McCarthyism

The era following WWII and the era we are currently in portray times in United State's history that united our country in some ways, but in other ways were times of constrained freedom and illustrated the limitations of our country. McCarthyism, the period in the early to mid 1950's, was a time that arose from once good relations with the Soviet Union to a time where there was fear of communism within our country. Terrorism, a term that has been around, but now brings new meaning. The U.S had attacks in the 90's in Oklahoma, the Olympics, and the previous attacks on the World Trade Center, but none amounted to September 11, 2001 with the amount of casualties, the desperate measures of the attackers and the cracks in our security system.

Terrorism is not like the "ism" of communism; communism is a political ideology that infringed on our capitalistic ways, but terrorism is much more destructive. As defined by the FBI, "the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives". Terrorism is a technique, but as we have come to know it present day it is enacted by radical religious individuals who are opposed to globalization and the western way of life. The ideologies of these Islamic extremists do not transfer an ideology to terrorism, because it is spread among many groups and has become too broad a concept.

Looking back on communism and its affect on American society, the present day terrorism can draw many parallels. The parallels are similar, yet they are not quite on the level of paranoia that communism instated within the U.S. and against our own society. To be accused of being a communist, one did not have to have a certain appearance; it was an ideology that that individual accepted, however to be accused of a terrorist is mostly along the lines of an appearance and the Muslim community.

The invention of the television in 1946 brought the scare of nuclear weapons into the home. There was an abundance of bomb footage from the testing sites and infiltration of McCarthyism into the home with other broadcasts. On the first H-bomb footage, "Projected on the motion picture screen, in crisp 35mm, the stark black-and-white cloud expanded spectacularly, ominously, roaring upward and outward, engulfing and obliterating an entire island from the face of the earth...(Doherty p 11)" The schools practiced duck for cover and some even built fall out shelters. Now we realize the widespread disaster of nuclear weapons, and its not that the fear isn't there it's just not as widely talked about. Terrorists lack the sensibility we counted on the Soviets having to prevent annihilation of the world. The doomsday clock was started in the cold war as measuring time until nuclear doomsday, it still exists today but in addition there is the terror alert which is measured on color to the amount of threat we face.

The shows on television then could not be controversial as they are now, or the producers for sure would be investigated. Today, images from the Iraq war cover the news and internet; we have media that reminds us of the terror but there is not a constant image of destruction and it is not as new as it was in the 1950's. "...a film as controversial as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" would never have been produced during the McCarthy era (Lambert)." The paranoia of McCarthyism restricted those who opposed it, because many Americans were accused of communism for simply being thinkers such as professors. There was the House Committee on Un-American Activities that investigated suspected Communists. Today there are agencies that investigate suspected