I was pondering: just when was the last time we saw anything comparable to the "anti-terror" roundups and persecutions that appear to be unfolding now? COINTELPRO, back in the 60s, doesn't begin to compare. Even the glory days of Truman's HUAC, in the late 40s and early 50s, may fall short -- we might have to go back to Wilson's original Red Scare back in what, 1918?
It's all quite puzzling, in a way. Mainly because us lefties, who are being targeted at the moment, have seldom, if ever, posed less of a threat to the established order than we do now.
Of course we weren't much of a threat during the HUAC years, either, and even during the Red Scare years, though we had some downright desperadoes among us, we were hardly poised to topple the Republic. So whence the various Scares?
It's interesting that Obie -- a Democrat -- is coming down on us a lot harder than Bush ever did.
Coincidentally, HUAC was a creation of the 79th Congress, in 1945, when the Democrats still had the White House and Congress but were busy winding down the New Deal. And Wilson's Red Scare, too, got ginned up by a War Democrat in the White House and a War Democratic Congress.
Hmmmm. One senses the serpentine stirrings of an hypothesis down in the dark recesses of one's brain.
I wonder whether the Democrats are not, at the end of the day, even more interested in purging the Left than the Republicans are -- because for the Democrats, lefties are a minor though galling base problem, whereas they aren't at all for the Republicans.
Au contraire. In fact the Republicans love us. We're the Raw-Head-And-Bloody-Bones they display to make honest Amurricans' flesh creep.
But for the Democrats we're a bit of a problem. As long as we're lulled we're okay. We'll turn out reliably for the Lesser Evil, and though we may grimace as we pull the lever, what matters is that we pull it in the right direction.
But if we get restive....
Why then we might disenchant some broader component of the usually reliable and docile mildly-left base, and then, who knows? the Donkles would have to go back into opposition two or four years sooner than they otherwise might.
Comments (8)
The SecDef visits Dook:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZb6mYolsMFwTJ0uC4keIcFxFyLwD9IHRA3O0?docId=D9IHRA3O0
The takeaway:
"Without offering specifics, Gates said a system must be created that is generous enough to recruit and retain people without causing the Defense Department to sink under the weight of personnel costs."
Posted by Flak | September 30, 2010 7:49 AM
Posted on September 30, 2010 07:49
Seems like FDRs internment camps have a place in this lineage too.
Posted by marcus | September 30, 2010 8:26 AM
Posted on September 30, 2010 08:26
"It's all quite puzzling, in a way. Mainly because us lefties, who are being targeted at the moment, have seldom, if ever, posed less of a threat to the established order than we do now."
I thought the same thing about the G20 events. My guess is that both were largely a make-work projects used to justify budgets.
Posted by FB | September 30, 2010 9:59 AM
Posted on September 30, 2010 09:59
The institutional siege mentality can't make realistic distinctions. Any perceived threat to the status quo gets a look-over, with hostile actions against it predicated on the ease of carrying them out. Lefty-lites and suburban populist righties can be co-opted painlessly. There are established routines for that. They'll caucus amicably and with professional courtesy once they get a taste of officially sanctioned representation.
The more recalcitrant groups come in for extra attention, and are attractive to budget and publicity minded careerists. It doesn't hurt that it's much easier and safer to harass meliorists than well-armed, well-organized, batshit paranoid militias. Especially those militias with kissing cousin ties to "respectable" members of the corporate state.
Posted by Al Schumann | September 30, 2010 12:53 PM
Posted on September 30, 2010 12:53
You are all correct.
Posted by Jay Taber | September 30, 2010 2:10 PM
Posted on September 30, 2010 14:10
"...the last time we saw anything comparable to the "anti-terror" roundups and persecutions that appear to be unfolding now? "
at long last father S
have you lost your grip ???
this is piddle de piddle
unless u happen to be in the cross hairs
yes the anti muslim GWOT
and the pro zionic
punitive romps
have recently
maybe
taken a curiously sharp
domestic turn
but isn't some of this
perhaps
quite independent of WH direction ???
why isn't it fairly clear
this playful brute type nonsense
can't match
the hit put on the black panthers ..can it??
let alone earlier waves
btw marcus
i agree the japanese american
internment camps look incomparably bigger
but not an anti left action eh ??
Posted by op | September 30, 2010 10:31 PM
Posted on September 30, 2010 22:31
"Obama regime has begun a major campaign to criminalize and crush the Left. Think COINTELPRO, 21st century-style. President Obama, the constitutional rights lawyer who claims the right to kill at will, seeks to strangle the activist opposition to his wars and pro-Wall Street policies"
fever pitch !!!
perhaps the very fecklessness
of the present " pink fight back"
has provoked
this amp up
in the ongoing reign of woodchuck terror
Posted by op | September 30, 2010 10:40 PM
Posted on September 30, 2010 22:40
Thus OP:
That's a good point. Being a paleface myself, I was comparing the current Palmer Raids with the sort of stuff Lyndon and Dick put in place against other palefaces, back in the day. Of course the people whose doors got broken in last week are also mostly palefaces, and so maybe the comparison is like-to-like.
But yeah. When it's non-palefaces, the gloves are really off, and always have been.
Posted by MJS | October 1, 2010 10:29 PM
Posted on October 1, 2010 22:29