The Red Scare, named after the purposeful deception and promotion of anti-communist activities in America, was the over riding reality of the time and created a fear campaign similar to the current anti-Islam campaigns. Howard Zinn in his book, A People's History of the United States makes the following observation of the period of time after WWII prior to and during this period:
--Right after the war, the American public, war-weary, seemed to favor demobilization and disarmament and the Truman administration (Roosevelt had died in April 1945) worked to create an atmosphere of crisis and cold war. True, the rivalry with the Soviet Union was real--that country had come out of the war with its economy wrecked and 20 million people dead, but was making an astounding comeback, rebuilding its industry, regaining military strength. The Truman administration, however, presented the Soviet Union as not just a rival but an immediate threat.
In a series of moves abroad and at home, it established a climate of fear--an hysteria about Communism--which would steeply escalate the military budget and stimulate the economy with war-related orders. This combination of policies would permit more aggressive actions abroad and more repressive actions at home."
Pause for dramatic effect.
When I researched this subject, I expected to find similarities between the current anti-Islamic agenda and McCarthy's anti-communism initiatives but this passage struck me like a blow to the head. The current hysteria in America today and the purposeful promotion of an immoral war for the sake of protecting America from Islam is following the same pattern which so maniacally cut into the America fabric before. Today though, media is much more broadly assisting in the deception but unfortunately, the people are just as naà ¯ve to follow.
Recently, Michelle Bachman, a Tea Party member, had called for a probe to determine who in Congress was Pro-America and who wasn't. On MSNBC, she said , "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that."
A probe of that very nature was launched by HUAC during the McCarthy Era. Ellen Schrecker tell us the following in her article, "Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses":
"In many respects, the operations of these committees paralleled those of the executive branch. They publicized the dangers of the Communist threat, their hearings often producing the same scenarios as trials, with many of the same charges, witnesses, and defendants. But because congressional hearings were immune from the due process requirements that accompanied criminal prosecutions, the committees had more leeway to denounce and accuse. They came to specialize in punishing individuals by exposing their alleged Communist connections and costing them their jobs. So effective had the committees become that by the height of the McCarthy era, in the mid-1950s, people were often fired simply for receiving a subpoena from HUAC or one of the other committees.
Investigating committees served more partisan functions as well. Conservatives in and outside of the Republican party used them to attack the liberalism of the New Deal and the Truman administration. On the local level, the committees often functioned as hired guns for their allies within the anti-Communist network. Conveniently timed hearings, with their highly publicized and damaging charges of Communist affiliation, could target specific groups and individuals at crucial moments like strikes, union elections, or sessions of state legislatures. The committees also collected information and did research for the rest of the anti-Communist network."
Toward a renewed McCarthyism is where Bachman and others in her world are taking us. Along with their faux-Patriotism and ever expanding definitions of National Security, the current Republican Right and their political allies from the Tea Party are trying everything they can to control the American Political system and the minds of its citizens. They are attacking the Nation of Islam and using the - of 1% of radical Muslim's actions to continue the oppressive nature of the Patriot Act and use "National Security" as a term to initiate a suspicious agenda for anyone who is "un-American".
If anywhere is the proof that the Right is not only in favor of McCarthyism but trying to revive it in their agenda, it is in the words of Ann Coulter in her book, Treason:
"The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't cowering in fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis."
Really? As described by Marci Ranzer, "there were many innocent victims of McCarthyism and hundreds were imprisoned. Most of the victims however, did have some connection to the Communist party at some point in their lives. Lots of victims were blacklisted including several actors, authors, civil rights activists and physicists. McCarthy's witch-hunt began in 1950 when he announced he had a list of 205 known communists employed by the state department. His charges led to years of senate and house investigations and were responsible for many people losing their jobs. The reputations of the victims of McCarthyism were destroyed and their families were torn apart. Popular condemnation was brought down upon people who were accused by McCarthy." Is this the same kind of defense they are currently trying to establish today?
Like those who for so long held this country hostage while the (second) Red Scare spread wildly across America, in the name of Patriotism and National Security, the Right wing "Patriots" will have us all questioning each other while compromising our Constitutional rights. Those creating false flags, calling all Muslims evil and initiating the investigation of the citizens of this great Nation to determine their allegiance will have us all boarded upon the train of ignorance to justify their war and persecute non-Christians who they deem as a danger to our Democracy. The reality is however; the only real threat to this Nation is the Right's reviving of McCarthyism.
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