6:30 PM, Sunday, October 09, 2005 -- the "journalists" on KOIN said that the new George Clooney Film about broadcast "journalist" Edward R. Murrow is based on a true story.  This is baloney.  The film is fiction because Edward R. Murrow's coverage of the HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities)  hearings of the mid-20th Century was fictional.

These are the famous McCarthy Hearings, which according to KOIN "journalists" (because their college professors and all the national "journalists" told them so) were about a phony communist scare generated by evil rightwing conservative witchhunters back then.  The term "witchhunt" was actually used in this evening's KOIN report.  Okay, get ready for the truth, which is something you should never expect from KOIN.

McCarthy was right

The subject of the McCarthy hearings was communist infiltration of many aspects of American life, from unions to government.  Of particular interest were reports concerning theft of nuclear secrets by spies and fellow travelers (American traitors).  These witches actually existed, as (can you believe it?) PBS proved in a program run last year on that network.  Soviet spies and their American operatives in government went after nuclear secrets and got them.  The very charges by McCarthy, in other words, were dead on target.  Accurate to the last punctuation mark.  

Next, communist infiltration of unions -- specifically Hollywood groups.  Not long before his death, Stalin is reported to have been asked about his connections to Hollywood during those days.  He called the Hollywood folks "useful idiots."  I have not seen it, but have heard that somebody came up with a note written by Stalin to some of the Hollywood union people, instructing them in the art of using movies as anti-capitalist, pro-communist propaganda vehicles.  I thought at the time I first heard about it that the idea was a bit silly, then discovered, in a batch of DVDs of old films, one written by a woman named in the McCarthy Hearings.  The movie is titled "North Star," and you owe it to yourself to see it.  

It is the most boring, manipulative pile of stinking communist propaganda ever created on this planet.  I've seen operas with better plots.  But, if you can find it, you must watch it.  At least look up the film in some internet library. Check out the names in the credits.  You'll see some of the occupants of the hated blacklist, there.  (Folks who refused to answer questions about their communist party connections -- which a great many had -- were often put on a list of banned workers, and couldn't make a living telling lies, any more.)

John Wayne and Ronald Reagan were right.  Charleton Heston is right.  The screenwriters, at least, were guilty as hell of generating anti-American, pro-communist slop by the bucketloads back then.. Have you ever seen a WWII film that showed the Soviet Union was a member of Hitler's Axis when that war began?  And, you never will -- for the same reason.  Have you ever been told that NAZI stands for national socialism , which means the control of the means of production by the government -- which is pure Marxism?  Now, as then, the Hollywood scene is dominated by leftists, whose only villains are rightwingers.  Conservatives. Capitalists.  And Christians, particularly evangelicals.  Rent a film called "Elmer Gantry," and see it for yourself.

(In one of the Planet of the Apes remakes, a TV version, the gorillas actually utter phrases you have heard at Republican conventions!  It is a hoot how simple minded and obvious these liberal entertainment types are!)

Clooney Tunes

So, your Sunday KOIN (Portland, Oregon) "news" staff once more has fed you a line of crap.  McCarthy said the commies were trying to steal government secrets, and PBS half a century later finally admitted that it was true.  McCarthy said the commies were influencing the movie unions, and North Star, among other films, proves they were.   

Mr. Clooney's film is perfect.  Leftwing Hollywood produces a film about a leftwing journalist who attacked people for doing things which fifty years later the queen of leftwing networks, PBS, proved were well done.  Mr. Clooney, Edward R. Murrow and KOIN make fine bedfellows.

Pick your entry point.  Not one of the doors leads to the truth.

(LL)

© 2005 Oregon Magazine