Murrow on McCarthy, no fear, 1954

[kpete]

Edward R. Murrow's most powerful anti-McCarthy broadcast, March 1954. This is the one that took McCarthy down! This is Murrow's most famous, and most inspiring, 2-min speech.

[wasupaloopa]

1. I saw that speech when it was on TV

I was just a kid and did not understand what it was about but I remember people looking for commies everywhere.

Back them people looked at communism as an alternative to people being exploited.

They were not meaning to overthrow the government. But fearful people were led to believe that these folks were working for Russia.

But today trump is working for Russia and I think a handful of Repubs are too.

[badhair77]

2. "given comfort to the enemy"

Several months before the election our business partner, who is much younger than my husband and I, asked if the trump campaign was like Watergate. Right away I stated it’s reminiscent of the McCarthy era. Just from the lies and the rallies. Now we have the investigations, the guilt by association, the false accusations, and it goes on and on. Life did not turn out well for McCarthy and those that aligned themselves with him.

[lambchopp59]

3. Agreed, I utttered those "this is a repeat of McCarthy-ism" prior to Frumps election...

Naively believing we as a nation had learned our lesson well enough NOT to repeat that mistake.
November, shocked I tells ya, shocked to find we hadn't. What am I saying... BS, WE had. The Fox and Hate-radio hordes don't recognize it, and apparently a few of those who would join us lacked motivation, probably convinced of the "no difference in the politicians" meme.
aaaargh...

[BarbD]

4. Fear is a powerful, driving force.

I was a teenager living in Milwaukee in 1954 when "Better dead than Red" was the cry. The times were scary. The University of Wisconsin was deemed rampant with "pinko" professors. Catholics prayed for the conversion of Russia.

Later I worked with a former teacher who lost his job because he refused to sign a loyalty oath as a matter of principle. Many people were hurt because of blacklisting.

As fearsome as those times were, in all of my 80 years I have NEVER witnessed such a threat to our way of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However I celebrate those who have shown courage and stood up to the corruption of Trump and his Republican enablers.

[TeamPooka]

5. Now the "Russian dupes" are all republicans. It's kind of ironic to those of us who lived

through the Cold War

[Rhiannon12866]

6. K&R. We need to do a better job of teaching history in this country

These are lessons that we've forgotten at our peril.