The Wrath of the New McCarthyism

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me a definition of McCarthyism. He added a few lines of notes at the end in which he examined the spread of McCarthyism in America in recent days.

McCarthyism was a phenomenon that lasted from 1947 to 1957 in the Cold War between the East and West, during which a Republican senator named Joseph McCarthy, a rising star who knew no dissent, drew a line in the sand the likes of which had perhaps never been seen in American politics. Under the pretense of fighting communism’s spread into American society, rumors, slander and suspicions of spying for the Soviet Union, as well as merely sympathizing with their ideas, became accusations that could lead suspects to prison. If they were lucky, instead of prison they would become completely alienated professionally and socially, from both society and politics. In these cases, suicide was the most reasonable method for the accused to escape this predicament they now found themselves in. All this for merely expressing an opinion viewed unfavorably by the Republican Party, the members of which were the forefathers of the neoconservatives, a group that appeared in the early ‘80s and recently produced former president George W. Bush.

McCarthy wasn’t successful in spreading his ideas in a society that is, at its core, open and tolerant, comprised of a multitude of ethnicities, religions, languages, races and cultures. That is, he wasn’t successful until he began utilizing tactics of intimidation and mass hysteria, pointing out real enemies at times and fictional enemies at others. In this way, the wrath of McCarthy’s followers motivated them to actively seek out the most deeply held secrets their fellow Americans, leading others within government to discard ideas that didn’t completely line up with those of the McCarthyists out of fear of appearing to be abetting the enemy. McCarthyism found legitimacy in citing the tenets of loyalty and innocence, using American definitions of the words, of course. The desire to find more victims grew; soon the McCarthyists were not satisfied with everyday people and began raising accusations against people on a much larger scale, such as then-Secretary of Defense George Marshall, the mastermind behind the Marshall Plan that sought to rebuild Europe after World War II and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Accusations were raised that he was a communist sympathizer. In 1950, McCarthy would go on to claim that 205 people within the American State Department were communist sympathizers, and 57 others were members of the Communist Party.

The “Blacklist” was a product of McCarthyism in which those who were merely suspected of sympathizing with or subscribing to communist ideals and not standing 100 percent with the United States were named and alienated. In addition, just as it is today, the American sphere of influence was large in Europe during that time, due to its role in ending World War II, and McCarthy soon sent his men there to create a European blacklist for those who were suspected of the same allegiances. His influence grew; among his followers was Richard Nixon, who chased down and imprisoned suspected communists in the State Department before going on to become the most notorious and reviled president because of his involvement in the most famous political scandal in the world, Watergate. Also among his followers was another future president, Ronald Reagan, then the president of the Screen Actors Guild, who was at the time spying on his peers in Hollywood for the FBI, who knew him as “Agent 10.” 40 years later, he admitted in his memoirs that he had in fact been an informant, and in an apology that would seem normal in American politics even today, he admitted that he had unintentionally mixed up a real danger (the communists) with leftists, liberals and unionists and acknowledged that innocents had been harmed as a result of McCarthyism.

Perhaps Reagan was not a protégé of McCarthyism, but he was behind a lesser known phenomenon, “Thomasism,” named for Parnell Thomas, who preceded McCarthy just slightly in his search to root out communists in the entertainment industry. He convinced Walt Disney (founder of the Walt Disney Company), Louis Mayer (founder of MGM Studios) and Jack Warner (founder of Warner Bros. Studios) to testify against their peers in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ten actors were imprisoned just for refusing to submit themselves to questioning by an investigation that in its very essence contradicted the American Constitution.

After three decades, communism began to lose its footing and eventually fell, bringing with it the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It was during the era of McCarthyism that the seeds of neoconservatism were planted, culminating in the election of America’s former president George W. Bush. The dogma of the neoconservatives pushes them to pick or create an enemy for America to wage war against. It was the members of this group who inflated the danger of “terrorism” and spared no effort in focusing the world’s attention on this new enemy; they went on to spread accusations and invade places the world over under these pretenses. They were good to their allies and blacklisted their enemies, and suspicion now reigned in the Western world over anyone who appeared Arab. How this all played out is common knowledge now.

Today, we find in our midst a similar kind of phenomenon, a kind of “Bahraini McCarthyism,” if you will. There are new blacklists, new accusations and newfound fear and suspicion preventing some from expressing their opinion about the fight for freedom in the Middle East. Those who would express independent points of view face alienation from society, and there are those who stand ready to judge you, be it because of your level of dissent or your doubt in the West. There are those who would not hesitate to name dissenters at their workplace and raise accusations against them without a moment of reflection on the quote of the prophet, “It is tantamount to lying when repeating what one hears.” The accusers exonerate themselves by preceding their accusations with, “As I’ve heard,” and then encourage others to spread the accusations far and wide until we all know of them, without any semblance of proof or certainty in the accusations themselves. In the era of McCarthyism, it is no better to be snatched away by talons than to have one’s reputation destroyed.