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From
the depths of wherever he his, Joe McCarthy is smiling. What he couldn’t
make happen 50 years ago is slowly coming to fruition right in front of
our eyes. Ironically, the force most instrumental in bringing McCarthy
down during the rampant Communist paranoia of the early 1950's is the same
one helping perpetuate his dangerous legacy today. McCarthy’s appearance
on the nationally televised Senate hearings in 1954, looking old, sweaty,
and crazy, exposed him as the fraud anybody who’d been to the hearings
already knew he was. Television carried that message to the nation and did
us all a big favor.
The
old House Committee on Un-American Activities has re-emerged today in the
form of Neoconservatism and most of its drone-like promoters and
followers. It has attached itself to large portions of the infotainment
industry, infected the collective American mind, and determined the limits
of both the debate and the public’s conscience.
With
a boiling hatred for liberty, freedom, tolerance, and disdain for anything
that remotely smacks of the truth, BushCo’s News arms (Fox, et al.),
display a consistently raving paranoia. Thanks to their constant TV rants,
their equally vitriolic talk-radio counterparts, and books by faux
intellectuals like Ann Coulter, much of the public has brainlessly glommed
on to, tacitly approves of, or actively participates in this trendy new
McCarthy-ism.
The
latest example of the vacuousness of the neocon mind-set is the laundry
list of ridiculous reasons they give for punishing voices of dissent. The
Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore and a host of TV
and print journalists have been the targets of well-orchestrated campaigns
to discredit and shame them into retracting statements critical of BushCo’s
illegal actions. Accusations include:
their lack of patriotism, they don’t support the troops, are aiding the
enemy, are Un-American, and far worse, are broadcast nightly to the
sneers, scorn, and giggles of Fox pinheads.
On
CNN’s "Crossfire", the bilious and bombastic former
Congressman Bob Dornan said if the Dixie Chicks weren’t prepared to
suffer the consequences for speaking, they should have been quiet. Though
neocons will be the first to deny it, there’s an obvious difference
between an individual deciding to tear up his concert tickets or destroy a
CD and Clear Channel’s concerted efforts to derail the Chicks’
careers. By bringing their vast corporate might to bear, Clear Channel has
dramatically affected the public’s attitude towards these singing
radicals. At ordinary workplaces around the country, neocon sympathizers
coerce or intimidate their employees and colleagues to be silent and
punish them when they’re not.
Anyone
who cares to can see that it’s perfectly consistent to support the
troops while despising the policies and criticizing the people
putting them at risk of being killed. But neocons are not known for their
reasoning ability. They are notoriously unwilling or incapable of making
anything more than the simplest and most superficial distinctions.
Black/white;
Good/evil; With us/against us; Support us/support terrorism
See
how easy it is? None of those troublesome ‘grey’ areas. None of that
pesky critical thinking or distinction-making. Good, straight, and simple.
Such a message spreads like a contagion among a populace with nary an
attention span.
There
is even an interesting pattern to this alluring Neo-McCarthy-ism:
If
you are thinking or expressing, or have ever thought or expressed,
dissent, rational or otherwise, against BushCo, then you must:
After
qualifying your statements into meaninglessness, you
must politely apologize to the nation and BushCo on television,
profess your unwavering support for the troops, preferably while wearing
something red-white-and-blue.
If you abase yourself this way, then maybe, the right will not call
for a boycott on your products, call you a traitor or Un-American, fire
you, pull your column, deny you work, threaten your life or your family,
or generally harass you in any way.
And
if you are not a dissenter, but people think you might be, you must,
Reaffirm
your stout patriotism and devotion to BushCo in a slavish manner, display
for all to see that BushCo has your balls in a vise, and make a large
donation to the Republican party, preferably while wearing something
red-white-and-blue.
Lesson?
Either back off and shut up or BushCo and its pawns will ruin you. So
simple even a neocon can understand it.
The
Original Dissenter, Benjamin Franklin, once wrote that "whoever would
overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of
speech, a terrible thing to public traitors". As we watch our
liberties swirl around the bottom of the bowl, these words should give us
serious pause. BushCo and its heavy-handed media
thugs have gotten away with far too much in far too short a time.
Time
to smack the smile off old Joe McCarthy’s face. That means,
time to fire up the typewriter, the word processor, the fax, and above
all, the brain, and let the your news networks and elected
representatives know that the only way to turn the country around is to
push for democracy here at home, by dethroning McCarthy's legacy.
Allen Snyder is an
instructor of Philosophy and Ethics. He can be reached at asnyder111@hotmail.com
This
article is copyright by Allen Snyder and originally
published by opednews.com but
permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so
long as this credit is attached.
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