The Ghost of Joe McCarthy Slithers Again
Intro: "We've talked at times about George Orwell's classic novel
1984, and the amnesia that sets in when we flush events down the
memory hole, leaving us at the mercy of only what we know today.
Sometimes, though, the past comes back to haunt, like a ghost. It
happened recently when we saw Congressman Allen West of Florida on the
news."
Left: Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., July 28, 2011 (photo: Harry
Hamburg/AP); right: Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., June 9, 1954.
(photo: AP)
The Ghost of Joe McCarthy Slithers Again
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Bill Moyers and Company
27 April 12
We've talked at times about George Orwell's classic novel 1984, and
the amnesia that sets in when we flush events down the memory hole,
leaving us at the mercy of only what we know today. Sometimes, though,
the past comes back to haunt, like a ghost. It happened recently when
we saw Congressman Allen West of Florida on the news.
A Republican and Tea Party favorite, he was asked at a local gathering
how many of his fellow members of Congress are "card-carrying Marxists
or International Socialists."
He replied, "I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat
Party who are members of the Communist Party. It's called the
Congressional Progressive Caucus."
By now, little of what Allen West says ever surprises. He has called
President Obama "a low level socialist agitator," said anyone with an
Obama bumper sticker on their car is "a threat to the gene pool" and
told liberals like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to "get the hell out of
the United States of America."
Apparently, he gets his talking points from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh,
or the discredited right wing rocker Ted Nugent.
But this time, we shook our heads in disbelief: "78 to 81 Democrats …
members of the Communist Party?" That's the moment the memory hole
opened up and a ghost slithered into the room. The specter stood
there, watching the screen, a snickering smile on its stubbled face.
Sure enough, it was the ghost of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the
Wisconsin farm boy who grew up to become one of the most contemptible
thugs in American politics.
Back in the early1950's, the Cold War had begun and Americans were
troubled by the Soviet Union's rise as an atomic superpower. Looking
for a campaign issue, McCarthy seized on fear and ignorance to
announce his discovery of a conspiracy within: Communist subversives
who had infiltrated the government.
In speech after speech, McCarthy would hold up a list of names of
members of the Communist Party he said had burrowed their way into
government agencies and colleges and universities. The number he
claimed would vary from day to day and when pressed to make his list
public, McCarthy would stall or claim he accidentally had thrown it
away.
His failure to produce much proof to back his claims never gave him
pause, as he employed lies and innuendo with swaggering bravado.
McCarthy, wrote historian William Manchester, "realized that he had
stumbled upon a brilliant demagogic technique… Others deplored
treachery, McCarthy would speak of traitors."
And so he did, in a fearsome, reckless crusade that terrorized
Washington, destroyed lives, and made a shambles of due process.
Millions of Americans lapped it up, but in the end, Joe McCarthy would
be done in by the medium that he had used so effectively to spread his
poison: television. In 1954, legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow
bravely exposed McCarthy's tactics on the CBS program, See It Now.
"This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep
silent," Murrow declared. "We can deny our heritage and our history,
but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way
for a citizen of a Republic to abdicate his responsibilities."
Later that same year, for 36 days on live TV, during Senate hearings
on charges McCarthy had made questioning the loyalty of the U.S. Army,
we saw the man raw, exposed for the lout and cowardly scoundrel he
was.
The climactic moment came as the Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, defending
the Army, reacted with outrage when McCarthy accused Welch's young
associate Fred Fisher of Communism. "Let us not assassinate this lad
further, Senator," Welch said as he shook his head in anger and
sadness. "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at
long last? Have you left no sense of decency? … If there is a God in
heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good."
McCarthy never recovered. His tactics had been opposed from the outset
by a handful of courageous Republican senators. Now they pressed their
case with renewed vigor. One of them, Senator Ralph Flanders of
Vermont, introduced a motion to censure Joseph McCarthy. When it
eventually passed 67 to 22, McCarthy was finished. He soon disappeared
from the front pages. Three years later, he was dead.
All of this came rushing back as Congressman West summoned his foul
spirits from the vast deep. The ghost stepped out of the past.
Like McCarthy, the more Allen West is challenged about his comments,
the more he doubles down on them. Now he's blaming the "corrupt
liberal media" for stirring the pot against him - a trick for which
McCarthy taught the master class. And the congressman's latest
fusillades continue to distort the beliefs and policies of those he
smears - no surprise there, either.
To help him continue his fight for "the heart and soul" of America
he's asking his supporters for a contribution of ten dollars or more.
There could even be a super PAC in this - with McCarthy's ghost as its
honorary chairman.
Plenty of kindred spirits are there to sign on. Like the author of the
book The Grand Jihad, who wrote that whether Obama is Christian or
not, "The faith to which Obama actually clings is neo-communism." Or
the blogger who claims Obama is running the country into the ground
"by way of the same type of race-baiting and class warfare Communism
cannot exist without," and that his policies are "unbecoming to an
American president."
From there it's only a short hop to the kind of column that popped up
on the right wing website Newsmax hinting of a possible coup "as a
last resort to resolve the `Obama problem.'" Military intervention,
the author wrote, "is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda
for `fundamental change' toward a Marxist state is inviting upon
America." The column was quickly withdrawn but not before the website
Talking Points Memo exposed it.
So beware, Congressman West, beware: In the flammable pool of toxic
paranoia that passes these days as patriotism in America, a single
careless match can light an inferno. You would serve your country well
to withdraw your remarks and apologize for them. But if not, perhaps
there are members of your own party, as possessed of conscience and as
courageous as that handful of Republicans who took on Joseph McCarthy,
who will now abandon fear and throw cold water on your incendiary
remarks.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/11160-the-ghost-of-joe-mccarthy-slithers-again
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment