There is disturbing evidence of McCarthyism creeping into the body-politic in many countries. Israel is one of the more prominent ones. So, it is in the US - where what this piece "The New McCarthyism" on creators. com shows. It is troubling and dangerous trend, the consequences of which should be well-enough known from when Joe McCarthy was riding high in America in the 1950's.
"The national madness known as "McCarthyism" began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.V., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors.
Eventually, America learned that the Wisconsin Republican's famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic — and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism's self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had inflicted grave damage on the body politic and international prestige of the United States.
Today, McCarthy's heirs are more slick and glib than he ever was, yet their fundamental methods are the same. When Elizabeth Cheney, William Kristol and their media friends slander Justice Department attorneys as the "al-Qaida 7" and malign the "Department of Jihad," they are engaging in the smear tactics that became synonymous with McCarthy.
What is different now is the cynical hypocrisy of the new McCarthyites, who know that the flimsy accusations they level against Democrats in the Obama administration could just as easily be turned on Republicans who served President Bush.
Cheney and Kristol have charged that certain lawyers in the Justice Department represented alleged terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp — and that by so doing, those attorneys rendered themselves unfit for government service. "Whose values do they share?" asks an ominous advertisement aired by their front group, known as Keep America Safe. They mean to insinuate that the values of those Justice Department attorneys, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are somehow closer to the jihadism of al-Qaida than to those shared by most Americans.
The values that most of us share include honesty and fairness — and this sleazy campaign violates both. If every lawyer who represents someone accused of terrorism is by definition a terrorist sympathizer, then our entire system of justice is in doubt, since it requires counsel for everyone accused of a crime. More specifically, if the lawyers who have counseled terror suspects are by definition untrustworthy, then the dark cloud of suspicion extends well beyond the current roster of the Justice Department — and into the heart of the Republican Party."
"The national madness known as "McCarthyism" began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.V., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors.
Eventually, America learned that the Wisconsin Republican's famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic — and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism's self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had inflicted grave damage on the body politic and international prestige of the United States.
Today, McCarthy's heirs are more slick and glib than he ever was, yet their fundamental methods are the same. When Elizabeth Cheney, William Kristol and their media friends slander Justice Department attorneys as the "al-Qaida 7" and malign the "Department of Jihad," they are engaging in the smear tactics that became synonymous with McCarthy.
What is different now is the cynical hypocrisy of the new McCarthyites, who know that the flimsy accusations they level against Democrats in the Obama administration could just as easily be turned on Republicans who served President Bush.
Cheney and Kristol have charged that certain lawyers in the Justice Department represented alleged terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp — and that by so doing, those attorneys rendered themselves unfit for government service. "Whose values do they share?" asks an ominous advertisement aired by their front group, known as Keep America Safe. They mean to insinuate that the values of those Justice Department attorneys, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are somehow closer to the jihadism of al-Qaida than to those shared by most Americans.
The values that most of us share include honesty and fairness — and this sleazy campaign violates both. If every lawyer who represents someone accused of terrorism is by definition a terrorist sympathizer, then our entire system of justice is in doubt, since it requires counsel for everyone accused of a crime. More specifically, if the lawyers who have counseled terror suspects are by definition untrustworthy, then the dark cloud of suspicion extends well beyond the current roster of the Justice Department — and into the heart of the Republican Party."
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