I was looking through some old essays of mine on my thumb drive and I found this one I wrote in English a few semesters ago. I lightly edited a couple sentences for clarity and grammar. I have another one I might post that I wrote in History class that describes J. Edgar’s useless career, but we’ll see. Here’s my A+ paper (ok, I think it was a B+, but who’s counting?):
The Fear of Fear
by Katie Pope
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, many Americans woke up to the first major, successful attack on American soil since December 7th, 1941. Every channel on television broadcast the pictures of the attack over and over again for nearly a week. Americans watched in horror as the Twin Towers, monumental structures built to commemorate capitalism and all it’s perceived glory, were razed in a matter of a few hours by jet-planes flown by Muslim extremist. The loss, fear and anger that citizens felt in the following months tormented the American people who were just looking for answers. The government responded quickly by rounding up 5,000 Muslim and Arabs for detention and deportation hearings and passing laws that made it legal for the detainees to be held without due process of law. One such law passed that even allows for the unwarranted wire-tapping of telephones.
This seemed to be a new era to Americans, but according to Haynes Johnson, in the book Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism, this was not the first time America was overtaken by panic and hysteria. He writes:
During the McCarthy era, the profiling of people perceived as national security threats became commonplace. Then, suspected Communists were profiled-artists, Jewish scientist and intellectuals, and foreigners- and subjected to imprisonment or blacklisting. Today, another type-Muslim males-has been subjected to profiling, resulting in massive detention sweeps eerily similar to the dragnet arrests that grew out of the Great Red Scare hysteria in the aftermath of World War II (467).
Now, as well as then, the government is able to get away with these injustices because the American people believe that they are safer because of the new laws and the treatment of Muslims in America. The Cold War and the age of McCarthyism of the nineteenth century created the same kind of fear in the hearts of Americans that is felt today towards Terrorism.
The history of the Red Scare is one of the darkest times in American history. Legislation was passed that targeted foreign born citizens from nations in Eastern Europe. Immigrants were rounded up and deported. Anyone working for the federal government that sympathized with or followed communist ideals would be fired and would have to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC. This committee was supposedly formed for the protection of democracy in the United States, but ended up being a smearing platform that not only ruined the careers of hundreds of federal employees, but also blacklisted artists, actors and writers. The House Un-American Activities Committee was one of the most influential at scaring the American public during this era. Johnson describes:
To its critics [HUAC] was the committee that spent the most money, called the most witnesses, published the most pages, visited more places, ruined more lives, and was responsible or the least legislation of any committee in the United States Congress.(113-14).
Senator Joseph McCarthy, a significant figure during the Red Scare, was responsible for supplying the names of federal employees to the HUAC, even though he didnít really have a list. In the book Citizen Hoover, by Jay Robert Nash, the effect was disheartening: “Because they were fearful of being labeled Communists or Communist sympathizers, few people in Washington, or anywhere else, were willing to stand up to McCarthy” (106). Although there was no real evidence that any crimes had been committed, the HUAC and Senator McCarthy proceeded to ruin the lives of thousands of Americans. Although shocking, the Red Scare is not unique. History is repeating itself in the era of the War on Terrorism.
During the Great War, or World War I as it would later be known, the Sedition Act and the Espionage and Alien Acts were passed. These acts called for fines and jail time to persons found to “utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States of the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag” (As quoted in Johnson 104)
Freedom of speech was silenced. Masses of immigrants with opposing ideals were deported. Although there is a new face on the enemy, the result is the same. The counry is again divided between those who back the governmentís actions (and who are considered patriotic) and the critics that are speaking out against the injustices.
Communism was considered a threat to the American way of life. In its own propaganda, HUAC contrasted the writings of Karl Marx to the teachings of Jesus Christ to justify the paranoia they were creating against communist ideals.
“‘Marx represents the lowest form of materialism, while ‘Christ symbolizes the highest and noblest conceptions of the spiritual’ It was this irreconcilable conflict between the teachings of Christ and Marx; upon which ‘the future of Western civilization is staked’” (Johnson 115)
Of course, the committee’s own chairman, Martin Dies, believed that the idea of racial equality was also a communist evil, even though racism doesn’t coincide with the Christian values of “love thy neighbor.” Materialism was also associated with Marx, yet the supporters of the HUAC were against Franklin Roosevelt’s progressive New Deal that provided government interference in monopolies, provided health and safety regulations for laborers, minimum wage, and resulted in taking the country out of the depression that had struck in the thirties. Christianity is once again the cornerstone in the fight against “evil.” Islam is being portrayed as a bloody, oppressive religion with no place in America, even though the terrorists are a small group of extremists that do not represent the true followers of the faith.
In this present era, the Patriot Act and the treatment of Muslim Americans are very familiar to the actions of HUAC and the Sedition Act. In a post-9-11 world, Americans are again stocking gas masks and bomb shelters as they did when America and Russia’s conflicting ideals and stocks of weapons created a breeding ground for paranoia and panic. Johnson writes:
An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report tells what happened next: ‘Unannounced, the FBI descended upon thousands of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians at their workplaces, homes, universities, and mosques. Although called “voluntary,” the interviews were inherently coercive and few felt free to refuse. The FBI agents, sometimes accompanied by immigration officials, asked questions about sensitive activities protected by the First Amendment such as religious practice, mosque attendance and feelings toward the United States’(465)
The terror felt by foreign born immigrants was similar to the terror felt in the 1930′s through the 1950′s when the Red Scare was at its height. However, Johnson argues that the horrors experienced in today’s era were even worse than the McCarthy era. He writes about the prison abuses of Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay being close to torture. These abuses were similar to the abuses of suspected foreign spies in the Red Scare, but the most striking similarity was “how much they reflected the mind-set of the McCarthy era” (Johnson 472). The country is again in a state of paranoia.
Americans are once again faced with the dilemma of the McCarthy Red Scare era. Anyone opposing the treatment of immigrants or the passing of unconstitutional laws under the guise of safety from terrorism will be considered un-patriotic. How far will our government go this time? Already, unwarranted wire-tapping has been made legal. That means that the government can go into anyone’s home without the burden of proof and spy on personal phone calls. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 allows for detainment of anyone “purposefully or materially supporting hostilities against the United States” without legal representation.
American Citizens, foreign-born or otherwise, can be taken to secret locations just by being targeted as a suspect and held indefinitely. These same fears ran through the minds of citizens in America during the Red Scare as neighbors turned on each other to report “Communist Activities.” The parallels of the Cold War era and the War on Terrorism are frightening and alarming. The biggest motivation and destructive force of these two eras was none other than the fear of fear.
