Robert Reich on the Netroots Nation event

[calimary]

139. Bank on it, lark. You are spot-on.

They WILL be scared by the "he's an a-VOWED SO-cialist..." I've already heard it, too. That meme is already off and running.

If anyone doubts me, just remember some of those ridiculous teabagger protest signs we have seen since 2010. The ones that screech about "SO-cialism!!!!" and then warn that nobody better touch their Medicare. They don't even understand what it is they're talking about or demanding or protesting or railing against. But they HAVE been systematically and strategically force-fed a hatred of Communism and Socialism as concepts - since forever. I can remember, personally, how - in kindergarten and more in first grade and onward, in my Catholic school, during open reading in history class. The propaganda had already started - "the COMMMunists! (were doing this)" and "The COMMMMMunists!!! were doing that" and all kinds of crap. "They were taking people hostage and poking chopsticks down deep into little children's ears to punish them!" I swear to God. "THE COMMMMMMMMunists!!!!!" Late '50s.

Well, that was when I was a little kid, in the Midwest, before we moved out to California. Early '60s. Then in a new school in California - BANG! there it was again. "The COMMMMMMMunists!!!!!" And we were having air raid drills at the time, too, every Friday morning. And we were taught to be scared that Fidel Castro was gonna boat himself over to the US mainland and take us over and make us - I dunno - eat rice all the time or something? Who even knew? But the hysteria was there. Definitely. it was so strong it made an impression on me as a little kid. Made me wonder why they were on this boogie man and pushing it so hard. It actually made me start questioning what I was being taught. Just like when the priest came over from the church across the street to pontificate to us in 5th grade about family life and all - and I just found myself sitting there wondering how the heck he could be dictating this stuff when he never married, never had a wife, never had children, never had a family to support, etc.

And if I was fed that in the late 50s and early 60s, in two very different states, you better believe there are MILLIONS more of Americans like that who got fed the same thing, and too many of them never questioned then, and certainly aren't questioning it now.

It's the same as what the bad guys have done to the word "Liberal." The word "COMMMMMMunism" has been totally perverted. Might as well be a swear word. And "COMMMMMunism!" and "SOOOOOOOOcialism!" were treated as two peas in a pod. Hell, george bush the 1st used to give speeches where, every time he spoke the WORD "Liberal," he did it with a verbal AND visual sneer - curled his damn lip when he uttered the very WORD. As though there were some bad smell attached to it. It's been PROGRAMMING. BRAINWASHING. FOR DECADES. Certainly was going on way before I can remember - through the '30s and '40s, when our parents were in school and being propagandized about the evil "Russian bear" and the COMMIES who were gonna overrun us at any moment and take our new cars and fancy new kitchen appliances away. And most people just swallowed it whole.

The whole concept of "socialist" has been thoroughly trashed, peed on and crapped on. Just as what's been done to the word "liberal". And unfortunately, Bernie Sanders is securely in the cross-hairs. I, too, have heard it from ted cruz and others of his ilk ALREADY. "He's an a-VOWed SO-cialist..." They like that word "avowed," too. Kinda sexes it up and gives it added "oomph." So they'll pair it with the word "socialist" and off to the races they go.

Let me just say - it's tremendously stupid and unfair. It's unfair to the whole notion of socialism or communism. The whole idea of spreading things around so the playing field is level, and SHARING THE WEALTH FOR THE SAKE OF THE COMMONS, for the sake of THE GREATER GOOD (forcibly, by government intervention, if necessary) has been crapped on. It's all been tied up. Rather neatly, too. They've done a VERY good and thorough and effective job on this, over the decades. They do have most of America brainwashed about this. So most of the low-info voters out there will only need to hear "a-VOWED SO-cialist" a few times and they're GONE. It's unfair and stupid. Because it's about redistribution of wealth - so that there aren't any obscenely rich, and conversely that there aren't any obscenely poor, either.

But Teabag America won't think that way and they sure won't hear it, either. They'll just see it as the Big Gummnnt stomping into their lives and kitchens and taking their stuff (and their money) away so that some vague, unidentified "lazy moocher" over there somewhere can take what YOU have without working for it. THAT'S the framing that's been relentlessly framed and pushed and planted and cultivated - for DECADES. Government intrusion into our private lives and all that (which ironically doesn't apply if a woman's reproductive system is involved. THAT kind of government intrusion into our private lives is somehow just fine!). And it works. It's already worked! And it's still working to this day. And all those years of brainwashing and very systematic and strategic propagandizing is gonna work against Bernie Sanders.

It's not fair and it's not accurate. Not one bit! And it does a great disservice to the message of people like Bernie Sanders. It does a great disservice to objective learning about political and societal systems with none of the bugaboo bad-guy emotional scare-tactics crap layered onto it - for DECADES. It's produced an America where capitalism is a god, and socialism is the devil, and one doesn't even have to think about it or reason it out anymore. Just don't even think about it. Cut 'n' dried. Good vs evil. One OR the other. You're with us or you're ag'in us. Black or white. Either/Or. Nothing in between. No shades of gray. Simplistic monochromatic thinking. Nuance is too hard, anyway (and it's probably just for sissies and all them highfalutin' elitist book-learnin' and "inty-leck-tual" types who are just un-American anyway). Just get down on your knees and worship the god of capitalism and think no more about it! Especially with hate radio on there for the last 25 years or so - telling America "you don't even have to think! I'LL do the thinking FOR you!" (I heard limbaugh actually say those words on the radio.) It's already DONE. And there are too many non-thinking people who are still scared, still gonna fall for it, and still gonna buy into it.