Furrinurs

I'm legit curious. With what the left here in America says and what the right says, I'm given the impression that overseas/in Canada and Latin America you all are card carrying pinkos, who either are almost right but not mixed enough economically (left wing view) or godless babby eating satanists who don't even deserve to have your arguments taken into consideration (right wing view).

But, with no intention to debate whether or not it actually is right or not, is communism a respectable position for a politician to take to you? Is Communism feasible to you? Especially if you aren't one yourself, have you ever met a self-proclaimed communist who you've been able to respect?

And, of course, forgive the American - I'm using communism in the most general sense; I'm talking about communist theory, including socialism.

Same question to any fascist out there; but for non-Americans what do you think of the criticism that fascism is just a kind of communism?

A note about me - I was only ever outside of the US when I was too young to understand or even notice politics. I was taught by my former East German family that Rosa Luxemburg was someone to look up to, but at the same token, take her as a human being and follow the example of her Geist, not her actions. That the DDR was something that could have been great failed, gone horribly wrong, not the product of something fundamentally flawed. I understand that, in Germany at least, die Linke manage to get seats in the Bundestag, but I have no idea if they're considered extreme lunatic fringe or just the party of fundamentally respectable but never the less college liberals and people fundamentally respectable but never grew out of Nostalgie. Die Spiegel, at least, treats them with what I feel is the same tone CNN treats congress.

Pay no mind to the Vietnamese flag here.