Witch Hunts, Pledges, and Blacklists

No one was safe from his probing, beady little eyes. Government workers, College Professors, Playrights and Hollywood Screenwriters, actors, artists, musicians, gays, Jews and anyone with a goatee was suspect. (He would be foaming at the mouth if he came back today...;-) Many people's careers were destroyed by just knowing the wrong person.

The most intensive focus of the Red Hunters was on Hollywood, perceived as the shaper of public thought. Many writers and performers moved to Mexico or Europe to avoid being put in prison. There was great pressure to avoid controversial subject matter in films or on TV, and the result was the Ozzie and Harriet myth, Doris Day and Annette Funicello, Beach Blanket Bingo: silly, vapid entertainment.

The ice began to melt in 1960, with breakthrough films like "The Brave One" (written by Dalton Trumbo under a fake name because he was blacklisted) and Spartacus, both highly acclaimed and both addressing the plight of the downtrodden, repressive government, human rights, etc.

During the heyday of the witch hunts, victims were all made to 'Take the Pledge', and answer the question: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?' In those days, there were some people who thought it was cool to be a communist, and indeed some of them were communists, and sending money or military secrets to Moscow: (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg died in twin electric chairs for being spies, in 1953.)

Americans were afraid of the communists for good reason, in light of the atrocities committed by Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. Through American spies, the Commies had gotten the recipe for the Atom Bomb, a truly terrifying prospect. To be suspected of being a communist was worse than being a murderer or rapist. Just being suspected meant one was a traitor, cutting the throats of American babies. Anyone who refused to take the pledge was blacklisted and found it impossible to get work, and was harassed constantly by 'agents' for names of other 'sympathisers'.

Many refused to take the pledge on principle; after all, it is a free country. People like Dalton Trumbo, Ruth Gordon, Zero Mostel, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Jose Ferrer and Orson Welles were blacklisted.

McCarthy did not create the communist problem, but he exploited it shamelessly for political ends, accusing the Democrats in general with baseless, sweeping, shotgun allegations. He was a master of the soundbite, and played the press like a harp.

The reign of stupidity called McCarthyism was big news for most of the 50's, and shaped future national mood swings. It brought 'denial' to new heights, and showed once again how easily fascism can take root.

His efforts helped the Republicans win in the Congress and Senate, and also helped to put Republican Dwight Eisenhower in the White House. But instead of quitting while he was ahead, McCarthy kept up his attacks, accusing respected Government officials and Army personnel of being Communist sympathisers. No McCarthy charge against a government official was ever proven.

The new media of television captured McCarthy's final moments, where in dazzling black and white he showed the world what an anal-retentive idiot he really was.

At the end, during hearings when he took on the US Army, the Army's well respected attorney Joseph Welch asked him "Have you no shame?", and said that McCarthy was a lout deserving no further attention, again on the shimmering eye of television. The tide of public opinion turned against him, after seeing him in all his revolting, alcoholic glory. He died shortly after that, like a poisonous mushroom spreading his spores and then shrivelling into nothing.

Fungi of his species thrive today, with slicker packaging, and more effective propagation strategies. In fact, right now, they are trying to censor the internet. Another one of them wants to be President.

From Seeds of Repression; Harry S. Truman and the Origins of McCarthyism- by Athan Theoharis, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1971; McCarthy and McCarthyism in Wisconsin, Michael O'Brien, University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London, 1980; Blacklist: Hollywood on Trial, AMC, broadcast Feb 28, 1996

Today, "Communism" is an archaic concept; a part of history, a theory that was never even actualized in a society - the "Soviet" system was a mutation of Marx's ideas, and doesn't really pass as true Communism. The force that "Anti-Communists" then and now rail against is much more dangerous and difficult to pinpoint. It still boils down to, as Marx noted, the "haves" and the "have-nots," and the tension between them. Today, the "haves" are Western Civilization, and the "have-nots" are the Rest of the World. The force that troubles "conservatives" is the faction within our own country that seems to want to dissolve the membrane between us and them.

Curiously, Bush and Clinton BOTH supported NAFTA, which is a government mandated dissolution of the same membrane.

What this tells us is that no matter what side you are on, or what side the politicians pretend to be on, it's business interests that control the decision making. Instead of "communists," the world today is plagued with the coming Global Corporate Inc. - whose inevitable development will "Cover the Earth," removing all boundaries between countries, and re-building the planet in the Corporate formula, for maximum efficiency, and extraction of value [profits].

The playpens of privilege that the USA and a few countries in the world enjoy today will grow ever smaller and ever more fortified; as the population grows and grows, and the petroleum/automobile/plastics industries tighten and expand their grip, "communism" and the days of McCarthy will be wistful memories from simpler, bygone days.