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Bill O’Reilly or Joe McCarthy?
October 12th, 2005
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Oliver Willis
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Apples and oranges. O’Reilly focuses on the modern day left and extreme left. Smokin’ Joe, the Ol’ Tail Gunner, focused on Commies (somebody needed to, he just didn’t do a very good job).
Dugger
O’Reilly says the left is the same as terrorists. McCarthy said the left was the same as communists. Both are right wing idiots.
Has anybody told Bill that, JD?
O’Reilly may be a lot of things, a blowhard, a pompous ass, etc … but right wing or conservative he is not.
Let’s just say that history has been unkind to Joe McCarthy. The so – called Venona Papers have vindicated many of his accusations, but for some reason, even that help his reputation.
Buckley & Bozell’s book, McCarthy and His Enemies, made a very persuasive argument that being a target of McCarthy’s made you more popular than being one of his supporters. That book also made the argument that there were (and, of course, there are) many myths associated with Joe McCarthy — the chief one being that he did all his villainous work on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Finally, the book makes the point that Communism was, in some circles, unpopular, and that portion of the media, TV for example that feared being tainted, did, indeed, “blacklist” or attempt to blacklist people. Hollywood actually didn’t.
Finally, for all the people who overreacted to the so – called “Red Menace”, hardly anybody, even in the State Department, lost their jobs because of McCarthy.
Apparently, the same mythos is now enveloping Mr. O’Reilly. The ACLU does seem to have a penchant for defending radicals of all types, going back to their founding days of defending World War I draft dodgers and Communists in the 20’s.
To point that out is not McCarthyism.
This year the Writers Guild of America has corrected the screen credits on many new prints and home videos of films written by blacklisted writers using pseudonyms
Working under a pseudonym still gets you a paycheck. If Hollywood had been serious about blacklisting, they wouldn’t have let them work at all.
I’m sure you are aware that there are well defined grounds for conscientious objection, including, but not limited to, membership in certain religions and denominations. If it is true that illegitimate war resisters are traitors, then war resisters are un – American. On that, we must agree to disagree. If Communists have, or had, as their goal, the overthrow of the American government, and its replacement by a Communist one, then that, to me, is traitorous, and, therefore, un- American.
Perhaps the problem is the definition “traitorous” and “un-American” — are they synonymous?
If you cherish history, as I do, then you believe that history never has a good reason to be unkind to someone. Perhaps I should have said that McCarthy did, and does, not deserve the reputation with which he has been falsely associated by revisionism.
Really, this discussion about how misunderstood Joe McCarthy was, is beside the point.
We don’t have a banana republic here, yet. But we have been known to accept ‘fascists’ as allies as long as they are our fascists, and they serve some short- term or long- term objective that includes keeping communists out of power (Better Dead than Red!)
Need I list the ignoble history of our supporting right wing extremism in the opposition to communism? “Death Squads’ in Central america in the late 70’s and early 80’s that created lists of ‘Disappeared’ that, to this day,
have not been fully compiled.
How about Allende’s Chile? He was elected by popular vote. Pinochet ruled with a Fascist Iron Glove for the next quarter century. But we were safe from communism.
Need I mention our relationship with Saddam Hussein in the early 80’s?
The Islamofascists have become the new enemy in place of the Commie
bugaboo. Will we ally ourselves with any nazi (Mushareff) who supports our position?
Now I’ve done it. Too many red-meat issues balled into one. There goes the thread.
Let’s just say it was with very good reason.
True. It becomes McCarthyism when you start accusing people of being “on the other side,” of being traitors, or of being un-American because of their beliefs.
Sorry. Hollywood certainly did.
Please, take the McCarthy revisionism elsewhere (Pravda, maybe?). McCarthy was a drunk lunatic who ruined a lot of decent American’s lives with baseless, unpatriotic allegations. No amount of revising history from Bozell, Buckley or Coulter is going to remotely change that.
If this were merely an issue of relativism, your point would be well taken.
We supplied nothing in a material way to support the Soviet Union. We supplied no troops. We supplied no military equipment. We supplied no advisors. It was beneficial for both the US and USSR to work(not very cooperatively either) toward stopping the German war machine. That’s where the realtionship began,; that’s where it ended. You can get into Yalta if you want. I think that’s another discussion.
Who’s the baddest bad guy? I don’t know. I just know we are supposed to be the good guys. If we aren’t, then what? Maybe survival is the most important thing for some, but we are a country of laws aren’t we? If not, then what?
Semant,
Of course, looking at the comparative murderous histories of Communism and fascism, we should be and have been much more worried about communism (communism murdered many, many more millions and specifically targets our way of life) . So if we ally, out of expediency, with the lesser of evils to fight the greatest of evils, that doesn’t seem so bad to me. And don’t forget WWII, where we allied with the second greatest murderer in human history – Stalin. He easily has murdered ten times more people than all of our ‘fascist’ allies put together.
As president, would you only ally with simon pure democracies?
Dugger
If you cherish history, as I do, then you believe that history never has a good reason to be unkind to someone.
I cherish history. I don’t believe as you do, but that’s largely because I don’t anthropomorphize it as you do.
Forcing an artist to take a pseudonym is gut-wrenching. It hurts enough when the press doesn’t spell your given name correctly. It’s akin to the asterisk they put next to Roger Maris’ home run record–somebody, somewhere, decided that you were unimportant and then made it “official” in some capacity.
