The Monster Has Returned... Red... Stop the Reds while you still can... [History Repeats]
"Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" seems like a very accurate statement when I look at news headlines these days. There was a period in our history that was known as McCarthyism. It was also called the Red Scare. It is an important historical time, as some of the same FALSE and DANGEROUS ideas seem to be being pushed today like they were back then.
What was McCarthyism?
McCarthyism actually arose due to a movement that was largely within the 1950 to 1956 time frame that was spearheaded by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin). There was a fear of communism and the Communist Party spreading within the United States. The Cold War was very active. Many innocent people were wrongly convicted, and/or had their lives disrupted in other ways. The news was bashing Commies and Reds on a regular basis in the news. In 1954 they went so far as to add the "One nation under God" into the pledge of the allegiance with the idea that too would help combat Communism.
Source: Pinterest
This is rather stupid as it is only certain Communist nations that have eschewed religion. Other nations that practice Communism may leave religion untouched. Yet such a statement did send messages.
Joseph McCarthy did not create this movement. The Red Scare existed a significant amount of time before he came to play. He simply became a very vocal, and active media presence. Add to that he was a Senator and it could be a powerful message.
During this time...
There were Loyalty-security reviews.
There was a House Comimittee on Un-American Activities.
There were Blacklists to stop industries from employing certain people. This was common in Hollywood and within the MPAA.
There was the Communist Control Act of 1954
Source: SlideShare
According to Wikipedia there were hundreds of people imprisoned during this time and ten to twelve thousand people lost their jobs. It notes that in many cases it only took being subpoenaed by one of these committees to be fired. You could be fired with no actual guilt, but simply because there were "questions".
This ended up being viewed as a negative and taught about how wrong doing this was by the time I was in High School. In fact The Crucible play by Arthur Miller in 1952 became required viewing and discussion when I was in High School. It was generally lumped in with the Salem Witch Trial discussion within history. Why is McCarthyism lumped in with the Salem Witch Trial?
Source: Carrolton Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts
That is likely because they are the same mentality, and they operate much the same way.
Accuse someone. Put them to rigorous testing, torture, ridicule, and hardship to prove they are a Witch (communist).
Other Nations
Do you think the people of Russia are out to get us? I saw the other day that four periodic table elements were added to the number of elements we know. All four of them initially were discovered by a joint American and Russian team of scientists. It's pretty amazing what can be accomplished when politics and propaganda are not part of the equation.
Source: Reddit
Have you met many people online that hate YOU for your country? I haven't. Have you met many people from other countries that are visiting your country that HATE you because of your country? I haven't.
Source: Keep Calm-O Matic
So why do politicians beat the war drums, push propaganda to make us fear a nation? Control. It's much more difficult to sway us to give up things like FREE SPEECH if they cannot make us afraid of some boogeyman first.
Source: Activist Post
The problem is that the scariest monster in this entire picture is not the person they are pointing at. It is the politician who is trying to make you afraid so they can further justify limiting your freedoms. The politician pointing out how dangerous some other nation is, while they are preparing the dagger that is aimed for your back.
Source: Siasat.pk
Russia Today
The news is pounding on Russia hacked this, Russia Hacked that. Russia influenced the election, etc.
I ask you this... if what the hackers exposed was TRUE is it truly bad? When someone points out misdeeds, corruption, and crimes IS IT THE MESSENGER who is bad?
Whether it was Russia, or it was not Russia, DOES IT MATTER if it was the truth?
We live in an increasingly backwards world where doing the right thing can get you labeled a criminal, and actual criminals can ignore laws and run for the highest offices in Government.
My Challenge To You
Visit various news aggregators such as news.google.com, reddit, and many other sites. Watch a few different news channels, and pick up some news journals and publications. It is important that you do this over a wide selection. It will make it easier (I believe) for you perhaps to see what I am seeing. You can tell me if it is all in my imagination or not.
Source: giphy.com
The news to me seems very reminiscent of McCarthyism era publications. It also reminds me of the mental landscape leading up to the Salem Witch Trials, The Inquisition, and other Heretical Purges.
