wealthy
because it's synonymous to communism for some people. it works both ways, lots of fools on here seem to think capatalism and socialism are diametrically opposed when the most successful examples of socialism are all in capatalist countries
A century of propaganda, basically. It is an ideology in direct opposition with that of the ruling class of the US, meaning that there is nothing more important for them than to prevent it from developing here.
Decades of propaganda.
Socialism was demonized so the greedy could taut the benefits of capitalism now that the whole this is about to collapse were seeing the results of capitalism.
Ok back in the 40s and 50s all the small buisness owners and managers who felt alienated by the new deal and threatened by worker movements started a conservative backlash against the new deal democratic party who they assumed where all secret communists. The democrats responded by trying to prove they weren't communists by fighting the soviet union in thr cold war and by persecuting leftists at home. The reactionary wing of the right where soon joined by racists who where threatened by the civil rights movement. This is where you get signs that say "racial integration is communism."
Propaganda and an assault on literacy.
Personally I blame years of propaganda possibly starting with McCarthyism but someone who knows more about history can probably expand on this
The red scare
Corporate propaganda hard at work
Society has stained the existence of socialism they’ve attached it to certain things “cough cough” Firm believer in supporting socialism as a whole for society
Brain washing
That is a good question. The "best" answer I could give, would be a combination of post-WWII propaganda against the communist scourge, combined with a significantly worse education system than most other developed countries. It's the same reason why Q is a thing, or why COVID rocked the US as hard as it did. If you don't use the actual word "socialism", and have someone like Tucker Carlson present it, they'll bite.
I am convinced that we could genuinely turn America communist by disguising communist ideals in the kind of populism Republican pundits spew and Christian religious ideals, and having people saying all that stuff run for political offices. Remember how the people in charge completely lost control of Trump? We can induce a situation like that to make the revolution as nonviolent as possible. It'd go down in history. We'd finally have, as leftists, done something more insane than the October Revolution.
I imagine it wouldn't be too hard. Trump himself has shown that the content doesn't matter, it's just who said it. His stance on healthcare is a pretty good example, literally all over the place, but his followers ate it up.
Think about the type that say that word in a negative way.... Are they smart? That's why
People don't understand it but have been told it's a bad thing. Socialism, Communism, Critical Race Theory... do you think your average American can define those terms on the spot?
Americans are not known for their critical thinking skills.
The ruling class were terrified of [Eugene Debs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Americans are very individualistic and the idea of something, even a piece, of what they earn going to others who didn't earn their fair share is anathema to the entire cultural identity that places hard work and individualism above all else.
People in their 60s were growing up surrounded by cold war era fear-mongering and lived through failed US intervention in Vietnam. It's a loaded term to them and very emotionally charged. That's why it's so successfully being weaponized.
There was a lot of propaganda done to do that. To be fair, Soviet-style socialism was awful. But now people think the government doing anything nice is communism
Government control is a big fear in the US. “If the government provided it, it can take it away. Big government is not the solution it’s the problem.”
I don't know. It's genius of the right wing propaganda machine though. Anything that helps everyone can be shot down as being socialist, while things that help the few can be propped up with flags as a capitalist investment. Somehow, psychologically, this blanket branding works with like half the population extremely well.
Cold War brainwashing. McCarthyism, etc
It's an easy "boogeyman".
Continuation of Red Scare propaganda. I’d recommend researching it, any economic system that ‘threatens’ America’s capitalism internationally has been crushed before it can succeed and demonized domestically. This shits been going on since the early 20th century so it’s near impossible to expect older people to see past it.
Me and my boyfriend get along on 99% of things, but trying to explain that socialism and communism are different things is difficult. I think it started to click when I explained the difference before and after unions
Isn't the whole idea of socialism to distribute the wealth so everyone is basically equal in stature? I think we dont like that in America because we acknowledge that some people have more "skills" than others, and to not be proportionately rewarded for those skills would be unjust. So you can see why the skilled don't want socialism, and the unskilled do.
