[HN Gopher] Hollywood's Cold War Dissidents in Ireland
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Hollywood's Cold War Dissidents in Ireland
Author : prismatic
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-08-12 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| basisword wrote:
| Interesting to read about the hysteria in the US at the time. I
| find it interesting how largely forgotten this period seemingly
| is and also how utterly bizarre it was. It seems reminiscent of
| current times and the hysteria/conspiracies many politicians try
| to openly sow. Also interesting to see the strength the Catholic
| Church had to influence the Irish state and how relatively
| quickly that power has disappeared almost entirely.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| We have to remember that communism is the history's deadliest
| ideology that at that time looked to be on the brink of world
| domination. I strongly support freedom of speech and I am glad
| that in America even communists are not locked up for voicing
| their views. At the same time, these folks were like Kanye West
| and Dennis Rodman of their time. I don't want to personally
| associate with someone who can't admit that Stalin was a bad guy,
| that Taiwan and Ukraine are independent countries or that forcing
| Ughurs into reeducation camps is wrong. Just so long as we are
| clear on these things, I will not call people calling for public
| healthcare and social safety net communists, although I may not
| necessarily agree with all their proposals.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Ideologies are just that: ideologies. No implementation of the
| ideology gets close to what the ideology tries to be.
|
| Socialized health care isn't communism. It's just admitting
| that the "free market" isn't a magic panacea that automatically
| makes everything work. (Kind of like how most of us get our
| water from the government, or how we get our protection from
| our government-run military.)
|
| Equating socialized healthcare with communism is a poor
| argument: Canada, Australia, and the UK have socialized health
| care, and those countries are very capitalist. If you don't
| like socialized health care, I suggest looking at how those
| countries operate and build your arguments based on observed
| facts of those systems' weaknesses.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Taiwan ... independent countries
|
| Is Taiwan no longer claiming they are the legitimate government
| of mainland China (as well as parts of a bunch of neighboring
| countries)?
| basisword wrote:
| >> I am glad that in America even communists are not locked up
| for voicing their views
|
| Let me introduce you to when the US locked up its own citizens
| without cause or due process:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri...
| overlordalex wrote:
| Even more cromulently:
|
| In Dennis v. United States the government jailed the leaders
| of the american communist party, and the supreme court upheld
| the conviction.
|
| And if it's said that it's justified because they were the
| leaders: in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy the supreme court ruled
| that immigrants can be deported for being a previous member
| of the communist party, not even in any sort of leadership
| position. This includes just being a member for a year or two
| several decades ago.
|
| You can make the argument that those were cases from the last
| century, so how about being arrested for exercising your
| first amendment in the wrong place:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
|
| For something even more recent, protesters attempting to stop
| a massive new police training center* are being charged with
| domestic terrorism
|
| *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City
|
| While there is definitely plenty of latitude around "free
| speech" in America, it's not limitless and the government
| will happily jail you if they disagree with what you're
| saying.
|
| This is not even getting into topics like COINTELPRO
| dundarious wrote:
| It was a common position among European and American communists
| that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that communists
| should strongly oppose, and that the USSR was not heading
| towards achieving communism (remember, not even China today
| calls itself communist, they have a communist party working
| towards that goal). For most western communists, it was a
| question of _when not whether_ you had your "Kronstadt
| moment".
|
| Likewise, I wouldn't put every excess of a capitalist state on
| the head of someone who calls themself a capitalist. Should
| they be held a priori individually responsible for the late
| Victorian famines in India and Ireland? The various coups and
| dictatorships in the Middle East, Central and South America?
| The sanction regimes whose explicit goal is "to bring about
| hunger" because it violates the anti-sovereignty "sphere of
| influence" Monroe Doctrine?
| nullifidian wrote:
| >It was a common position among European and American
| communists
|
| Sadly it wasn't. Some continued to deny Stalin's crimes well
| into perestroika. Especially in the academia.
| dundarious wrote:
| Trotskyists were common, and hence, it was a common
| position -- I didn't say universal. I'm not even a
| Marxist/communist, never mind some scholar of sectarian
| subgroups, but that's just one popular example among many.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| > It was a common position among European and American
| communists that the Stalinist turn was a grave error that
| communists should strongly oppose...
|
| That was a "common position" in the sense that it was around,
| but it wasn't the overriding position until 1956, when both
| the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev's
| changes allowed European communists to make an easy break
| with Stalin. Before that, many European Communists were
| reluctant to alienate the Soviet Union or be tarred as
| Trotskyists.
|
| Then in the mid-late 1960s, the decline of Stalin's
| popularity gave way to a rise in Mao's popularity among some
| French, British, and German Communists, a position which has
| also dated badly.
|
| Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist movement in
| many European countries remained fragmented, with the largest
| parties being post-Stalinist, but splinter parties still
| upholding Stalin and Mao as the models of their struggle.
| Interestingly, some of the smallest splinter parties operated
| just like cults of the Scientology sort, only without any
| religious basis - there was a trial in the UK fairly recently
| about an old Maoist party keeping a woman hostage for years.
| dundarious wrote:
| Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many
| followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and
| many others who were not so afraid, though they are often
| left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize
| China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a
| school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's
| why I disagree with the root comment who conflated
| communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds
| of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor
| increase to the welfare state", with anything further being
| equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are
| quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about.
|
| (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the
| "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current
| "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look
| like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the
| state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's
| supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like
| Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and
| saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed
| the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less
| critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial
| Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to
| get a vision for the future).
