TAIL GUNNER JOE = REPUBLICANS 2007 Part 2

Part two in our series of Conversations with Uncle Abe, comparing the fear campaign of McCarthy to Bush’s fearmongering.

PART II

The Only Thing They Have to Spread is Fear Itself:
Repressive Legislation and Court Decisions
I specifically asked Uncle Abe if he saw any similarities between the Red Scare of the 1950s and what’s happening today. His answer was direct and to the point. “You’re damned right I do,” he responded. “Bush, like McCarthy has depended on fear to promote his repressive and often very bloody agenda. ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ constant references to 911, even when those references are inappropriate. Like the McCarthy’s power base, the Bush power base depends on fear, what Roosevelt might have called ‘unreasonable terror.’”

I can hardly argue with his statement. Perhaps it’s me, but I don’t think so. Whenever Bush finds himself in some kind of political trouble, or whenever he thinks it will serve his political and/or personal ends, he almost invariably mentions 911. Whether it’s in a press conference, or a special, televised statement to the American people, or in a speech to his favorite props ( i.e. the troops) Bush almost invariably ties 911 to everything from Saddam Hussein and Iraq to bad breath and ingrown toe nails. “Fear and patriotism,” Abe commented. “In Bush World they go together like peanut butter and jelly. But any patriot will tell you that patriotism is about a lot more than living in terror because your leaders want you to be afraid. Patriotism is about speaking out when you know your country is in danger–especially when its leaders are the ones who are putting your country in danger. And God knows this bungling buffoon has put our country in even more danger with his impulsive actions than we ever could have imagined.

And it wasn’t only Lucille Ball. It wasn’t only film makers, writers, and other artistic intellectuals. Other prominent individuals were persecuted as well.

Dorothy Kenyon, a respected lawyer and judge fell under suspicion as she was accused of affiliation with 28 Communist front organizations. Kenyon had been exonerated by a Congressional hearing, but that didn’t stop McCarthy from leveling his smear and fear tactics, using the time dishonored practice of guilt by association. “This was a new concept in American law,” Abe explained. “It meant that a a congressional hearing could dominate a persons right to choose friends and memberships in organizations, even church memberships.”

Another individual who came under suspicion was R. James Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic bomb. Oppenheimer, who had headed up the laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico had been instrumental in developing the first Atomic bomb, but felt guilty after he saw the horrendous death and suffering which took place after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer fell under the scrutiny of the FBI in 1950. In 1953 the FBI issued a report concerning Oppenheimer’s pre war associations which, naturally made him a suspect and a security risk. Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance, forbidden to act as a consultant with the Atomic Energy Commission. “That seemed a little fish,” Abe said. “I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Oppenheimer wanted to work for the peaceful use of atomic power, and perhaps more importantly, he was opposed to the development of the hydrogen bomb, a fact which must have irked the war mongers in the Republican party–not to mention the arms manufacturers.” But on the bright side, Oppenheimer spent the rest of his days doing university research into the peaceful uses of Atomic Power.

“The kind of anti-intellectualism that we saw during the McCarthy Era is not all that different from what we see today,” Abe said. “Today the Bush Administration and what you call ‘the Radical Religious Right’ routinely belittle the scientific community whenever it talks about the dangers of Global Warming and the Green House Effect. And I don’t think I have to remind you that we see a very fanatical cultural war against the Theory of Evolution by religious fanatics who want to turn our schools, both public and private into indoctrination centers for Creationism and right wing Christianity. And I don’t think I have to remind you that the late Carl Sagan wrote a wonderful book (titled) The Demon Haunted World, in which he attempted to debunk some of the pseudo science that is currently passing for legitimate science or even medicine out there.”

In addition to the destruction of careers, reputations, and entire lives, the McCarthy Era also produced a plethora of dangerous legislation and Supreme Court rulings.

One of the first repressive pieces of legislations was the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act. This travesty of legislation required all Communist organizations and their members to register with the Department of Justice. It didn’t criminalize the Communist Party itself, but it did criminalize membership in the Communist Party. In addition it prohibited members from working in defense plants, from obtaining passports, and–most chillingly–provided for the creation of internment camps in the event of a war. It also forbade the immigration of individuals who had once belonged to totalitarian regimes, although this was eventually softened to make exceptions for those who had been fourteen or younger and who had been forced to join totalitarian regimes.

