One industry is flourishing in America once again. Its return to prominence marks another milestone in our history. President Trump can mark this one up as a victory for his campaign strategy to bring back manufacturing. This industry hasn’t been this productive since the 50s and now it has returned. The only problem is that, this industry creates no jobs, pays no salaries, and is damaging to the environment.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!
Yes, the hate industry is flourishing once again in America. Not since the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy has the hate industry created so much discord in American life. McCarthy, and his lawyer Roy Cohn, fanned the flames of hatred and fear and manufactured the villain du jure, communism. The official hate words were commies, reds, and pinkos.
It can’t go unnoticed that the common denominator between the hatred of Joe McCarthy and that espoused by Donald Trump, is Roy Cohn. He was at McCarthy’s side as his chief legal counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. He was also Donald Trump’s mentor and lawyer during his early rise to fame. Trump’s lament after Jeff Sessions recused himself in the investigation of Trump’s campaign ties to Russia was, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
Dictators and authoritarian leaders need their boogeyman to distract the public from what is really going on before their very eyes. Blinded by hate, other distasteful things go unnoticed. The often successful ploy is to create a problem and then come up with a solution to that problem that coincidentally expands your power and takes away once enjoyed freedoms.
Hitler had Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Freemasons, Blacks, and Spanish Republicans. Trump’s list includes virtually all Black and brown people of Spanish and Haitian decent whom he has branded as “illegals.” He has collectively labeled them as rapists, drug dealers, criminals, and gang members. Much like McCarthy’s hunt for Communists, Trump’s hunt for “illegals” has led to a trampling of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution under the guise of protecting it.
The pejorative term “illegal aliens” is now used to include anyone who doesn’t kiss the ring of America’s Fuhrer. Even if you are in this country legally and have followed all legal directives, you may be deported without a trial. Trump has even hinted that naturalized citizen, Elon Musk, should face “very serious consequences” for his comments about Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Trump’s former campaign chairmen, Steve Bannon has called for Elon’s deportation.
The American hate industry is manufacturing its product at an alarming rate. The Nazi SS has been replaced by Homeland Security’s ICE agents in full military regalia in masks and without nametags. Hate begets terror, and violence is sure to follow. That hate will be used for a further trampling of our freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and laws. When Donald Trump promised to bring back manufacturing, no one imagined that hate would be our new main export.
If you haven’t seen, Good Night, and Good Luck, I highly recommend watching it. The parallels between the McCarthy era and today are frightening.
I leave you now with the final verses of The Merry Minuet.
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.
They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.
[Footnote] McCarthy created what was labeled “McCarthyism” and later, when it was safe for him to do so, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it McCarthywasm. McCarthy died in 1957 at the age of 48 from liver failure brought on by years of alcoholism and his morphine addiction. Much like Donald Trump, McCarthy’s sexual antics were a topic of much concern. He was accused of inappropriate behavior towards young girls and there were rumors that J. Edgar Hoover had affidavits of such conduct with girls younger than ten. It was also known that McCarthy frequented a Milwaukee gay bar and had an association with an ex-Communist homosexual, Charles E. Davis. His FBI file contained one allegation of sodomy on an Army lieutenant. All events seem to be associated with his heavy drinking.
In another piece of background on McCarthy, he lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war.
In another segue, when I was being processed by the Draft Board in the early 60s, I was forced to sign a "loyalty oath." In that lengthy signed statement was a disclaimer that I had not been a member of a long list of "subversive" organizations. I had never even heard of most of them. One stood out for its specificity, The Society to Free Earl Browder. I looked him up and wondered why Mr. Browder needed to be free. It seems he was the head of the American Communist Party and ran for president twice. His grandson, Bill Browder headed up Hermitage Capital Management that operated for 10 years in Moscow. That same Bill Browder, in July of 2017, said Trump had no choice but to accept sanctions against Russia. It seems that Mr Browder is an enemy of the Putin regime while Trump is now a supporter. That was a convoluted rabbit hole I didn't see coming.
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