AMDG

History

"No Sense of Decency"

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

That famous phrase was uttered by Joseph M. Welch, the attorney for the Army during the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954. It was directed at Senator Joseph M. McCarthy, a powerful Wisconsin Congressman who was infamous for his communist witchunting. It was an era of fears of a communist takeover, of smear tactics, paranoid suspicion and guilt by association in the United States . McCarthy and his cohort Roy Cohn were despised by many but feared by even more. Even the President (Ike), who hated him, feared him and refused to silence him. Besides, McCarthy was also was a close friend of old Joe Kennedy and so even JFK and RFK did not step in as he ruined the reputation and careers of countless numbers of innocent men and women in public life. If you didn't cooperate or agree with McCarthy, you were labeled "a Communist"

In the Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy claimed to have lists of countless numbers of "card-carrying" communists in the US Army --lists that he wouldn't show to anyone. I watched every minute of the Hearings, live, on Black and White Television, not knowing much about the current events and politics of the day. I was a Jesuit high school senior who had just read Bishop Sheen's "Communism and the Conscience of the West" and was a staunch anti-communist like most of my friends in school. But it didn't take me long to realize what vipers McCarthy and Cohn were.

In the famous encounter, presented in the video below, McCarthy , who was frustrated with his general lack of success began to accuse a young man in Welch's law firm. Frederick Fisher, of having ties with the National Law Guild in Harvard Law School, an organization that McCarthy considered a "communist front organization" Welch had had enough and finally challenged McCarthy. If you notice in the video, Welch gets a round of applause from the gallery. That one encounter marked the beginning of the end of McCarthy's power. He died a broken man with no friends who will go down in history as a despised American figure.

(please take the opportunity to view the actual 7 minute video of the incident before you move on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAur_I077NA

Now my point. It isn't quite that time yet but the smear campaign being directed against the character of Barack Obama compares very favorably to that terrible era in our history. He has been called anti-American, a terrorist sympathizer, a friend of terrorists, a secret Muslim and "what a a surprise!" a COMMUNIST. John McCain skirts around the issue tactfully but allows his pit bull VP to state it pretty openly to receptive crowds. She also does nothing to discourage those racist fanatics in the "base" from yelling "kill him". Surrogates in Storm trooper uniforms or in coats made from the American flag, highlight Obama's middle name --Hussein"--- from the same speakers' platform that Palin and McCain use to address the crowd. And now, those infamous "robo-calls" are programmed on a daily basis throughout the country, spreading hate and fear. Only General Colin Powell, on the Republican side has had the courage to speak out against this---and eloquently.

In the final analysis, McCarthy's historical legacy was permanently marred by his behavior. This will and should happen to McCain.

In the concentration camps, Victor Frankl, the brilliant Austrian psychiatrist, broke down the people there into "decent people" and people with no sense of decency. He said even some of the German Guards were decent to the prisoners as much as they could under the conditions. While some of the Jewish prisoners, out of utter fear, identified with their aggressors and became sadistic capos who tortured their own friends.

Decent and indecent---a good way to characterize people. I think I'll try it.

JVP