Is it not about time for one of my more irritating historical perspectives?
What can I say…..hang on and learn something…..
Today it is a return of McCarthyism….or so it seems……
But first…..unless you are my age then the term means very little to you…..so a little help would be in order……
Mass hysteria has reared its ugly head for as long as humans have existed. Adolf Hitler worked enough people into a frenzy to justify the murder of millions of Jews. Jesus Christ, known by all as peaceful, if controversial, was brutally nailed to a cross because a few high-ranking officials felt threatened by him. Although one would hope that people would learn a lesson or two from the mistakes of the past, it seems that history, as the old cliché goes, is forever doomed to repeat itself.
Enter Senator Joseph McCarthy. While he may not have caused genocide or murdered a prophet, he was able to whip up hysteria in America in the early 1950s. McCarthy’s issue of choice? Communism. The American Heritage Dictionary defines McCarthyism as “the political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence.”
There is a quick history lesson….but what does that have to do with today’s world?
In 2016 the specter of a strong Russia has returned to the world stage and as it was in the 50’s accusations are being thrown around like Mardi Gras beads…..
I’m often taken to task by some of my readers for characterizing the current anti-Russian hysteria as “McCarthyism.” After all, they say, Sen. Joseph McCarthy was right – there were, indeed, high-ranking individuals in the US government covertly sympathetic to the Soviet regime. And, yes, we now know that many of these were working directly for Soviet intelligence.
This was the predictable result of our wartime alliance with Russia: combined with the left-wing proclivities of the Roosevelt administration, and the “Popular Front” politics of the Communist Party USA during this period, it’s surprising that Soviet penetration of US government circles wasn’t more extensive than it turned out to be.
Source: ‘McCarthyism,’ Then and Now – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com
It appears that we have returned to the days of McCarthy and started blaming Russia for all the ills of the world…..again.
K, I need to point out something here: Doesn’t the “accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence” statement apply to what Trump dogged Obama with throughout the President’s 2 terms? Where are the investigative Journalists & Lawyers hiding? Never mind I already know … under a collective truth ban.
The journalists are gone….lawyers are mostly part of the problem….
I concur.
Totally agree.