[Vision2020] Re: Vision2020 digest, Vol 1 #315 - 1 msg

[Andreas Schou]

> Mr. Lohrman -
>
> McCarthyism had more to do with paranoia than it did free speech.  In the
> early 1950s the Soviet Union had just developed the bomb.  Prior to that
> American considered the SOviet Union to be almost a backward country (third
> world almost).
>
> Americans were thinking:
>
> 1)  How could such a backward country develop an atomic bomb?

Until World War II, the Soviet Union /was/ a backward country. Only
Stalin's massive focus on industrialization, in order to better fuel his
engine of conquest, changed the Soviet Union from a starving agrarian
nation to a starving post-industrial hellhole. Furthermore, Russian
science (except, perhaps, for Russian mathematics) was nothing to speak
of; only the bounty of unemployed Nazi scientists really gave them any
scientific edge after World War II.

> 2)  There must be some "traitors" among us that gave them the technology to
> devlop the bomb.

There is fairly good evidence that Russian spies were instrumental in
delivering some essential secrets of the atomic bomb. There is fairly good
evidence -- evidence that, admittedly, the government did not have at the
time of their arrest -- that the Rosenbergs did in fact transmit nuclear
secrets to the Russians. Even more significantly, Klaus Fuchs gave away
even more.

> Enter Senator Joe McCarthy.  What better way to get headlines as a "true"
> American than to divulge names of local Communists and Communist
> sympathizers.

I doubt Joe McCarthy's crusade had anything to do with communists or
communism; it had everything to do with Americna liberals, some of whom
were still connected to communists. Were they spies? No, and not traitors,
either; they were simply people that had been connected to communists in
their youth.

This, for some reason, has become a common tactic amongst conservatives:
if you're two degrees away from a communist, you, too, are a communist. If
you're not a communist, then you're at the very least a socialist. For
some reason, this tactic works for conservatives and almost always fails
for liberals.

> If anybody said or did anything that could be interpreted to
> be "un-American" in any way was labeled a Communist or Communist
> sympathizer.  This "interpretation" was not a result of what was considered
> to "violations" of free speech, but a result of mass paranoia, much like the
> internment of Japanese-Americans at the beginning of WW2.

Mass paranoia, yes, but mass paranoia with a cynical, political source.

> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: vision2020-admin@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-admin@moscow.com]On
> > Behalf Of Bob Hoffmann
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 10:37 AM
> > To: vision2020@moscow.com
> > Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Disturbing trends
> >
> >
> > At 10:06 AM 4/16/2003 -0700, Tim Lohrmann wrote:
> > >Joe,
> > >    Exactly. The truth is that everyone, especially those in the public
> > > spotlight, have always "paid a price" for what they say and do.
> > >    That's not censorship. The government isn't involved at all.
> >
> > Censorship doesn't always include the government.  This is not as
> > simple as
> > an issue of boycotting someone because of a bumper sticker.  Remember the
> > blacklisting of actors in the 1950's?  Witch hunts, are you now
> > or have you
> > ever been a member of the Communist Party, have you ever met a Communist,
> > do you wear red underpants?  Destroyed careers, destroyed families, and,
> > let's not forget, a totally oppressive atmosphere across the
> > country.  This
> > was just one small part of McCarthysim.  At a time when people
> > are talking
> > about renaming anything "French," boycotting the products of a number of
> > countries, and punishing people in our country for their beliefs,
> > this is a
> > complex that needs to be examined in its broadest scope, not simply a
> > matter of "so-and-so's show got cancelled."
> >
> > And while individuals are free to withhold their dollars from whatever
> > business or product, institutions are not so free in our country.
> >  Any one
> > of us can decide that we don't like "a certain ethnic group" so we won't
> > patronize their businesses.  When our institutions start
> > discriminating on
> > the basis of one's political views, how is that much different from
> > discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender, etc.?  Again, as
> > individuals, we have some latitude to do so.  Institutions have less
> > "freedom" in this matter.  Decades of civil rights activism have
> > made it so.
> >
> > Food for thought....
> >
> > Bob Hoffmann
> > 820 S. Logan St.
> > Moscow, ID  83843
> >
> > Tel: 208 883-0642
> >
> > _____________________________________________________
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> > /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> >
>
>
>
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