Category Archives: Red Scare

Like Mice

The winter weather lay heavy upon the freezing soldiers on a kind of night even the smallest creature burrowed under, seeking warmth. But for General Washington the driving wind and snow presented a rare strategic opportunity.

Dividing his poorly clad troops into two wings, General Washington planned a pincer attack against German mercenary forces holding the town of Trenton, in New Jersey. This operation, set for Christmas night, 1776, aimed to alarm the British Crown, and to assure Americans that  the war for independence was by no means over. Not only the cold played ally to Washington’s attack, it was also Christmas night, usually a time of respite from hostilities.

As a one-time Colonel in the French and Indian War, Washington had learned a thing or two about guerrilla warfare from Native Americans. The attack on Trenton became the fruit of that learning curve.

While his army floated silently over the Delaware River, boatsmen poled into the freezing water, pushing ice floes left and right to reach the far bank. At dawn, through purple and gray skies his forces approached mercenary-held Trenton, opening musket fire upon dozing sentries, and unprepared Hessian soldiers.

In roughly an hour and a half General Washington and his Continental Army prevailed.

The Battle of Trenton did not defeat the King’s men by any means, no diplomats sat around a table in negotiations. Still Washington and his army proved controlling the place and time of engagement proved the key to defeating their Red-coated oppressors.

Whether he realized it or not, General Washington had effectively made use of what is called a Fabian strategy.

Quintus Fabius Maximus a 3rd Century Roman General lent his name, Fabian, to a military tactic of ceding space for time. Fabius made use of his philosophy to wear down invading Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. Fabius picked away at the enemy through hit and run tactics, avoiding direct battle, opting instead to wear down the invaders. Though not popular among Roman leadership Fabius’ approach proved effective in destroying the Carthaginian army under Hannibal, leader of Carthage.

Another example of a Fabian policy concerns Vietnam.

The French occupied Vietnam around 1858 ostensibly to protect Catholic missionaries in the region. Over time France began solidifying its colonial control laying claim to the land and its resources. Soon the French extended authority over adjacent Laos and Cambodia. The entire area was named French Indochina, where the French government held sway until 1940, when France surrendered and was occupied by the Nazi’s. With approval from the Reichstag Japanese forces invaded Vietnam and remained until 1945 and the end of the war.

After the war France insisted they could take Vietnam back as a colony, and for a number of reasons the western allies agreed.

However, no one consulted the Vietnamese people, and they had other ideas. General Nguyen Giap and his Vietminh, later Vietcong forces stood with revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh. Together they implemented a guerrilla strategy to defeat the returning French. Similar to General Washington’s America, the Vietnamese simply wished to be liberated from foreign occupation. Thus commenced a long, drawn-out resistance, that by 1954 ended in defeat for the French. Near the city of Dien Bien Phu, in the northern part of the country, the exhausted colonial occupiers surrendered. 

(In a side note, General Giap’s forces hauled heavy artillery by hand, up steep embankments without the French military detecting their movements. Giap then summarily blew the French out of the valley).

The United States, now neck-deep in Cold War politics raised the alarm. No longer viewed as  freedom fighters, Giap, Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh army became America’s enemy. The US Government was certain Vietnam was controlled by Communist China, and that could not go unchallenged.

In a hastily arranged conference in Geneva Switzerland, Vietnam was formally divided at the 17th parallel. Pro-Western people gained the South, while Pro-nationalists took the North. In reality the boundary meant nothing. Operatives from the North easily infiltrated the South by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while American presidents passed the buck on military action until 1965. It was then that Lyndon Johnson deployed American Marines, and Americanized the conflict in Southeast Asia.

Thousands of America’s sons shipped over to Vietnam but the numbers did not seem to move the needle in terms of surrender. Military leaders and politicians claimed we were changing the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Then came the Tet Offensive in January, 1968 exposing the Pentagon’s wishful thinking about ending the war. From the DMZ (demilitarized zone) southward to the Mekong Delta, Vietcong (Vietnamese Communists) fighters appeared out of the oppressive mist attacking American installations all at once. Hearts and minds had not been changed, the proof coming to living room televisions via news networks across the United States. 

Americans had been misled and were sacrificing our sons and our money for a lie.

Lyndon Johnson had believed he could ratchet up the pressure on North Vietnam, until finally Ho would acquiesce. That didn’t happen. Even after the death of Ho Chi Minh the North kept pounding away at American personnel especially at night, or in the deep darkness of the elephant grass. Our country has assumed the role of the British in the Revolution; high casualties, extensive supply lines, and millions of dollars.

(In a side note, at peace talks held in Paris, North Vietnamese delegates stalled meaningful  sessions for a year, by arguing about the shape and size of the negotiating table. You see, every day Northern delegates dragged their feet in Paris, the war grew more unpopular stateside. Fabius would have recognized the ploy).

