Posted on 07/07/2003 2:57:25 PM PDT by ArcLight
You can read all about McCarthy's downfall, and the alleged dupes and traitors responsible for it, in "Treason," a new book by Ann Coulter, the Maureen Dowd of the conservatives. It derides McCarthy's critics and brands the notion of McCarthyism itself as a myth and "the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times." She also thanks her publisher for his bravery--a suggestion that it took courage to publish this work. Here we are, only up to the acknowledgments page, and already enjoying a laugh. True, at one point a book representing the Democrats as the party of treason, and Sen. McCarthy as one of the greatest heroes of the age, might have given some publishers pause. Not today--the era that has put its money on outrage merchants and shock jocks. Imagine the delight Ms. Coulter's publishers (Crown Forum, a division of Random House) felt as they contemplated the possibilities. "Treason" had everything--attacks and dark revelations about eminences hitherto untouchable, such as CBS's Edward R. Murrow, author of the famous "See It Now" broadcast that struck the first blow against McCarthy, from which the senator would never recover. "On what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great?" Murrow asked, in that searing indictment, delivered to a huge national audience, charging McCarthy with the reckless destruction of lives and reputations. It was, Ms. Coulter claims, a vicious and deceptive hatchet piece, "produced by Edward R. Murrow, friend of Soviet spy Laurence Duggan."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Don't believe Coulter wrote only the "rich and resourceful" were blacklisted.
Phillip Loeb was far from poor and he had nothing to do with McCarthy. He was blacklisted by a privately funded magazine, Red Channels, in 1950. Loeb supported Stalin's show trials and was a member of groups funded by the Soviet Union. He could have cleared himself but he refused to do so. When he was not asked to come back for the 1951 season of "The Goldbergs" his union negotiated a $85,000 settlement (over $550,000 in current dollars).
Four years later he was broke and could not pay a New York tax bill of about $1,000. Shortly after receiving the bill, he killed himself.
The one example Rabinowitz cites to prove that " countless people (were) destroyed" is of a man who did it to himself.
Yes, but that's like saying t. Mcveigh had some interesting points about our government overstepping it's bounds.
The guy was a twit. A twit who happened to be on our side, but one who made it easy to laugh at that side. He was the best thing that ever happened to the left in this country.
Dorothy Rabinowitz
So like you're saying neither Ann or Peggy are quite as smart as Phyllis? I think I would agree with you on that point.
Besides, they were most certainly NOT "blacklisted" by the U.S. government, nor even prosecuted for Communist Party membership. Their "blacklisting" came at the hands of those in their own industry.
That is, their employers chose not to employ people whose views and affiliations would have offended the vast majority of their potential customers. Would that today's motion picture poohbahs had such a policy. We'd have been spared such "luminaries" as Hanoi Jane, Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Jaenene Garafaolo, Mrs. and Mr. Sue Sarandon, Michael Moore, etc...
The employers were perfectly within their rights. Those affected should have had the stones to take their medicine for their beliefs. Instead, they (typically) whined and sniveled about their "suffering" (which, compared to the true suffering of those living under their hero Joe Stalin's rule, was less than a joke) for the next fifty years.
I have read the pieces by Doroty, Sullivan, Horowitz and the last guy - David Horowitz - though slamming her was by far the most fair to Ann Coulter. I am about 3/4 through her book and like Slander, I find the information astonishing. Does she have a bite? Yes, she does. She is the kind of woman the liberals attempt Hitlery to be - a intelligent, strong-will individual.
Now consider some of the items she mentions in her book.
The obvious - now with the Venona transcripts out - that Alger Hiss was a communist spy. But I did not know that FDR was told this in 38 and laughed it off. David Horowitz corraborates that statement. So, Dick Nixon was right all along.
The Rosenbergs were spies.
Did JFK give the order to assasinate the leader of an allied power? Yes - he did - that is documented fact. By not following through on the Bay of Pigs, did he in actually cause the Cuban Missle Crisis to happen? We can debate that but I agree with Ann's assertion that the Soviets saw a weak-willed President. Remember, the press knew about his pill-popping and his womanizing. And if the press knew - some of them were on the Soviet payroll - then the Soviets knew.
Did Truman endanger our military personnel by not letting MacArthur fight the way he wanted? Was he micro-managing the war? Yes, he was. Remember, all information about the war passed from the CIA to British Intelligence. Kim Philby ring a bell.
Did LBJ esculate Vietnam on a lie? Yes he did. We know that now. McNamarra stated in his book several years ago that he knew in 1964 that we could not win the Vietnam war and yet he and LBJ allowed thousands of young men go to Vietnam and die! That is a fact!
Ann Coulter has several points in her book. One is can we trust Democrats to hold the reigns of power. Don't give me that crap about Reagan and others being Dems. Yes, they were at one time and saw what was happening. They switched and we - America - were better for it. A second point is that Democrats cannot be trusted. Is the average Democrat on the street guilty of treason? Directly, no. But indirectly they are because they do not take the time to read, investigate, question. Look at those around you who are Dems. How much more information do you know than they do? How many times have you told them something and you get the deer in the headlights look? Or they ask where you get your information? And the third point Ann has raised is she is getting everyone to talk about this subject. She is right as to who writes our history. When she talks about Reagan in her book, I remember what she is stating. I remember the Dems having fits concerning what Reagan said about the Soviets - that they were the evil empire, tear down this wall, walking away in Iceland. I remember the statements that you do not want to piss the Soviets off and during that time, since that was all I heard, I was somewhat worried. But now we are being told that the Soviets were on their last legs. It's the same old BS about Republican Presidents being stupid and clever at the same time.
I have no idea who Dorothy Rabinowitz is nor do I care. Someone posted a picture of her yesterday - she looks like a Democrat. She lost me when she referred Ann to Mo Dowd. The few things I have read by Mo Dowd - on FR - contains absolutely no footnotes or references. Like I said, I have read 3/4 of Ann's book and Dorothy Rabinowitz - in her review - seems to not have touched it. That lost me also.
And getting back to Pat Buchanan, I told my wife the other day that the left will attempt to do to her what they did to Pat Buchanan. It will not work with Ann because she doesn't give a damn what they say or think.
The studio still made the choice to blacklist the Communists. The government did not force anything except the truth out of these creeps.
And why not blacklist? Why should the studio head be forced to pay those who want to rob him at best and probably want to kill him?
Unlike, say, in the Soviet Union, where such dissent would have been punished quite a bit more harshley than that.
They chose to join or associate with anti-American groups and parties who advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government. Yet, they lost ALL courage of their convictions when simply asked about it. Then, they cried boo-hoo for decades when their CHOICES came around to bite them (if only for a few years, after which they were lionized as "heros" by their fellow-travelers).
They had to do honest work for a few years, after their CHOICES made them unemployable in their industry. This is laughably insignifigant next to their ideology's nearly century-long stream of blood and misery. A stream which, by their actions, they helped along.
Put your sympathy where it belongs...with the REAL victims, those 100 million dead souls murdered by the unspeakable horrors of Communism.
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