Set 'em up, Joe
Nov. 20th, 2005 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyThe film "Good Night and Good Luck" starts out at with a scene set approximately two weeks before I was born. There, I admit it, a few important things occurred before I came into the world. To one who grew up with black and white television, the look and feel of the film was intoxicating. A television was an ovoid screen that was squared off at the top and bottom (ours had a lighted edge for your comfort), fabric covered speaker and wood cabinet that was fine furniture in those days. Cigarettes were omnipresent. It was rude not to have cigs on hand to offer people, even if you didn't smoke. And nonsmokers smoked if the business deal was big enough (you just didn't inhale). It was also quite common to have a bottle of liquor stashed in your desk drawer. So long as you did your work. Wink, wink. Watch Perry Mason (which, by the way, is coming out on DVD early next year!). You'll get it.
But the film was not just eye candy for old timers. It was a true story told as Edward R. Murrow would have told it. In his own words, stark and simple. The story was told in the same way that pulled the covers on Joe McCarthy, premier bogeyman of the 1940's.
History has focused on McCarthy as the center of the anti-communist paranoia of the era, even dubbing such extremism "McCarthyism". What we tend to forget, and what the film brings home in the nail-biting and teeth-gnashing that lead up to the "See It Now" broadcast, was that McCarthy wasn't alone. He had powerful allies, and even the press did not stand up to him. I'm proud to say that our own Senator Wayne Morse from Oregon, was one of only six Republican Senators that joined Senator Margaret Chase Smith in 1950 in her "Declaration of Conscience" against the use of McCarthy's tactics. But it was not until the Murrow's 1954 broadcast that public opinion began to change.
What is worth noting here is that, while alcoholism and morphine addiction brought and end to McCarthy the Man, the end of McCarthyism was brought about by Senate censure. Pay attention to what that issue was at the end of the film, folks. McCarthy was censured for using his influence to pressure the Army to give favorable treatment to a friend. That used to be a very important issue. Do we know anyone in the current administration who might be linked to someone who may have used their influence on the army to get favorable treatment for a friend or family member?
But the film was not just eye candy for old timers. It was a true story told as Edward R. Murrow would have told it. In his own words, stark and simple. The story was told in the same way that pulled the covers on Joe McCarthy, premier bogeyman of the 1940's.
History has focused on McCarthy as the center of the anti-communist paranoia of the era, even dubbing such extremism "McCarthyism". What we tend to forget, and what the film brings home in the nail-biting and teeth-gnashing that lead up to the "See It Now" broadcast, was that McCarthy wasn't alone. He had powerful allies, and even the press did not stand up to him. I'm proud to say that our own Senator Wayne Morse from Oregon, was one of only six Republican Senators that joined Senator Margaret Chase Smith in 1950 in her "Declaration of Conscience" against the use of McCarthy's tactics. But it was not until the Murrow's 1954 broadcast that public opinion began to change.
What is worth noting here is that, while alcoholism and morphine addiction brought and end to McCarthy the Man, the end of McCarthyism was brought about by Senate censure. Pay attention to what that issue was at the end of the film, folks. McCarthy was censured for using his influence to pressure the Army to give favorable treatment to a friend. That used to be a very important issue. Do we know anyone in the current administration who might be linked to someone who may have used their influence on the army to get favorable treatment for a friend or family member?