How dare anyone tell people what is and isn’t ‘American’? The line has (and is) “agree with us or you’re un-american”. No debate, that’s just how it is.
Why are people so afraid of debate?
Stalin was never really even a communist. To my mind, only Spain ever practised true communism, and that for only a few months. The label was used to simplify things for the American people.
“communism …specifically targets our way of life” – Dugger
How exactly? Say if a communist had been elected to office in the USA (and it has happened), or even a left leaning government like in Chile or El Salvador; how would your way of life change, bearing in mind most of your community or country voted for it?
The McCarthy revisionism simply cherry picks a few spies and says “see he was right” Well duh, you accuse a few hundred people of being communist spies and sure a few of them will later turn out to have been. Doesn’t change the fact that the allegations were baseless and the accused were denied due process.
So McCarthy running around like the drunk he was, accusing average Americans of being communists with his ever enlarging and shrinking list never happened? Just a figment of our nation’s collective imagination, huh? Let me see these right-wing text books, and tell the me the drugs necessary to believe their fabrications.
Communism has been tried lots of places; it has never succeeded.
China is doing pretty well.
McCarthy was a drunk lunatic who ruined a lot of decent American s lives with baseless, unpatriotic allegations.
His drinking habits are irrelevant. At no time was he ever considered insane.
If by “a lot of decent American’s lives”, you mean more than one, you should able to name him / her — provided of course, that that person was subsequently found to be innocent.
Oliver, you are lost in the thickets of Cliché Land.
Speaking of clichés, Bryan, the old, “Communism has never been tried” is on of the most worn. Communism has been tried lots of places; it has never succeeded.
Actually, ewk, you are quite incorrect. The “McCarthy as madman” revisionism points to a handful of innocent victims.
There were dozens of communist sympathizers at very high levels in the State Department. for example, even though that was not McCarthy’s thing — it was Nixon’s.
It is not important that they were spies, per se, what is important is that they were Communist sympathizers in very high places, influencing foreign policy. Henry Wallace? Alger Hiss? Lauchlin Curries?
Hollywood writers weren’t spies, but they influenced many people with the idea that Communism was utopian (right, bryan?); that the Soviet Union was the Nazi’s enemy from the beginning, ignoring the non-agression pact; their scripts ignored the persecution of the Church, the oppression of Eastern Europe; Walter Duranty ignored the government imposed famine in the Ukraine.
These things really happened — no myths — no propaganda — no revisionism — they happened.
Now, O’Reilly — that’s something else again.
Probably on track to replace the U.S. as the next economy (military?) superpower. Thanks to Bush raping our economy, it’ll take us decades to fully recover.
“Hollywood actually didn t … If Hollywood had been serious about blacklisting, they wouldn t have let them work at all … Hollywood writers weren t spies, but they influenced many people with the idea that Communism was utopian.”
Frank you’ve written a lot of dumb fucking things on these threads but your wholesale ignorance of the Hollywood Blacklist — what it was, what lead to it and the very real impact that it had on the lives and careers of hundreds of people — is beyond the pale. The Hollywood studios did indeed organize a blacklist as much to placate assinine politicians (McCarthy, by the way, had nothing to do with the Hollywood HUAC hearings) as to undercut legitimate studio unions in favor of the mob backed IATSE. Hollywood had been using fear of Communism to weaken studio unions, including the Writers Guild, going back to the 1930s. The “Communist propaganda” of the 1940s that you and the assholes at the time were spewing about were largely taken from films that Hollywood made AT THE REQUEST OF THE US GOVERNMENT during WWII when, indeed, the Soviets were our allies. What you comepletely fail to note — or aren’t even aware of — is the fact that HUAC had come snooping around Hollywood in 1940 because they thought Hollywood was trying to push America into war against the Nazis. They were, you see, not only isolationists, but guys like John Rankin were also rabid anti-semites. After the war, these guys used the very same pro-war pro-Allied propaganda requested by the US government to claim that Hollywood had become infested with Communists. Even films set entirely in the US home front were used as “evidence” of Communist influence. Have you ever seen Tender Comrade (1943) starring Ginger Rogers and written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten? The comrade of the title is a US soldier fighitng overseas. Rogers plays his wife who moves into a big house with a group of other American women she works with at a war plant. They all pull together, along with their German-born cook, to get through the war while their husbands and fiances are overseas. It is not a good movie by any site largely because it’s full of long speeches about working together and making personal sacrifices during a time of war. You know, the kind of shit George Bush is so loathe to suggest in our Global War on Terror. After the war, Roger’s speeches about share and share alike while our boys are fighing over seas was twisted into Communist propaganda by HUAC members and, laughably, Roger’s own mother who testified before the committee. And yet it was a script approved and applauded by the Office of War Information, as were all Hollywood scripts of the era. On November 24, 1947, the day that the Hollywood Ten were cited for contempt — and sent to jail — the heads of the major studios met at the Waldorf Astoria for a meeting. They emerged with this announcement: “We will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method.” And the blacklist was on, a practice Hollywood was already well accustomed to. A lot of the emphasis is always placed on writers and directors. But a lot of below-the-line workers — set dressers, electricians, carpenters — had been shit canned in the 1940s simply because they wanted to be represented by a union that wasn’t run by Chicago mobsters in cahoots with the producers. More below-the-line union workers were blacklisted in the post-war years as well. As for the writers and directors, many of those who stayed in the US never worked in the movies again. Those that did work under pseudonyms were paid shit wages, fractions of their previous salaries, as many producers took advantage of the situation to get formerly highly paid writers for dirt cheap. Go peddle your bullshit to the families of Alvah Bessie, Herbert J. Biberman, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Joseph Losey and Ben Barzman and countless others that there was no Hollywood blackist. You simply do not know what you are talkng about.
