Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Resurrection of HUAC

Here we go, kids....

What follow are the first two paragraphs of Gregory Krieg's 6-14-16 CNN.com article entitled "Newt Gingrich Wants New House Un-American Activities Committee":

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling for the creation of a new House Committee on Un-American Activities, invoking the infamous 'Red Scare'-era congressional body as a blueprint for weeding out American ISIS adherents and sympathizers.

"'We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis,' he said during an appearance on Fox and Friends this week. 'We passed several laws in 1938 and 1939 to go after Nazis and we made it illegal to help the Nazis. We're going to presently have to go take the similar steps here.'"
 
HUAC, of course, is best known to history as an authoritarian hit squad that used the United States House of Representatives as a convenient cover to stalk and harass its political enemies.  Anyone whose views were in any way anti-fascist were summarily "taken care of," either through character assassination or literal assassination.  In other words, Gingrich couldn't have phrased his goals more plainly.  Listen to his words again:  "We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis [...].  We're going to presently have to go take the similar steps here."  In other words, Gingrich wishes to create a legally sanctioned organization whose ostensible purpose is to go after "bad guys," but eventually targets innocent people whose views are not aligned with those of Newt Gingrich and Friends.   
 
Simply put:  Anyone who thinks the official resurrection of HUAC would result in the arrest of a single potential terrorist is not conversant with the history of the United States from 1938 to this very moment.

To read Krieg's entire article, click HERE.

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