McCarthyism ... were you there?

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: GUEST,guest dont like McCarthy
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 07:35 PM

Thanks 999

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 08:25 PM

You're welcome, Guest don't like McCarthy. One more thing: you may wish to look at

ixquick

Google it and open their site. You may find it useful for certain political (or other) searches.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Joe_F
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 03:19 PM

I on the contrary welcome the help of the Web in making sure that if the forces of evil triumph I will be on the losing side.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: sciencegeek
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 03:41 PM

I remember the cold war & all the crazy paranoia that went with it. When I grew old enough to learn about McCarthy, I was appalled by the unfairness & how un-American he actually was. Of course, I also couldn't believe that "The Ugly American" was based on reality.

As I watch the spectacle of the Republican primary races, I am equally horrified by their antics... those who do not learn from history seem hell bent on repeating it.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: GUEST,coyote breath with no cookie
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 03:46 PM

Yes. Handing out "Joe Must Go" leaflets on Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee. My first "political" act. I hung around Mary's Bookstore in those days. I was fifteen.

CB

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 04:10 PM

It's important to remember that being a member of the Communist Party was perfectly legal.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 04:10 PM

McCarthy has been "reincarnated" (though I don't believe in that) by Daryl Issa. Today's
GOP politicians and some Dems make McCarthy look quaint.

I supported Wallace (Henry not George) and many friends I had were blacklisted and couldn't find work in the entertainment media because of Joe McCarthy.

Most of the naive members, many ex members of the CP didn't know what Stalin was doing. They found out later. The Soviet Union did not control the CPUSA as was advertised.

Pete and Woody both got out of the Party. Woody was too individualistic for the doctrinaire. Ask Pete what he thinks of the Soviet style Communism today?

McCarthy was like many of the bigots we see today and he was a drunk. He had delusions of power and that was his real motive.

The era of the Fifties was saturated by this fear of "the red under the bed" and the propaganda of the time reminds me of the kind you hear on CNN and Fox today.

What do the French say about "the more things change"? That's why being an American is about being vigilant, not vigilantes.

I knew some of the Hollywood Ten and actors and musicians who were called up by HUAC.
They were brave people when they refused to cooperate. Everything was underground and Woody Allen's "The Front" depicts the era well. "Hecky", (Zero Mostel) knew this position in real life.

Pete Seeger wanted to sing for HUAC the song "Wasn't That A Time?" but was turned down flat. He was brave because he took the First Amendment when most took the Fifth. He nearly did time for it.

McCarthy brought out the bravery and American idealism in some people despite the fact that many others were cowering in fear.

One of the historical blights on our country was the Peekskill riots at a Wallace Rally featuring Paul Robeson. You can read about it. The song "Hold The LIne" came out of it.

The hysteria was thick as fog and everyone was afraid who had a government job or a top flight position in a corporation or the entertainment industry. I had the distinction of being called a communist by someone who didn't even know who I was, that someone, Reverend Billy Hargis, head of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade who was finally busted for molesting one of his boy followers.   

It's disgusting to see the rebirth of the John Birch Society who were instrumental in attacking almost anyone they could, a strategy used today by the GOP.

The names Howard Hunt, Walter Winchel, JackTenney, Father Coughlin, Alexander Mitchell Palmer, Gerald L.K. Smith - these are names that are forgotten today.

Nobody knows about the McCarran Act or Red Channels today.

Robert Kennedy served under McCarthy which is not talked about much today.

The HUAC went after Robert Oppenheimer and Harold Urey also.

Will Geer worked as a landscape architect when he couldn't get work in Hollywood.

Jeff Corey got a degree in speech therapy when he couldn't get acting work either.

Don Murray, actor, ran a laundromat for a while.

Gail Sondegaard was disappeared as an actress and wife of Herbert Bieberman, one of the Hollywood Ten.

The Actor's Lab in Hollywood was closed down when the head of it, Morris Carnovsky was attacked.

Writers like Howard Fast who wrote Spartacus was targeted.