And another thing …
Anyone who argues that there was Communist propaganda in Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s has no idea how the Hollywood studio system really worked. The idea that a Communist Party member could slip “Stalin is Good, Stalin is Great” codes into a script is laughable on its face. The Hollywood studio system was the ultimate in creativity by committee (Aha! There’s a Communist code word right there!). It was an assemblyline system in which scripts, even if they had only one writing credit, were often the result of multiple contributors working anonymously on the studio lots. Some writers wrote love scenes, some writers wrote action scenes, some writers wrote comedy bits, and some writers yoked it all together into a coherent, or semi coherent whole. All under the watchful eye of dozens of department heads and producers. So the idea that a guy like John Howard Lawson could slip enough Communist propaganda into a script to bring down the American way of life wihtout anyone knowing about it or catching wise was then and now entirely contrary to the facts of how the studios operated. I’m not saying the individual artists couldn’t have temendous sway over the style and message of a film but those artists have names like John Ford, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. They weren’t guys like Albert Maltz.
O Reilly may be a lot of things, a blowhard, a pompous ass, etc & but right wing or conservative he is not.
JD;
I admit some tardiness in reading your words, but I just have to ask;
Are you being facetious? I really can’t tell.
You know what. Fuck the typos. I just want to say that again:
Frank, peoples lives were ruined by the Hollywood blacklist and you are beneath contempt for trying to whitewash the whole sordid affair.
And one last thing, Frank,
A lot of directors, such as Joseph Losey and Jules Dassin, were forced to leave the country to find work after being named as Communists by other filmmakers. So, again, the idea that there was no backlist is the worst kind of reactionary. conservative revisionism. People lives were ruined you are beneath contempt for trying to whitewash the whole sordid affair.
Only in Sen. McCarthy’s fevered, besotted imagination. And, apparently, yours.
Dugger, JD, Frank_D, don’t you guys have bridges to be under? And this a school night and all.
Seriously, Dugger dismisses the comparison of methods used by O’Reilly and McCarthy by saying that since they target different groups, the comparison is invalid. JD addresses us from fantasyland by claiming that O’Reilly isn’t right-wing. And Frank_D claims that since nobody took McCarthy seriously, no harm was done. And you guys just went ahead and responded, apparently trying to educate them. They don’t need to be educated, they know the truth; that’s exactly why they said the things they said. Responding to their blatant trollery is such a waste of time, which is precisely why they come here and troll Oliver’s comments.
frameone: Somehow, fearing that your country is in danger (accusing Communist sympathizers of being communist sympathisizers) is beneath contempt, but being a communist sympathisizer is “O – kay!” You need to relax. You’ve been listening to too much NPR, and watching too much PBS.
Quaker: [Faulk was never in the State Department -- so you haven't named one "innocent" yet] From the Handbook of Texas online:
Inspired by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy {It is not clear how — It never is — my point exactly], AWARE, Incorporated, a New York-based, for-profit, corporation, offered “clearance” services to major media advertisers and radio and television networks. For a fee, AWARE would investigate the backgrounds of entertainers for signs of Communist sympathy or affiliation. In 1955 Faulk earned the enmity of the blacklist organization when he and other members wrested control of their union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists from officers under the aegis of AWARE. In retaliation, AWARE branded Faulk a Communist. [emphasis added - fd] …
“Several prominent radio personalities and CBS News vice president Edward R. Murrow supported Faulk’s effort to end blacklisting … ”
” … the jury had determined that Faulk should receive more compensation than he sought in his original petition. On June 28, 1962, the jury awarded him the largest libel judgment in history to that date $3.5 million…”
They were obviously terrified of McCarthy, weren’t they?
The point of Buckley and Bozell’s book was that MacCarthy was blamed for the actions of groups like AWARE: To wit, {I paraphrase} A was blamed for B’s actions towards C
Incidentally, frameone and Quaker: I remember coming home from kindergarten to discover our very first televison in the living room. The first TV image I ever saw? Sen Joe McCarthy on the Armed Services Committee.
My working class, Democratic parents (you remember “working class Dems”, don’t you? — they’re gone now — they’re all voting Republican) — wanted to string garlands of garlic around the screen, to stop him from jumping out and eating us, but I dissuaded them — hehe
“MoDo – ized” Ryland: “they know the truth; that s exactly why they said the things they said.” Thank ya’… thank ya verah much
“I love the smell of anti – McCarthyism in the morning. It smells like … modern liberalism.” (With apologies to Robert Duvall)
Not bullshit, you moron — a joke!
You lefties couldn’t buy a sense of humor…
Also, “The McCarthy Era” was called, by some, far more knowledgeable then thee and me, “The Cold War.”
“The point of Buckley and Bozell s book was that MacCarthy was blamed for the actions of groups like AWARE: To wit, {I paraphrase} A was blamed for B s actions towards C”
I guess that is why they call it the McCarthy Era. Because he had nothing to do with it.
