Posted on 08/27/2013 2:31:34 PM PDT by smoothsailing
August 27, 2013
Reference:John Fund-Former Hillary Press Secretary Refuses to Agree Alger Hiss Was a Communist
Karen Finney’s refusal to acknowledge that Alger Hiss was a Communist spy — let alone a Soviet agent with a direct hand in crafting American policy during World War II and the crucial early Cold War years — should, alas, come as no surprise. The Cold War years are full of unpleasant memories for the Left, whose intellectuals, ignoring the horrors of the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s massacres, and much more, touted Communism as the wave of the future, and whose policies caved to Communism’s aggressive expansion across the globe.
More than half a century on, when they’ve been shown to be on “the wrong side of history,” to use a favorite liberal notion, Joe McCarthy is one of the few pleasant memories of the period for the Left: an alcoholic Republican senator who launched a shameless inquisition to expose a conspiracy theory — hundreds of Communist operatives secretly working against the United States.
Of course, there is the unpleasant fact that McCarthy was, by and large, right. That makes Hiss a particular problem: Acknowledge he’s a spy and you might have to admit that McCarthy — and, even worse, then-congressman Richard Nixon — were onto something.
But there is more at stake than holding onto an effective rhetorical bludgeon. One cannot — or perhaps should not — mention Alger Hiss without acknowledging the man who, at great personal risk, unmasked him: Whittaker Chambers (who would eventually write for this publication at the behest of Bill Buckley). Chambers chronicled his “impossible return” from the Communist underground in his autobiography, Witness, surely one of the great books of the 20th century.
In it he explains what we might call the Finney Phenomenon:
Thus men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism, in the pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to distinguish Communists from themselves, except that it was just the Communists who were likely to be most forthright and most dedicated in the common cause. . . . Any charge of Communism enraged them precisely because they could not grasp the differences between themselves and those against whom it was made.
This is not to give credence to any “Obama the Commie” bumper stickers, but Chambers’s point is damning: Communism, socialism, and their friendlier-faced relation, modern liberalism (“progressivism”), are close kin. They spring from the same philosophical root, and they each reach toward the same end. We see their commensurability today in many liberals’ cultish devotion to the Castro brothers, Hugo Chavez, and Che Guevara.
Karen Finney might have a tough time labeling Alger Hiss a Communist because, in fact, he looks rather disconcertingly like a modern-day liberal.
Being a Democrat means never having to acknowledge facts.
I’d go so far to say that being a DIMocRAT means that you a subhuman degenerate bent on destroying Freedom and Free America...and you should be in prison (or deported).
Yup, these are qualified mouth pieces for the left alright.
Like minds.
Mafia????? What’s the mafia????
The Commie Rats cannot admit that Commies long ago infiltrated the ranks of government because there are now more Commies in the US government than there are flies on a $h!+pile the size of Mt. Everest. The sheeple might start to wonder why more questions aren’t being asked.
Maybe we will find out years from now who were the spies in the Govt for AQ and the Muslim Brotherhood. There are certainly some who hold views of the Muslim Brotherhood who are dangerous.
Then again, one could completely jettison truth and integrity and become a brazen whore for the Left.
Oops, sorry : </echo>
Two words: venona intercepts.
As Chambers said at the time, “… when I took up my little sling and aimed at Communism, I also hit something else. What I hit was the forces of that great socialist revolution, which, in the name of liberalism, spasmodically, incompletely, somewhat formlessly, but always in the same direction, has been inching its ice cap over the nation for two decades.”
Liberalism is just communism on the installment plan, but liberals never like to admit that. As Ronald Reagan said of John Kennedy at the time “under that tousled, boyish haircut is the same old Karl Marx!”
The salient point is not that he was a communist - disgusting as that is, many are harmless old fools - but that he was a SPY and a TRAITOR.
To ‘rats, there are no enemies, just friends with unacknowledged grievances.
Now, now.
Obama is just following HIS sworn (upon a Koran? upon a comic book?) other of orifice (er, oath of office).
After all, did he not swear to oppose ALL ENEMIES, foreign and domestic? It’s just that to Obama, all of HIS enemies are those few who remain white, conservative, Christian, God-fearing, straight capitalists!
We are, with this latest Syrian warfare propaganda, only proposing to bomb the enemies of HIS allies in the Muslim world.
IIRC, Hiss also wrote the lion's share of the UN Charter, didn't he?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
While this did occur petty Ian Tuttle doesn’t reference where it took place and who she was talking to. Now why would that happen ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
