>Are you saying that "fascistic" is not an accurate or rhetorically correct >term for "McCarthyism "? > >Charles
LP: Right. The main purpose of McCarthyism was not to destroy the trade unions as Hitler did in Germany. It was to hound the Communists out of the unions, the universities and other spheres of public life so as to facilitate a more aggressive foreign policy. The Democrats were complicit in this purge as Carrol Cox has pointed out frequently. Harry Truman's loyalty oath for federal employees marked the opening salvos in the witch-hunt. But McCarthy was not interested in a totalitarian state. He simply wanted to turn the clock back to the days of Robert Taft when US rule abroad was unchallenged. The USA of the 1890s has always been the model for George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and other such rogues--not Nazi Germany. ^^^^^ CB: Hounding Communists and other radicals out of trade unions is an attack on trade unions, weakening them if not destroying them. It is certainly a class conscious attack on the working class by the ruling class, as are all the other attacks on Communists in the McCarthyism. Attacks on Communists are attacks on the working class. Hitler is not the only fascist in history. South African fascists outlawed Communists as the McCarthyite did. In other words, McCarthyism is comparable to Apartheid fascism. Do you agree that Apartheid South Africa was fascist ? The McCarthyite attacks on Communist and radical union leaders is comparable the acts of various fascists. Also, a major part of Nazism was illegal war. It didn't just consist in the characteristics you describe above. Bush is carrying out an illegal war and conquest, like the Nazis did. Of course, the Democrats were complicit. Before McCarthy, the Truman administration jailed the National Board of the Communist Party. That it was bipartisan makes it even more like a one party state. If the things at UCLA are merely intramural competition between bourgeois liberals and conservatives, just a "witchhunt" why should we worry about it, unless it portends something more grave ? Like fascism ( which is not identical with Nazism )?
