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Jack Batson: On the Left

Does history repeat itself? Do we learn from history?

The answer to the first question is, yes, in that the pendulum of governance swings back and forth from liberal to conservative. Do we learn from history? Not much. There are experts who learn, but theyre pointy-headed snowflakes who are often drowned out by the barking jackals and baying wolves of politics.

So we might want to know if the present conservative state of mind has any antecedent. And well, well, now that you ask, yes, we have several previous outbreaks of conservative hysteria. In all previous cases, conservatives have become utterly convinced that some dreadful anti-American force is about to take us over, gobble us up and change the America that you and I know and love.

The first such episode occurred in 1692 in Salem. There, the devil himself was fast at work to possess people and overtake Gods chosen people, the godly folks of the theocracy of Massachusetts. Girls saw visions of the red fellow himself. At trial they would convulse as they saw spectral creatures lurking. These unseen spirits were admissible in court as spectral evidence, a category of evidence that would later be dispensed with for good reason.

Anyway, the Bible directed that Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, so our godly ancestors dutifully hanged 19 people who presented such an intolerable threat to Gods own experiment. The victims, history shows, were Salems others, often single cranky women. Years later, formerly enthusiastic pastors apologized in repentance for the hysteria. The cloud lifted.

The second episode occurred in 1919 just after Lenin called for a worldwide communist revolution to include, of course, fair, trembling America. A young, gay crimefighter from the Justice Department, J. Edgar Hoover, was put in charge of defending us from communism. He rounded up all the commies he could find and exported them to their countries of origin and cleansed the nation of the pollution. It was called The Big Red Scare. It passed away.

Then came Joe McCarthy. The commies had just taken over China and the commies in North Korea had just invaded South Korea. Triumphant communism was on the march! The reds in the USSR had just exploded an A-bomb, stolen from us. Surely, someone had helped them get The Bomb so soon. Surely, there were commies in the government! Firing accusations like Yosemite Sam, drunken Joe McCarthy, waiving a piece of paper, claimed that he had the names of 205 card-carrying communists in the State Department. A week later the number changed. He couldnt divulge the names (because there were none), but they would be duly exposed, so a witch trial began again.

Joe and his evil attack dog, Roy Cohn, masquerading as a human being, suggested that President Dwight D. Eisenhower might be a communist or at least a fellow-traveler, because he endorsed Social Security and tolerated unions. But when he attacked the Army, he finally went too far. Finally, sir, have you no sense of decency? asked Army attorney Joseph Welch. The public, viewing that new-fangled TV thing, saw the thug in action. McCarthy lost his support and the frenzy subsided.

Finally, of course, we have todays frenzied convulsion. In the name of Americanism, President Trump-Putin is ending Americas 230-year experiment in democracy. This time the un-American, unpatriotic enemy is liberalism, the force that gave us the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and most of the moments and actions that have made us proud.

This time, however, the Joe Welches have been drowned out by the conservative media megaphone, led by Fox. Again, lies are told, told again, and told again. Again, passion overcomes reason: Our duly elected president did nothing wrong, No-Thing Wrong, NOTHING WRONG. They have no proof. NO PROOF!

This time, the barking jackals and howling wolves are tearing at the Constitution and leading us to authoritarian governance and Russification of our policies. The return of the pendulum may come too late. This time, the devil may win.

Jack Batson is a former member of the Fairfield City Council. Reach him atjsbatson@prodigy.net.

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Originally posted here:
On the Left: Witch hunts abound here - Fairfield Daily Republic