By GottaLaff
My very caring, impassioned 72-year-old Twitter pal, who goes by the name 42bkdodgr, would like to share his feelings about something very scary, and sadly, making a comeback: McCarthyism. I am more than happy to post his essay here.
Take it away, 42bkdodgr:
Great thanks again for another relevant, cogent piece, 42bkdodgr.McCarthyism
One thing that is sure to make my blood pressure rise is the mention of Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism. Recently there have been several mentions of McCarthyism in the news.
At the 9/12 Project Rally, in Washington D.C., the media showed a picture of a young man wearing a tee shirt with “The Cure of Obama Communism, Is A New Era Of McCarthyism” printed on it. What could this young man possibly know about McCarthyism and what it stood for?
I felt it important to write about McCarthyism, as many younger people today have no idea what it was like living in America during that time.... which was one the darkest periods in the history of this nation.
The term McCarthyism is basically associated with the period of late 1940s to late 1950s known as the Second Red Scare period, although the practice of McCarthyism could also be applied to other eras in American history. During this period, a witch hunt took place. The sole purpose was to identify and weed out suspected communists in the entertainment industry and the federal government.
The House Un-American Activity Committee (HUAC) brought people from the entertainment industry before the Committee to answer the question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”; or to name names of those who might be Communists or belong to Communist type organizations. Failure to answer the Committee’s questions, even using the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution, often led to a jail term or banishment from the industry.
In many instances, those who refused to name names, even if they had never been Communists, were added to a blacklist developed by the Hollywood studios. Over 300 people were placed on the blacklist that prevented them from working in the entertainment industry. Such well known names as: Charlie Chaplin, John Garfield, Paul Robeson, Carl Foreman, Arthur Miller, Burl Ives, Orson Welles, Sam Jaffe, Lee Grant were on the blacklist.
Blacklists were also at work in the universities, schools at all levels, the legal profession and television. Being on any of these blacklists had the same effect as those who were on the entertainment industry blacklist.
In some instances the stigma of being on the blacklist, even if you had done nothing wrong, resulted in divorce, financial ruin, leaving the country to earn a living, writing under an assumed name, working in other professions, and in some cases it led to suicide. The overwhelming majority of those put on the Hollywood blacklist never found work in the entertainment industry again.
During the period of McCarthyism, there was the banning of books written by Howard Fast, Dashiell Hammett, Theodore White and others deemed “un-American”, whose books were removed from U.S. Information Service Libraries.
In the early 1950s, Joseph McCarthy, through his Senate Committee on Government Operations and related sub-committee, began a witch hunt looking for infiltration by Communists or sympathizers into the State Department, other government agencies, and U.S. Army Signal Corp. It was through these witch hunts that the term “McCarthyism” was born.
The witch hunt into the Signal Corp wasn’t very successful, and it eventually led to the Army-McCarthy hearings. It was through the televised public hearings that the true meanness, brutality, and tactics used by Joseph McCarthy was exposed and seen by the American people.
It was during the Army-McCarthy hearings that the famous line "Have You No Sense of Decency?" was spoken by Joseph Welch, the Army‘s attorney. It was said during an exchange between McCarthy and Welch in discussing a young attorney’s controversial background who was working for Welch’s law firm.
The McCarthy-Army hearings were the turning point in Joseph McCarthy’s career and McCarthyism, and he was censured by the Senate in December 1954 for his actions during those hearings.
I don’t ever want to see the rise of McCarthyism in America again in my lifetime; where just knowing someone or innocently belonging to an organization during your youth could cost you the ability to earn a living in your chosen profession, lead to financial ruin, and possibly the loss of your family and friends.
That isn’t America, that’s a Nation of Fear.
To get a sense of what life was like during that period, rent the movies “The Front”, “Guilty by Suspicion” and “Good Night & Good Luck”.
You not only educated us, you dovetailed two eras, putting today's McCarthyism into perspective, especially for those who may have been unaware of the original.
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