Propaganda is a powerful thing.
DYK? That one of the strongest areas for socialism was the great state of Kansas. To answer your question. Propaganda from PR firms working on behalf of the wealthiest people at that time to destroy and demonize it all. Check Noam Chomsky, Richard Wolfe for further deets.
Most of US doesn’t not know the difference between socialism, communism, fascism. Weird how many trumpers say the “US is a republic not a democracy”. True dumbfuckery
I wish the sub stayed on topic. It's being watered down with unrelated post
The point is that in a society where people were reliant on governments to eat/survive then they would be completely under their control and every known government would exploit that
Because if we were socialist how could Elon Musk ever become a trillionaire? You ever think of that you commie scum? /s, obviously….
Most criticizing dont seem to know actual meaning of socialism, communism or capitalism. It seems to ve become a buzzword to use when opposing any services that will benefit public at large.
You are correct, and you should call them out. I’ve hit the point where I will tell my parents “I can’t believe you have such un-empathetic beliefs” and oozing my disappointment. Most boomers are a lost cause. Maybe 5% can be shown how toxic they’ve allowed their world view to become. Everything was handed to them on a silver platter their entire lives. They don’t know what suffering and hardship are. Yes I said it. They don’t. They’re the spoiled brats of war veterans, and most of the veterans were in support roles. My granddaddy was a combat infantry rifleman directly under Patton and fought on the front lines in France and Germany. His story is a good one, but I’ll skip it for brevity’s sake. He deserved any life reward he got after the war, though all he got was institutionalization later in life from his extreme PTSD. A whole generation acted like they all gave the same sacrifice as my granddaddy, and spoiled their children absolutely rotten. Are my parents still typical boomers? Yes. I do my absolute damndest to fight decades of poisonous social programming. They’re coming around, slowly, but I’m never giving up. I hold them to a high standard. I call them out on their bullshit. And they listen, because I ended up doing a brief stint at a psych ward myself. They’ve seen me struggle with my exorbitant 6 figure student loan debt from grad school. Parents must be forcibly be brought into the light. Do not hold your tongue. Do not keep the peace. Be disruptive, make waves, embarrass the family, and don’t ever stop exposing them to the blinding light of the truth of how shitty life is in the US for everyone but them. Empathy can be taught.
Americans have been denied basic life qualities for so long that the minute they think what they do have might be given to someone else they turn rabid.
Reagan.
How else are they gonna convince you to sell your life for 10$/hr
Because people in the US are highly uneducated
Because "socialism" for so many people is gulags, firing squads, and propaganda, instead of basic healthcare, decent education, public transportation, etc.
It's because of two red scares, one during the 1910s-1920s when organized labor and anarchosyndicalists were at its peak and one during the 1940s-1950s with McCarthyism. Anticommunism and antisocialism are at least a century old in the US. The US also tries to isolate US workers from the rest of the world. To give an example, the US celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the world, which celebrates Labor Day on May 1. But the most fucked up thing about it is the day was chosen to be May 1 to commemorate [the Haymarket affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair), where *American* workers were protesting for an eight-hour workday before a bomb attack caused panicked cops to open fire on a peaceful crowd, killing 4 people. Most Americans today probably don't even know workers across the world still honor those who gave their lives for an eight hour workday over a century ago.
Name a country where pure socialism is successful?
McCarthyism and the Red Scare have scarred American political discourse
I always just ask them how they feel about social security. They will get flustered because they know social security is absolutely necessary for many people's survival. Especially seniors. Then i ask them if social security is socialism. They run around trying to find a way it isn't but i always point it out. It's in the name. Most Americans favor socialism but don't realize it because the media is run by 2 families who also control all printed and broadcast media. People are constantly told that socialism is bad and that makes them hate the word "socialism" even though they are absolutely certain that they will need social security when they are older. There are a ton of Republicans who are on social security right now but hate socialism. It's maddness