PCG Indulging in Red Baiting Obama

McCarthyism was never about stopping the Communist Party USA. Instead Senator McCarthy discovered that making wild accusations that there were many Communists hiding in the State Department. The claims were nonsense but unfortunately his accusations were taken seriously. 

McCarthyism was not a protest movement against the Communist Party USA. It professed to be so but actions speak louder than words. It targeted many people who were not Communists at all. The accusation of being connected with Communists was used not just to condemn actual Communists but was cynically used to silence unwanted voices. Many innocent people suffered. The mere accusation could destroy a victim's career. McCarthyism was a frightening thing.

And unfortunately PCG has decided to continue this lamentable tradition of red baiting.

Any similarity to Soviet ideology or the various strands of Marxism are exploited to slur American leftists as somehow being just like Lenin and Stalin. Any association with those who happened to be far to the left or at any point was in the Communist Party USA is exploited to slur targeted leftists in the Democratic Party.

There is this vicious insinuation that if leftists like Obama, Pelosi, Clinton or Sanders should get their way catastrophes like those that occurred under Lenin or Stalin will result.

This is demagoguery designed (in this instance) to force people to remain loyal to PCG and not ask questions about their political stances.

Here are some examples of this practice of red baiting used in PCG's latest recruitment magazine.

Both ACORN and the Chicago New Party utilized classic Alinskyite tactics to advance the agenda of income redistribution. So, although neither of these organizations espouse full-out Marxist-Leninist philosophy, both attracted some Communist support. In one sense, they were even more dangerous. (Andrew Müller, Unriddling the Radical Worldview of President Obama, January 2016, pp. 5, 25.)

Notice how Müller actually admits that these organizations are not Communist ("neither of these organizations espouse full-out Marxist-Leninist philosophy"). But even so he insists on portraying them as somehow guilty and to be feared.

McCarthyism was never about stopping the Communist Party USA. But it used negative associations to demonize leftists.

Here is another example of red baiting.

Although Alinsky dedicated his life to the cause of income redistribution and sympathized with Marxist activists, he never joined the Communist Party. By his own account, he was too independent to accept any form of absolute truth, Christian or Communist. Rather he believed that a leftist should have the moral flexibility to engage in whatever Machiavellian means necessary to achieve his goals. (Andrew Müller, Unriddling the Radical Worldview of President Obama, January 2016, p. 4.)

In other words, by Müller's own admission, Saul Alinsky was not a Communist. But instead his personal decision not to join that party is portrayed as making him even more deceptive and cunning than if he had joined the Communist Party USA anyway.

Incidentally linking Obama to ACORN or Saul Alinsky have been done by right wing pundits for years by now. There is nothing original in repeating these emotive slurs.

Red baiting is not about condemning the Communist Party USA. It is about slurring American leftists with the crimes of Lenin and Stalin to silence unwanted voices and ideas.

(For more on this topic see PCG's Andrew Müller: McCarthyite Imitator.)