Macarthrism

lately we hear and read everywhere the term “McCarthyism” without further analysis
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it all started with an American Republican senator Joseph McCarthy, who was a ridiculous subject
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but he got lucky.
In 1946 when he became a senator, the first and hottest act of the Cold War had begun.
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so McCarthy found fertile ground in the so-called communist danger,
to give an important role to himself and from absolute zero to become a number
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so what did he do?;
Taking advantage of the climate of fear that had already been cultivated in the USA against the USSR,
the Red Scare, as they called him back then,
made massive and unsubstantiated accusations against anyone in his mood,
on the grounds that the “accused” may have exerted Soviet influence on American institutions.
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thousands of Americans,
government employees,
or high-ranking,
or actors, directors and showbiz workers
or teachers
or trade unionists of the unions of America
suffered such persecution
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The beginning was in the early ’50s when McCarthy accused
without evidence,
in a Senate committee, (Foreign Affairs)
205 State Department officials as communists for some failures of the US State Department....
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this climate was growing in the US and the over-excited McCarthy was finally put on a committee against anti-American actions
that in essence
was a mechanism for persecuting people who were not right-wing
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was like the post-civil war doctrine that we had here in Greece and it said:
“go not right-wing, communist”
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but the big problem for McCarthy was Hollywood and showbiz.
this is where “Hercule Poirot” focused his investigations and to escape his clutches you had to swear that you were not a communist.
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the then president of the actors' union, Ronald Reagan (who later became president), reinforced this atmosphere by inviting the actors to take the oath of office...
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such was the situation in the United States that it became the supreme office of informer.
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the neighbor betrayed the neighbor
the acquaintance the friend
the husband of the wife and so on
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and of course not all the complaints were communist danger-driven but
used by many to get revenge for disputes they may have had over
economic,
personal,
erotic
and thousands of other reasons
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this system was very helpful in such situations because no evidence was needed
it only took one anonymous complaint to plague entire families
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the cross-dressing that took place at that time throughout the USA and especially in Hollywood has no description
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just one example.
Elias Kazan who was a former member of the Communist Party in the United States,
to save his career,
denounced (with great ease) many of his friends and colleagues
among them
and Jules Duchamp (later Melina's partner) who left the USA at that time
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and of course all this anti-communist frenzy brought its initiator
in the top senatorial positions
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an absolute zero who took advantage of the circumstances of the time and became one of the most powerful people in the western world
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even went so far as to blame General Marshall (the man with the eponymous plan)
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the era of McCarthyism is perhaps the darkest period in modern US history
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P.S. Walt Disney was a paid snitch, mole and McCarthy's henchman, and he ratted on whoever he wanted at will

Author of the article:

Yannis Golias