This McCarthy was not carved from the same wood as ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy, nor was he kin folk (I love that term "kin folk" even if none of us in the north use it in conversation about boinking our own sister or first cousin) to Kevin McCarthy, who in the film, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" itself was cinematic "what if" pressure valve look at post-war Fifties paranoia in American society as it would infest the imaginations in the aftermath of a Russki takeover. The proliferating pod people were briliantly portrayed as enigmatic euphemisims for an imagined Soviet takeover of America where the red star would crush the red, white and blue....the bear would devour the eagle and as a last resort democracy would be hanging by a thin thread and doing a highwire act without a net, and freedom was knew then would no longer be a "yes"...but a resounding Slavic "nyet"! Senator Joe McCarthy had the cure, he said. Persecution as a perversion of the peoples right of free speech. It was a political prophylactic designed to protect us from the horrors of the horde of red rapists whose assault would lead to a bulging bolshevik proletarian pregnancy. Unfortunately the white knight riding to the rescue of this erroneous epiphany was nothing more than Don Quixote's dildo...fully charged and ready for America to bend over and take it in the old red, white and blue.
In McCarthy's mind Wall Street would become Red Square and Disneyland would be replaced by the Gulags in Siberia..not exactly the hap, hap, happiest place on earth. Swarthy red-Supermen would fall from the sky by parachute, crushing democracy and individualism with the help of Stalins statuesque pinko amazons from commie sci-fi space with legs longer then the Trans-Siberian Railroad and vulvas as inviting as cool deep dip in the Volga, breasts bigger than the entire Ukraine, and Latvian labias ready to lock and laod radiating sexual radiation creating Russki erections as fast as Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in commie fishnets.
Make no mistake..."Invasion" was a film...McCarthyism and Senator Joe McCarthy were a nightmare come to life from 1950 to 1956 whole sole purpose it was to falsely accuse Americans from Lucille Ball and Humphrey Bogart to Eleanor Roosevelt (who was for civil rights long before it was fashionable, and of course her husband instituted the New Deal...socialism in sheeps clothing to many of the right) of being communists or communist sympathisers. Joe McCarthy in his insatiable quest for power ruined careers...persecuted, prosecuted and jailed innocent Americans and instituted the famous Blacklist where many Hollywood writers were banned from their craft on trumped up charges of being "fellow travelers"
Many wrote films anyway under aliases and people like Frank Sinatra who knew they were blacklisted, hired them to write for his films. The first one was called "The House I Live In" a civil rights film written by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, who had joined the communist party decades earlier. He had to write it under a psydonym. Later however, in 1959, Sinatra, being, Sinatra decided to break the blacklist ban and hired blacklisted writers openly for his projects and letting the press know he was doing it. John Wayne, ever the darling of the right and one of the most obnoxious false heroes of all time nearly came to blows with Sinatra when they ran into each other in public over this very issue. Free Speech? American Constitutional Right? Not where Wayne was concerned. He called Sinatra a commie to his face then backed down...seems the cavalry wouldn't arrive in time to save the Dukes fat ass from the "goodfella's" who were Sinatra's entourage.
McCarthy was aided by a congressional committee of bottom feeding senators and others who performed as his dung beetles digging up dirt based on circumstantial evidence to ruin the careers of hundreds..falsely. Two in particular who were vicious in aiding and abetting in McCarthys lies and paranoia were attorney Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy. Yep..that Kennedy. He was so far to the right he could make a right turn on a red light..no pun intended. It was a reign of terror that would have made the French Revolutionists revolt all over again...it was McCarthyism...the Nightmare on Mainstreet...and there was no escape until Edward R. Murrow and others braved the waters of fear and brought down the beast. (p> McCarthy in his political paranoia saw thousands of communist hiding under American beds. They do say that politics makes strange bedfollows so a fellow traveler or two under the sheets shouldn't have seemed unusual to the senator born too late to enjoy the Marquis de Sade festivities of the Spanish Inquisition. The suspects were rounded up Gestapo style. Government employees, the military, entertainment icons, trade unionists, union workers, educators...the list was as long as the road to the Gulags in Soviet Russia. Amazing that the state he represented, Wisconsin, was famous for cheese and the Green Bay Packers. McCarthy was an anomaly, an abberation, but he was to not a joke...he was a master of tears and fears...and proved at least in this instance...Fear itself was not the only thing we had to fear...we had McCarthy.
