Was McCarthy right?
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Post subject: Was McCarthy right? |  |
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<Split from 'Feminism' thread>
| Wokko wrote: | I have a need to find the truth, and when propaganda has won out in the historical narrative I try to follow the thread of truth and pull on it until the facade unravels. The feminist myth and the effect it has on society today is one such propaganda tale.
There are plenty more historical untruths that are widely accepted such as Senator McCarthy and his fight against Communist infiltration. I don't like to just let orthodoxy have its sway.
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." |
A truth seeker is concerning - a bit too zealous that raises alarm - misses nuance & subtlety but that's just me.
While I think your attitudes to feminism are plainly wrong, misplaced & histrionic I'm concerned that you've discovered "the truth" about Joseph McCarthy:
Are you saying that:
1. Joseph McCarthy was not an anti communist?
2. Joseph McCarthy used smear tactics against his opponents by referring to them as either communists or homosexuals?
3. Joseph McCarthy was not an outrageous homophobe?
Joseph McCarthy appears to be on par with The Mad Misogynist Monk terms of smear & fear mongering for base political gain.
_________________
“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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Are you saying that:
1. Joseph McCarthy was not an anti communist?
2. Joseph McCarthy used smear tactics against his opponents by referring to them as either communists or homosexuals?
3. Joseph McCarthy was not an outrageous homophobe?
Joseph McCarthy appears to be on par with The Mad Misogynist Monk terms of smear & fear mongering for base political gain.[/quote]
J Edgar Hoover was a zealot about weeding homosexuals out of the FBI but we now know the truth
What brought Mccarthy undone was Television. Whilst everyday Americans thought he was doing the right t hing the moment they saw him ranting on TV he was a national embarrassment. What surprises me is that we havent cottoned on to the mad Monk yet. To quote Shakespeare "who will rid me of this damn priest".
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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http://www.wnd.com/2000/02/4020/
"Using new information obtained from studies of old Soviet files in Moscow and now the famous Venona Intercepts FBI recordings of Soviet embassy communications between 1944-48 the record is showing that McCarthy was essentially right. He had many weaknesses, but almost every case he charged has now been proven correct. Whether it was stealing atomic secrets or influencing U.S. foreign policy, communist victories in the 1940s were fed by an incredibly vast spy and influence network."
If you want to know more then googling "Joseph McCarthy was Right" leads to a lot of articles referencing the Soviet records and FBI intercepts that showed in almost every case he was right about Soviet infiltration. He was also wrongly demonized for things he wasn't a part of. In fact it was McCarthy's story that showed me how readily and easily the left propagandizes its enemies and how successful that propaganda is when backed up by the media and entertainment industry.
Another good article
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/harvey-klehr/setting-the-record-on-joe-mccarthy-straight/ |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Wokko has found a biblical verse he likes in the Google concordance. /end argument!
Actually, I will leave that one to the historians in our midst. Nonetheless, I don't think you realise how door-to-door evangelical this tossing down of dubious tracts is, Wokko. Are you in a rush to resolve issues because we're in the last days?
On something I do know a bit about, I hope that article is more sophisticated than the, err, "experts" in cognitive science writing the slogans at your new congregation:
Quick, let's round them up and exterminate them before the virus spreads!
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| Do you ever address things that people post or just trash the poster? Try an argument instead of an assertion (or even worse in your case, generally an insult). |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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FMD. "Joseph McCarthy was Right". Seriously!
Sadly, our old friend Wokko has now gone beyond simple political extremism and right out there into naked tinfoil hat insanity. I can't believe he just posted that. Jack Spain would have more sense than to post bizarro fantasy like that.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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I have some sympathy for that view.
Sure, the way he hounded left-leaning artists and writers was disgraceful. Everything about McCarthy and Hoover's work was illiberal and against the principles of a free democracy. But the fact is that many left-wing Americans of the day were enamoured of the Soviet Union, which was every bit the imperialist, expansionist, murderous regime that the most right-wing American politicians said it was. The US was little better, of course, but nonetheless, they weren't exactly jumping at shadows.
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"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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I suspect McCarthy was the horrible, extremist bully remembered by history who baselessly caused much misery to innocent people, but I'm not an expert on the sources. Still, David, I have to admire your openness to a new idea.
You are certainly right that there was a lot of Soviet fellow-travelling among the educated classes through the thirties right through the fifties. Philby Burgess et al weren't the half of it.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Wokko wrote: | | Do you ever address things that people post or just trash the poster? Try an argument instead of an assertion (or even worse in your case, generally an insult). |
But you didn't post anything of substance to address. You didn't offer an argument. Restating other people's claims about something is not an argument.
Instead, you keep throwing LQ articles down in lieu of having an argument yourself, forcing others to read them and do the research for you.
Serious argument references novel ideas which come from other works; it doesn't use other people as a surrogate brain.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | | Do you ever address things that people post or just trash the poster? Try an argument instead of an assertion (or even worse in your case, generally an insult). |
But you didn't post anything of substance to address. You didn't offer an argument. Restating other people's claims about something is not an argument.
Instead, you keep throwing LQ articles down in lieu of having an argument yourself, forcing others to read them and do the research for you.
