I ran across a column by someone named Llewllyn King who tut-tutted about Americans seeing socialism as some kind of bogeyman:

Mention socialism and many people reach for the silver bullet, the garlic garland, the cross and the mirror. Their fear of socialism is the fear of a word as much as of a system – not so much the vampire in the flesh as the fear that such a thing exists and is coming for a bloody feast. The specter of France – great food and 200-mph trains – is never far away. Suggest something like reforming health care and howls of “socialism” will drown you out.

So I wondered, just who is this guy. A quick Google of his name produced this:

Founder, executive producer and host, “White House Chronicle” on PBS; regular contributor, Voice of America; contributor, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS (“The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”), NBC (“The Today Show,” “Meet The Press”), Westwood One (“The Jim Bohannon Show”), American University Radio (WAMU 88.5) and RTE (Ireland’s national radio and television broadcaster)

Regular commentary contributor to McClatchy newspapers; occasional contributor to newspapers and journals, including London’s Financial Times; and nationally syndicated columnist, North Star Writers Group

Those are about the credentials one would expect from a journalist who thinks this way:

But in the United States, the Obama Administration is so afraid of being called socialist that it takes de facto ownership of American International Group but does not take a seat on the board. This is ridiculous and has no purpose except to avoid another dread word – nationalization. The result – a proven bad management is rewarding itself with bonuses because a new board, reflecting what is known as a “golden share” of government investment, has not been seated.

People who are scared of words, scare me. Socialism is not an epithet. It is an organic part of Western culture.