the outcome of the election

[Occhidiangela]

Let's not play word games.  Both the Republican and Democratic Parties and the vast majority of Americans are dedicated to free enterprise liberalism.  Sure, there are interventionist liberals in America, but at an official level, socialism does not exist.  Unions fighting for workers rights are not 'socialist' tools, per se - as they exist in the U.S., they are an institutional part of liberal democracy that helps PREVENT socialism.  Embedded liberalism was a necessary part of preventing undue distress among the working classes, and, I would argue, was in the greater interest of capitalism.  Of all of the developed countries in the world, America is right at the bottom in terms of the concessions that capital was forced to give up to workers.  This was a result of their relatively painless economic emergence from WWII vis a vis Europe and their role in reconstruction.  Little compromise was necessary within the economy during the exagerrated boom of Fordism - at the time, America was alone in that social welfare did not require state intervention. 

However, that's beside the point - don't point to the minimal social infrastructure that exists in America and somehow argue that America 'is kind of socialist'.  Mainstream Americans fear socialist and social democratic thought - and ultimately government - more than any other national group in the developed world.  It's a fact.  I never said that it was a good thing or a bad thing - what I did say was that it has no ideological clout in American politics (as evidenced by the working class vote for Bush) and is, in fact, virtually non-existent.
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I find your understanding of Socialism's principles interesting, though at odds with how socialism influenced our government and society. Indeed, some of the greatest critics of FDR were aghast at his socialist institutions, which, I repeat, include Social Security, which is now often used as the Dole, Welfare, which has come under attack for the past two decades, for better and worse, and Medicaire, a vestige of an attempt at state sponsored health care for the elderly.

That you do not recognize these Socialist elements, which could also be called Progressive elements depending on your decade and view point, in my society tells me that you barely understand America.

No problem, you are from Canada.

As for Unions, your characterization of the American labor Union movement is a study in misunderstanding, or just plain ignorance. I'll assume the former.

A powerful correction to the laize faire attitudes of our early capitalists resulted in a very strong and vital Union movement for about three generations. What weakened them was at least two things. They became too hard to fund as their share of the pie started to peel off slimmer and slimmer profit margins, and the corruption and linkage to organized crime in some cases. Ice the cake with the PATCO strike, which Reagan busted, and the loophole of bankruptcy laws that any number of folks used to bust, for example, air line unions, and the counter reaction to Unions as a major power in this nation has taken us to the present.

Are you aware that our Federal employees are allowed to and typicaly join a Union? That is provided for and protected by public law. I have had the chance to work with, and a couple of times against, two different chapters of the Labor Union's covering federal employees, and can say that it has generally been a mixed experience. I worked a non union shop as a furniture mover for two summers, at a lower wage but absent dues, thanks to being unable to penetrate the Beekins and Allied union shops in the late 1970's.

The reason that Unions lost power is that they, under pressure from foreign competition, slowly started to kill the goose that laid the golden egg within my life time. Not everyone feels that has been a good thing.

Labor was very much an opponent of certain strains of government in my lifetime. Labor is the fundamental power base of both Socialist and Communist parties, or was for about seven decades, as well as a vote sump for Liberals of less extreme stripes. Yes, Socialism and Communism, as well as representative republicanism, all grew from early Liberalism, which most folks would probably not recognize by now, since it strikes me as having been a reaction to the Royal/Imperial/Capital system of Europe.

Go play Humpty Dumpty with that, if you like.

Occhi