How is it ok for conservative ELECTED officials to call Democrats socialists...

[Drunken Irishman]

But it's never ok for liberal ELECTED officials to call Republicans fascists? What do you think would happen if Nancy Pelosi called Bush a fascist tomorrow? She'd be eaten alive by the press.

Fucking double standard here.

[LisaM]

1. LOL - well if you think socialist is an insult!

I don't!

[Drunken Irishman]

3. It is to most America.

Paint Obama as a socialist and Americans will run to McCain.

[tbyg52]

6. Me neither.

But they're fascists anyway.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

9. Yeah, but most Dem elected officials could not even remotely be described as socialist

It's not an insult to me either, but calling someone like Obama one is to really muddy the definition.

[irislake]

10. Nor do I

You need socialism. But you will never get it. The right-wing extremists have you indoctrinated from birth. Any kind of regulation of corporations is seen as bad.

And look where it got you.

Isn't your private health care wonderful? No thanks! Keep it!

And damnit the rest of the world has to suffer along with you. We don't deserve it!

What makes Americans fall for the belief that corporations are more ethical than elected officials? Ooops! Forgot -- your elected officials are bought off by the corporations. Hence they do not represent "the will of the people". That's why Chomsky says you are "a failed state".
Anybody want to dispute that?

But go on thinking being called a "socialist" is a big insult. It's irrational.

[Cleita]

2. Hey they are calling us fascists too.

Talk about not knowing the meaning of the words they are using. It's time for us to start owning words like liberal and socialism as good, not bad things. They can keep fascist. I would rather just call them a crime syndicate with Nazi leanings, which is much more accurate.

[fascisthunter]

4. BINGO

[AllentownJake]

5. Like I said in a previous post

This is good news. The term liberal has lost the sting it had for 20 years so much so that they have had to revert back to the word they used 30 years ago which was socialist.

Meanwhile the term conservative is taking a nose dive. W has tainted that word to a point it is now dirty (as it should be). Expect them to be calling themselves something new very soon.

[Solon]

7. Socialist wouldn't be an insult if it wasn't for the "red scare" and was an overblown one at that...

even today, I think most Americans are beginning to realize how much they were duped over the years. The whole "red canard" has been losing effectiveness since the 1990s, thanks to the Soviet Union collapsing.

My biggest problem is that I only wish the label was accurate when the Republicans accuse the Democrats of being socialists, unfortunately it isn't, to Republicans, anyone who isn't automatically pro-big business is a socialist. They are mangling the word to make it even more meaningless as an insult.

[Cal Carpenter]

8. Democrats aren't socialists though

Whereas some republicans are fascists...

so I guess that makes it even more of a double standard.

I have a socialist colleaugue who said he was looking online for a bumper sticker of a raised fist for his car. He googled socialist bumper stickers and all he could find were these stickers made by right-wingers showing Hillary in a Che-Guevara style picture, or Kerry with a hammer and sickle, or other such things.

Just goes to show how little we know about political theory in this country. There is nothing socialist about 99% of the Democrats. But the red-baiting goes on. If it weren't so serious it would be silly.