Bullshit, Frank. McCarthy mainstreamed the expectation that you wouldn’t be punished for violating the civil liberties of people described as communists (even if they were only hopeless romantic utopians). That allowed other groups to get away with actions that were clearly illegal according to the Bill of Rights.
This is no different than some demagogue who incites racial hatred, and then is shocked, shocked I say!, when others take him at face value and start killing minorities. It creates a culture of consent around the commission of atrocities.
The demagogues are always *morally* responsible – they are merely expert at weasling out of being *legally* responsible.
“I remember coming home from kindergarten to discover our very first televison in the living room. … but I dissuaded them hehe”
hehe is right. A kindergartener knowing enough about national politics to have an informed enough opinion on the subject, and having the wherewithal to stop his parents? Please. At that age, children worship their parents and follow their parent’s politics quite closely. Nice story. But bullshit.
rhys;
expert at weasling out of being *legally* responsible.
No truer words have ever been said here.
Ryland: “Responding to their blatant trollery is such a waste of time, which is precisely why they come here and troll Oliver s comments.”
You know, I’ve had this problem before–I’m guilty of responding to and attempting to educate the trolls, as well–I wouldn’t know a troll if one sat in my lap and asked me for a breath mint. I’m a dreadful misanthropist, I suppose, but I’ve taken it as given that some people are just that stupid. o.o
In a way, I’m relieved.
semanticleo: You’re not saying, I hope, that McCarthy bore some legal responsibility for the actions of groups like AWARE, Inc or the people who responded to the information in Red Channels by firing and blacklisting people? That’s so preposterous that I didn’t even suggest it.
While I was making an argument that he wasn’t ethically or morally responsible for the actions of others (which I still believe, despite the sh*t storm such a proposal was met with here), I felt no need to help Senator McCarthy “weasel” out of legal responsibility, because he had none.
Incidentally, Wysdom, I think it is unfair of you to refer to me as a troll. A troll is not someone who disagrees wiyh the author of the post (who can, if he wishes, ban my IP at any time), nor with its other posters.
from The Internet Writing Guide
I’d like to think I’m better than that. Also, I’m inclined to believe that the last paragraph applies to all of you.
Frank_D: “Incidentally, Wysdom, I think it is unfair of you to refer to me as a troll.”
I didn’t. I was responding to the post of another user who identified you as a troll (take another look)–and I also noted that I’m never able to identify trolls when they’re present.
I said, tongue in cheek, that I’m probably a misanthropist and inclined to believe people are actually “that stupid”–which wasn’t very nice of me–but another way to look at it is: stupid or not, I at least default to believing everyone is sincere (ie not a troll/provacateur).
*grin* How’s that for spin?
Frank;
My comment was for general distribution applying to any and all who would minimize damage to their own dog in any fight..
I just wonder; based upon your opinion that McCarthy was not legally responsible for the actions of AWARE;
which party is legally responsible for the results of mob violence? Can the leader of the group, who only intended to tar and feather the accused, be responsible when the crowd goes beyond his intent and actually hangs the victim?
“Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.”
What part of that explanation DOESN’T describe Frankie?
No, not State Dept. He was one of those Hollywood types who “wasn’t” blacklisted.
As for your childhood memories: are you trying to tell us your condition is congenital rather than acquired?
Oh, and let me back up to this bit of nonsense:
“Illegitimate war resisters”? When did anyoone gain the authority to judge an American citizen’s conscience as legitmate or not?
Loopy: Perhaps you haven’t read my other post yet, so I will type it here:
Special announcement: My name is not Frankie: never was , never will be. Even my friends don t call me Frankie, and you are most certainly not my friend. If you continue to annoy me by using it, I will presume it is an unprovoked personal attack, and respond accordingly.
So let me start by saying: F*ck you and the horse that rode in on you.
Second, the description of a troll, as I stated, fits you as well.
Third, who asked you?
Good spin, wysdom, but I stand by my comment, anyway.
Semanticleo: The law determines those things on a case by case basis. If you will recall the Sharpton at Freddy’s {scroll down a little} incident, nothing happened to Sharpton.
In the case of murder [I hope you're not implying that people were killed because of McCarthy], by the way, it is my understanding that all those present are guilty of murder.
I just saw a show where a few miscreants were caught on video robbing a store. The owner got off a few rounds, and one of the culprits died of his wounds (thankfully, saving his home state 60 months of free room and board). The “mastermind” of the robbery was charged with murder, not the store owner.
‘Somehow, fearing that your country is in danger (accusing Communist sympathizers of being communist sympathisizers) is beneath contempt, but being a communist sympathisizer is O – kay! ‘
You see, Frank, here’s why you’re a total moron. You obviously know nothing about the Hollywood Blacklist and so feel free to spew whatever revisionist bullshit that pops into your head, rambling on and on that it never happened, there was no such thing, people kept right on working, no big deal. Then when challenged directly on your historical ignorance you come back with the tired old comm-symp charge. It was you who brought up the Hollywood Blacklist — even though McCarthy had nothing to do with it or the HUAC hearings that sparked it — so don’t try to weasel out of it now.
