> Но, с другой стороны, развернувшаяся в то время массовая кампания по борьбе с антиамериканской деятельностью нарушала как основы демократии, так и американскую конституцию и разлагала общество.
In order to make rational choices, one has to compare the costs and the benefits of alternatives. If you don't fight your enemies, the chance that they win grows. Having U.S. being put on its knees, and being converted to the Socialist Republic of United States, is the Real разлozheniye обществa. To ensure that this fate is avoided, it makes sense to pay a Very high price.
I feel stupid using Hitler and nazism in my arguments, but it really makes sense in this case. Suppose it is 1942, and you have evidence that members of the Nazi party of US have infiltrated all levels of U.S. government, and media, and are actively spying for Hitler, and publishing Hitler's propaganda to subvert americans. It is a coordinated attack by the country that you are at war with. Moreover, suppose the horrors of nazi camps are already known. You know that if these people are successful, these things will take place in U.S. Do you really believe that the right thing would have been to do nothing, because trying to stop these people (by having Senate hearings trying to investigate whether this is really true) would hurt their "civil rights"?
The fact that McCarthy's suspicions were right has long been established by historians. See Arthur Herman’s 1999 book, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator; Ann Coulter's book Treason; and the latest "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy, a mammoth (663 pages), painstakingly researched book by veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans".
From the review of "Blacklisted by History": "Blacklisted by History, based on six years of intensive research, dismantles the myths surrounding Joe McCarthy and his campaign to unmask Communists, Soviet agents, and flagrant loyalty risks working within the U.S. government. Evans’s revelations completely overturn our understanding of McCarthy, McCarthyism, and the Cold War.
Drawing on primary sources—including never-before-published government records and FBI files, as well as recent research gleaned from Soviet archives and intercepted transmissions between Moscow spymasters and their agents in the United States—Evans presents irrefutable evidence of a relentless Communist drive to penetrate our government, influence its policies, and steal its secrets. Most shocking of all, he shows that U.S. officials supposedly guarding against this danger not only let it happen but actively covered up the penetration. All of this was precisely as Joe McCarthy contended."
As Ann Coulter wrote in one of her columns "The true story of Joe McCarthy, told in meticulous, irrefutable detail in Blacklisted by History, is that from 1938 to 1946, the Democratic Party acquiesced in a monstrous conspiracy being run through the State Department, the military establishment, and even the White House to advance the Soviet cause within the U.S. government.
In the face of the Democrats' absolute refusal to admit to their fecklessness, fatuity and recklessness in allowing known Soviet spies to penetrate the deepest levels of government, McCarthy demanded an accounting."
"The Democrats had unpardonably connived with the greatest evil of the 20th century. This could not be nullified. But liberals could at least hope to redeem the Democratic Party by dedicating themselves to rewriting history and blackening reputations."
So, there Was a witch hunt in the 50's - its only victim was Joe McCarthy.
> Был, между прочим, на эту тему замечательный фильм: Majestic. Ну, понятное дело, Голливуд, сказка со счастливым концом... Но, как известно, сказка ложь, да в ней намек.
To make the long story short, people that McCarthy was fighting with have won. Now they are out to brainwash the public. They can't use logic and history as arguments, so they just make stuff up to make the people they don't like look bad. Another, similar movie (also by Clooney) is "Good Night, and Good Luck".
Here is a good article about that movie:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... tBody;col1
The movie is partly about Annie Lee Moss, one of the "victims" of McCarthy. Here are the facts (I am quoting the link above):
"The March 11, 1954, McCarthy hearing, in truth, was a devastating indictment of Army security procedures-and Moss herself. McCarthy's chief purpose was to find out how Moss, with her Red background, had been promoted from a cafeteria worker to a Pentagon code clerk with access to classified information.
During the hearings, Moss denied she was a Red, but admitted receiving the Daily Worker, the official organ of the Communist Party, at various addresses she had inhabited over the years. She conceded, after some prodding, the paper "might have been addressed to me" (instead of her husband). She acknowledged that Robert Hall, one of three top Washington, D.C., Communists, had visited her home and that she had lived, for a short while, with Hattie Griffin, an active party member who hosted Communist meetings at her house. Standing alone, this information should have been enough to raise questions as to why she had access to classified material.
More damning evidence was produced. Moss, as the hearings revealed, had been identified as a dues-paying member of the Northeast club of the D.C. Communist Party by FBI undercover informant Mary Markward, and the committee's majority counsel, Roy Conn, stressed that Markward's testimony had been "corroborated" in "a sworn statement" by another witness in executive session.
The clincher on Moss came four years later. The Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB), an agency of the federal government, held a hearing on Markward, partly to determine if she had told the truth about Moss. The SACB's Sept. 19, 1958, verdict, based on board members' viewing D.C. Communist Party records, such as dues rosters and members' living residences, was that the exhibits "corroborate Markward's testimony in the Moss security hearings." The SACB, in short, found that McCarthy had bagged the right Annie Lee Moss"
Can you Imagine what would happen if a Senate Hearing was to uncover that a Pentagon code clerk with access to classified information, along with many others in throughout the government has ties to Taliban? Can you imagine the tables turning, so that the person who has uncovered this scandal is the one being persecuted and condemned?
> На DVD с этим фильмом, кстати, прилагается огромный список голливудских деятелей, которые были в то время blacklisted.
Yes, if you live in USSR during WWII, and you are a nazi supporter, you Should be blacklisted. You should NOT be allowed to work at MosFilm.
> И практически на каждого из них кто-то донес. Некоторые особо отличившиеся стукачи сдавали своих друзей целыми списками. Слаб человек, это известно, но зачем же провоцировать в нем самое низкое и мерзкое?
So, if you know that the identity of a serial murderer, telling the police about him is самое низкое и мерзкое? By talking to the authorities, you would be preventing at most 100 deaths. People who bring down your entire country and your way of life are going to hurt hundreds of millions.
I guess I was more passionate about politics, back then. Also, seeing his photo in my wallet usually made me laugh.
чувствуешь тут себя последним колхозником... 
