Is the atmosphere ripe for a return of Joe McCarthy?

[AnnInLa]

or,Glenn Beck as Joe McCarthy? I know you've heard by now that he spent today's show claiming that Van Jones (Obama's personal friend and WH green-jobs czar) is a communist who has infiltrated WH & plans to change the way we run our gov't. (huffpo)

Anyway, if after a period of time, Beck keeps on with his communism theme, do you feel the RW extremist Gumps will take up the meme, then the media follows --- and we get a new age of communism-paranoia ala Joseph McCarthy? (Hey, We already got socialism, let's double down o communism)

I can only hope they will all be that stupid, but you must admit the RW side of the country is ripe for this...would make for an interesting, destructive spectacle. If Beck goes for it, will the Goopers follow?

[lapfog_1]

1. Joe McCarthy would be considered a left leaning brie eating surrender monkey - n/t

[cali]

2. that's utterly inaccurate and completely ridiculous.

[lapfog_1]

4. Our country has shifted waaaay to the right since the time

of McCarthy.

He was a huge asshole, a wingnut for his time. Worse than almost anyone else at that time.

But he never asked for the President's birth certificate. He never suggested that the President was not legitimate.

A Communist, maybe, but a legitimate communist.

Besides, this was just a bit of humor... so lighten up.

[cali]

5. oh fucking please. you clearly don't know much about that period whatsoever

or the thousands and thousands of lives that that pig destroyed. The hysteria was equal to ANYTHING we see today. And talk about a red herring- the comment that he never asked for a president's birth certificate is one from the ages.

[ashling]

3. Joe McCarthy is still pickled away somewhere

:shrug:
dead, but pickled nonetheless

[sam sarrha]

6. he's on every day on Faux

[katanalori]

7. Sarah Palin's scare tactics would make Joe McCarthy proud

"With Palin, the subject is health care, which in many ways is the Red Menace of our day and lends itself to a kind of political pornography. For sheer disregard of the facts, her statement about President Obama's "death panel" has to rank with McCarthy's announcement that "I have here in my hand a list of 205" (or 72 or 57 or whatever) names of Communists in the State Department. They were both false - McCarthy's by commission, Palin's probably by omission. She rarely knows her facts."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/08/18/2009-08-18_sarah_palins_scare_tactics_would_make_joe_mccarthy_proud.html#ixzz0PFGxcfMP

[gleaner]

8. I don't think so ...

the 50s were ripe for Communist scare tactics. The former Soviet Union was viewed as a super power with the capability to rain nuclear destruction on the United States at any time. The words "communism" and "socialism" were used almost interchangeably to mean the same governmental philosophy which is one reason why people are so reactive to anything labeled "socialist" now.

I think Americans on the whole were more naive then, and still thought of the government as having complete credibility which is one of the things that gave McCarthy such power. The credibility of the Media has corroded badly since then. The trust and belief that gave them their power is no longer there. The media was stifled on what they said about McCarthy, or reported on what he was doing with a kind of reverence that was not seen again until Baby Bush took office. That would have been, and was, a time ripe for the return of McCarthy style politics. Substitute the word "terrorist" for "communist" and you have it in a nutshell. Then the vilified left began to push back and Bush's secrets which had not been reported came tumbling out. That was the end of the protective bubble Bush had formed around his administration which gave him so much control over what was said and what was not. Like McCarthy he found out that evil thrives best in silence and darkness. Put a light on it and start talking about what you see and the strength of the evil dissipates.

I don't think calling someone a communist will ever have the stigma that it once had. The former Soviet Union is in pieces and we now know they were never the military or nuclear powerhouse they portrayed themselves to be during those Mayday parades in the 50s and early 60s. Using Communism as the driving force for a governmental philosophy there, was a spectacular failure, and I don't think there are very many people aside from the usual ten loonies who still see it as a real threat. The threat that the far right now requires in order to function as they are now, is any type of government which proposes any aid to the public at large other than providing for the "common defense."

The media, for its part, still slants too much to the right, but there are alternatives on cable channels and the internet where a lot of us go to for news and information instead of the traditional news shows. Much of the time when they portray right wing icons like Sarah Palin, or Rush Limbaugh et al, they portray them as jokes and glory in pointing out how they lie and commit malfeasance. Glenn Beck is a thoroughly discredited news incompetent who has lost so many sponsors that he is going to have to pay to put himself on the air pretty soon. Really, aside from less than 20% of the extremist population, who even listens to him or the others on Faux News with a straight face? Their ratings are dropping to the point where Rupert Murdoch is saying that he is going to charge for the use of his internet sites. That would be a good thing. If people had to pay to read his crap, his sites would be falling off the internet even faster than Glenn Beck's sponsors are deserting him. The worst may not be over yet, but it is beginning to fall apart. I can hardly wait for it to finish.:spank:

[tabbycat31]

9. Joe McCarthy was reincarted as Michele Bachmann