Let’s begin with the fact that fear can never be the basis for any sound policy or program. Fear is the mind killer, Frank, and all evidence suggests it’s reduced your grey matter to swiss cheese. When a country’s leaders stoke and fuel fear as a matter of policy, yes Frank, that is a seriously destablizing and dangerous thing. Second of all I never said that there weren’t Communists or Communist sympathizers in Hollywood. But there was simply no way for them to ever exert the kind of influence over Hollywood movies that would rise to the level of dangerous subversion. Simply no way. When one actually watches the movies that were brought before HUAC as evidence of Communist influence such as, Mission to Moscow or Tender Comrade, the idea becomes self-evidently laughable — especially given the war time context in which the films were made. But even more, everyone in this country has the right to believe what they want be it in religion or politics or whatever. It is when the government begins to question that right and harrass and hound its own citizens with whom it disagrees that I have a problem. The fact of the matter is that you and revisionists like you sift through the historical record seeking the most radical and extreme cases as proof that the whole of the left wing was plotting to overthrow the United States. That’s simply rubbish. The facts are that the Blacklist happened, it is a historical fact and that by and large it had nothing to do with saving America from communists. HUAC presented Hollywood a golden opportunity to appear patriotic while it worked to weaken the Writer’s Guild and any other union that it wanted to suppress. That I have a problem with because it meant men and women who only wanted to protect their rights and be treated fairly by their bosses instead found their lives and careers ruined. All thanks to the fear you hold so dear, Frank. If you want to live in fear. Fine. That’s you’re right. But don’t spread that poisonous shit around here.
Did I hurt your little feelings Frankie? Deal with it. Don’t take your problems at home into the blog.
Hey, asshole, I don’t have any problems at home — where you get that idea? From JadeGold the Putz? If you insist on being an idiot, you shouldn’t imitate another idiot.
You didn’t hurt my feelings, troll, you’re just annoying.
Quaker: The story (from the “Texas Handbook”) makes it quite clear that Faulk was “punished” by AWARE, Inc., and Faulk’s being Communist wasn’t even an issue.
As to my “childhood memory,” the part about seeing McCarthy on my first TV was true. The rest was not. I was a Democrat (llike my parents, Rhys) until after JFK was assassinated in 1963.
As to the issue of “illegitimate war resisters”, let me first say that I have nothing but respect for people who, out of personal principle, refuse to participate in war and / or combat.
I, myself, refused to participate in combat, when I went in the Army. It was a condition of my enlistment. I went to Viet Nam anyway, but not in the infantry.
IMHO, an illegitimate war resister is one who illegally refuses to answer to the Draft, or who, once in the military, simply deserts.
There is no principle involved in, for example, getting a trumped up letter from an MD, or a psychiatrist.
When I was at Fort Lewis, waiting to go to Viet Nam, there was a guy who told the appropriate authorities (”Chain of Command”) that he was going to officially refuse to go to to Viet Nam. He told me that he had spoken to his (Lutheran) minister, and his minister told that “If that is what your conscience tells you to do, then do it.”
Unfortunately for him, the Army had not placed Lutherans on the list of recognized religions I mentioned above. He was going out to the tarmac, where an Army officer was going to read his shipping orders aloud. He was going to refuse formally, and then be taken away in handcuffs.
I wished him luck and I meant it. That’s how it’s done — not tear stained letters to the head of the Draft Board, or begging Pops for tuition money so you can spend the war in College.
In his last years, Faulk found a home as a down-home storyteller on Hee Haw.
Believe It or Not.
More? Just click here.
Frank;
Well, thanks for your non-denial denial anyway
Shall I go on?
Saint Scatatology !
Mickey Mouth!
Back to the Texas Handbook:
Attorneys for AWARE, including McCarthy-committee counsel Roy Cohn, managed to stall the suit, which was originally filed in 1957, for five years.
They don’t mention Cohn’s involvement in initiating the action against Faulk. As I said before, everybody talks about a connection, but no one ever demonstrates it. Spoeaking of Cohn, Cohn practically fought hand to hand with another staffer for McCarthy’s approval. His name? Robert F. Kennedy.
Oh, and Semanticleo, thanks for your non – contribution to the dialogue (as usual).
Frank;
As is typical of your evasive strategy for ‘winning’ your arguments, you failed to address the issue;
“Need I list the ignoble history of our supporting right wing extremism in the opposition to communism? Death Squads in Central america in the late 70 s and early 80 s that created lists of Disappeared that, to this day,
have not been fully compiled.”
But you DO respond;
Semanticleo: You re not saying, I hope, that McCarthy bore some legal responsibility for the actions of groups like AWARE, Inc or the people who responded to the information in Red Channels by firing and blacklisting people? That s so preposterous that I didn t even suggest it.
While I was making an argument that he wasn t ethically or morally responsible for the actions of others .
To which I responded;
I just wonder; based upon your opinion that McCarthy was not legally responsible for the actions of AWARE;
which party is legally responsible for the results of mob violence? Can the leader of the group, who only intended to tar and feather the accused, be responsible when the crowd goes beyond his intent and actually hangs the victim?
And Frank___D’s response?
“Semanticleo: The law determines those things on a case by case basis. If you will recall the Sharpton at Freddy s {scroll down a little} incident, nothing happened to Sharpton.”
Moral relativism. If democrats can get away with it, then conservatives should be able to avoid responsibility for their words and behaviors.
A key example of why no one does, and no one should listen to your self-righteous proclamations condemning the sins of liberals.