To wrap this object lesson up, Mr Trump is now stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. He can throw around his John Wayne banter, and puff his baggy chest, but the dude has stepped on a giant rake. Like GW Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, this mess with Iran will not end well for America. Trump is a bumbling aggressor detached from any understanding of military precedence, the country of Iran, nor its government or people.

He has inadvertently bestowed a great gift upon the Iranians. Tehran holds the moral high ground, and a home court advantage, controlling both the time and space. Once again the US has long supply lines expending American blood and treasure. In fact Trump is talking boots on the ground and reactivating the draft.

In his 1989 book From Beirut to Jerusalem, Tom Friedman shares a conversation he had with a Lebanese national. In essence Friedman was told that Americans fight like elephants and that is effective fighting other elephants. But in the Middle East (and every other country touched by colonialism) people fight like mice, much like Quintus Fabius Maximus. 

A cautionary tale to be sure.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

A Plan of Action

The Republican Party and televised journalism have clashed since the early days of the small screen (The 1950’s). GOP politicians, and some Democrats too (see Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards) condemn the scrutiny of television news as it exposes the raw ambition, and ‘win at any cost,’ antics of political figures. Television, for the first time provided the public the opportunity to judge up close, political figures.

Angry with forty years of negative coverage the right wing movement left mainstream media behind and established their own outlet, Fox News. Fox has provided a safe haven to posture, misdirect, lie, and spin their way to electoral success.

Senator Joseph McCarthy, elected after WWII exploited America’s growing fear of Communist expansion. On his path to prominence he waved papers before adoring crowds recklessly accusing the US government of harboring Soviet sympathizers. McCarthy became a forceful favorite of the Right. 

But then came the household tv set and McCarthy’s rise came to a screeching halt.

His aggressive tactics faithfully reported in print media had now switched to the small screen. This time McCarthy accused the US Army of harboring Communists. He browbeat witnesses on live tv while bulldozing through hearing procedures. His belligerence did not play well with people watching at home, and shortly after, for this, and other misconduct the Senate voted to censure McCarthy. Still howling about the Communist menace the disgraced Senator died four years later from alcoholism.

Another case in point was Richard Nixon. 

His rise to high office came about quickly. Utilizing the dirty tricks that later brought him down Nixon served in the House, the Senate, as Vice President, and by 1960 the Republican nominee for President. Like McCarthy, he too held a hardline against the spread of Soviet Communism. But Nixon’s promising career hit a bump when he appeared with handsome, polished, Democrat John F Kennedy. In the very first of its kind televised debate Nixon stumbled before the viewing audience, appearing ill at ease and perspiring heavily. With questions from the debate moderator, and his unflattering appearance Nixon’s performance and candidacy flopped. 

Two-years later Richard Nixon ran for and lost the governorship of California. Defeated, and appearing before the cameras, barely controlling his frustration, Nixon snapped at the press they “didn’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

Senator Barry Goldwater was the GOP’s 1964 hardliner nominee. Goldwater’s extreme rhetoric such as advocating use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam did not play well on broadcast airwaves, and he too lost his bid. 

But unlike Nixon, this time the Party’s loss translated into a plan of action. A Republican marketer, Richard Viguerie turned to a strategy to dispense with televised press coverage. Viguerie initiated a direct mailing campaign to wealthy Republican donors. Energizing the Far Right, and absent from television coverage, the GOP began to change their luck. 

In 1964 Republican candidate Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California. Four years later Nixon, too, enjoyed a comeback, and in the tumult of the Vietnam War Nixon succeeded to the White House. However, the lengthy televised war in Southeast Asia, coupled with domestic upheaval stateside put great pressure on the Nixon Administration. Reporters, with cameramen in tow, generated a steady diet of unfavorable coverage. By his second term the 37th President had initiated his Enemies List, a list that included prominent television journalists. 

As the Watergate scandal and subsequent hearings consumed the country, Nixon’s illegal behavior, backed by audio tapes, eroded his support. To make matters worse for the President his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, no friend of the free press, had to resign his office following revelations of accepting bribes and evading taxes while governor of Maryland. 

The public saw nothing but rot oozing from the Nixon Administration.

In the twilight of Vietnam, hyperinflation, and the 1970’s Oil Embargo, Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election in a landslide. Unlike Richard Nixon, or Barry Goldwater, Reagan could handle the tv cameras. Still Reagan also recognized the scrutiny of the small screen didn’t favor conservative politicians. Toward the end of his second term Congress dutifully ended the “Fairness Doctrine,” the FCC’s requirement of presenting both sides of an issue. 

