McCarthyism and Communism

The Santa Rosa Junior College sponsors lectures by notable intellectuals. I commented on Peter Laufer's "The cases for opening the Mexican-American Border" lecture. On October 17, the SRJC sponsored another lecture titled, "McCarthyism, higher education, and the new assault on academic freedom." This is the article that I have submitted to our school newspaper for publication as an opinion piece:

In another example of blatantly partisan bias, the SRJC Arts and Lectures Series, the Sonoma County Chapter of the ACLU, and a local union, SRJC/CFT Local 1946, hosted Ellen Schrecker to deliver the lecture, “McCarthyism, higher education, and the new assault on academic freedom.” (The sponsor list alone casts suspicion on the objectivity of the lecture.) In addition to Schrecker, three teachers who were targeted during the “Red Star incident” also presented their opinions October 17 in Newman Auditorium.

I have to give some credit to Schrecker for not completely hiding the historical record. She readily admitted that in the 1940s and 50s, “the communist threat was a reality.” However, she did not fully explore that reality. Before addressing the rest of the lecture, allow me to set the record straight about Senator McCarthy.

The truth about McCarthy will sound insane, because it has been the liberals’ goal to make him sound insane. However, McCarthy’s campaign was far more limited than is portrayed. He only investigated federal governmentemployees, between 1950 and 1953, in the Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations, the express mandate of which was to investigate the federal government.

McCarthy didn’t suddenly appear on the scene with a witch-hunt. In fact, the investigation of Un-American (communist) activities had begun long before McCarthy even came to office. The infamous “Smith Act” was passed in 1940, six years before McCarthy was elected to the Senate. The act, which criminalized “teaching and advocating the violent overthrow of the government,” was written by a Democratic House and Senate; signed into law by FDR, and enforced by Harry Truman.

But was McCarthy searching for communists that didn’t exist? Consider the Venona project, something your liberal professors won’t tell you about. Throughout the history of the USSR, from World War II until President Reagan brought it down in 1991, an intelligence division of the army decrypted thousands of Soviet cables in a secret operation called the Venona project. Declassified in 1995, the cables confirmed every single allegation McCarthy made, including those against liberal darling Alger Hiss. The Soviets specifically named him as a spy in their communications.

However, Schrecker, and probably most of your teachers at the SRJC, continue to demonize McCarthy not realizing that his service to this country was in bringing the atrocities of communism back into the spotlight.

Consider: Joseph Stalin murdered over 43 million people in the name of communism; Mao Tse Tung murdered over 38 million Chinese through forced starvation because he was a Marxist; In Cambodia, 2 million dead at the hands of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge; Vietnam, 850,000 sacrificed to the greater glory of Ho Chi Minh; Ethiopia, tens of thousands slaughtered during Mengistu Haile Mariam's "Red Terror". Communism is a murderous ideology.

You didn’t hear these facts at the lecture. Martin Bennet and others were too busy demonizing the so-called “anti-communism tactics of the right.”

Post modernism is bad when it allows contradictory views

Ironically, during the lecture, both Terry Mucaire and Joyce Johnson questioned the application of post-modernism. Post-modernism asserts that no view holds the correct answer; we should tolerate all views. However, the thought of tolerating conservative principles apparently frightened both of them.

“If my students can simply dismiss what I say as opinion, what’s the point of education?” Johnson asked.

According to Bennet, “Colleges provide an alternative source of information for students who are disillusioned by the [Bush] Administration.”

So the principles emerge in a two-step model: One, a teacher gives facts, not opinions that can be dismissed. Two, the facts given are to correct those who agree with the Bush Administration in any facet.

And if students continue to disagree with you, a teacher should move to step three: sponsor a lecture where only one side is heard and the opposition is silenced, such as one called, “McCarthyism, higher education, and the new assault on academic freedom.”