McCarthyism with Lipstick
I am old enough to have remembered the Weathermen, and McCarthyism. By the time I was draft age, I lived in Alaska. I knew plenty of people who opposed the war, and did illegal things to resist the war. I had friends in a local war tax resistance movement, and I knew people who helped soldiers desert and go to Canada. There were few privileged and well educated radicals that would join Weatherman, but we did have our own relatively harmless local radicals with delusional dreams of overthrowing the government, including one that later converted to hyper free market views, and became a cabinet member for Governor Hickel.
Everyone in my generation had an opinion on the Vietnam war because of the draft, and there were a lot of crazy things going on. By the time Obama and Palin came of age, the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam and this era had disappeared.
Everything about Obama suggests a pragmatic reformer, and an ambitious politician. Obama didn't want to overthrow the government, he wanted a future in the government.
Like Obama, Sarah Palin missed the 60s and the Vietnam war controversies. She grew up when there was no draft, and when disco was more important than politics. She is discovering now her abilities to engage in the type of character assaults that one associates with Joe McCarthy -- guilt by association. Like McCarthy, she has no real boundaries or shame.
McCarthy and McCarthyism were distant and discredited by the Vietnam era, but support for both never disappeared entirely. There were always elements in society that wanted to bring this back. But few people with stature had the stomach to do so. Today, with Fox News, talk radio and a right-wing blogsphere, there is an atmosphere and core of support for this type of thing. Sarah Palin seems like the missing link. A high level political figure that has been elevated to a Vice Presidential nomination by one of the two main parties -- McCarthy's old party.
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Exactly! I have thought the same for quite a while and have mentioned it in posts. Glad to see I'm not alone. The damage McCarthy did as a Senator is still being felt. Picture him in the White House. Now you know why I am literally terrified they will win.
Actually, the benefits were fairly short-lived, but the fire did force the lefties to keep their heads down for a little while.
And by the way-do you know what's really cool? Joe McCarthy was great friends with the father of Greta Van Susteren from Fixed News. McCarthy actually lived with her family in Wisconsin when he wasn't in Washington being difficult. Check her Wiki-amazingly small world.
I guess if we follow the logic, we could blame the whole McCarthy thing on her, right? Isn't that cool?
Dave
It the movie commentary for "Good Night and Good Luck," director George Clooney revealed that the preview audience cards were highly critical of the unrealistic and over-the-top preformance of the actor playing Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
It was the actual footage of McCarthy himself.
My bet is that our grandchildren are not going to believe that anyone ever took transparent fraud Sarah Palin seriously, just as we find it hard to believe that anyone could have fallen for the stupid and obvious Joe McCarthy or Huey Long.
I keep waiting for a real connection to be shown by the Republicans. You don't think they really believe that constantly repeating a lie will make what they say true, do you? They talk in circles and never answer a question. It is tiring and maybe that is the final argument: we will give up trying to think they have an iota of intelligence and let these juveniles have their way. Not this time. Learned from Bush - dumb is just dumb.
There were many former Communists in the 1930's who went on to rehabilitate themselves, renounce their past and become good American citizens. Two who come to mind are Whittaker Chambers who was White and Manning Johnson who was Black. They went from being ardent supporters of the alien Marxist pseudo-religion of Communism to become fighters for freedom and sworn enemies of their former Stalinist thought masters.
William Ayers remains a committed ultra-leftist who has never renounced his past.
NPR had this to say about Weather Underground bomber William Ayers:
"In his memoir, Fugitive Days, Ayers doesn't directly say which Weather Underground bombings he may have had a role in planning or executing, coyly writing, "some details cannot be told."
But in a New York Times article on the book, Ayers is quoted as saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Coincidentally, that article was published on Sept. 11, 2001."
Obama's Links To Ex-Radical Examined by David Schaper, All Things Considered, October 6,2008
You know, that same unrepentant radical helped rehabilitate Chicago's schools, and was Chicago's Citizen of the Year in 1997. The education foundation board that he and Obama served on was funded by President Reagan's ambassador to England.
That is what makes the McCain ads so completely misleading.
And typical. It is the worst Republican fallacy of all that you cannot even tolerate people that you disagree with, and cannot learn from them. Crap! I've learned plenty from people I didn't agree with, and they have not changed my morals, just my understanding. This is wrong, they have gone too far, and I do hope it bites them in the backside.
Every time I read this tripe I'm still amazed. Not a single "conservative" knows any American history, and they assume their readers or listeners don't either. Keep putting that message out. It helps explain what you've done to the country.
This is what you get when a small time governor sells her soul to the devil.
Conservative columnist from the Washington Post, George Will--says quite profoundly McCain's off the rail with his Ayers attack and Paling is McCain's Sancho Panza; the latter was companion to an old man who had lost his reasoning ability.
Yes, but Don Quixote held to a long-ago noble ideal Palin has no such noble goals, only her unbridled ambition. Do she and McCain have no decency?
SailFree just joined and is trolling. Have fun.
Besides, it's not "ASSOCIATIONS" we are talking about, but alliances. Obama WORKED WITH Ayers, he didn't just pass him on the street. Ayers held Obama's career-starting meeting. Obama did not just walk the dog past his house.
The Obama-Ayers connection is not just a meaningless association. They cooperated on indoctrinating Chicago students in propaganda, for example.
GIVE US THE FACTS MAN! If you know something factually important that we should know about Obama's patriotism, ethics, loyalty to America, etc. - let us know about it.
Give us the facts - what kind of propaganda did he distribute (and send us an example)? And does that make the Republican's who financially backed the program - Communists or something worse? Give us their names and exactly what is their complicity with the "FACTS" you will supply us with, if any, which I doubt there is.
