Thursday, December 09, 2021

Is McCarthyism back? What was it all about?

The news tells us that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and one oddly named Sen. John Kennedy (R-La), have falsely claimed that a Soviet-born Biden nominee, Saule Omarova, whose family was nearly wiped out by Josef Stalin, was a "Communist."

On the whole, the American public was never fond of V. I. Lenin's and later J. V. Stalin's application of the obscure and hyper-intellectual phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" — which Karl Marx had never intended to mean a state with a secret police and concentration camps for political prisoners.

However, it took one Joseph Raymond McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin between 1947 and his death in 1957, to seize upon a groundswell of fear generated by the surprisingly early acquisition of the atomic bomb by the Soviet Union and whip it up into a second Red Scare, the first having occurred right after the original Russian revolution. 

In a speech in February 1950, McCarthy presented a list of alleged members of the Communist Party USA working in the State Department, which attracted substantial press attention, and the term "McCarthyism" was published for the first time in late March of that year in The Christian Science Monitor, along with a political cartoon by Herblock in The Washington Post

Now, some Republicans are trying again. Will they succeed?

The primary targets of McCarthyist persecution in the 1950s were government employees, prominent figures in the entertainment industry, academics, left-wing politicians, and labor union activists. McCarthy accused them. often without conclusive evidence, and exaggerated the person's real or supposed leftist associations and beliefs.

Incredibly, the McCarthyist accusation fell on people as diverse as Lucille Ball, Aaron Copland, Albert Einstein, and Linus Pauling.

The dramatic demise of McCarthyism came in April 1954, during the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were televised live. In one exchange, McCarthy reminded the attorney for the Army, Joseph Welch, that he had an employee in his law firm who had belonged to an organization that had been accused of Communist sympathies. 

"Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch said in his famous rebuke of the senator.

The Supreme Court subsequently ruled, repeatedly and consistently, against actions such as firing or disciplining employees who invoke the Fifth Amendment when asked about Communist sympathies or even the State Department denying passports based on an applicant's Communist beliefs or associations. However, loyalty oaths are still required by the California Constitution for all officials and employees of the government of California (a problem for Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses, whose beliefs preclude pledging absolute loyalty to the state).

The oppression of liberals and leftists during the McCarthy is also similar to 2000s-era actions against suspected terrorists, most of them Muslims. In fact, conservative writer and political bomb-thrower Ann Coulter has drawn parallels, arguing that the liberals hindered the anti-communist cause and todayś critics hinder the "War on Terrorism."

At some point, as the public realizes that 9/11 inspired actions that were mainly designed to enrich military contractors, the new McCarthyism will also wane.

Until the next time.


This is the latest in a series of entries on the development of ideas that made the United States and the economic, social, and political issues Americans debate, posted under the label WeHoldTheseTruths.

Friday, December 03, 2021

War Footing

(This is a return to an incomplete series about the political and economic ideas that made the United States what it is.)

The Second World War was a vast conflict that came close to involving the entire planet, directly or indirectly. For Americans at home, however, it was something that happened far away, removed from daily experience — aside from the one-time air attack by Japan in 1941, American cities and territory were never bombed, attacked, or invaded.

The single, real, and notable effect of WW2 on the United States was the launch of the economic model that would be described by the former military commander-in-chief in that conflict, Dwight David Eisenhower, in his farewell presidential speech of warning, as "the military-industrial complex."

After all, World War II had the novel effect of truly reviving the U.S. economy. The 1941 annual average unemployment of 13.3 percent, still lingering in the Great Depression's double digits despite the New Deal, dropped to 6.3 percent in 1942, the first full year of the war for the United States. 

By 1943 it fell to 2.5 percent and every year until the war's end the jobless rate remained well below what nearly all economists deem "full employment." This was largely due to the incorporation of women, never before widely employed in wage-earning work, into the labor force at munitions and war-machine factories. This occurred as a sizable portion of men were drafted into military service.

After the war, things changed. A leap in unemployment occurred in the fall of 1945 and the open war turned covert.

The USSR's approach to occupation in eastern Europe, which involved a series of coups to install Joseph Stalin's version of Marxist-Leninist Communism, led to inevitable clashes with the Truman Administration. The USSR's acquisition of the atomic bomb in 1949, much earlier than expected, transformed the contention into what none other than George Orwell had already been describing as postwar powers "at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of 'cold war.' " 

The United States and its allies created the NATO military alliance in 1949 and the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response. Yet all this was in the grand stage of foreign affairs, about which the U.S. general public has always been profoundly uninterested, not to say ignorant. Most Americans barely care what happens in the next county, let alone other continents.

