Friday, December 09, 2005

Bushism is the new McCarthyism?

Good night and good luck is a good post from the Angry Bear that relates the 50's communist witch hunt era of American politics to modern day vilification of those who oppose the war, US foreign policy (or lack thereof), fight to defend for civil liberties, defend the environment, oppose big corporations, or oppose pretty anything the Republicans do.

Many of us are aware how the Republican spin machine that labels everything bad it does with name that seems to indicate its good. So legislation that will permit an increase in air pollution is called "The Clear Skies Act" and those that permit massive increases in logging of wilderness forest are dubbed "Healthy Forests Initiative". Similarly they have taken to branding everything they do as patriotic, American or in the name of "Freedom" and "Democracy" implying that if we do anything to oppose them it means we are unpatriotic, un-American, un-democratic and against freedom. As the article points out this vilification of dissent is in an of itself as un-American and vile as the country's brief experiment with McCarthyism was.

But hey, you'll have to admit, defocusing the entire nation on a witch hunt is a wonderful and huge distraction, furthermore it gives us some great movies opportunities later on. I wonder will they label this current witch hunting era Bushism, Dubyaism, Republicanism, or NeoConism?

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