Capable of introspection.? You are the God of modern day Orwellianism.
What an accomplishment. Congratulations!
Duke Duodenum!
Hi Frank
Me again. Can we take your silence to my last post as admission that yes you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about re: the Hollywood Blacklist? Or would you still like to assert that it was no big deal, that the studios never blacklisted anyone? I’d like to clear this up so I can update my list of other things you know nothing about. Thanks for your help.
Slow down guys, you’re double teaming me!
Leo: [Note to self: With Leo, a little criticism goes a long, long way] I answered you. I wasn’t using an argument of moral relativism; I was saying that Sharpton riled up a mob, but the guy who actually committed arson and murder was found guilty, not Sharpton.
As to your Alliterative Asininity? Pray proceed!
Frameone: Do you really think I was going to “Fisk” your virtually interminable tirade? It wasn’t warranted… A few examples of your own spin, and some quick Googling and anybody can generate thousands of words about anything.
Example: 844 hits, on one book alone.
Cross – section of opinion on Hollywood and pro – Soviet propaganda = 12,800 hits
See how easy it is?
So, you can take my purported “silence” (which it was not — I did advice you to relax and reduce your consumption of NPR and PBS, didn’t I?) anyway you choose, as if there might be anything I might say that wouldn’t have you cybernetically “foaming at the mouth.”
Let me talk to you in language you understand, frameone: You are a rabid, fucking maniac.
I mentioned the Hollywood blacklist, alright, for a very good reason, and you reiterated it: McCarthy had nothing to do with it, you goddam wild – eyed fanatic. With everybody and their brothers going to movies in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s — the decades of their greatest attendance — you’re going to tell me they weren’t very influential? How old are you? Do you personally remember those days? Then how do you know how people responded to those movies?
Why do you suppose that in the middle of the Cold War when the Soviet Union had already stolen the bomb from us, attempted a take over in Greece, and fomented dissent in America against the Korean War, and our development of nuclear defenses (all proven facts, by the way) that McCarthy became the villain of the piece? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
We practically donated Africa to the Soviets in the ’60’s, but, to you, anti – communism was just silly paranoia.
If anybody doesn’t know what they’re talking about, it’s you, halfwit.
Is that an answer for you, dickhead?
Okay Frank. You are completely backing down off what you originally wrote and trying to assert that I’m now attacking the influence of the movies themselves. I never suggested any such thing. You brought up the Hollywood blacklist and immediately suggested that there was no such thing, or, at least, it was no big deal. Nothing could be further from the truth. You wrote:
” …. that portion of the media, TV for example that feared being tainted, did, indeed, blacklist or attempt to blacklist people. Hollywood actually didn t.”
The idea that Hollywood did not institute a blacklist is entirely contrary to the historical facts. But you then went on to assert this:
“Working under a pseudonym still gets you a paycheck. If Hollywood had been serious about blacklisting, they wouldn t have let them work at all.”
Again, this statement is entirely contrary to the historical facts. Screenwriters were the only ones who could work under pseudonyms because it’s tough to direct a film with a bag over your head. The producers hiring blacklisted writers were largely not studio producers, they were independent producers looking to get studio talent for cut write prices. Which is to say, blacklisted writers working under pseudonyms were largely being exploited because they were desperate for work to feed their families. The studios were indeed serious about the blacklist because they were very serious about breaking the back of the Writers Guild and various other unions in Hollywood. So, for the record, all I want to know is if you stand by the above quoted statements or are you willing to admit that you know nothing about the Hollywood Blacklist.
The reason why I take this so seriously is because for the last 12 years I have made a living writing about, teaching and researching the American motion picture industry. Indeed, I am currently pursuing a PhD in film studies. I have read dozens accounts of the blacklist period, many of them memoirs and oral histories from the filmmakers at every level of the industry who lived through it and experience it first hand. I would be happy to recommend a few to you if you care to speak more intelligently about the subject in the future. But for you to suggest that the blacklist didn’t happen or was no big deal is to spit in the face of hundreds of people whose careers and lives were ruined by the kind of fear mongering that you seem to thrive on.
Rather than admit that you don’t know what you’re taling about you start arguing with something I never wrote and would never write. I never said that Hollywood movies weren’t influential. Indeed, they were, until television, the most influential medium of the 20th century, but have always exerted a profound influence on our natiional cultural identity. What I actually said was that no one screenwriter could ever exert enough influence over a Hollywood film during the 30s, 40s and 50s to propagandize for anything, let alone Communist world domination. You ask me if I know how people responded to the movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s. I know a lot about how they responded. But let me ask you this Frank, have you ever seen any of the movies that were brought before HUAC as evidence of Communist propaganda? I have.
But then you go on to suggest that insidious Hollywood propaganda was responsible for the poor image of Joseph McCarthy. Can you name me the Hollywood film that most directly references McCarthy? Can you tell me what year it was released? Let me give you a hint: The Manchurian Candidate. 1962. That’s a full eight years after the Army-McCarthy hearings. Yessiree, it was Hollywood that brought McCarthy down.
So here we are. Either you stand by what you wrote or you don’t. Simple as that. Yes or no, Frank?
