Half the Venezuelan economy has disappeared

[Final-Fan]

Nem said:

Final-Fan said:

Nazi Party = "National Socialist" Party

But @ Nem, I thought it went more like "Communism is bad, and socialism is Communism Lite"

It's both. Communism for the cold war. Whatever sort of political inclination it's rivals had, americans got taught to hate, most don't even understand why and confuse those doctrines with dictatorship.

betacon said:

Let me remind you what the point was. Americans think socialism and communism are evil things, often confusing them with dictatorship. Like in the Venezuela case here. Nazi= nationalist socialism. That is what the americans fought against and that was what their propaganda machine aimed at. Were you expecting them to give the masses a political lesson? It doesn't work.

But, yes, that is why they are so unfamiliar with it and think it's an evil thing.

At this point I'm going to ask you for some evidence that Americans were "taught to hate" socialism because of anti-Nazi propaganda and that this influenced public thought on a level comparable to the anti-Communist propaganda that included socialism in the public mind.  Because I'm not convinced that you didn't just go, "Americans hate Nazis and socialists, must be connected". 

When I hear people talk about how bad socialism is, I do hear comparisons to the USSR and how it's a slippery slope to communism or socialists are secretly communists, but I don't recall ever hearing about Nazi Germany in anti-socialist rants.  It could be just because the Cold War is more recent and lasted longer, but I still need evidence to be swayed by a claim that goes against available observation.

Also, what is your evidence that Americans confuse socialism with specifically dictatorship?—and I mean actual dictatorship and not misusing dictatorship as a synonym for "mob rule", and not dictatorship as "well it's communist and communist countries turn into dictatorships".

[edit:  I mean, I often hear complaints about how socialist Europe is and how we need to avoid turning into socialists like they did, but they don't turn that into warnings about European dictatorships.]

Last edited by Final-Fan - on 26 January 2018