You are asking the investigator to give you the answer when the investigation has not yet been made. You are taking the word of the "suspect." This is not logical.
Asking questions is not propaganda.
But as for facts, we know the Annenberg group did NOTHING to improve the education of Chicago kids and was directed toward radicalizing teachers and pushing them to propagandize rather than TEACH USEFUL SUBJECTS. That's a fact!
Ayers and Obama were on the same board. That's a fact.
Ayers is an ADMITTED and UNREPENTANT terrorist. That's a fact.
Refusal to release records which might have shown more occurred for a while, and one cannot be certain at this point that the files were not cleansed during this period before release.
As for more, do you expect the radical revolutionaries to hold their meetings in daylight? That would be like expecting to catch vampires on the beach in Cancun.
But many republicans had the exact same "alliance" with him. The man was Citizen of the Year,for god's sake.
What is the matter with you?
Are you really this stupid or just this hateful?
See James Love's Profile
Over the years, I have met all sorts of people, and made an effort to understand and communicate. I've known corrupt politicians and lobbyists, gang leaders, drug dealers and drug addicts, wife beaters, hookers, right wing extremists, para military enthusiasts, CIA agents, and people with all sorts of insane political views. I don't think it is remarkable that years before 9/11, someone would have found it interesting to talk to someone who in his youth was part of the Weather underground. I would have found it interesting.
Ayers certainly was not engaged in antisocial activity at the time. And by all informed accounts the social contact was very limited and Obama completely rejected the things Ayers did in his youth. People who are blowing this up are really not thinking very much, or they live in a very small and boring world.
Check out the total membership of the Board on which Ayers and Obama sat. On the same Board, at the same time, there were individuals like Arnold R. Weber now supporting McCaine.
http://med
But I too remember McCarthy and McCarthyism vividly as I was 8 years old during the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954. My mother was down on TV and we could not afford one, but one day I came home and there was a Packard Bell TV; I thought I hit a gold mine. My mother wanted me to watch and learn and she used to point to McCarthy and say "Look carefully, remember it, that is the face of evil but not the only one as evil wears many masks. It was a time of backroom whispers, cowardice including among many liberals, guilt by association and Senate Hearings that resembled the Star Chambers of the Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, and present-day Gitmo.
But when the trolls come, just respond politely and with facts and reason that show, by their quality, as hot reflects and defines cold and vice versa, just how shallow, lacking and pathetic they and their shallow sniping really are.
McCarthy didn't engage in guilt by association, and he was right: America was infiltrated with communist spies and sympathizers.
if so, when he had to back down from the army, why didn't we fall into communist control? he was drunk, are you psychotic on speed?
It sounds like they have gotten to your precious bodily f l u i d s, there s o l d i e r. Perhaps you should curtail your activities with the Edgar Hoover fan club.
Haven't learned much in 60 years, have you?
Joe McCarthy was a thug, a drunk, and an imbicile. But he was also effectively dangerous and, as your comments demonstrate, influenced and incited a dangerous fringe element in the population. History has totally discredited him but it has not convinced you apparently.
McCarthy did drink a bit much, mostly AFTER his reputation was trashed by the left-wing goons. He was not stupid nor a thug.
History is not correct in this regard, as the truth was entirely different from your beliefs. The Big Lie told over the years has taken hold, but honest students of history are not obligated to believe the falsehoods.
Why SHOULD I be convinced by lies?
"McCarthy didn't engage in guilt by association"
I'll give you that one! There didn't have to be any association at all! To be targeted, he just had to suspect that you knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody else. It was the original Six Degrees of Separation.
I think that you, and the entire media give this one hit wonder entirely too much credit. Yes, she's pretty, yes, she can read one heck of a speech, and yes, she connects with people through the lens of the camera. That is not political savvy, brains, or talent. It's good public relations. Call her a PR genius, but let's not put this irritation in the history books related to anything political, it gives her too much credit.
Kathryn Harris #2!!!
I agree, we should call it McCainism instead of McCarthyism now.
agreed.
What are you prepared to do if Bush cancels the election and puts the military into the streets?
Take up arms
i'm thinking what am i going to do if the election is whooey with those voter registrations removed in all the battleground states. that doesn't seem odd. i'm mad, and i'm angry. it would take much to have an American Dictatorship. it would be our own brand, but still a dictatorship.
mccain wins. he dies. palin rides in on white horse. economy gets worse. international relations get worse. neocons are running amok starting little border wars here and there with russia. to get the people behind her we strike at iran. russia's mad. another georgia incident. inflation enuses. the global economy breaks down. protests start. palin rallies citizens to join the army. we have to close the ports due to scares. we close down the borders. the army is stretched by another war or basing to "prevent" a war. independent militias spring up. food, energy, and commodities become scarce and prices are driven up. a loyalty oath for Christ and America is instituted. violence turns into bombings and shootings. corruption reigns.
it can happen here.
Evidently, the journalists are also too young to remember McCarthy and guilt by association dispersions he threw at anyone who disagreed with him? Wasn't he later firmly discredited by just about every normal thinking person (and still is to this day)?
If actions speak louder than words, her membership and support in the Alaska Independence Group say much more about her patriotism and loyalty to America than any innuendo she could ever throw. If she has any facts, not just negative mudslinging, lets here them. Or SHUT UP, as the guy on Fox likes to say.
Why is the national media failing to point out the two-faced audacity of someone currently under investigation for a possible ethics violation pointing fingers at Obama and his "questionable judgment"?
I WONDER ABOUT THAT TOO!
Yeah! I totally agree with you! Frankly I think the press should just stop covering her stump speeches until she stops the negativity. We don't need this now. How much have we lost in our 401k's? She has got to be stopped!
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