Serious argument references novel ideas which come from other works; it doesn't use other people as a surrogate brain. |
No one is forced to read anything, just ignore the post, certainly not necessary to personally attack or ridicule the poster.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| think positive wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | | Do you ever address things that people post or just trash the poster? Try an argument instead of an assertion (or even worse in your case, generally an insult). |
But you didn't post anything of substance to address. You didn't offer an argument. Restating other people's claims about something is not an argument.
Instead, you keep throwing LQ articles down in lieu of having an argument yourself, forcing others to read them and do the research for you.
Serious argument references novel ideas which come from other works; it doesn't use other people as a surrogate brain. |
No one is forced to read anything, just ignore the post, certainly not necessary to personally attack or ridicule the poster. |
Wrong: I critiqued the poster and took issue with his sloppiness.
Regardless, that's a circular argument which places an incredible burden of superiority on both of you given you could've just ignored my post.
I was actually curious about the topic, but the person who claimed so vocally to know very definitive about it couldn't be bothered offering a serious explanation why, pointed me to a crappy fringe post among thousands of pages on the topic as if it were definitive and sufficient, wanted everyone else to do the hard work of researching the matter properly, and then got annoyed when I pointed out the cheek of such an approach.
Doing that is basically the equivalent of stamping your foot and shouting, "Damn it! Despite what you've heard, Brazil is a terrible place to visit! And then linking to some bloke's opinion somewhere, even though you yourself have never ever visited Brazil before!
Some things just are nonsense, whether I point them out or not. Blame the gods; they created the capacity for both nonsense and identifying nonsense, as well as your fetish for trying to stop others from critiquing it 
What would you like the godly authority to control next? Sarcasm? Irony? Irritation? Looking at someone you like the wrong way? 
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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PTID, If you were interested I drew you a road map, $$%^%%$ follow it.
As I've said over and over again, I'm not going write an academically sound thesis, you could google "McCarthy Soviet embassy intercepts" or follow any of the dozen or so threads those articles I posted give you to follow. I spent a long time following this stuff up, but on a message board the best I can do is give one or two interesting links and leave those who want to to follow up themselves.
I think you're in need of either some online etiquette training or maybe a course on Socratic method or debating in general. You alienate your audience at every turn. I'm incredibly patient but I have to walk away and post later after almost everything you put up, because I don't want to throw down an emotional, angry or insulting diatribe which would be my initial reaction. If you're going to keep ignoring the basic principles of polite discussion then I think I'll have to start ignoring YOU. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Good to hear you actually address the matter, but to say all you can do is offer one or two lousy links on a topic you've been studying for some time is beyond me. Not even a few paragraphs after "spending a long time" "following it up", hey?
That sounds awfully convenient and unconvincing. You are the first person in memory I have known who claims to know enough about a topic to make a strong pronouncement on it, and claims to have studied it for some significant period of time, and yet can't offer a few meaningful paragraphs on it for folks who specialise in quite different topics.
All things being equal, it sounds like you're avoiding putting your money where your strong beliefs are. You are the one ignoring basic expectations of being able to offer insight on a par with the strength and certainty of your claims.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Thanks PTID, the very first link in your search (as it came up for me) is a good, short summary which seems to say all that needs to be said on the subject.
| Quote: | Beware the rehabilitation of Joseph McCarthy.
Armed with audacity and new archival information, a number of American scholars would like to rewrite the historical verdict on Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism. Even if his methods were reckless and his charges often unsubstantiated, they say, his anti-Communist crusade was well justified and far closer to the mark than his opponents would ever admit.
This is ideology masquerading as history. Whatever the truth about Communist infiltration of the American Government during the early years of the cold war -- and it is now clear there was probably more than many of McCarthy's critics would acknowledge -- McCarthyism itself was a lethal threat to American democracy and decency.
Soviet and American intelligence archives have yielded new information in recent years about Soviet espionage activities in the United States, but much of it is opaque and ambiguous. The intelligence documents rely heavily on the accounts of Russian field agents who had a strong self-interest in chronicling the successful recruitment of Americans. In many cases it is impossible to know if the accounts were embellished or even accurate at all, and the identity of the Americans is often unclear. The testimony and memoirs of former Soviet officials are equally shaky.
Still, the materials leave little doubt about several of the most prominent cases. The Kremlin did obtain critical information about American atomic weapons from a number of people, including Julius Rosenberg, who was convicted and executed for treason along with his wife, Ethel. Her complicity is less clear. Alger Hiss was most likely a Soviet agent, despite his denials. Americans who long defended Hiss should not flinch from the evidence of his betrayal.
But the appropriate response to Soviet espionage should have been careful investigation and dispassionate prosecution under the principles of law. Instead McCarthy saw an opportunity for political sport and hysteria, and he exploited it with demagogic fervor and a sickening flair for fabrication. Along the way he trampled the civil liberties and destroyed the careers of hundreds of Americans, many of them innocent of any Communist affiliation. The venomous Washington witch-hunt soon spread across American society, poisoning the universities, the arts, the press and many other professions.
McCarthyism was not patriotism and must never be mistaken as such. It was a menace to the body politic. A reconsideration of Communist influence in America at midcentury is fair enough as new information is disclosed. But elevating McCarthy and his methods would be repugnant and historically dishonest. |
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/23/opinion/revisionist-mccarthyism.html
(Possibly the link is paywalled, but you can certainly get there by googling for it.)
_________________
�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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