Rise of the New McCarthyism (2009)

[YoungDemCA]

It's amazing that this article is 5 years old now, yet still so relevant.

McCarthy’s campaign against supposedly widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government brought down sitting Senators and intimidated even President Eisenhower (who loathed McCarthy) and his advisors. McCarthy’s campaign was boosted by conservative think tanks, media figures, and clergy, and abetted for years by the unwillingness of most of his colleagues to stand up against his false charges and clear abuses of power.

snip:

Today, Joseph McCarthy’s ideological heirs in the Republican Party and right-wing media are using the language and tactics of McCarthy to stir fears that the nation is being destroyed by enemies from within. Republican Members of Congress and other GOP officials have not shown Welch’s concern for decency; instead they frequently act as an “amen chorus” to the far right’s demagogues or stay silent, hoping to reap political gain from the attacks on President Obama, administration officials and nominees, congressional Democrats, and even military leaders.

snip:

Journalist Haynes Johnson, author of The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism, writes:

The shame of the Senate, especially the shame of its leaders and moderates on both sides of the aisle, was expressed by historian Robert Griffith when he wrote that McCarthy’s victories were made possible “only by the unwillingness of moderates to take a stand that might expose them to obloquy.” Perhaps, Griffith added, “this was the key to McCarthy’s continued power – not the ranting of demagogues, but the fear and irresolution of honorable men.

snip:

McCarthy was fond of referring to the “Democrat Party” – using the term as a slur. The refusal to use the correct term “Democratic Party” was so associated with McCarthy that it went out of style for decades, but the rhetorical tactic has been resurrected and embraced by the Karl Rove-Newt Gingrich-Frank Luntz Republican Party of today.

From 1953 to 1955, McCarthy held 117 hearings and even more closed-door interrogations, witch hunts for subversives that thrived on guilt by association: someone had worked for a union, dates a communist, been in a book club that read a book by Marx. Author Johnson writes that reviewing the transcripts of those sessions made it clear that McCarthy, in addition to guilt by association and character assassination, was engaged in an “obsessive hunt for homosexuals,” hounded writers, artists, and composers, attacked the reputations of military leaders.

Today’s McCarthyism has many faces and voices, including the household names of right-wing cable television, a plethora of radio hosts, Religious Right leaders, right-wing organizations and the bogus “grassroots” campaigns they generate – and Members of Congress and other Republican Party officials. Together they engage in character assassination and challenge the loyalty and patriotism of their targets.

More: http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/rise-of-the-new-mccarthyism-how-right-wing-extremists-try-to-paralyze-government-throug

This is not merely "populist" right-wing paranoia. This is-and has been-a deliberate, well-organized, well-funded, and concerted effort to subvert, undermine, and corrupt government and turn it over to super-wealthy, powerful private interests (the Koch Brothers being one of the more notorious examples of this).

The systemic and deliberate undermining of public trust in government institutions by these right-wingers has successfully driven the vast majority of Americans out of the political process. Or, to paraphrase the Patron Saint of the American Right, Ronald Reagan:

"Government is the problem-and watch now as my allies and I prove that it is!"

The fuckers....

[ReRe]

1. K&R

You know what it is? It's bullyism. The big stick theory. It's been going on since the beginning of time itself. You would think we would have learned how to deal with it by now. But noooooooo, can't do that. Wouldn't be prudent. Not in the budget.

So what we have is a society of bullies and victims, from children to adults. It's what happens when, as a nation, we don't deal with the problem. It's dysfunctional. And we let it fester, sweep it under the rug, make excuses for it, and it never goes away on it's own. IMHO.

[YoungDemCA]

2. Shameless self-kick

nt