Re: nostalgia for McCarthyism?

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Very interesting thread on McCarthyism.  It is of course of crucial
importance that we recognize that as Carroll pointed out it was not started
by McCarthy and that it both predated and postdated him.  Didn't James
Cagney make Yankee Doodle Dandy because he was attacked by HUAC over his
support for the CPUSA and the Sottsboro Boys case?

As regards what is Un-American, my sympathies are with Carroll.  Recently
Jenny George of the Australian Congress of Trade Unions described the new
industrial legislation as 'Un Australian'.  This land like the USA has seen
genocide and slavery.  There is nothing un-Australian about the Industrial
legislation.

regards

Gary


At 11:02  28/11/99 -0800, you wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Sunday, November 28, 1999 5:41 PM
>Subject: Re: nostalgia for McCarthyism?
>
>
> >
> >
> > "jnstewart"@mindspring.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > >  McCarthy and the HUAC
> > > anti-communist crusade was a travesty and an insult to the traditions of
>the
> > > nation.
> >
> > >"travesty and an insult to the traditions of the nation."
> >
> > What! The Alien and Sedition Laws? The genocide of Indian people.
> > The Haymarket Riot. The Pullman Strike. Sacco and Vanzetti. The
> > Palmer Raids. The Red Hunt carried on and magnificently exemplified
> > "the traditions of the nation."
>
>OK, OK, point taken, but there is also a certain ideal of free speech and
>expression that, while often honored in the breach, is still held by most of
>the citizenry and that can be appealed to in the face of the "Jo McCarthy
>was really a fine fellow" talk that has been cropping up.    Certainly he
>was not universally admired at the time.   To just leave his memory as an
>example of American ism is to somehow abandon the field of discours in this
>nation.
>
> >It is essential that U.S. radicals get it
> > out of their heads that they can somehow escape the label, "Unamerican."
> > Rather, they must make that label appealing. Cockburn's playing
> > footsy with racist militia leaders is perhaps one expression of this
> > urge of radicals to be "really American."
>
>The claim of being the true patriot was commonly made int the sixties and
>which had a ceertain influence at the time.
>