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| My post was correcting a single factual error that I
| quoted. I don't appreciate you replying to my post in an
| attempt to draw me into your political battle.
| dundarious wrote:
| No problem, I agree with your factual assertions. The
| root comment used some less nuanced but similar
| assertions (and some other inconsistent assertions) to
| make an objectionable political point, and so I think
| it's still useful to repudiate their politics on the
| basis of your assertions.
| photonerd wrote:
| > I will not call people calling for public healthcare and
| social safety net communists
|
| Yet you just did. A lot of the "communists" in the Hollywood
| blacklist era were advocating for things exactly like this.
|
| Plus communism isn't even _close_ to history's deadliest
| ideology. If you're going to tally communism's numbers then you
| need to also total capitalisms.
|
| The main & most cited work in that area is "Red Holocaust"
| which estimated the total for communism at ~60 million people.
|
| But using the same criteria as that work we can easily
| attribute 100 million deaths to capitalism in the 20th century
| _alone_
|
| (btw, this pales to both Christianity & Islam, who are #1 & #2
| respectively)
| ramblenode wrote:
| It also doesn't make sense talking about the world's
| deadliest ideology without normalizing for population.
|
| Capitalism, communism, Christianity, and Islam have killed
| the most people because the most people have lived under
| them.
| js2 wrote:
| I recently watched _Beat the Devil_. I thought it was pretty
| dreadful. I had no idea it had a cult following and I can 't
| imagine why. The film really runs out of steam about halfway
| through and most of the actors seemed to be going through the
| motions. It is certainly not among the Huston films that I would
| recommend. Watch _The Maltese Falcon_ or _The Misfits_ first.
|
| That said, Ebert put it on his "Great Movies" list:
|
| https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-beat-the-devi...
|
| It's also possibly interesting for having had a 28-year old
| Truman Capote as screen writer. Except that I really think Capote
| wasn't a good fit for Hollywood. _Breakfast at Tiffany 's_ did
| not translate well to screen.
|
| On the other hand, _Roman Holiday_ is among my favorite films. It
| 's the quintessential romcom.
|
| For a terrific and unusual red-scare inspired film, let me
| recommend _Johny Guitar_. Now that 's a film that deserves a cult
| following.
| michaelchisari wrote:
| I'd say that Breakfast at Tiffany's would make an incredible
| film.
|
| It's a pity they never even tried.
| [deleted]
| mdw1963 wrote:
| Communism = slavery to the state. Capitalism is no utopia but at
| least you don't have some mean bastard who you kill you or send
| you to a gulag if you don't produce.
| messe wrote:
| Communism [?] Stalinism.
| romafirst3 wrote:
| Capitalism = slavery to the state. If you don't have enough
| money you literally die of hunger and the system says it's your
| fault.
|
| Hitler was a devout capitalist. Russia is a staunchly
| capitalist country. All of the poorest countries in the world
| are capitalist countries.
|
| People often lazily confuse specific ideologies and political
| theories with autocratic regimes and despots.
|
| And before anyone says communism causes despots there have been
| more capitalist dictators and despots than you can count.
| rhapsodic wrote:
| _> Hitler was a devout capitalist._
|
| No, Hitler was a National Socialist (Nazi).
| pphysch wrote:
| The Nazi party was violently anti-communist, and relied on
| the support of powerful capitalists. "Socialist" in name
| only.
| thegaulofthem wrote:
| Socialist != Communist
|
| Just as all the Hacker News fellated Democrat-Socialist
| utopias of current Europe are not Communist.
| romafirst3 wrote:
| The Nazis were not a socialist party. Regardless of what
| Fox news tells you.
| mhoad wrote:
| I'm begging you to please actually learn the real story so
| you don't have to run around embarrassing yourself in the
| future.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
| rhapsodic wrote:
| [dead]
| thaufeki wrote:
| >Hitler was a devout capitalist.
|
| Is this tongue in cheek?
| pphysch wrote:
| Oh I forgot he called his party "Socialist", that
| automatically disqualifies it from being _de facto_ fascist
| or capitalist. /eyeroll
| romafirst3 wrote:
| In that he was devout in any economic theory it was
| capitalism. Crony capitalism but capitalism. He literally
| made slaves work for private companies, you don't get more
| capitalist than that.
| twirlip wrote:
| The German industrialists of the early 20th Century feared
| unionism, socialism, and communism. They backed Hitler and
| funded the Nazi party. In turn, Nazis enacted the _Nacht
| und Nebel_ slave labor program, _Lex Krupp_ , and allowed
| companies such as Krupp to take property from conquered
| nations.
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(page generated 2023-08-12 23:01 UTC)