McCain/Palin, Bachmann, HUAC

Recently Congresswoman Michele Bachmann implied all liberals are un-American and called for essentially an investigation into those in Congress who are un-American. Governor Sarah Palin recently made remarks about pro-American parts of the country and the real America. Not only does this smack of Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for communists in our government during the 1950's, it also recalls the House Un-American Activities Committee back in the late 1940's and the overall anti-communist fever coming out of World War II and leading into the Cold War; the anti-communist fever that launched President Richard Nixon (then a Congressman and member of the HUAC) into political superstardom after the trial of Alger Hiss. I've also seen plenty of accusations from McCain/Palin supporters and Palin herself that Senator Barrack Obama is a communist or socialist or has a socialist tax plan. This is absurd. McCarthy is shunned for a good reason. The House Un-American Activities Committee no longer exists for a good reason.

I have to wonder how many people that are falling for this "Obama is socialist" or "liberals/Democrats hate America" or "real America/pro-Americans vs. Obama" bullshit paid attention in history class and understand what talk like this created in the Cold War. I can't help but agree with Jon Stewart: fuck all y'all. I'm not at all interested in you proving Mr. George Santayana right at the expense of this country.

I was hoping to make a video about this and showing McCarthy/HUAC rhetoric along with McCain/Palin/Bachmann rhetoric but it's extremely challenging to find newsreel clips from back then to use. In my search, though, I found plenty of others were seeing this parallel. I hope enough see it to speak up and prevent this from turning into a new kind of internal Cold War or worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Z5aYU6x0o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qMvvJwllBY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuElRVjn478

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men - not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck." - Edward R. Murrow

Muslim McCain Voters

Thanks to canongrrl  for sharing this video in her LJ. I thought it was pretty awesome and I wanted to share.

It's too bad the McCain campaign wouldn't let Daniel Zubairi speak with CNN about the incident. I wonder why?