The actual real significance of the Cold War to Americans was how it justified maintaining a global U.S.  military footprint — occupation of Germany aside — run from the Pentagon, the world's largest office building, on the Virginia bank of the Potomac River. Flashpoints such as the 1948–49 Berlin Blockade, allowed the U.S. military to demonstrate the peacetime value of massive air superiority. 

During that crisis, the Soviets blocked off the railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. Food and other supplies were flown, in as many as 20 to eventually 1,500 flights a day, to the French, U.K., and U.S. sectors of the city over a period of a year.

The Cold War crystallized into a hot war in Korea during the 1950-1953 conflict between the United Nations and North Korea. UN intervention was possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the international organization for recognizing Taiwan (Republic of China) as China, and not mainland Communist China. Thus the USSR veto was not used in the resolution to send troops under the UN banner.

After that, the pattern was set. The Soviets learned not to boycott the UN and to use their potential to use nuclear arms defensively as a deterrent to actual all-out war with the West, while agitating in a number of developing countries under Western influence. 

The United States kept a ring of military bases around the world, from which they would mobilize displays of force in crises such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 when the Wall was built, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Vietnam War, originally conceived as a short-term, limited intervention, led to a humiliating military defeat for the United States, the first in its history and — ultimately — the waning of the Cold War. That did not decrease the military significantly.

Here we are, a good 40 years since the end of the Cold War, maintaining a military designed to fight two-and-a-half world wars, by the Pentagon's own admission. Yet it is a military easily defeated by unconventional forces of Southeast Asians in jungles and robed Muslims in mountainous terrain.

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Machismo Cubed

A woman from Barcelona posts that now there are all sorts of nightlife bars in major Spanish cities where women routinely and unknowingly have rape drugs added to their drinks. This is a deplorable extreme.

No man has an unfettered right to use a woman's body. Not even a husband.

Nuff said.

Monday, November 15, 2021

"I don't like politics"

I keep hearing the phrase in the title from a lot of people. The phrase is usually followed by an explanation that all politicians, or some prominent ones, are corrupt. The people who say this are well-meaning, but they don't realize how dangerous their stance is.

In the context of countries with an electoral system, a citizenry full of people who "don't like politics" is precisely what the most corrupt and craven politicians want. They want an electorate where no one but their followers will bother to go vote. Or vote, but without any real information.

Let me provide an example that will show how this is already working in most countries with an electoral system. In those countries, people with the smallest incomes either do not vote or often vote for whom they are bribed to vote (this is real; it's been captured on film). 

The result is that there are few countries whose governments, run by elected officials, are serious about tackling poverty. So, don't care, don't bother to learn how your government works. That's a recipe to guarantee that government will worsen.

Now granted, roughly from 1945 to 1968, when a majority of the people in the world had experienced dislocation and near-poverty as a result of the Great Depression, the Second World War, or some remaining form of colonialism, most governments responded to majority needs. 

In western Europe, Canada and Australia, governments approved national health systems, vast income supplements, housing assistance and unemployment compensation  — this was the famous "Welfare State." Even doggedly capitalist USA, got old age social security and unemployment insurance.

Have you noticed that ever since waves of conservative governments have trimmed the sails of these general welfare programs? Reagan, Thatcher and their successors: today Johnson in the UK, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India and the very strange coalition in power in Spain. 

Their opposite numbers are weak and barely have enough support to stop them. Biden won as "anybody but Trump" but not for the reasonable agenda he has always espoused.

What happened? The children of the generation that lived through the Depression and war took the gains their parents got for granted. Even when youth was most "radicalized" (in the 1960s, 70s, 90s and 2000s) the youth vote continued to be very low given the numbers.

Politicians serving their own interests, or those of the people who finance campaigns, took notice and began to trim public benefits so they could cut taxes on the wealthiest. We are drifting toward plutocracy or societies governed by the very rich for the very rich.

So, go ahead, don't care. By the time you realize what is happening to electoral democracy, imperfect though it may be, it will be too late.

Friday, November 12, 2021

Why Do (Some) Women Obsessively Post Pictures Of Themselves?

One eloquent answer to the question in the title was provided by a woman friend: "If society, and men in particular, valued women more in terms of intelligence, kindness, abilities, and talents, obsessive selfie-posting would vanish."

I understand her point, although absent a change in how women are valued, the vanishing has yet to be proven. Responses tend not to be quite as automatic and uniform as my friend thinks.

Now, I understand perfectly well that our society puts a premium on a particular set of fashionable female looks. These have varied from age to age, from Rubenesque to Twiggy. There isn't one objective standard of female beauty, or of beauty in general.

When a woman's body fits the recipe of the day, it results in male attention (wanted and unwanted), sometimes jobs, and other benefits. The "uglies" are shunted aside.