Frank’s stupidity on parade. Google is not your friend, my friend. The first link in the 12,800 links you googled opens with this:
“The Cold War hit the movies in 1947 when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) descended on Hollywood armed with the names of leading film folk suspected of being communists or left-wing sympathizers. Their supposed treachery included such pro-Soviet movies as Warner Brothers’ “Mission to Moscow” (1943) and MGM’s “Song of Russia” (1944), which the White House had persuaded the studio bosses to produce as part of the war effort. HUAC’s hearings resulted in 10 filmmakers going to jail for contempt of Congress and hundreds of actors, writers and directors being put on an unofficial industry blacklist. The effect on Hollywood’s morale was profound and enduring.”
Exactly my point. Every film offered up to HUAC as evidence of Communist propaganda was made during WWII when the Soviets were our allies and they films themselves were requested by the Office of War Information. Do you know why Carmen Miranda became such a sudden Hollywood attraction beginning in 1941? The Good Neighbor Policy. FDR wanted to shore up relations with Latin America and he turned to Hollywood to get the public behind it with fnacy free musicals set in South America. So you can see that Hollywood was already plotting to destroy America as early as 1941 when it released Weekend In Havana. Oh wait …
But getting back to the article you linked to it’s hard to know what in the rest of it supports your statement:
“TV for example that feared being tainted, did, indeed, blacklist or attempt to blacklist people. Hollywood actually didn t.
You should read the rest of the article Frank Because the author makes an argument I didn’t even of which is that Hollywood made tons of anti-Communist films in the 1950s: “I Married a Communist” (1950), “My Son John” (1952), “Pickup on South Street” (1953), “The Red Danube” (1950) and “Big Jim McLain” (1952), with “John Wayne playing a two-fisted HUAC investigator pursuing communists in Hawaii.” I’ve seen several of these films. I highly recommend Pickup on South Street. I also highly recommend that the next time you want to re-write history you do a little better job. Idiot.
Frank –
To finally put the issue to rest using your own rhetorical strategy against you, I Googled the phrase “Frank is an idiot” and got back 2,170,000 hits. Case closed. See how easy it is?
frameone, you are pathetic. I wonder how many sites you would have to gone to out of the 12,800 to find one that fit the bill. When I looked it up and posted it, I said it was a cross – section of opinion because that’s what it was. You have no idea what information is contained in all of those hits. I at least checked to see if there were differing opinions. If anything, Google has shown you to be a narrow – minded, bigmouthed fool. But we knew that already.
As to your other juvenile prank: let me give you a short Google lesson.
“is” and “an” are not searched by Google as being too common. “Frank” and “idiot” were entered by you as separate terms, so every hit that contained both those words shows up. So, not only does Frank Zappa’s Idiot Bastard’s Son show up dozens of times, but conceivably. things like Frank is not an idiot could show up a bunch times, too.
Even things like “Everyone knows that Frank is not an idiot, but frameone is an idiot” could show up lots of times, too.
To do the search properly, you should have typed “Frank is an idiot”, keeping the quotation marks. Then you get 159 hits, and, guess what? None of them are about me. Pobrecito
However, when you put in “frameone +asshole”, without the quotes, you get 53 hits, and, you know what? They’re all about you.
Looks like Google hasn’t been very good to you.
That’ll teach you to Google around with a pro.
May I anticipate your response: Fuck you, Frank!
So, you’re pursuing a PhD in film studies, and you’re researching the blacklist, and it was horrible, and multi gazillionaires only made bajillions of dollars, instead. OK Fine
Now, where does McCarthy fit into all of this?
Was it his fault that movie makers were afraid to make certain movies or employ certain people?
I’m sure you’re aware of Melvin van Peebles’ recent documentary on Black film — it was on HBO or Showtime or whatever. He blames Hollywood for being racist, when in fact they probably (I repeat, probably — no tirades, please – my screen isn’t big enough unless I turn it vertically, which I don’t really like to do) were simply skittish about investing in films that they were afraid the public wasn’t going to fill the seats for. They may have been wrong. But maybe that’s what they were thinking. Quaker pointed out above that John Henry Faulk ended up on the “Hee Haw”, the ‘Laugh In’ of red state country. How did that happen?
Nothing is as simple as it seems — McCarthy didn’t frighten the nation. The nation was frightened. McCarthy didn’t have the media looking over their shoulders. Their sponsors did. What’s the first thing that happens when a show is truly controversial, or threatened with a boycott? Is the show cancelled? No, the sponsors start running away.
That’s all I’ve got. Good luck on your Ph D. I’m going for my Masters’, so I can sympathize. Now I know what “frameone” represents.
Frank — You still aren’t addressing the fact that in what you thought was a toss-away comment you completely mischaracterized a significant fact in modern American culture, ie the Hollywood Blacklist. You ask what does the Hollywood blacklist have to do with McCarthy. Nothing. But you brought it up — and you got it wrong. I’m not even sure why you’re bringing up Melvin van Peebles now. What does Hollywood’s treatment of blacks have to do with you being simply and plainly wrong about the Hollywood Blacklist? You fucked up and you can’t even face up to it. Good luck with that masters.
frame
“I have read dozens accounts of the blacklist period,’
This is anot an argument but have you also read about Boris Morros? And how the rigid (Hollywood) Party hierarchy stifled creativity and subjected artists to “self criticism “sessions if they deviated from the party line. One description of the Ten was that they were persecuted , but themselves were also rigid Stalinists disciplinarians perfectly capable of and in fact having done the same type of things that was done to them. Martyrs but not innocent martyrs.