The hearings conducted were under the goosestepping bootheel fo the House Un-American Ativities Committee. If you were a proponent of civil, human, workers or womens rights...you obviously were a communist. If you were for gay rights, you were a communist, obviously not a red, but a "pinko" in this case, and flambouyant to boot. The bizarre twist here is that McCarthy had charges brought against supposed homosexuals, and the investigations were handled by the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover, himself a known crossdresser. Do you see the irony here...He cast a wide pair of fishnet stockings to entrap American citizens who he felt were gay and therefore not only subversive, but perverted. The only perversion here was the persecution and prosecution of the HUAC committee itself and the involvement of the worlds worst female impersonator in a dress...give me Ru Paul, or dammit...give me death! Now she rocks! If Hoover was a female impersonator, then he was doing a great Sophie Tucker or Kate Smith at best.
To be honest this period was actually the Second Red Scare, the first occured in America during the years of 1917-1920 when communists in Russia had taken to the streets, overthrowing the czar and in the afterbirth of the revolution, communism was being recognized as a legitimate political force. The Communist Party was growing in America as well as the unions felt the time was ripe for a evolutionary revolution. Capitalist America howver saw the Bolshevik boldozier ready to level the two party system of the United States. Corporations now faced united workers...civil rights and human rights were brought to the streets and the light was being focused on all the wrongs that for a couple of hundred years were now ready to be remedied.
The Russion Czar and his family kept the peasant population in check through starvation and persecution, while they enjoyed the fruits of the proletarian labor. Lets face it, the peasant and worker class were at the bottom of the caste system while the Royals enjoyed the life of todays Kardashian sisters!
Centuries of Russian royal repression brought about repercussions as the rabble took to revolution in the streets. The Bolshviks were tired of the Czars bullshit. Not only was the revolution fuel injected heading down the dragstrip of near anarchy, but WWI was in full swing in Europe. In America, groups such as the IWW were positively orgasmic over the results of the revolt and envisioned a utopian workers paradise in America. Along with the IWW were a compost pile of anarchists and left-wing socialists who helped fuel the fires of discontent throughout the American continent as workers were not content with the status quo...the times were changin'...long before Mr. Dylan made his mighty musical proclamation in the Sixties.
America had an open door policy...you know..give us your huddled masses, etc. Well it was this very influx of tired and poor that had seen the seeds of anarchy and commuism spread in their home countries, so they brought these same ideas along with them packed up in a political suitcase as they got off the boat at Ellis Island. The IWW backed several labor strikes that were crippling the democracy and the press assailed the new socialism as the work of foreign agitators. The IWW countered with the argument that that these were merely the extensions of anti-capitalist feelings among the worker class and that the wage system should be abolished.
This period was especially violent and it literally started off with a bang when a bomb went off at the home of the Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in 1919. The same year a plot was uncovered, so they say, perhaps it was not uncovered but planted the government instead for mailing 36 bombs to prominent politicians and corporate pariah from J.P. Morgand and John D. Rockefeller. The big bang occured on June 2, 1919 when eight bombs in eight American cities went off the same day. That was enough for President Wilson. He got congress to pass the anti-immigration and anti-sedition act long before the whittling away of the constitution of the Bush administrations Patriot Act.
