Posted on 09/22/2001 7:41:30 AM PDT by Stallone
His enemies nearly have ceased to argue against the validity of his message in the face of evidence that has emerged during the last decade confirming his message of communist influence and infiltration in the government and culture during the early days of the Cold War.
Why bring this up now? In conjunction with an event the world little noted McCarthy's speech to a Republican women's fund-raiser in Wheeling, W. Va., half a century ago. It was there that the senator from Wisconsin waved a document and proclaimed, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the secretary of state as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department."
The Associated Press surveyed some of Wheeling's influential citizens to see if they would be celebrating the anniversary of McCarthy's first mention of what was to become the "Red Scare." Most of those contacted were only too happy to let the event slide by with a minimum of fanfare.
But AP did locate Douglas McKay, who was in the audience when McCarthy spoke. McKay thought the resultant crusade was a good thing because it forced its targets "to defend themselves rather than advance their socialist ideas."
If that is so, and the society and government we have today reflect only the aborted version of those ideas, then conservatives might want to doff their bonnets in a salute to ol' Tailgunner Joe. Things could be worse.
Was Pinochet Right?
Hohoho
Were some FReepers Right?
hahaha
What to do?
.......
True. Certainly any such leader would have been demonized by the Left -- consider Reagan, Gingrich, Helms, Barr and so on -- but McCarthy's flaws, in the memorable words of Nixon, gave his enemies a sword...
One irony is that one of the people McCarthy complained about was a woman named Dorothy Franklin, who was a member of, I think, three front groups. Needless to say, the Left defended Franklin and she became a standard example of "McCarthyism." In 1972, Franklin was working for one of the Democrat candidates for President when Nelson Rockefeller, of all peole, asked why that particular candidate was employing a former Communist.
Implicit admission that McCarthy was right.
Gee, where to begin? Let's start with the way he took donations from the American people in the "fight against communism" which was largely used for his horse-betting addiction instead. And then there's the way he committed slander against numerous elected officials simply because there was no way that they could prove that they *weren't* communists. He also used his considerable influence to get his friends "soft" militatry assignments, which was the meat of the McCarthy trials in 1954. Oh, and he also suppressed freedom of speech by "black-listing" works of art that he found to be sympathetic to the communist cause, such as Arthur Miller plays and Woody Guthrie songs. If the police in your area were McCarthy fans and you were caught with a copy of The Communist Manifesto, for example, you could get thrown in jail for "subversive activities" or other nonsensical charges.
Every one was giving secret information and assisting Joseph Stalin, the greatest mass murder in history. Are they an oppressed minority that needs protected?
That's a mighty broad claim...do you have any evidence of this?
I'll check it out. Thanks.
When were Miller plays or Guthrie songs "blacklisted" by Senator McCarthy? In fact, how can a US Senator ‘blacklist’ anything? Please site your source for this.
If the police in your area were McCarthy fans and you were caught with a copy of The Communist Manifesto, for example, you could get thrown in jail for "subversive activities" or other nonsensical charges.
Give me one example of this happening and if it did, what did McCarthy have to do with it?
That's a mighty broad claim...do you have any evidence of this?
Here's my documentation. http://www.nsa.gov/docs/venona/ -- The Venona Documents
McCarthy had nothing to do with Hollywood, nothing to do with loyalty oaths or going after private citizens who were CPUSA members. His focus, and what got him nailed by the establishment, was the fact that he went after US Government officials who aided the Soviet Union. His investigation threatened to make some very powerful people in Washington, from both parties and inside the military, look bad because of their associations with and often patronage of people who were committing treason against the US. So they did the only thing they could do. They shot the messenger and have spent the last 40 years creating the myths you recite above. Give me the name of one person who ever went to jail in the 50s for being a communist. You can’t because no one did. It’s a myth that it ever happened. I have talked to hundreds of people that think McCarthy blacklisted Hollywood actors and writers. He never had a thing to do with investigating Hollywood and could give a damn less what Hollywood was doing. Those Hollywood types were blacklisted by the studio owners the same way a KKK member would be blacklisted today. McCarthy’s focus was on the US State Department and the US Military establishment. Venona, released to the public about 5 years ago, proved McCarthy was right.
Freepers have a fierce love of the Bill of Rights, and naturally become indignant when leftists in the mold of Reno, Clinton, et al make toilet paper out of it. To toss aside the principle of innocent until proven guilty in pursuit of traitors does no justice to the Constitution. After all, "emergency" measures passed during a crisis have a tendency to stick, and whose to say that the powers that the government today turns on perceived traitors it might tomorrow turn on gun owners?
One of the nice things about Jeffersonian Democracy is that it tolerates dissent, even that coming from socialists.
I don't know about that, but I do know that the head of our delegation, Alger Hiss, was on Stalin's payroll for 15 years or more. He was also FDR's chief advisor at the Yalta conference feeding the Soviet's all of the Allied negotiating positions. His actions lead to millions being enslaved under Stalin. The Washington establishment including people like Acheson had to defend him and others because to publicly admit what they knew to be true would incriminate themselves as either fools or incompetents and tarnish FDRs administration as one of gross mismanagement. For their own careers, they could not allow that to happen. Instead, Hiss and others were quietly let go from government service and those who asked questions like McCarthy were attacked.
Joseph McCarthy was a Senator. He had no power to prosecute and never pretended to have that power or criminal jurisdiction over any matter. He never sent or attempted to send anyone to jail. He did not have that authority. He did have the power and the Constitutional responsibility to oversee and investigate the actions of the Executive branch. For that, he was lynched by a very frightened Washington establishment.
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