Article about Commie Sympathizers in Reason

Great? You should learn that something is not great just because you agree with it.

In my opinion, the above article is biased drivel written in a rather stupid demagogic tone.

The points are valid, but rather than actually substantiating anything they pull random examples (a newspaper article on a visit to Lynch's family? What the fuck?) out of their ass. Snyde and pointless, targeting specific people and telling specific anecdotes rather than looking at the big picture.

Man, that was dumb. Any article that depicts people it agrees with as saviours of humanity pitted against the people they don't agree with, shown as daemons of evil misinformation, is hardly worthy of being read, let alone to be taken seriously.

Not to mention how it just tails of into bland misrepresentation of facts later of. "More broadly, people like Schrecker can’t or won’t understand that their culture of denial is what created McCarthyism." What the hell is wrong with whoever wrote this? Is anyone thát stupid? That's like saying Christians created the Ottoman Empire or Great Britain created The Republic of Ireland.

Didn't read the notes, and skimmed through some bits of it, couldn't bring myself to read it all.
 
I confess I didn't read the whole of it.

However, the person who wrote it could remember who trained in ft. Bragg Salvadoran and Nicaraguan guerrillas to slaughter each other, instead of blaming "commie sympathyzers" for the whole situation.
When the population was fed up with being a banana republic, why would they refuse a government that offers "equality, pay, welfare" and similar bullshit promises when the previous offered slaving for foreign companies?
 
Great? You should learn that something is not great just because you agree with it.
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Aye, that's fair enough. Reason, as a magazine, is meant for my kind of people. Thus it's purpose is not to persuade, but illuminate an already heald position.

Snyde and pointless, targeting specific people and telling specific anecdotes rather than looking at the big picture.
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That's a valid point, but the anecdotes where interesting enough. And I'm not exactly sure who would dispute the idea that there is generally a nasty apologetic tone in, say, the Nation.

"More broadly, people like Schrecker can’t or won’t understand that their culture of denial is what created McCarthyism." What the hell is wrong with whoever wrote this? Is anyone thát stupid? That's like saying Christians created the Ottoman Empire or Great Britain created The Republic of Ireland
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Tsk tsk. Where is your post-modern moral relitivism?

McArthysm, as a reactionary movement, was created by something. That something was communism. That something was-as the article said-a bizzare disregard for communist elements in the American government.

However, the person who wrote it could remember who trained in ft. Bragg Salvadoran and Nicaraguan guerrillas to slaughter each other, instead of blaming "commie sympathyzers" for the whole situation.
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It was not a war of equals, Wooz. You, of all the people on this board, should realize that. You think Lech Walesa was just high or something when he fought for slaving for foriegn corporations against the foul machinations of genocidal beauricrats?

When the population was fed up with being a banana republic, why would they refuse a government that offers "equality, pay, welfare" and similar bullshit promises when the previous offered slaving for foreign companies?
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I think you know exactly why. Because they where lying. What they where offering was a nother shitheaded dictator, only without the hope of future economic prosperity.
 
Read it through. Kind of dumb really.

Hell, the CIA didn't know the Soviet Union was teetering on the brink of collapse, or forecast the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Yes, the Sandinistas received a lot of sympathy. Hell, most of Central America was a mess at the time and part of that had to do with dictators propped up by the US.

On the other hand, George Kennan did figure out early in the Cold War. Just contain them and the Soviets would eventually fall apart.

But the reasons why people didn't get it was perhaps because academia is a fashion business. At one point behavioralism was the fad. Then ideology was considered to be 'wrong.'

It's pretty fucky stupid and one of the problems related to Jebus's thread on small stories, that academia is becoming less relevant the more it climbs up into it's ivory tower and strokes off on itself.
 
You know, I might've read through it, if it had been a decent article. Ie. not spilled with useless facts, blaming solely "lefties" for revisionist history, while they are committing the very same crime in that article, and trying to make it appear like anyone who is somehow a bit communist is supporting Stalin's murders.
Bah.

McArthysm, as a reactionary movement, was created by something. That something was communism. That something was-as the article said-a bizzare disregard for communist elements in the American government.
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Ehhh....no. McCarthyism was not caused by communism, it was caused by the fact that there was such a thing as an enemy. It does not matter that communism was the enemy, it might as well have been fascism.
 
You know, I might've read through it, if it had been a decent article. Ie. not spilled with useless facts, blaming solely "lefties" for revisionist history, while they are committing the very same crime in that article, and trying to make it appear like anyone who is somehow a bit communist is supporting Stalin's murders.
Bah.
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Actually, it makes fun of Coulter near the end.

Ehhh....no. McCarthyism was not caused by communism, it was caused by the fact that there was such a thing as an enemy. It does not matter that communism was the enemy, it might as well have been fascism.
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Fascism WAS caused by Communism (as well as other things).

McArthyism was an overreaction to a real problem. I don't think anyone has yet to refute that there WHERE Soviet sympathisers in the Roosevelt administration?
 
ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
Aye, that's fair enough. Reason, as a magazine, is meant for my kind of people. Thus it's purpose is not to persuade, but illuminate an already heald position.
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"Give the people what they want to hear", huh?

I used to be subscribed to two Dutch newspapers, the Trouw and the Volkskrant. But the Trouw's often biased views were beginning to annoy me, even if I agreed with them, so now I'm going with Volkskrant and Rotterdams Dagblad.

Never trust anyone that's saying exactly what you want to hear.

ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
That's a valid point, but the anecdotes where interesting enough. And I'm not exactly sure who would dispute the idea that there is generally a nasty apologetic tone in, say, the Nation.
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Yes, some anecdotes were interesting.

And the idea is not the problem.

ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
Tsk tsk. Where is your post-modern moral relitivism?
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Right between shit and Picasso.

ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
McArthysm, as a reactionary movement, was created by something. That something was communism. That something was-as the article said-a bizzare disregard for communist elements in the American government.
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I disagree. McArthyism wasn't *caused* by communism, no more than the Jews caused nazism by being in Germany (it always comes back to the nazis, doesn't it?)

McArthyism was a reaction to communism, this, however, doesn't mean communism was it's cause. Another comparison: the KKK was a reaction to black presence, yet black presence did not cause the KKK.

"cause" implies a level of responsibility, which is partially the case, but not entirely. If I had to point at the major cause of McArthy's insanity, I would simply put it up with paranoid delusions caused by too much threat and not enough action. But that's just me.
 
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