The government now saddled up and the cattle drive of deportation of undesireable immigrants was under way. The trail this time led to jail, and not the Santa Fe Trail and ultimately to deportation, for those who were not beaten or killed while incarcerated. Many arrested were not bomb throwers but union organizers and speech givers whose only crime was one of ideological differences. This was also the begining of the race for racial equality where were Blacks took to the streets in many cites and for the first time in racial history in America, repressive white violence was met with an equal force of violence from the ghettos. In some instances, even the government findings found that uniformed soldiers and naval personnel were responsible for igniting the social explosions and were prosecuted. During WWII military personnel once again would inflame the fires of violence causing the Zoot Zoot Riots in Southern California.
The nations capital saw the worst of the riots and nationwide...hundreds had been killed on both sides including military personnel and police, not the mention American citizens fighting not only for their rights, but in many cases...their lives! Flash forward back to the Fiftie where things were getting worse. The Soviets tested an atomic bomb...and it worked! They also were developing rockets for long range delivery and spies were everywhere...on both sides of the fence and the Berlin Wall. East had met West..and they did not agree! Mao was victorious in China, South Korea was at war with North Korea, and the French were starting their futile attempt to hold onto empire in Indo-China, later called Vietnam that would see the French loose in defeat...and later..America too would loose to them..except we didn't call it that..Peace with Honor or some such. We never settled with Korea either.
The two "great" powers had more spies in each others country than there are alligators in a Louisiana swamp. The first Soviet spy uncovered was Igor Gouzenko in 1945. Other spy cases involved Alger Hiss, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and others. They alone are worthy of their own article, and I will write one, but not here..not yet. The spy game picked up from there, and involved one famous case of a triple spy, Kim Philby who worked for three spy agencies. Spying is one thing...a threesome in the spy bed will get you in hot water, and it did. The fuel was now on the fire, McCarthy exploded on the scene and the stage was set for battle. The televised hearings were destroying American lives left and right. No pun intended. One journalist who dared to open the door to this Ninth Gate of Hell was Edward R. Murrow. Former war correspondent, civil rights and human rights activist and journalistic realist. He had mucho influence on the tube in American homes from his foxhole at CBS and he launched the opening salvo at would ultimately bring down the Senator from Elm Street who would in time die in disgrace.
Murrow and his merry band of journalists went on the uber offensive and attacked the mad McCarthy on the air...questioning...probing...slicing and dicing the senators career and motives. In addition to the Red Scare Communist witch hunts were the lesser known were the far more damaging homosexual hunts he engaged in referred to as the Lavender Scare which was about as vicious as it gets when it came to anti-homosexualism in those days. More careers were actually ruined due to these accusations then for being red...pink was not fabulous..it was dangerous. Remember the Lenny Bruce quip about Commmie Pinko Fags! Even Bruce attacked McCarthy from his pulpit in the burlesque houses.
If you wanted to go shopping for communists, look no further than the U.S. military. Khaki green was turning red. Both the FDR and the Truman administrations were, according to the paranoid senator was not only infiltrated by reds but infested with them. Surprising he didn't accuse in abstentia, H.G. Wells who authored the book War of the Worlds which told the tale of hordes of red aliens from the angry red planet of Mars. If McCarthy would have had a rocketship that would have landed him there, he definitely would have a field day! Aliens and reds everywhere! Postively a prosecutorial orgasmic playground for the junior senator from Mars. Next he could go into attack mode on the lesbian communities of Venus while setting his future sights on the closeted homosexual community of Uranus..the planet that bends over forward.
If you want more information on Murrow's participation in bringing down this goosestepping Goliath..get a book on Murrow...or simply watch the excellent production of George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" for the details. The film is landmark, accurate and a pure cinematic joy of history lesson beyond 101.
The end came in 1954 when McCarthys support faded away and as an early Christmas present to the American public, he was censured by the senate by a majority margin. In an even bigger present to America, it's people and it's constitution...he died on May 2, 1957...one day after the biggest celebration of the Communist calendar...May Day! Now that is how you define irony! He is buried no doubt in a communist coffin. I wonder where the body snatchers are when you need them...Happy May Day Joe...wherever you are!