Reagan left office in scandal as well, in a sensational episode of secret arms sales to Iran to fund Nicaraguan soldiers in overthrowing a regime in Central America. These Iran-Contra hearings were televised as well.

Conservatives had had enough.

Inside of ten years, in 1996, Fox News began broadcasting under the watchful eye of CEO Roger Ailes. Back when Ailes had been Nixon’s media consultant he experienced first hand the optics problem of the Right. Free to operate with no constraints, Fox News successfully supplied distorted stories that incited viewer outrage presenting “alternative facts” to borrow a phrase from Kellyanne Conway.

So here we are today. The man in the White House presides over lies, misinformation and other lawless abuses while insisting that main stream news is fake. He grifts and riffs nonsense to his devoted, gullible, base. Like Richard Viguerie’s message to wealthy donors, followers want to be validated without the complication of exposure on the small screen. 

Sean Hannity of Fox, when asked, explained his network was not news, but entertainment. Sure.

Thoroughly brainwashed by distorted “news” now including OAN, Newsmax, and other outlets, MAGA faithful tolerate, or worse celebrate a convicted rapist and pedophile in the White House. 

Ultimately, the GOP couldn’t take the heat, so they found a way to avoid the truth. It’s time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine because an open democracy lives and dies by an informed electorate.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

Mischlinge

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. DJT, June 15, 2015

Government-sponsored horrors aimed at the vulnerable require planning. The target group is first identified, their deficiencies propagandized, then malignant operations begin to remove that group. This age old pattern is a how-to for witch-hunts from 1692 Salem, to Native American extermination, to slavery, and to Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s Red Scare. Other examples in history abound as well, most notoriously the rise of German National Socialism following World War One.

Embittered by the 1918 Armistice, former Corporal Adolf Hitler founded his National Socialist movement in Bavaria. After organizing two para-military gangs, the Brown Shirts and Black Shirts, he led a failed coup attempt in 1923 Munich. This act of revolt landed him in jail, where he penned his infamous tract “Mein Kampf.” The substance of the book raked over grievances, particularly against Jewish people and other “so-called” betrayers of Germany. Hitler was clear in his writing, only genocide would root out Germany’s traitors.

Granted an early parole by a sympathetic judge Hitler quickly resumed leadership of his growing Nazi movement. By January, 1933 he had attained power as Chancellor under German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler efficiently made use of his expanding influence in the Reichstag, (German Parliament) to fulfill his unholy mission. Taking incremental steps the Nazi leader began with boycotts of Jewish businesses, then removal of Jewish and other undesirables from employment as civil servants. Soon Jewish students were forced from public schools, permitting only a small quota each year to enroll. By May of 1933 Hitler ordered book burnings of Jewish authors and others he viewed as subversive.

Events accelerated.

When President von Hindenburg died in 1934, Adolf Hitler seized absolute power over Germany. And he wasted no time in dialing up the violence against people he considered vile.

At a 1935 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg the Fuhrer issued formal classifications of who was Aryan (pure German) and who was Jewish. Known as the Nuremberg Laws, marriages in particular were outlawed between Jewish and Aryan couples. The image above is one document reflecting that Nazi framework, outlining which marriages were permitted by the state and those “verboten” (forbidden).

Hitler insisted these laws were necessary to protect German blood, but the laws also served to isolate not only Jews, but Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, and others. In truth one man defined which human lives were valuable, and those that were expendable.

The ground was prepared for the genocide that would follow.

Dachau was the first extermination camp built in 1933. From that beginning until 1945 the railcars rumbled nonstop to thousands of ash-strewn death camps, while Hitler’s SS liquidated Jewish ghettos of thousands of men, women, and children. By May of 1945 somewhere around 11 million victims perished in a region historians refer to as the “Bloodlands,” including 6 million Jews.

Euphemistically referred to as Racial Hygiene, the Holocaust unfolded gradually and in relative secrecy. However, by the end of the European war and Germany’s defeat the world wondered how this horror could have happened.

We are watching how at this moment.

In Trump’s America that pattern is repeating. The founding of the United States according to Thomas Jefferson insisted that people are born with natural rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But from the George Floyd murder to Trump publicly announcing brown people traffic drugs and are rapists, that assumption has been ignored. This administration has taken racial profiling to a criminal level, as this tyrant harnesses the might of the federal government to carry out warrantless abductions.

Even if American citizens are caught up in sweeps, many insist that this is different, and that those taken deserve it. The pieces of evil are all there.

Racial exceptionalism has been the cause of mass suffering from the Armenian genocide in World War One, to Cambodia’s killing fields in the late 1970’s. The signs are all too familiar.

Trump’s makes no pretense of his intentions stating on 60 Minutes that his ICE goons haven’t gone far enough in terrorizing and kidnapping civilians. The sanctioned ongoing violation of civil and human rights has been grinding away as you’ve read this essay.

