[From a discussion on 10-18-20}
I won’t be surprised if Ian Baruma lands on his feet.
Though the editors of the New York Review of Books deny it, it seems likely
that some sort of pressure was applied to make him resign.
Perhaps if we were to say that Baruma was a victim of the
Feminist Movement – or something like that, we could as a sort of analogy recall that
there was once a “Red Scare” movement and Joseph McCarthy for a while was its
spokesman. The Feminist Movement is still growing strong and no one is
discrediting it that I’m aware of. There were plenty of people
discrediting the Red Scare movement however and eventually McCarthy became a
victim of matters he didn’t manage very well.
Kremlin documents have been examined by Western historians and
there were indeed spies in our Pentagon and elsewhere in our country. The
Verona Papers record communication between the USSR ambassadors office in
Washington with the USSR, and Soviet spies were mentioned. J. Edgar
Hoover was privy to this but was unwilling to do anything with the information
overtly. Truman was president at the time and Dean Acheson was secretary
of state. One of the Soviet spies was a personal friend of Acheson and
Truman liked him. Hoover would send information to McCarthy about these
matters without giving him the evidence behind the information. McCarthy
took the information and tried to make something of it, but he was an alcoholic
in poor health who was a Republican and hated by Truman; so he crashed and
burned.
Years ago I read a couple of books about the Verona Papers and
the information historians obtained when the Kremlin files were made
public. An important American News Reporter happened to be a Soviet
sleeper agent and the chief antagonist of McCarthy. McCarthy didn’t have
a chance. Interestingly, I first read about these matters in the NYROB
and then subsequently ordered the books that were mentioned in the NYROB
articles. One important antagonist of McCarthy’s was questioned about the
Verona papers and the books publishing the discoveries from the Kremlin
documents. He said “I don’t care. Maybe we were wrong, but you
needed to be there. In those days it was right to be wrong!” In
retrospect he was right – sort of – Yes there were spies in government and
sleeper-agents in various places, but it didn’t matter. The USSR was
never going to overthrow our government or seriously hamper our anti-communist
military activities. At root was the fact that we could outspend
them. Our economy with all our entrepreneurs was better than anything the
Soviet Union’s economy could achieve.
Looking back, I began work at Douglas in 1959 at age 24. I
recall some arguments I had with a member of the John Birch Society, an engineer
who had escaped from the Soviet Union with his family. He had severe
ulcers and chewed some chalky antacid pills as we argued. He would get so
mad that white spittle would dribble down his chin as he raged at me. He
later told me that he had considered turning me into the Douglas Security
department, but decided that I was merely deluded and represented no
threat. I don’t think I had bad arguments back then. I argued that
the USSR was not going to be able to overthrow our government and the John
Birch Society was over-reacting. I also argued that China was not
interested in converting the world to Communism. Historically China was
more interested in their internal matters than anything of a wider
nature.
In any case I find it interesting that there really were spies
in the American government, and that McCarthy was really onto something, but
even to this day almost anyone who discusses this matter is more critical of
McCarthy than of the Soviet Government for putting spies in our government and
of the Soviet agents who undermined our government and only incidentally
McCarthy as well. It is called “the Red Scare” when other terms might
better describe what was really happening. There really were red
spies. “Scare” makes fun of McCarthy’s failed attempts to out them.
But as I hiked I also thought about the squatter encampments on the
river. Was I being unfair to them in thinking they were there because of
bad choices. I had friends that I tried to influence. We were all
from blue-collar families. I tried to talk several of them into going
into the Marine Corps with me. No one did. Later after I got out of
the Marine Corps, I tried to talk them into going to college. No one
did. They would rather be “idle” in the Defoe sense of the word. In
Edgell Rickword’s article “The Social Setting (1780-1830)” in From Blake to
Byron, (volume 5 from) The New Pelican Guide to Literature. Rickword
writes,
“When Defoe had toured Great Britain it was with the
consciousness of a man of business that he enjoyed the countryside. The
gentlemens mansions, the near farmsteads, and stout cottages seemed to him a
natural reward for industry and enterprise. Wealth appeared to be a
secretion from the process of exchange, whether it concerned a luxury from the
Far East or a farmer’s crop brought to the local market. It was a process
by which everybody gained (though some gained much more than others), excepting
the idle, the extravagant, and the afflicted. The idle and extravagant
brought their punishment on themselves, they were bound to ‘break’; the
afflicted, since they suffered by decree of Providence, ought to be relieved by
private charity. . . .”
That puts the matter in a better perspective for me. If it
is the “idle and the extravagant” that are in those tents we hike past, then I
may be a little justified in my criticism. They are there because they
broke. But if they are “the afflicted,” and I do wonder about that
whenever I talk to one of them, then they are there through no fault of their
own. “Afflicted” would have to be expanded upon. Maybe someone with
an IQ of 60 might be considered “afflicted,” but would such a man be able to
erect the complicated tents and property defenses I have seen down there?
I think a higher IQ is required, and if the people down there possess these
higher IQs perhaps they more rightly belong in one of the other of Defoe’s
categories.
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