Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I got no answer to this. Why not? And how is the above example any different than what happened to the communists during the 1950s.
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The basic problem was that, as Hank said, some (not all, not even most, but some) of the people snagged were truly the clueless, "oh look at me, it's fashionable to be communist" types - the shallow ones who were able to look beyond the millions of deaths and think (wrong word, probably) of that system as being trendy and cute and avant-garde. Which is why so many Hollywood types went for it, I suppose.
McCarthy rightly took no pity on the knowledgable participants, but he also took none on the idiots. He purposefully built a crescendo of frantic public fear that was unjustified in its immediacy, and used that fear effectively enough so that the simple "he's a member of the Guild" said much more to the public - "he's a pedophile!" would have been a gentler accusation.
He also did a lot of his investigating work right there, in the public room, and there was a lot of collateral damage that came out in the process that had nothing to do with what he was looking for. He may have been correct in picking his targets, but he was an asshole.