The United States was meant to be different–a land with freedom from fear, where people are secure in their places and property. This tradition does not rely on one man’s racism and deliberate cruelty. A cautionary tale is replaying, and we cannot escape that past, nor avoid the sinister outcome.

Mischlinge was used by the Nazi’s as a derogatory legal term. Literally mischlinge means mongrel, a person of mixed blood.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

An SOS

I sent this letter to my Senators. Feel free to use it how you can.

Dear Senator,

I am reaching out to share my growing dread with this current administration. Arbitrary cuts to government programs, gestapo-like assaults upon peaceable communities and the shrinking of America’s international role is chilling.

As a career history educator I know these actions are decidedly harmful to all of us and that he is attempting to gut the rule of law. It’s as if the United States is drifting into a new Dark Ages and few are standing up for tenets of the Constitution, a hard-won, and hard-defended blueprint of government.

Please restrain yourself from the temptation of pursuing unfettered power, and apply the oh-so-needed brakes on this administration; we are counting on you to hold him to account.

I am a child of the Cold War era and recall the fear of air raid sirens and Soviet attack. But today I am more afraid. What is good about the United States is bad to this administration, and quickly ransacked out of existence, criminals are pardoned, and the guilty go free.

This damage does not fully rest on the White House, he could not carry out his pillaging without the silence of Congress. I implore you to have courage and stand up to this feeding frenzy and let us go back to being America, which still is “the world’s last best hope.”

Gail Chumbley

SLC 

American Expatriates and Celebrities

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it.  John F Kennedy, 1961

To American expatriates abroad and celebrities remaining at home,

Armed with your fame and recognizable voice all of you hold a public leadership role whether you choose to have one or not. Brave, out-spoken spokesmen for Democracy are a bit short on the ground and America needs her sons and daughters to rise up in defense. 

No one runs us out of our home.

This is not a normal time, nothing about this administration is normal and leaving the country or remaining silent sends a message of throwing in the towel. You are abandoning the rest of us to hold the frontlines the best we can, but your face and words are needed. Too many in the press, in politics, and in the sports world are caving to accept this unacceptable lout out of fear or resignation. That behavior must end.

Charlie Chaplin, Adolph Zukor, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr  sold war bonds during the First World War, Gable and Stewart enlisted in the service to fight Nazi tyranny. Carole Lombard lost her life in a plane crash after raising $2 million dollars for the war effort. You owe it to Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner and those of The Hollywood Ten who stood fast for freedom when caught in the fear of America’s Red Scare. Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Zero Mostel, among others, faced blacklisting through the perilous period of McCarthyism. This is exactly the same ‘once in a generation’ moment testing our commitment to our democratic principles.

Leaving the country or remaining silent sends the terrible message of surrender. And leaving is selfish. Giving up on resistance essentially says to hell with the United States. This is the time when we need you most to stand tall. Liz Cheney hasn’t cut and run, nor has Adam Kinzinger. And he hates them the most because they know he’s an absurd phony. They also know they will never give up on America and neither should you. 

Now that is a valiant example of patriotism. We can do no less.

Those of the future are depending on all of us to make this perilous moment right and to pass on an unsoiled America for generations to come. Moreover, our posterity will learn who stood fast in this momentary struggle for liberty and those who abandoned America in its time of need.

This is merely one chapter in the story of America and we are still a young nation. The United States is founded upon the will of the people and this administration is not your will or mine. Today’s corrupt collaborators who have prostituted our republic for momentary gain will fall by the wayside. These sycophants will share this wannabe dictator’s fate.

And that petty bag of stupid will fail, it is in his DNA. That’s what he’s always done. And there will be a lot of rebuilding ahead of us and your encouraging presence will be critical. No one runs us out of our country, nor do we forsake our duty in time of America’s need. We are not a servile people and do not bow down to anyone. Our rights according to Mr. Jefferson are derived by our Creator, and no one man can take them away. 

America has come so far in realizing A More Perfect Union. The expansion of the vote, black males, women, white and black, Native Americans, and for 18-year-olds. Other gains include people with disabilities, women in the military, reproductive rights, marriage equality, and the election of America’s first black President. And all of us at home have witnessed much of this affirming progress.

So come home, we really need you in our time of peril. We need your voice, your humor, music and the public demonstration of your persistence. That goes for the rest of you with a public profile. You are still here, and we need you to step up. Do not be afraid. Stand fast and speak truth to power.

Be loud. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two part memoir River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight. She has also authored three stage plays, Clay, Wolf By The Ears, and Peer Review. Chumbley is the co-writer of Dancing On Air a screenplay based on her River books.