Dugger
What do you want me to say? That I agree with you? I don’t It wasn’t a throway comment — it was an aside — because it was unrelated to McCarthy. I wasn’t saying that nobody got blacklisted or that it didn’t exist. I was saying that it wasn’t the national nightmare that people are now trying to pretend it was.
Any more than the Cold War was the McCarthy Era.
Dugger –
One of the bitter ironies of the blacklist was that many writers who did join the CPUSA in the 1930s ended up leaving it precisley because of the rigid ideological demands made on them. And yet it didn’t keep them from being caught up in the blacklist. Elia Kazan is a fairly prominent example of a writer who left the party for just those reasons but ended up blacklisted just the same — until he named names. Have you ever heard Billy Wilder’s comment about the Hollywood Ten?, to paraphrase: “One is talented, the rest are just unfriendly.” There’s no question John Howard Lawson could handled the situation better but I wouldn’t go so far as to say he or any of the others were rigid Stalanists. They wanted, as a writer is liable to do, make a statement about political persecution. Rigid Stalanist or not, the government does not have a right to intimidate or persecute American citizens because of their political beliefs.
And Frank, you clearly did assert that Hollywood didn’t blacklist anyone. That’s not true and you have yet to be honest and just say, “Yes, I got it wrong.” And I never said the nation as a whole gave one fuck about the Hollywood Ten or anyone else who got caught up in the blacklist. But it was indeed a personal nightmare for alot of people and if you knew anything about it you wouldn’t have been so cavalier in your dismissal. Which is what really pissed me off in the first place.
Lest we forget. Walt Disney. Furious that his brother Roy had negotiated a fair end to the strike called by Disney animators, he appeared voluntarily in front of the investigation to denounce all the strike leaders as communists. And this act of revenge led to these animators getting no work until the madness was over. Forgetting Arthur Miller; why do you think these were referred to as witch-hunts?
Oh and BTW, Dug, Morros may have been a spy but his filmogrpahy as a music director is proof enough that charges of Communist propaganda in the movies were/are wildly overstated. At Paramount Morros was in charge of supervisng the music (largely a managerial job) on such anti-American screeds as Gimme A Sailor (1938), Her Jungle Love (1938) and Rhythm on the Range (1936). Morros even supervised the music for Persons In Hiding (1939), based on the novel of the same name by that notorious anti-American, J. Edgar Hoover.
Probably the closest thing you can get in Morros’ filmpgraphy to Communist sympathizing is Blockade (1938) about the Spanish Civil War starring Henry Ford and written by future Hollywood Ten member John Howard Lawson. I’ve seen Blockade and its a pretty heart-wringing plea for American involvement in Europe. Ford says at the end: Where’s the conscience of the world?”
What’s odd about the film though is that at no time does anyone ever name the sides at war or why they are fighting. The war just sort of starts — an invasion is vaguely implied, instead of a civil war — and Fonda gets caught up in it. You know why there’s no mention of Communists or Franco or any other information that might give a your average American audience a clue about what was happening in Spain? The MPAA (Hollywood’s voluntary censorship board) stripped it all out of LAwson’s original script. Now the MPAA monitored the political, social, cultural and sexual content of American films from 1932 to the mid-1960s. And Will Hays and Jospeh Breen, the guys who ran it, were no dummies. They knew what innuendo was, they knew what propaganda was. All this crap about Communist propaganda in Hollywood movies always forgets about the MPAA which simply would not have allowed any kind of anti-American sentiment in a Hollywood film. During WWIi, when films like Song of Russia were made, the MPAA was cooperating directly with the United States government and the war effort. Oh and again, what did known Communist-spy Morros contribute to Blockade? He supervised the music. And yet no one in it ever sings, The International.
The Knights of Columbus went nuts anyways and organized boycotts of the film. They wrote in their newsletter: “the director has ambition to glorify Karl Marx.” You know what John Ford, whose patriotism is beyod reproach, said about Blockade at the time?: “I am not going to speak as a Catholic, nor as a member of the Knights of Columbus for twenty years, nor in the name of Francis Ford, my nephew in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain, nor as a member of the Screen Directors Guild, but as a private citizen…Great entertainment…great human document.”
You should rent it sometime.
frame,
Thanks. I tend to agree with you on the ineeffectiveness or lack of real propaganda in films. I have more problem with later non propaganda films that romanticized communist individuals – like Reds and The Way We Were (would they have made films about idealistic young Nazis). But thats another topic.
Dugger
I think the statement that triggered your tiirade was this: “Hollywood actually didn t.”
It’s been a while since I typed it, so I’m not sure what I was driving at, but I certainly didn’t mean there was no blacklist.
Okay. We can put this one to bed.
Oh let me add one more thing: Dugger and Frank –
Go rent Pickup on South Street. Tonight. Trust me. You’ll love it. Then watch every Sam Fuller film you can get your hands on.
I didn’t know he directed the subsequently banned “White Dog”! (hat tip to IMDB). I saw it on Cable before the PC police shelved it.
White dog is a great film as is the film they watered down to become 6 degrees of separation (Chameleon Street I think).
Idealist young Nazis in film, Dugger. I can only think of 7 years in Tibet, and, at a reach, Starship Troopers. Heinlein loved his totalitarian fascist governments!