| Tuesday, October 25, 2005 |
14:17 - At the "Red Table"
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-oshinsky23oct23,0,4527996.story?c
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In my history classes in high school, when we studied the dark and spooky McCarthy era, the subtext put forth by the teachers and the textbooks was: Of COURSE there weren't any real Communists in Hollywood. Don't be ridiculous. It was all just a big circus put on by paranoid idiots who cared more about establishing their own legacy than supporting free speech. Communists? In America? The very thought was dismissed as absurd.
As it no doubt was in the 1940s; and it left the way clear for idealistic young people, trained under the same assumptions as I was and untainted by life in the real world outside the walls of academia, to board that tantalizingly unguarded train of thought:
A number of actors and directors joined the party in this era or attached themselves to well-known Communist fronts. Cagney, who grew up in poverty, explained his motivation this way: "What the hell did I know about the ebb and flow of political movements…. It all seemed so sensible: take from the overrich, give to the poor. Distribute the wealth…. At the time, left seemed right."
In a sense, it's comforting that so little has changed... but in another sense, it's maddening.
Via Dean.
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Brian Tiemann
