The Red Scare and Popular Kids

[panerd]

(For the record: I am a supporter of the war and feel it is the right thing to do. I am also very open-minded and find other's points of view interesting. So if you have no better response than a "America, love it or leave it" then please don't attack me.)

I just got done watching the end of nightline and I saw a very interesting quote about this war and celebrities who oppose it. The show was pretty dead on in its criticism of some celebrities. By then this one guest (if someone else saw this please help me out) basically said he is scared that we are turning into the post-WWII 1950's where any view opposing this country is taboo. I think this is dead on. There is no dissent anymore, if you don't agree that the only possibility is war, then you must be anti everything American (including the troops). I admittedly didn't live through the Red Scare, but from what I have studied and read, everyone thinks we went witch hunt over the line. We look back at the McCarthy hearings and wonder what the hell happened. Fast forward to today. Are some of the things we are doing that different? Now I won't go as far as to say that George Bush is a fool, but some of his programs are. Tracking Arab's library cards? The stupid waste of taxpayer money that Tom Ridge runs? George Bush putting down his poker hand to the world and saying to "show your hands", only to have his bluff called by almost every major country? We can't dissent about these things?

Like I said at the beginning, I feel the war with Iraq is the best course of action for this particular situation. But as far as the war on terror goes, why am I a traitor if I don't support every jackass move of this administration? Airport security blew it on September 11th, plain and simple. Hopefully airport security won't let any more knives through the gates anymore, but stopping 85 year old ladies and checking their bags for contraband is nonsense. No American has ever crashed a passenger jet into a skyscraper, no women has either, and to my recollection no one has ever been anywhere near 85. So what gives here? It is like the 50 year-old women with fake eyes, fake breasts, and fake blonde hair getting IDed for beer at the QT. The horny kid wants to fantasize about banging a housewife, he doesn't really think you are under 21.

[EagleFan]

I don't think it's at that point. We're a country and we need to act that way, as a united country at this time.

To use a sports analogy: When your team is in an important game, everyone had to be on the same page to give you better odds of a favorable outcome. That's not when it's time to be questioning the play calling, or the QB, or starting trouble with others on the team.

Yes, I know that's a simplistic version of it, but that's how I see it. Everyone has the right to disagree and let it be known, but right now we need to get behind our troops and hope that we can get through this as quickly as possible.

Rip the administartion before the action, like they did. Rip them afterwards if the outcome isn't what they said. Back off while we're going through it. Our troops have access to what is going on in the country much more easily than they ever had in previous wars. Reading about protesting this and that can only have a negative ripple effect.

[Airhog]

I have to disagree. I support the troops, but that doesnt mean I should have to support the war aswell. If I had grown up during Vietnam, I would have thought the same thing. Most of those people didnt have a choice to go over their and fight. It doesnt do any good too come down on the people fighting.

[BishopMVP]

People often seem to gloss over the fact that McCarthy and Vietnam were both proven right in the end.

[JPhillips]

Bishop: How exactly were McCarthy and Vietnam proven right?

McCarthy may have "discovered" some real communists, but in the process he destroyed a number of innocent people. His attacks were far more political in nature than you seem willing to admit. He attacked almost every facet of the Truman government as being full of communists. While there certainly were some, his attacks went way too far to be justified. His congressional hearings were little more than a US version of the Stalinist show trials of the thirties.

As to Vietnam, I'll respond when I have a little clearer idea of what you mean.

[John Galt]

Originally posted by BishopMVP
People often seem to gloss over the fact that McCarthy and Vietnam were both proven right in the end.

That is pure nonsense. McCarthy ruined a lot of lives and the red scare ended people's livelihoods and some took their own lives as a result. And I missed it when he was proven right. Was it when he made up numbers of "known communists" in the defense department? Was it when he persecuted people who knew communists? Was it when he helped groups create blacklists so that those with leftist leanings were effectively blocked from getting jobs? McCarthy spread hate and fear and was certainly never proven right.

[Barkeep49]

Let's not confuse our historical figures who accosted supposed communists. Nixon was proved right about Alger Hiss, something McCarthy was not involved in as that was the House Unamerican Committee (HUAC) and McCarthy was a Senator and thus obviously not a member of that committee.

McCarthy made a lot of claims which he even knew were lies about how many communists were running around and the number kept growing. What he did has been, by ever credible historical account I have read, proven to be a witch hunt.

[Fritz]

Of course there was no communist plot in hollywood, even if there was.

[JPhillips]

Fritz: Most of the Hollywood issues came before McCarthy. The Hollywood seven stuff happened in the forties. McCarthy was early fifties.

BTW- Aside from making the comment, do you offer any proof of a Hollywood conspiracy? While a number of actors and writers had been memers of the communist party, and while the Soviets did try to influence these folks, by most accounts the attempts failed because the Hollywood folk weren't very good at sticking to a political theme above all else.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by JPhillips
Fritz: Most of the Hollywood issues came before McCarthy. The Hollywood seven stuff happened in the forties. McCarthy was early fifties.


I was not commenting on McCarthy. The thing that popped into my head had to do with popular revisionism.

In terms of how this ties in with the thread, clearly the hollywood situation leads into the events of the early 50's.

I will leave any further discussion of a hollywood conspiracy for another thread at another time.

[tucker342]

Bishop, please explain how Vietnam and McCarthy were proven right in the end. I don't understand your logic.