None of this is new to me. I was first exposed to feminism in 1972 by a very good woman I was dating,, who inspired me to read most of the feminist canon of the day. 

The result was that I felt quite guilty. My girlfriend Doreen was, to me, akin to Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai calling to my attention that I had been trained to be a Tsarist officer, in other words, a man trained to be a male chauvinist, even if I didn't realize it. It's not something you just shuck off easily.

Over the years, however, the childhood "womenist" stance I adopted when my father abandoned my mother and me, flourished with Doreen and further experiences into a well-founded ingrained intellectual attitude that I would describe as "feminist" from a somewhat reformed man. Certainly, I recognize the importance of abortion rights and equal pay as public planks that must be a prominent part of any progressive agenda. Also, I recognize that certain customs concerning women, including especially body over brain, need to change.

This is precisely why I find the obsessive selfies appalling! It's a step backward.

A young woman may be unable to change human history, but she can change her own life. As a Hispanic of Argentine origin, who has lived in both the USA and Argentina, I know perfectly well about being told to be someone that society wants and choosing my own path. 

The desire to be beautiful as society wants is a skewed idea.  Just as the desire to be successful the way society wants. What is beauty and success other than a social convention? At a defined point in adolescence and youth, each of us has the challenge of deciding for ourselves. This is a reasonable challenge, it's about becoming truly your own person.

A young woman may be unable to change customs that come down from millennia, but she can change her own life. 

There is a lot to be changed in society and I think feminism is doing a good job of identifying some of the things that most concern women. There's a conservative and regressive pull right now that must be fought by all. It's not just a war against women, it's a war against the 99%. We have to hold fast on these issues.

The idea of getting validation, or social acceptance, is a foolhardy goal. In my more devoutly religious days, I thought God was the only one whose acceptance I needed. The Quakers have a less religious view in seeing the spirit of God and Her wondrous love in the hearts of each one of us, regardless of creed. 

Let women, young and older, seek their own heart's acceptance above all. Toss out the cosmetics (even the antiperspirants)! Dress for yourself, without regard to fashion. In the same vein, men need to cultivate their inner selves by crying when needed, by accepting vulnerability, by declining to be money machines. No more fake stoicism, going to war and brawls and running the rat race. 

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Labels to Respect

Woke, Antifa, Feminists, are a few of the labels coined in recent years for people who believe that humans should be equal before the law and treated with respect by all their fellow humans, regardless of traits, especially those that don't harm anyone and are largely involuntary.

Do you really want a society that pretends to be about equality but is not?

Do you really want to be ruled by someone whose mere whims are more powerful than reason?

Do you really want women to be barefoot and pregnant servants of men?

I didn't think so.

Let's try to be more respectful of feminists, small-d democrats who are willing to stop creeping authoritarianism, and folks who insist on being aware of ethnic prejudice in our society.

Tuesday, November 09, 2021

Is it me or is it The World?

You've probably experienced it: the browser gets syrupy, the OS hangs, your body makes a new demand you hadn't experienced before, no one understands you. Just because they're after you doesn't mean you're not paranoid.

So what is it and what do you? I wish I knew.

OK, yes, you just stop. You go play a computer game that works.

Monday, November 08, 2021

Praying to the Divine Lady

Here's a secret trick for praying: pray to Our Mother in Heaven. No, not the BVM that Catholics may recall from childhood, the real God just anthropomorphized as a woman, a caring mother.

Most of us know a caring mother. We know a mother who gave us life in a co-creative experience. We know a mother who laid down the law and spanked us or sent us to our room, a corner, or whatever. We know of a mother who accepted and forgave everything, without for a second forgetting. We know of a mother who was ready to give her life for ours, one who indeed did give her life, by devoting much of hers to us. 

This is much better than the usual experience with fathers. Many fathers leave, uncaring for anyone but themselves. Many others are distracted by their workplace, their own ambitions, their wants. Fathers can teach, can love in a more tough-love way. Fathers can seem all-powerful. But they can't God-like no matter how they try.

God the Father is a human image. God does not have a penis. Yes, God the Mother does not have a vagina, either. God could be an It. More likely than not, God's being is so unique it is closer to an It than a Him or a Her. 

God might as well be dog spelled backward, for all we know. God might bound over and lick us when we come home.

For now, I'll stick with anthropomorphizing, A human-like God is more accessible. It's only an image, a persona, if you will. No one has seen God (for the Bible-minded, see Exodus 33:20-23, 1 Corinthians 1:21, John 1:18, 1 John 4:12).

So, why not imagine Her as the beautiful Mother in the sky, among the twinkling stars!

