Intresting. Apparently Europe has a view of what is Socialism that is far further left than the common American view. What you are calling Socialism, we'd call Communism (as in, the further-left more-extreme version of socialism.)
The difference is not just a matter of degree. Leftists are either bad or ok: When they support dictatorship, want to abolish the Constitutional state, terminate civil rights and replace free elections with a police state, that's bad. The communists/socialists in the East Bloc, the Soviet Union and their satellites, did that until 1989. Their governments forced policies on their peoples, and the people had no voice.
Left-leaning politicians who propose an increase of social safety nets, welfare or public healthcare, but respect the constitutional, democratic process by running for elections, respect constitutional civil rights are absolutely ok, although it's fine to disagree with them. But they are not evil. They don't do anything sinister: They make a political proposal, run in elections with an according platform, and if the people feels they agree with him, they elect him and give him the mandate to realize this policy proposal. That has nothing at all to do with communism or socialism à la Soviet Union or Marx.
Obama belongs to the latter category: When he ran for President in 2008, part of his platform was a reform of the health insurance system. The people agreed with him and elected him. So he put through this reform once in office, because that is what the people had ordered him to do. If you disagree with Obama, you are free to vote against him and his party in elections. Obama does not want to take this freedom from you.
That is the exact opposite of what Marxist governments did in the East Block: They forced policies down on their peoples who had no voice and were brutally oppressed. Obama, on the other hand, does not force anything down on people, but on the contrary just does what the people has ordered him to do. That is the exact opposite.
As far as I can tell, that's the difference most Europeans see between evil Marxist socialists, and legitimate social liberals or social democrats: The former are evil because they don't respect democracy and civil rights, the latter are fine, because they respect Constitution, civil rights and democracy, and when they are elected and make according policies, they do what the people wants (else the wouldn't have elected him).
This is where, I think, the fact that you aren't American and don't live here results in gaps in your knowlege.
The fact is that America has bent over backwards to make up for past discrimination. Equal-opportunity mandates in work, housing and education have been heavily funded, along with various social programs, to attempt to give blacks the "hand up" to assume full equality in society.
Furthermore racism against blacks is one of the most taboo of taboos in modern American society. Even the slightest hint of it can doom any career that involves being in the public spotlight. Interracial marriage and bi-racial children are now widely (almost universally) accepted, even in the South.
Some black folks have taken up the opportunities that have been created over the past 30-40 years, and now are middle-class businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, CEO's and other prosperous professionals.
Many have not. As Bill Cosby aptly said, this lack is largely or entirely the black community's own fault, for failing to grasp opportunity and in some cases preferring to hang on to victimhood and entitlement mindsets.
I knew things have changed since the end of legal discrimination. I'm just not so sure the fact many blacks are still disadvantaged is their fault, and has nothing at all to do with prevailing racism. But you are right, I don't live in America and can't comment on it first hand.
So I'd like to know from other Americans here: What do you think?
Is the situation for African Americans/blacks so good in today's America that they have the same chances and prospects as whites, so when they don't achieve, it's only their fault and has nothing to do at all with white racism or structural disadvantages stemming from past discrimination?
Are blacks to blame that their demographic still is not as wealthy and educated in average, compared to whites?
Racism is racism. A black who hates whites, is just as rascist as a white who hates blacks, and it should be acceptible to call it what it is.
Sure. But something just doesn't feel right about it, if you ask me. For example: The few hundred thousand Jews who live in Germany today are not legally discriminated at all, they enjoy all constitutional civil rights as other Germans, and there is no persecution. And while some of them may indeed be racist or fascist, it still seems awkward to me when non-Jewish Germans called some Jews "racist" or "fascist", in order to explain certain attitudes of Jews, because of our past.
What do you think about this example? Should non-Jewish Germans be careful not to use according labels when it comes to Jews, regardless of the question if they may be appropriate in a particular case?
