On Mar 28, 2011, at 10:16 AM, ken hanly wrote:
> Krugman claims that the attack on academics through the Republican
> conservative thought police is Un-American. Surely it is as American as
apple
> pie. Communist witch hunts have just been replaced by liberal lefty witch
hunts.
> The dawn of neo-McCarthyism.
And Dems were hardly innocent during the McCarthy era. A lot of that anti-Communist crap started under Truman.
Also: my friend Corey Robin says that Cronon was deeply opposed to the attempts of the grad students to organize a union at Yale. He's changed his tune apparently, now that his ox is being gored.
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Indeed. "McCarthyism" is a serious misnomer, and it distorts any understanding of the Great Red Hunt. (Actually, it started under Wilson: Remember the Palmer Raids.) It was well underway and had already claimed a number of victims when the opportunist McCarthy climbed aboard. It really should be called The Truman Era.
Footnote: The CP influenced quite a number of votes in Wisconsin. They supported McCarthy against La Follette because they thought he would be a weaker opponent in the general election! Tailing the DP leads to many strange and dark corners.
Carrol