I have been thinking over the lecture we had in class on Friday a lot this weekend, and one thing I couldn't get out of my head was the striking similarity between the Van Jones issue and McCarthy's Communist Witch Hunt of the 1950's.
The way Beck took down Van Jones was not so different from the formal tribunals the HUAC used to destroy careers and lives, but the striking similarity is the format of Beck's posting on the internet. "Find me dirt on so and so and so and so." I could see McCarthy doing the same thing if he were alive today. Maybe it's just me but the power Beck and the blogosphere has is very, very scary.
It is interesting because McCarthy's witch hunt was perpetuated by politicians against many Americans, including members of the mass media like Edward R. Murrow. But with Beck, it is a complete reversal. Interesting.
Any comments?
Here is this video. I know it comes from a liberal think tank, but it's the body of the video that matters.
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This will come as no surprise given my conservative bias, but I think that in a way this is kind of a good thing because this new direction (Obama's "change") we're headed, whether you want to call it socialism or communism, has happened largely like the old analogy of boiling a frog in small degrees rather than throwin it into boiling water. So I'm glad he's at least talking about it (even with an inflammatory style) because otherwise we would just keep on boiling and be none the wiser. Granted, some Americans don't really mind "boiling" in this sense because there are some real socialists and even communists out there, but for everyone else it's understandable why they would want to be woken up as it were, and I think that's what GB was really trying to do.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I concede his methods are somewhat unfortunate, you also have to admit that Van Jones (and also Obama) kinda set himself up for this. My point is that I don't think Beck's "witch hunt" could have actually worked if enough Americans weren't really appalled at the substance of what Van Jones said and (presumably) believes. We haven't (yet) embraced communism as a country, and I don't think it's unreasonable to care about the company our President keeps.
The problem I have with Beck's format for attack is the fact it reeks of McCarthyism. McCarthyism is wrong. This whole country was shaken because of a fear mongering Republican named Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. And the whole country soon wised up to his schemes and recognized his actions as unjust.
ReplyDeleteWitch hunts are wrong. They distract the public from the most important issues at hand. Why does it matter if we have an insignificant administration member who has said some extravagant things in the past? (Every politician has.) And what is the problem with having socialist leanings?
This country was founded on a platform of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought. It appears to me that the right wing are in favor of constricting the political leanings of the populace to the ideologies that they see fit. If Van Jones hadn't resigned, would he have advised our president down a path of socialism to which our country would never recover? Probably not. Just cause he said a few things about socialism, does that make him a REAL problem? Or just a someone the right wing can throw the book at to make the Obama administration look bad?
I would argue that there were more radicals in the Bush administration than the Obama administration (Karl Rove and his ideas of a forever dominant Republican party were pretty scary.). The problem with Beck, McCarthy, and these right wing extremists (past and present) is that they stir the populace to fear. And with this fear comes restriction of thought and speech. But, regardless, Beck will keep on stirring, and the pot will continue to froth over with fear and finger pointing from the impressionable individuals who take the man seriously.