Joe McCarthy and an obituary

We don't seem to have learned much from the McCarthy era. I've been chatting back and forth with a friend about Pete Seeger and the Weavers who were almost destroyed by the man's insanity. Today, the New York Times printed an obituary of a former Smith College professor, Joel Dorius, whose career lay in ruins due to the evil done by one man and the country which was complicit in that evil.

A fellow professor's home was raided and the professor forced to name names. Dr. Dorius was among those named. I had known about this case because of the San Francisco State connection but hadn't thought about it in years. Mr. Dorius was 87 and by now most of the McCarthy victims are either quite elderly or dead. We who were young then still remember the fear.

For further details you can also read the Doug Ireland story today. It's the second article down. (Easier to link the whole post than to single out the one story).

This particular story involves homosexuality but in those days it could have been anything. The paranoia of the country was approaching insanity with McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover leading the pack. It took a few courageous men to stop it in its tracks but not before it had done its damage.

Is this where the country is headed once again? The days of the witch hunts? So it would seem.