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posted by Kate Marie | 9:38 PM | Permalink
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7 comments
7 Comments:
"But is it true? Certainly the blacklist harmed the careers of some of Hollywood's finest. Its damage extended not only to actual party members but, in some cases, to the well-meaning who joined party-controlled "popular front" organizations. But the accepted narrative obscures the important truth about communist influence in Hollywood. The Hollywood Ten were among the most committed of the party faithful, yet they've been wrapped and protected in a romantic haze, allowed to wear their appearance before HUAC as a badge of honor. The blacklist was a godsend, enabling them to reinvent themselves as heroic victims rather than what they really were: die-hard defenders of Josef Stalin who accepted every twist and turn of the party line, whether it was the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the invasion of Finland or the purge trials."
From my perspective, everything after "But is it true?" and down to "'popular front'" organizations" translates to an unequivocal- "Yes, it is true." Their can only be one genuine question about the HUAC and McCarthyism- was it a breach of the principles of American democracy, a stain on American history? The only answer is YES. All else is sturm-und-drang, smoke and mirrors, attempts to make two wrongs equal one right. If the HUAC had sought to prosecute Communists for their intimidation of other artists, their attempts to control certain media (provided they committed crimes in pursuit of that control) that would be one thing. But they made the central issue whether or not someone had ever merely belonged to the Communist party or one of its "front organizations," which resulted in total breach of constitutionally defended liberties and gross miscarriages of justice. As for their support of Stalin, the Nazi-Commintern non-aggression pact, purges, etc. etc., if it were a prosecutable offense to have the wrong opinion about foreign policy in this country a lot of people would be up before the HUAC who had nothing to do with Communism. For every Stalin-loving Communist you can find twenty Pinochet- or Samosa- or Sukarno- or Marcos- or Apartheid- (even Hitler-) loving non-Communists in American politics.
Madman,
Our Constitution protects free speech not free sedition. The Supreme Court has specifically said that one is not free to associate with members of a group when that person is an active member of the group, knows of its illegal purposes, and has the intent to further those purposes. Since the Communist Party's purpose was to bring about the "violent overthrow" of the U.S. government, anyone within the Party who specifically intended to further this purpose could be prevented from exercising this illegal action on bedrock Constitutional grounds.
We're not talking about Che Guevara t-shirts here.
Madman, let's deal with the "is it true?" question first. So you believe that what Radosh sets up as a romanticized Hollywood fable -- that the blacklist victims were "unadulterated heroes," that the producers who did the blacklisting and those who testified were unalloyed villains -- is true?
I think it's absurd to take the position that there's only one genuine question to be asked about HUAC and the blacklist. You're an historian, Madman -- do you really think that there's only one genuine question to be asked about any event/era in history? Radosh is an historian, too. He calls the blacklist an abomination. You want him to stop there and be done with it . . .
If having the wrong foreign policy opinion means belonging to groups that were funded by the Soviet Union and following the orders of the Soviet Union through the directives of American Communist Party members, then, yeah, they're just a bunch of poor schmucks who were misguided about foreign policy. Radosh's argument is that, post-HUAC and the victimization of Communists in Hollywood, the history of Communist influence/activity there has been shrouded in romanticized myth.
As for Samoza-Pinochet-Sukarno-Marcos-Hitler-loving Americans, if you want to write a history of their Nicaragua-Chile-Indonesia-Philippines-Nazi-funded influence in Hollywood, go right ahead. And if those Americans had been victims of a blacklist, and you STILL wanted to write a history of their influence in Hollywood, I wouldn't object on the grounds that there's only one "genuine question" to be asked about the blacklist.
And furthermore, Radosh was a "Red-diaper baby" who grew up imbibing the left's pernicious myths, chief among which was the belief that the saintly Rosenbergs were martyrs -- victims of anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. When Radosh became an historian and got around to writing a book about the great martyrs, he was shocked to discover that the Rosenbergs were in fact guilty of the crimes they were convicted of, and his subsequent book on the subject made him a heretic and a pariah on the left.
Every political movement or group has, to some extent, myths they live by. Some are more pernicious than others -- but ANY of those myths are fair game for historical review and analysis. The myth of the Hollywood Ten and other victims of the blacklist as "unadulterated heroes" needs to be punctured -- not in order to redeem HUAC and the blacklist but in order simply to provide a more complete and less romanticized picture of the era and its major figures. I don't get how, exactly, that translates into "two wrongs equal one right." Your position seems to be that only ONE of the wrongs of the era is a legitimate subject of historical scholarship -- thus, that the Wrong of HUAC and the blacklist makes other wrongs of the period irrelevant.
Dear Kate Marie,
My problem with Radosh's analysis is not that he asks historically "unsound" questions, but that he groups his assertions in logically unsound ways. If you look at the quote I excerpted, Radosh begins by listing the standard reasons why the blacklist is deemed an "abomination." Here his narrative pivots, and he continues "but the accepted narrative obscures the important truth about communist influence in Hollywood." Here is where I take issue with his thesis as it is presented. The "accepted narrative," that the HUAC was an abomination, does NOT obscure the truth about communist influence in Hollywood, because no amount of communist influence in Hollywood would or does make the HUAC anything but an abomination, as Radosh himself clearly admits from the outset.