There were so many people hurt during this period, losing their careers.

Fortunately, there were Left-wing organizations that could keep actors and musicians employed on a smaller scale. In those days, we called them "bookings".

Many blacklisted folks knew each other and found a support network.

Burl Ives and Elia Kazan ratted to the HUAC on people they knew.

"Wasn't that a terrible time!"

Of course, the Weavers were blacklisted and lost their position in the music industry,
which in the long run, might have been a good thing. They were not a flash-in-the-pan
like some pop acts.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 04:50 PM

Stringsinger-

Thanks for your long thoughtful post, based on real experience.

The younger one's here haven't had that experience yet. The rest of us may well have packed it away. But, you're right, the "terrible times" may be with us again.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 04:51 PM

"Will Geer worked as a landscape architect when he couldn't get work in Hollywood."

One of the most memorable moments in my life was meeting Mr Geer in NYC. I'd known about him and was introduced to him by a friend from the (what are my) old days in the mid-1960s, and I had the good sense to shut my mouth, although I doubt I could have said anything that made sense anyway, being that stammering doesn't communicate much at all, and that's all I could have done. I was in awe of him and still am. Frank could and likely did call him Will, but to me he was and is Mr Geer.

Another guy from then, when the USA in the late 50's and early '60s was still under great threat from within is Stringsinger. It took serious cajones to buck the system (just as it will take now) but thanks to those men and women and their courage we have all been shown it's possible. Carry it on, boys, carry it on.

Sorry if that embarrasses you Mr Hamilton, but it's the way I see it.

Best regards, despite our differences.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Deckman
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 06:03 PM

Those were VERY trying times. I was a 16 year old during the worst of bad times, yet I was hauled into the FBI office in downtown Seattle and questioned about the songs I was singing.

To say that those bad days left an mark on me would be an understatement. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 06:26 PM

In 1964/6 I was in Chicago (or Detroit, can't recall which) and was going to play at a WEB DuBois meeting when I noticed two guys in a car, both suit-dressed--with a camera. In my young mind I thought "COPS". So, I did the only logical thing: The Finger.

I have never liked the FBI since, with one exception, and he archives stuff here.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 17 - 11:14 AM

Pay careful attention to the Don Firth account of how McCarthy and the Republicans used Russia and the Red Scare against Democrats and card carrying liberals.

Republicans required a determined suspension of critical faculties and tremendous powers of denial.
Once again their powers of denial are beyond reproach.

Even as we entertain a nuclear war.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 17 - 06:05 PM

They don't call us commies much anymore.
Now they call us Russianphobes.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 17 - 02:21 PM

I wasn't around in the 50's but I remember that blacklisting folksingers was a great way to get my Dad to buy their albums. In fact, that is how I learned about it in the first place.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Aug 17 - 02:58 PM

One small sample of a movie 'summing up' McCarthy was the character loosely based on him in "The Manchurian Candidate" 1962 played by the great character actor James Gregory. He is meditating how many Communists to claim have infiltrated the State Department. He is tapping the back of a ketchup bottle as the scene fades. . . into a scene in Congress where he holds up a piece of paper no one can read and is screaming "FIFTY SEVEN COMMUNISTS!" (let me know if you need the humor of this scene explicated)
That encapsulates the fictional nature of the real McCarthy's sources amd the demagoguery of the times. Plot spoiler in The Manchurian Candidate that those who were pushing the anti-Communist message the loudest were themselves Communists hiding under the canopy of fear they wrapped round themselves.
Not for nothing President Truman called McCarthy: 'The Kremlin's Greatest Ally'.

Subject: RE: McCarthyism ... were you there?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Aug 17 - 11:32 AM

In Wichita, Kansas news about McCarthy was ummm... 'muted' a bit, as we had 3 members of the board of the John Birch Society in town. We couldn't help seeing some of it on national TV news, but TV was pretty new in town, and we only had a couple of stations..... and local newspapers were very careful what their editorials said. I barely knew about the details till I started college in 1957.