This catch phrase rejected anything that exposed or resisted American liberalism.
In 1994 I toured America for a month. I made 31 flights, eagerly
engaging fellow travelers in discussions. Often the subject turned to
dislike of President Clinton.
I went home to Africa and boldly predicted
that the president would have only one term in office - how wrong could I
be?
To our amazement God opened a door for ministry here. 30 months later
we arrived in time to read of the president's oval office shenanigans.
Horrified that our leader was caught lying under oath I told all my pals
in Africa that Congress would never stand for such shameful behavior. Ah,
wrong again!
I watched as Ken Starr gathered and presented the evidence and for
the first time I became aware of something awful that liberal politicians
could call the prosecutor. It was a very bad name.
Starr was labeled and accused of "McCarthysm".
Immigrants have no concept of history. I didn't
know why everyone laughed when the line "read my lips, no new taxes" was
in the conversation.
So I had to ask what McCarthyism meant.
In Richard H. Rovere's book: Senator Joe McCarthy, the author
defines it as either "illiberal, repressive, reactionary, obscurantism,
anti-intellectual, totalitarian, or merely swinish" or - shudder, "a
militant patriotism".
Rovere felt that Wisconsin Senator McCarthy was
"the most gifted demagogue ever bred on these shores. No bolder
seditionist ever moved among us--or any politician with a surer, swifter
access to the dark places of the American mind. The major phase of his
career was mercifully short."
I think you get the idea that we are to
believe McCarthy was a bad man.
A liberal writer said of him: "in the
realm of ideas he was a species of nihilist; he was an destructive force,
a revolutionist without any revolutionary vision, a rebel without a
cause."
As I asked around I was misinformed that the senator stumbled on
the cause of anti-communism. He realized could use it to bully his
intellectual betters and falsely accused a host of well-connected
politicians, movie makers and journalists of being communists.
On February 9, 1950, in a shocking speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he
said that the Department of State was full of Communists and that he and
the Secretary of State knew their names. For 30 years he was pilloried
for making absurd claims like: Communists "known to the Secretary of
State" were "still working and making policy."
So that's how the term McCarthyism became the catch phrase to
reject anything that exposed or resisted American liberalism.
I would
have believed Senator Joe to be a doofus, were it not for the fall of the
Soviet Union. What does that have to do with it? With the collapse of the
Evil Empire the CIA gained access to secret files.
Sifting through these
they came upon the Vernona Project, a Communist code name for an
extensive US spy ring. The highest-ranked Soviet source was Harry D.
White, an Assistant Secretary in the Treasury Department.
He became the
US Director of the International Monetary Fund.
By 1995, the decrypted Soviet cables and the Soviet records
disclosed 349 Soviet spies in top UK and U.S. government posts in the
1940s and '50s. (Wikipedia Encyclopedia.)
Oh, oh, after all the articles
written to mock him Joe McCarthy turned out to be right. That's why you
saw all those months of apologies by college professors and our top
newspapers - yeah, right!
I revue this bit of 20th Century history to remind you: "now is not
forever."
Don't make shocking statements unless you are sure of your
facts, but when you have done your homework, be courageous.
The Bible
talks of a time to speak and a time for silence and it warns us to be
slow to speak and quick to listen. When you do speak you might find
yourself reviled.
Be bold - now is not forever.
Truth, like an air bubble
in a sunken ship never stops wanting to surface. The truth you speak
doesn't need immediate applause to be appropriate. Take the long view of history. Say less, and verify it first.
