please name one '*innocent* victim', if you know of any.
there were no '*innocent* victims' of McCarthyism that i have been able to discover in 15 years of (admittedly casual and unsystematic) study of the issue.
almost no lives were 'ruined'. there were people who lost *glamour* jobs that depended upon popularity -- because they did unpopular things -- like betraying their family, friends, and the wider community to Joseph Stalin, and then cynically manipulating as many innocent well wishers as they could into self-destructively making common cause with them.
there were also people who lost *unglamourous* government jobs that were postions of trust -- because they had really gone out of their way to demonstrate *untrustworthiness*.
McCarthy poisoned the well by questioning the motives of those people, especially the ones in the Democratic party, who wanted to cover up the extent of the treason because its scale was a major embarrassment to many. McCarthy and his followers took the position, ~Let's *not* 'move on', until there has been a full public accounting for the massive betrayals of the 30's and 40's~
eventually (as his alcoholism made him ever more reckless), he was practically accusing Eisenhower of being a traitor. by becoming increasingly hysterical in questioning the motives of those who were continuing to suck on their collective thumb and pretend that *nothing* had happened, he set back the cause of anticommunism for two decades.
however, the left had badly harmed itself, too, because it was so deeply split between those who wanted the truth to come out, and those who for tactical reasons wanted to cover it up. there were *many* on the left who essentailly sided with 'McCarthyism' (though not with Mccarthy himself, of course).
thus, a large part of the reason why the US has been among the most indeologially centrist polities ever since is because both the right and the left did so much self-inflicted damage during this period.
but, the truth of the core of McCarthy's charges is even more clear now than it was then: not only was there a massive betrayal, there was an even more massive coverup. but, contrary to McCarthy's thrust, the coverup was not evidence of wider treason, but rather the usual ignorance, laziness, and just general pigheadedness that is the stuff of everyday life.
for a very moving personal account of one man's finally coming to terms with the discomfiting truth that being ugly and evil is not necessarily the same as being *mistaken*, see: http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?20000511053R
there were no '*innocent* victims' of McCarthyism that i have been able to discover in 15 years of (admittedly casual and unsystematic) study of the issue.
almost no lives were 'ruined'. there were people who lost *glamour* jobs that depended upon popularity -- because they did unpopular things -- like betraying their family, friends, and the wider community to Joseph Stalin, and then cynically manipulating as many innocent well wishers as they could into self-destructively making common cause with them.
there were also people who lost *unglamourous* government jobs that were postions of trust -- because they had really gone out of their way to demonstrate *untrustworthiness*.
McCarthy poisoned the well by questioning the motives of those people, especially the ones in the Democratic party, who wanted to cover up the extent of the treason because its scale was a major embarrassment to many. McCarthy and his followers took the position, ~Let's *not* 'move on', until there has been a full public accounting for the massive betrayals of the 30's and 40's~
eventually (as his alcoholism made him ever more reckless), he was practically accusing Eisenhower of being a traitor. by becoming increasingly hysterical in questioning the motives of those who were continuing to suck on their collective thumb and pretend that *nothing* had happened, he set back the cause of anticommunism for two decades.
however, the left had badly harmed itself, too, because it was so deeply split between those who wanted the truth to come out, and those who for tactical reasons wanted to cover it up. there were *many* on the left who essentailly sided with 'McCarthyism' (though not with Mccarthy himself, of course).
thus, a large part of the reason why the US has been among the most indeologially centrist polities ever since is because both the right and the left did so much self-inflicted damage during this period.
but, the truth of the core of McCarthy's charges is even more clear now than it was then: not only was there a massive betrayal, there was an even more massive coverup. but, contrary to McCarthy's thrust, the coverup was not evidence of wider treason, but rather the usual ignorance, laziness, and just general pigheadedness that is the stuff of everyday life.
for a very moving personal account of one man's finally coming to terms with the discomfiting truth that being ugly and evil is not necessarily the same as being *mistaken*, see: http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?20000511053R