Some of them actually were, or at least had been
Writer James McNeish is calling for an apology to New Zealanders who had their careers destroyed by McCarthyism (audio link). He does a very good job of talking about the unfairness of the process, and how people's lives were destroyed.
His emphasis, in every case he talks about, is how false and unfounded the accusations were, which is missing a rather important point. A lot of the people whose lives were destroyed by McCarthyism were communists, they suffered just as much as people for whom the accusations were unfounded.
Defending only those for whom the accusations were false is actually continuing McCarthyism.
I agree with your post.
ReplyDeleteThe typical liberal view of McCarthyism, is to leave out the actual communists.
Socialism/communism has murdered tens of millions of innocnet people. To defend this ideology would be to defend mass murder.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism has killed far more than that.
ReplyDeleteYou can believe in the redistribution of wealth, believe in Marxism, and not support all of the actions of the Soviet State. Hell the Trotskyists didn't support most of the actions of the Soviet state.
"Capitalism has killed far more than that."
ReplyDeleteReally? Care to substantiate that bold claim.
There is a huge amount of historical evidence which suggest that the number killed is somewhere between 40-60 million in Russia alone through a variety of means such as mass shootings or working political prisoners to death in gulags. But the real kicker was when Stalin decided to 'redistribute the wealth' of the Ukraine which lead to the death by starvation of millions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivisation_in_the_USSR#Ukraine
"You can believe in the redistribution of wealth, believe in Marxism, and not support all of the actions of the Soviet State."
You could but that doesn't detract from the point that you are committing to an ideology that has killed million and claiming that capitalism has killed more as a way to demonstrate immoral equivalence is not a good way to argue a point.
Maybe you should read the Gulag archipelago by Alexandr solzhenitsyn and reconsider your benevolent views of marxism
Excellent post, Maia. McCarthyism is an attack on freedom of thought. Ideas don't kill. People do.
ReplyDelete