Sunday, November 07, 2021

Reminder About My Book

Here's the original "press release"

 https://letmountainshear.blogspot.com/

Saturday, November 06, 2021

Saying Goodbye

Nothing tells you how utterly unimportant you are more than leaving a job or a social medium. Suddenly, you realize that when you die there will be nothing remotely like the JFK cortege to Arlington for you.

When I retired as an editor and publisher of a specialized publication three years ago, I wrote a farewell letter from the publisher. I was selling to an employee.

Number of calls, letter, and emails I got after 33 years? 0, zip, nada. I might as well have never existed in that admittedly obscure little world.

At least, less than a week before cancelling (being hounded out and gaslighted by a well-known social media outlet) I have received two emails. Also, quality beats quantity, no?

Still, the world has not come to a halt without me at the helm of my former publication or me at the SMO.

Sigh!

Monday, April 19, 2021

All Hail the Matriarchist Revolution!

The world is going to hell in a hand basket and no leader is presently going to provide the social order that allows everyone to survive happily. Time to try Matriarchism.

Anarchism, capitalism, communism, neoliberalism, patriarchalism, socialism, traditionalism, and any the other of the isms known to us, have all failed. We are less than a generation from climactic disaster, worldwide authoritarian rule and endless conflict.

What is Matriarchism, you ask? Fair question.

The Wikipedia tells us that "matriarchy is a social system in which females hold the primary power positions in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property." It's also called gynecocracy. 

That's not what I am proposing, which would be a mere inversion of the current patriarchy.

Matriarchism, and a revolution to empower it, means setting up a maternal form of social order in which the primary goal of those who govern and possess moral authority is to nurture and ensure the happy survival of all, in a peaceful and benevolent way.

The Matriarchist Revolution will not be achieved by beheadings, tortures, imprisonment, or social "cancelling" of purported "enemies of the people." A Matriarchist regards all people as if they were her children, favoring none, helping and loving all.

Most women are presently best prepared for leadership in such a society, by virtue of their preparation for or experience of motherhood; however, so are some men.

Yes, some mothers can be harmful. Also, Margaret Thatcher (and a few others like her) is not who I would want in charge; she was merely a patriarch without a penis.

But ideally, what is motherhood among mammals supposed to be about?

Think about the mothers you have admired. They were people who made sure their children were fed, clothed and otherwise nurtured, learned to distinguish right from wrong, benevolently enforced such values, always with the aim of seeing the child profoundly and permanently happy.

Angela Merkel, without knowing it, is an example of a Matriarchist leader. She has striven mightily to push for the best of all her citizenry, without easy shortcuts. Is she perfect? Of course not.

But what if we replaced all the world's leaders with Angela Merkels? Wouldn't our nations be cooperating to bring about a green economy globally? Wouldn't the poorest of the poor be looked after? Wouldn't there be benign leaders everywhere who attempt to persuade and direct society toward universal love?

I'm certain Angela Merkel, if she ever reads my puny blog, will be horrified to be placed on such a pedestal. That's precisely why she is there!

My Facebook friend Christina Kelly unknowingly voiced a Matriarchist belief when she said: "I would prefer [matriarchy] if all men and women had access to sufficient education, and training to fully self-govern, with no need for either male, or female dominance."

Think about it!

Thursday, February 18, 2021

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS VS THE WAR MACHINE

I'm beginning to see criticism of Biden from the Left, of which I am a moderate member. Did anyone think that Biden was anything but a standard issue liberal Democrat? Remember LBJ and Vietnam? (But also LBJ's Medicare, AFDC, Job Corps, etc.?)

From a policy standpoint, liberal Democrats have always faced a puzzling paradox since World War II concerning the military. Think of the economic effects of military spending:

1) The military yields higher employment for otherwise unqualified lower-middle class and poor citizens and a generally very nice, wholly subsidized, suburban lifestyle for military families. (Admittedly, with drawbacks such as injury and death. Although US casualties have usually been kept comparably low. No wars since 1941 have involved civilian deaths in the mainland USA. In WW2, the USSR had 11 million military deaths, Germany 4 million ; the USA 407,000, less than half a million. With civilian deaths, in Europe and Asia, some 70 million were killed. The much vaunted 55,000 US dead in Vietnam pale next to the 700,000 military Vietnamese dead and the million or so civilians killed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.)

2) The Pentagon also subsidizes a nice chunk of the civilian economy. Boeing workers, for example, are highly paid and unionized, as are most major military contractors. After WW2, Boeing declined to the point it shrank to having a clothing store, in Seattle I think, as its main facility in the late 1940s. The Korean War saved Boeing.

3) Then there are the communities in which bases are located, which, once again, reap untold indirect economic subsidies.

4) The military is the only social welfare program that can be sold as pro-business and "patriotic."

So the question is: with what do we replace the war machine?