Do you see it too?
Steem On!
it appears this could be used to arrest Trump as a Russian agent, to keep him from taking office. this is ridiculous at best.
the backwards thing here is that Russia, while not being entirely benevolent, is not the real enemy. the real enemy are the authoritarians in our own government who are pretending they have the authority to remove our rights. the NDAA is a document of purest treason. not a single provision in it is constitutional. what part of Congress shall make NO law, don't they understand? i guess it is time to hold some people accountable. if we do not, we can expect history to repeat itself. see: Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
I agree, and appreciate the time you took to respond. I'll try and remember to check out your recommended reading as time permits. I don't want to promise you something I may not be able to do. :(
it may be available in audiobook.
What is so dangerous about our times is that from both sides, the same argument applies.
Those who try to stop free speech are on the left and the right, it's just different speech they are trying to stop. The left has gone so far that not only can they stop you from saying a thing (safe space, fake news), they try to force you to say things (genders) and would make it law if they could. That behavior pushed us over to Trump, who may or may not be a bad man, but who certainly has people convinced that he will stop some segment of personal liberties.
It's so bad that the same things I beat up Bush for I am still beating up Obama for and will probably beat up Trump for, the Patriot act is still here, Gitmo is still here, wars of aggression are still here, corruption and corporatism is still running the Country.
And really, the things McCarthy himself was actually against? Happened.
They are the problems I point out above. He was right, the people who created "Mccarthyism" (using the press) just used him in their goal of getting more power away from the people and into their hands. They made a horrific mess to both discredit what he really said and to steal more power.
And some of us don't go for the False Dichotomies that there are only two sides. (not saying this is you) I am not Left, I am not right. I am not a Hillary supporter (actually kind of despise her), nor am I a Trump supporter (he is an ass).
So I can see hypocrisy flying around from BOTH of these supposed TWO types of people. It's easy to see when you are not either of them.
I get called RIGHT and assumed to be a TRUMP supporter by some people. I got called Elizabeth Warren several times on reddit the other week and assumed I was LEFT.
People REALLY need to step out of this binary LEFT/RIGHT, US/THEM mentality. Things look a lot different when you stop identifying as one of those fabricated binary choices.
Yeah, real life has multiple axes. I am not much right and not much left, but even less Authoritarian. I usually call myself a Contrarian even though I vote (LP). But like you, whoever looks at me usually can find a reason to put me on their side if they like what I am saying, or against their side if the truth hurts.
I most identify at this point as an Anarcho-Capitalist... though I tend to still vote and try to fight where I can. I voted Libertarian party, and where no LP was available I would vote for another third party. If I was forced to choose Dem/Rep... I did mostly an eenie meenie miny moe type thing and just alternated. Functionally I don't see much difference between them.
I don't like the idea of governance, but it does not cease to exist and stop impacting my family simply because I want it to stop. "If I don't like it, move" is also not a viable option. :(
So I mostly educate, discuss, learn, share, etc. And study a lot of history. Ask questions. Try to think up new questions to ask that might traditionally not be popular.
2008 was my last Lesser of Two evils vote I ever intend to do. I was a Ron Paul supporter... once he was out I voted for Obama.
I bought into the getting rid of the Patriot Act and many other Unconstitutional things he mentioned, scaling back and ending wars, etc.
In fact EVERY SINGLE issue that convinced me to vote for Obama he did exactly the opposite of what he campaigned he would do.
I've voted (LP) for 40 years, and every single time someone told me that my vote was wasted. Yet every single time what they voted for didn't happen.
Heheh... I like people telling me that... opens a door.
I ask them. What is your job as a citizen?
Why are you voting?
Is it to vote for a representative to go represent you in the government? This is known as a Republic or a Democracy depending upon your interpretation.
They usually will say that is correct.
To which I ask them... is voting for someone that best represents you your job then, or is your concern only about being on the winning team?
My contention is that the only way to actually THROW a vote away is to vote on someone that doesn't represent you. Even not voting at all is better than that.