Wisely, President Truman vetoed the legislation.

“Specifically some of the principal objections to the bill are as follows: 1. It would aid potential enemies by requiring the publication of a complete list of vital defense plants, laboratories, and other installations. 2. It would require the Department of Justice ad the Federal Bureau of Investigation to waste immense amounts of time and energy attempting to carry out its unworkable registration provisions. 3. It would deprive us of the great assistance of many aliens in intelligence matters. 4. It would antagonize friendly governments. 5. It would put the government of the United States in the thought control business. 6. It would make it easier for subversive aliens to become naturalized as United States Citizens. 7. It would give government officials vast powers to harass all our citizens in the exercise of free speech. Legislation with these consequences is not necessary to meet the real dangers which communism presents to our free society. Those dangers are serious and must be met. But the bill would hinder us, not help us, in meeting them. Fortunately we already have on the books strong laws which give us most pf the protection we need from real dangers of treason, espionage, sabotage, and actions looking to the overthrow of our government by force and violence. Most of the provisions of this bill have no relation to those real dangers”

“Wise words then, wise words now,” Abe reflected. “Today the Bush Administrations very draconian attitudes towards everything make McCarran look like a walk through a small town park…

The Supreme Court ruling in the 1951 Dennis et al V United States was another interesting turn of events. By a vote of 6-2 the High Court upheld the conviction of 11 members of the Communist Party. Oddly enough the conviction was not upheld on the basis of criminal acts, but because of the 1940 Smith Act, which forbade membership in any organization that had advocated the violent overthrow of the United States.

The situation devolved further when the Republicans assumed control of the United States Senate in 1952. A key piece of legislation was the 1952 McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act, which allowed for limited immigration from Asia (an area which was a hotbed of rising communism) and severely restricted immigration from Southern Europe, which the McCarthyites assumed was a hotbed of Communist thought and activity.

So what was wrong with legislation and court decisions such as those? Again, the problem was that the McCarthyites made no effort to define terms such as “UnAmerican,” “American” or “subversive.” And the nature of McCarthy’s evidence was so nebulous and so subject to changing definition that the accused had no real of staging an adequate defense. “In so many ways it was like the ‘evidence’ that the Witch Hunters presented in (1692) Salem. They called it ‘Spectral Evidence,’ which, for all intents and purposes, was no real evidence at all. In fact it was little more than unrestrained hysteria. And, as I already stated, both the Puritans and the McCarthyites quickly separated their witnesses into two categories-the friendly who named other witnesses and cooperated with their persecutors, and the unfriendly who denied their guilt and refused to ‘rat’ on their fellow peers. That’s what made this kind of legislation so dangerous–you just couldn’t defend yourself. You might ask the same question today? With Bush acquiring so much political and personal power in a unitary executive, and with that unitary executive claiming the (unconstitutional) right to invade the privacy of millions of Americans, how does one defend him or her self against charges of being a terrorist, or for that mater of being UnAmerican or unpatriotic. Who’s to say that this Administration wouldn’t use dubious evidence or just pull evidence out of its ass when it was convenient to do so? We don’t know that and that’s what made McCarthy Era legislation do dangerous and what makes recent legislation like the Patriot Act so dangerous–the government can acquire huge files of information on the citizens and we’ll never even know it. Now tell me that isn’t reminiscent of the McCarthy Era.”

If McCarthy was encouraged by the Republican take over of the United States Senate in 1952, both, he and his Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, sank into outright megalomania when Eisenhower was elected President in 1954. Not content to persecute writers, democrats, liberals, and Hollywood, McCarthy wasted little time as he turned his guns on the new Republican Administration.
“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent. Or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history–but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into full inheritance at an early age. We proclaim ourselves–as indeed we are–the defenders of the free world, what’s left of it.

“We cannot defend freedom abroad bu deserting it at home. The actions of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and discomfort among allies abroad and given comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not rally his. He didn’t create the situation of fear, merely exploited it, and skillfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves.’

“Good night and good luck.”

Edward R. Murrow
From the March 9, 1954 Broadcast of See it Now
For a complete transcript of the program click on:
http://honors.umd.edu/HONR269J/archive/Murrow540309.html

To be continued

Tags: McCarthy, Bush,