Are you now or were you ever a communist?"
(some of the most frightening words to be uttered in the decade of the fifties)
We have come far since the ‘50s and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s power orgy/commie hunt—but what if.
The so-called sanguine years, “Happy Days”, of the fifties were no such thing for the intelligentsia, the free thinkers, and the artists of the day, especially the writers. Freedom of speech was up for grabs, put in peril by a few power hungry demagogues in the name of national security. Looking back now, one might say it was frightening as hell—and ultimately we were all threatened. In that atmosphere of no “f--k” speak, poodle skirts and flat top haircuts, conformity was almost a religion. The news media and publishers of the day (also abjectly fearful) told us what was right and virtuous. Thus, for a while we of the middle class stayed in lock step and went trippingly down the yellow brick road. But those who truly knew what was taking place were cowered into acting exactly as the proletariat in a communist country: scared to speak or act differently from the power’s imposition. Ironic, is it not? Sound familiar, Dixie Chicks?
Virtually everyone today has lips pursed, ready to wax political with an opinion no matter how controversial or insipid. But that was not the case in the late ‘40s through the mid ‘50s. Many subjects, of course, were taboo: explicit hetero-sex, homosexuality, drugs, civil rights, interracial marriage, bad stuff ad nauseam, but none was so punitive causal as that smacking of pro-communism. When it came to communism, (except to rail against it) mouths snapped shut, tighter than a working girl’s "asset" at an Elmer Gantry revival. For there was a piper to pay: The House Un-American Activities Committee, for which, Senator Joseph McCarthy was Grand Dragoon.
One could literally lose one’s physical freedom during those days, or one's life. (Some committed suicide. Others drank themselves to death. Many simply left the country, the "land of the free".) “The Hollywood Ten”, the more celebrated of the many, went to prison for refusing to be complicit in trampling a freedom supposedly guaranteed by the first amendment, (Brave souls were they who refused to answer the committee’s questions and were subsequently charged with contempt of congress). And hundreds were blacklisted from earning a living because they would not “rat out’ their friends, friends who would be dragged before the committee and be put on the rack the same as he or she had been strung and plucked.
Many celebrities talked the talk back then, but when the nut— or the tit, as the case may be— was in the vise, they just could not bring themselves to defy the committee. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and John Huston, my very favorite actors, and director, were among those who could not walk the walk. They had come to Washington to support the Hollywood Ten, but left without lending that support as soon as they found out that they could be blacklisted. What a shame; they might have made the difference.
Could those dark days from the ‘50s return riding the back of the terrorist threat? Of course, they could. We’ve already taken steps in that direction. All that is needed is another major terrorist attack, and another Joseph McCarthy will come crawling out of that congressional slop jar to feed.
Next installment: The Communist Village, Yellow Springs, Ohio, the place where I was born, the home of Antioch College where Rod Serling and Correta Scott King were educated. It's also the home of funnyman Dave Chappelle. Can you dig it, daddio?
