Posted on 04/26/2009 10:24:29 AM PDT by Mike Bates
Appearing today on the Toledo Blade's Web site is the article "Candide: Toledo Opera production offers the liveliest aspects of opera, musical theater, and operetta." Author Sally Vallongo writes:
In the 1950s, as then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., Wis.) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated liberal and progressive artists in search of Communist-oriented dissidents, Hellman and Bernstein collaborated on what would become one of several major works fomented by government activities: the play and film Cradle Will Rock, and Arthur Miller’s play and opera The Crucible are others.
Sometimes, readers must wonder if newspaper correspondents ever passed a class in basic civics. If journalists had, they’d know that Congress consists of two bodies, the House and the Senate. A member of one body doesn’t chair a committee from the other. No Senator – not even Joe McCarthy – could run a House committee. A clue might have been that his title was senator rather than congressman or representative, but perhaps that's expecting too much.
Moreover, McCarthy didn't devote a great deal of time to investigating, as Vallongo asserts, "liberal and progressive artists." Possibly she's confusing his inquiries with those of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which held hearings on Hollywood's comrades years before McCarthy launched his anti-Communist crusade.
The mainstream media are justifiably criticized for their reporting of what's taking place now. They don't do such a hot job of covering the past either.
Since McCarthy was a senator, HE didn’t have a “house” committee of any kind.
and, they were right to do what they were doing anyway.
i hate dumba** commie lovers
Toledo Blade must be populated with awful ignorant Urinalist (isn't that the norm?) Joseph McCarthy was a Senator it was the independent (Joe didn't create it or run it) House UnAmerican Activities Committee that went after all the Commies in Hollywood.
Sally, you ignorant Commie slut.
McCarthy also set the communist party back about 60 years. Today, we are letting them build back up with the aid of our own government.
I’m not a fan of McCarthy or any other statist, regardless of who they are on a quest against. That witch hunt did more to promote communism than it did to prevent it.
What Witch Hunt are you referring to? McCarthy was right, and the facts of history have totally vindicated him.
"The VENONA Project files, declassified in 1995, provided indisputable evidence that nearly all of those McCarthy accused were traitors to America. Not surprisingly, the media ignored these documents completely, instead choosing to run yet another round of anti-McCarthy propaganda. As if that wasn't enough, in 2005 Hollywood released the greatest propaganda film since "Triumph of the Will", an anti-McCarthy slander picture known as "Good Night and Good Luck". Dead for fifty years, McCarthy's body has now been tarred, feathered, crucified, cremated, and his ashes shot into space by a leftist media who cannot handle the truth of their own miserable existence. The anti-McCarthy media claims the Senator wrongly implicated many. Despite their accusations, no critic has ever brought forth a single documented case of someone being wrongly accused by McCarthy. "
Ask some Eastern Europeans if Stalin's minions or the Sudeten Germans were threats to the state or just another political party.
No such thing happened. What did happen is that the military was full of communists and McCarthy rooted them out. He was right about over 90% of them.
Anyone who fears government should look at that debacle and repudiate it. "UnAmerican" activities. You really want the prevailing party at any time to define what "UnAmerican" is? Don't be surprised when the knock on your own door comes.
What are you talking about? What do you mean UnAmerican activities? Did McCarthy accuse people of UnAmerican activities?
I find it impossible to believe you drew that conclusion after reading my post.
Ironically, it was the CIO(A) that started the communist scare by accusing all the small independent unions of having communist party connections.
When the CIO wanted to take over a union against the will of the members, they just started a campaign against the leaders of the independent union and made an agreement with the company management to take over the union and rid them of the communist leadership. It worked really especially well with companies who had security contracts.
Any government witch hunt designed to weed out a particular political ideology will eventually turn on the hunters. Communism is a complete failure. It has failed everywhere it has been tried. It will continue to fail. Statism does not prevent communism, it aids communism.
There isn't a basis for discussion when one of the potential discussers would write something this stupid.
If the state department and the military were full of radical muslim networks that were sending secrets to the Taliban you wouldn't have a problem with it?
Also, you did not answer my question about UnAmerican activities.
My cause is to destroy those who would violently overthrow the American government. The communists advocated, taught and tried those concepts. Now they practice infiltration and subversion. Zealotry stopped the first. A lack of zeal has caused the second and current situation. A lack of zeal has given us Zero.
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