EDIT: I wasn't old enough to vote until 1989... and there was no election that year. ;)
Good article. History is written by the winners...news is written by communist propagandists! This is why McCarthyism failed. McCarthy was actually right, he was just successfully smeared by the newspapers and tv. Most of the movies about it at the time always showed the Communists in a positive light, as victims. Being an obnoxious drunk didn't help him much either.
McCarthyism failed because it was a witch hunt. I am a strong believer that "Good ideas don't require force". Communism failed because in the long run like many other things it is unworkable and just approaches corruption, stagnation, and other issues from a different direction. Communism failed because it could not sustain itself...
To truly defeat it for good we'd need to teach critical thinking, and TEACH HISTORY.
I'm fond lately of saying HISTORY is EDITED by the winners. I still believe there is TRUTH out there... yet EDITING paints it as something else.
It is funny how the Russians are not even close to Communist now, but the same rhetoric is being used.
We have people in our country blindly pushing for communism, socialism, etc without BOTHERING to study history and truly consider why things fail, or don't fail.
They will get it right THIS TIME. (sarcasm)
Yet it doesn't tend to work out that way. The cycles repeat...
I actually rather like steemit because you see "the other side". And how they think. Like those who really believe Trump does anything good.
Other than appointing people... Trump doesn't do anything yet. :) He tweets a lot.
I am not a Trump supporter. I am not a Hillary supporter.
Yet I don't blindly bash people for non-actions.
I should also say that my article predominantly was not so much about Trump. He is just one person in the events unfolding. Hopefully you could look past his NAME and see what I was trying to talk about in terms of history.
Also there is no OTHER SIDE. There are a lot of sides. The big issue here is... let's assume the Russians Hacked the DNC email server and were the source of the leak... which has not been proven. Yet let us assume that is true...
If the leaked emails show corruption and collusion should that be ignored?
Yes we can yell about HACKING regardless of the source. Yet what was revealed was criminal.
So it seems like a red herring, misdirection to spend all this effort talking about the HACKERS while ignoring the actual evidence of crimes and corruption.
I honestly don't give a shit about Trump. So I am NOT your "other side". I do care a great deal about hypocrisy, and eroding of our rights by misdirection.
Ahaha, I didn't thought about that one. Okay, that may be misleading. I just had Trump as an example for his McCarthy-esk verbal attacks. Nothing more.
But yes, he appointed people. Energy a climate denier+oil lobbyist. Work someone who has "problems" with worker protection laws. Finance minister someone who works for the bank that was main player in the biggest crash in 80 years.
http://boingboing.net/2016/12/10/climate-purge-trump-demands-l.html
He is emptying the swamp. To build a swimming pool for the frogs.
Why is that connected to McCarthy? Did you read he (or one of his tops) demanded a list of all people who work on climate change, regenerative energies etc.? THAT IS the first step for a witch hunt.
Yeah see my other responses... TRUMP is mentioned in a little black box in ONE of those images. Pretty tiny and poor choice of font and color when I made it so you really have to hunt for it.
I did not pick on Hillary, I did not aim for Trump.
I pointed out the media and what it is doing. My article really has very little to do with Trump other than he happens to be one of the Actors out there that people are focusing on.
Heheh.... sorry about multiple responses. Take it as a compliment that you made me think. Do you realize TRUMP was only mentioned as a single word in a little black box in one of my images? He was not mentioned anywhere else that I saw. That was intentional on my part. Like I said I don't really give a damn about Trump. Yet, I do find it concerning that THIS was the thing you drew from my article. You see "the other side" and mention Trump. Did you understand what I was writing and why? It really had very little to do with Trump. Yet he is often the excuse being used to justify some of my concerns. I think those justifications might come from other sources if not for Trump. So yes... it bothers me that I wrote the article... went and looked up things, made images, etc and from this I am implying from your response you believe I am the "other side" and endorse Trump. That seems a little messed up.
Yes, I got what you meant. Trump was just a side mention because the "hate speeches" he gives and the eco list, which is a symptom of which hunt. I didnt even see his name in your post.
It was really just a "here today example". A short one because I had no long time. As now. I am posting in between drops in the new game mode online since 2 hours ;)