It is possible, of course, that what Radosh means by the "accepted narrative" is this supposed "myth" of the heroism of folk like the Hollywood Ten. Here the discussion of the "crimes" of the Hollywood Ten in tandem with an account of the HUAC is disingenuous. Nothing the Hollywood Ten did justified the abuses of the HUAC, so why they should not be "allowed to wear their appearance before the HUAC as a badge of honor" is a mystery to me. "The blacklist was a godsend" is the wierdest moment in this diatribe, as if Radosh is confident that tbe Ten would never have traded job security for the halo of martyrdom. The cogency of historical analysis depends to a great extent on how the issue is framed, and Radosh's "godsend" assertion is no different than saying something akin to "If so-and-so hadn't been raped she'd just be remembered as a common slut." Sometimes even the guilty are victims, and to review their guilt is sophistry.
Okay, Madman, let's take a look at what comes just before the passage you quoted and see if we can determine what Radosh means when he refers to the "accepted narrative":
"According to the familiar but utterly romanticized script, the screenwriters, directors and actors who flirted with and joined the Communist Party are unadulterated heroes — just 'liberals in a hurry.' It is a simple black-and-white tale, as they tell it: The villains were the Hollywood moguls who blacklisted them, the liberals who abandoned the fight, and most of all, the 'friendly' ex-communist witnesses who testified about their lives in the party and named names of old associates to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
It is a fable that has acquired an almost irresistible weight as a result of half a century of telling and retelling. Read Lillian Hellman. Or go see the Irwin Winkler film 'Guilty by Suspicion.'
But is it true? Certainly the blacklist harmed the careers of some of Hollywood's finest. Its damage extended not only to actual party members but, in some cases, to the well-meaning who joined party-controlled 'popular front' organizations. But the accepted narrative obscures the important truth about communist influence in Hollywood."
The "romanticized script," "simple black-and-white tale," "fable," Lillian Hellman, Irwin Winkler -- all of these terms refer to the myth of HUAC victims as "unadulterated heroes." When he asks "is it true?" he is asking whether those myths and fables are true. When he refers to the harm that was done to the careers of the victims, he is pausing before his discussion of "the accepted narrative" to acknowledge that the victims of McCarthyism were indeed victims and to forestall precisely the kind of criticism that you leveled at him. I think your criticism resulted partly from your misunderstanding of the antecedent for "accepted narrative." Radosh is clearly not suggesting that the fact that these people were not unadulterated heroes justifies their victimization.
"It is possible, of course, that what Radosh means by the "accepted narrative" is this supposed 'myth' of the heroism of folk like the Hollywood Ten. Here the discussion of the 'crimes' of the Hollywood Ten in tandem with an account of the HUAC is disingenuous. Nothing the Hollywood Ten did justified the abuses of the HUAC, so why they should not be 'allowed to wear their appearance before the HUAC as a badge of honor' is a mystery to me."
Why should they wear their appearance as a badge of honor? Because they hewed more courageously to the Party line, to the detriment of their careers? I took Radosh's reference to their being allowed to wear their appearance as a "badge of honor" to mean that the fact of their victimization was used by those with their own historical axe to grind (Hellman is a good example)to obscure the unsavory facts about what these people supported and defended.
"The blacklist was a godsend" is the wierdest moment in this diatribe, as if Radosh is confident that tbe Ten would never have traded job security for the halo of martyrdom. The cogency of historical analysis depends to a great extent on how the issue is framed, and Radosh's 'godsend' assertion is no different than saying something akin to 'If so-and-so hadn't been raped she'd just be remembered as a common slut.' Sometimes even the guilty are victims, and to review their guilt is sophistry."
-- But, whatever their reasons, "the Ten" DID choose to trade job security for the halo of martyrdom. As for the analogy you make between calling the Ten's HUAC appearance a "godsend" and saying "If so-and-so hadn't been raped she'd just be remembered as a common slut," well . . . that statement may be insensitive, but it may also be true. That a woman is a "common slut" does not justify or mitigate her rape, but that she was raped does not glorify her sluttishness. It may be sophistry to review her "guilt" in the context of her accuser's trial for rape, but it is by no means sophistry to review her "guilt" in other contexts if it happens to be a matter of historical significance. If The American Slut Party and their fellow travelers used her rape in order to suggest that her sluttishness was heroic, it's perfectly legitimate to make that political exploitation of her rape part of one's historical analysis.
Another myth is that the Blacklist predominantly targeted Jews. Speaking as a Jew, there were so many Jews who were NOT blacklisted, and so many Gentiles who WERE-even Paul Revere descendant Anne Revere-that It's ridiculous to say it was just a cheap excuse to get Jews.
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