The McCarthy Era - Credit Where Credit Is Due

Al Gore gets credit for inventing the Internet, but it is incredible what Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin, who served from 1947 until his death in 1957) is credited with inventing. For example, Liberals credit him with creating the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which is pretty neat work for a Senator, I must admit.

Even more exceptional, the HUAC was actually created in 1938, nine years before McCarthy entered national politics, and twelve years before McCarthy began his own investigations in the Senate in 1950.The “McCarthy Era” is also famous for the Hollywood "Blacklist", even though it was the work of the - wait for it (dramatic drum roll) - the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)!

And even though the Blacklist is attributed to the “McCarthy Era,” it actually began in 1947, a year before McCarthy entered office.

In a final touch of irony, the HUAC was created and operated by (more dramatic drum rolls) - the Democrats, who were the majority party in the House during the entire three-decade period of the HUAC’s existence.

To recap, a Senate Republican, McCarthy, is given credit for a House committee created and operated by Democrats long before, during, and long after his term in office.Now, of course, history illiterate Americans, which seems a good working definition of Democrats, blame the blacklisting and search for Communist infiltrators on McCarthy and Republicans, even though Republicans were the minority party throughout.

However, fair being fair, Democrats are now credited with passing Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, even though almost all of the opposition was from the Democrat’s Solid South, and Republicans were the Civil Rights Act’s strongest supporters.

The same Liberal historical illiterates now credit President Nixon with starting the Vietnam War instead of ending it. The history-challenged Liberals, aka Democrats, give a free pass to JFK and LBJ for starting and escalating the war because, of course, they didn't really mean it, and everyone knows that mean Republicans always want wars, and Democrats never do.

Liberalism and historical inaccuracy are natural bedfellows. The New York Times set the standard years ago with their Pulitzer Prize winning reportage from the Soviet Union by their long-time reporter there, Walter Duranty. To stay on the good side of Stalin, Mr. Duranty studiously avoided noticing an estimated three to ten million Ukrainians who perished from famine (Holdomor) caused by collectivism.

As with many things, it wasn’t until after the Soviet Union collapsed that we started finding many truths that our main stream media had covered up or mistakenly reported over the years. In particular, we found out how widespread Communist infiltration had been, in particular in entertainment and labor unions.

Yes indeed, although ridiculed for decades by our main stream media, there really were a lot of “Reds under our beds,” and the Red Scare was for real.

Just as we didn’t admit the Holocaust atrocities until we saw the evidence as we liberated its victims, so we wouldn’t recognize the atrocities that killed tens of millions of Chinese and Soviet citizens at the hands of their Communist governments until long after the events. Instead of gathering information and condemning leftist atrocities, our main stream media was content to ridicule and demean critics of Communist totalitarians.

Even though left-wing governments have caused the slaughter of an average of a million humans (almost all their own citizens) a year for the past century, the leftist main stream media persists in characterizing right-wingers as the greatest threat to world peace. This practice has gone to ridiculous lengths to blame the right for atrocities.

For example, the National Socialists of Germany, aka Nazis, are called right-wingers, even though the title of their party declares they are socialists. The dictatorial rulers of China and the Soviet Union were always referred to by the media as right wingers or conservatives.

How “disbelievable!”

The top Communists, by definition the most left of the left, are classified as the right. These are the people in the world who are most opposed to conservative, aka right wing, principles of individual rights, property rights, capitalism, and privatization of government functions such as social security and medical care.

But there we have it. Our main stream media picks and chooses the labels that fit their Liberal viewpoint, not that fit the facts. It is no accident that “Newspeak” was the official language of the English Socialist Party, as envisioned by George Orwell and described in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Left and its media allies have enshrined such titles as the People’s Democratic Republic of (insert name of Communist country here), and describe their leaders (until their failures can no longer be glossed over) as “progressives.”

Funny, that’s what Liberal leaders call themselves today to avoid being labeled “Liberals.”

I guess that’s the same as calling a period the McCarthy Era, even if very little of it had anything to do with its namesake.

George Orwell would applaud.