Hollywood leftists, their blacklist and their treason

Gerard Jackson Monday 19 January 2009 

Digging through some old magazines I came across an attack on Elia Kazan by the author of the Culture Vulture column (The Australian Magazine 19-20 September 1998) in which he used the word "odious" to describe Kazan whose crime was to reveal the names of Hollywood Stalinists. Now the left is very hot on free speech, especially for the left. But having a totalitarian mindset means that they define 'free speech' as complete agreement with their current 'party line'.

I know that many of us have heard or read about the fiendish Senator McCarthy and his Hollywood blacklist that denied work to patriotic American actors, producers, writers and directors because they had allegedly been associated with the CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States of America). Because of this infamy the mere mention of his name causes 'progressives' to turn apoplectic, even as they defend — as does Steven Soderbergh, Ed Asner, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Rederford, Sean Penn, etc. — sadistic leftwing killers like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

While Hollywood’s celluloid intellectuals blame McCarthy for the blacklisting and excoriate HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee) they overlook the simple historical fact that McCarthy was a Senator and was not elected until 1947 while HUAC had been set up in 1934 by Democrats.

At the time of the HUAC hearings McCarthy was running his own investigation into communist infiltration of the State Department and the military. He had nothing at all to do with any hearings on communism in the film industry which were conducted in the House of Representatives. Moreover, these investigations started in the 1940s and were requested by actors and studio executives, mainly as a reaction to the Communist Party's own blacklist, something the likes of Redford, Soderbergh, and the truly hateful Clooney would never think of mentioning.

The American left assiduously cultivate the myth that the CPUSA was never a threat to America anyway and that those associated with it were honest people motivated by idealism and a love of liberty. (Our left has used the same tactic to defend the treasonable activities of the Australian Communist Party). It follows that it is both absurd, as well as slanderous, to suggest that these people would use their positions in Hollywood to promote tyranny.

But the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent opening of some the KGB's intelligence archives revealed the real story, the one the left is still trying to suppress by ignoring it. We now have the evidence that the CPUSA was, like the Australian Communist Party, fully controlled and financed by the Kremlin. In short, it was just a branch of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union). This is one story that you can bet your last dollar on that neither Soderbergh or Clooney will ever film. After all, that would be the patriotic thing to do.

There is also the little matter of the Hollywood left-wing blacklist, the one we never hear about. Those who were on this list were anti-communists who suffered for their beliefs because they identified Stalinist toadies. Morrie Ryskind was one such person. He was an award-winning film writer until he told a congressional committee the truth about communists in the film industry. Suddenly he was unemployable.

And just in case you think this blacklist is dead, some years ago two young leftwing writers on the Sony Studio Lot had Robert Montgomery’s name taken off a building because he had been a "friendly witness" for HUAC. Needless to say, Clooney and the rest of the Hollywood left remained unmoved by this intolerant act of left wing bastardry. Their silence is not surprising considering the degree of left wing intimidation that comes from the Hollywood elite.

(This reminds of a very revealing complaint by Clooney: "There used to be three networks. Now there's hundreds and hundreds." He believes that news broadcasting should be restricted to three networks controlled entirely by people who agree with him. Tom Hanks is another example of Tinseltown's political intolerance. He called Mormons who support California’s Proposition 8 of being "un-American". It logically follows from this that conservatives are also "un-American").

Now one might say that it is all history now, water under the bridge and all that. But then such a person would have no idea of the left's capacity for hatred and revenge, specially the Hollywood left and its fellow traveling media mates, even those in Australia. This was made sickeningly clear when the Hollywood left blocked the distinguished director Elia Kazan's nomination by colleagues for the lifetime achievement award given each year by the American Film Institute and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Kazan who had directed such masterpieces as On the Waterfront, East of Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire and who had won two Oscars as a director was ignored in favor of the left-wing Roger Corman who won lasting fame for Attack of the Crab Monsters, Swamp Women and other masterpieces of schlock. So heavy was the stench of hypocrisy that even The New York Times felt impelled to comment on Hollywood's vindictiveness.

The famed then 87-year-old Kazan's unforgivable crime was to have truthfully told the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities in 1952 that he and eight of his friends had been fellow members of the communist party, from which he had resigned in disgust. Some of these men later admitted that Kazan told the truth. Nevertheless, until his death in 2003 at the age of 94 Kazan remained a political leper among Hollywood's politically correct.

These are same people who in October 1997 streamed into the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills to see Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a film glorifying unrepentant Stalinists who wanted to turn the US into another Gulag. Needless to say, these are also same celluloid intellectuals who support cop-killers and murderous dictators – but only so long as they are socialists.

What is worthy of note here is the hypocrisy, political stupidity and moral baseness of these leftists. No wonder they feel comfortable supporting the Democrats.

It was Otto Katz who bragged: "I discovered Hollwood".  Katz was a Comintern agent sent by Stalin to turn Hollywood into an instrument of Soviet policy. He arrived in 1934 and was a great success with Hollywood leftists who fell over themselves to do his bidding. Some of those Stalinists lived long enough to attend the Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist love-in where they were enthusiastically greeted by the glitterati.

As proof that there is a divine providence, Katz (who was said to be implicated in the murder of Willi Münzenberg) was arrested in Prague in 1948 and became a victim of the Rajk-Slansky purges. He was tortured for months before being tried. He was convicted of treason and hanged the next day, His body was burnt and the remains put in a sack which was later dumped on the roadside. Not a tear seems to have been shed by his Hollywood pals. This would make a terrific film. It’s a great pity it will never be made.

 Editor's Note:  You may wish to view this 2015 piece with My Take:  Tinseltown Turns Back the Clock with Trumbo Tribute. RK)

Green fanatics vs. genetic science

(I would like to thank Mr. Jackson for allowing me to reprint his article. RK)

Gerard Jackson, of BrookesNews.Com 

In Mary Shelley's chilling tale Dr Frankenstein creates a monster out of body parts, which, according to the Hollywood version, becomes a beastly killer completely out of control. Latching on to this vision green cultists malevolently labeled genetically modified food as "Frankenstein foods", conveniently ignoring the fact that we have been genetically altering our foodstuffs — including livestock — for thousands of years.

As expected, a number of green-sympathizing journalists joined this reactionary crusade, some of whom relied on Dr David Suzuki's Altered Genes. Reconstructing Nature: The Debate as a prime information. Although this book was published about ten years ago it seems that like Rachel Carson's grossly dishonest and very lethal Silent Spring Suzuki's book keeps being recycled by half-witted intellectuals.

The underlying theme of Altered Genes is so obvious, even when the author tries to conceal it, that the discerning reader can easily express it in a single sentence. A relentless hatred of capitalism! This tendentious work masquerades as a scholarly attempt to debate the dangers of genetic engineering. Unfortunately, of the many things missing from the book, debate and scholarly intentions are the most prominent.

Suzuki's introduction set a tone from which the book did not waver. Using the tactic of giving a dog a bad name to justify shooting it, he resorted to historical fiction in which genetics was blamed for the rise of eugenics that culminated in the horrific experiments of Josef Mengele. In fact, the origins of the Nazi euthanasia program and Mengele's experiments had their beginnings in the victory of positive law over the rule of law.

Euthanasia was rationalized in Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, a book published in 1920 and written by Karl Binding, a famous law professor, in collaboration with Dr Alfred Hoche. Even though the authors were social democrats their views were welcomed by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, it still took the destruction of the rule of law to make possible the despotic rule of the jackboot and its consequent horrors. Genetics played no role whatsoever in this atrocity, despite Suzuki's views.

The rest of the book is no better. Fourteen authors condemning markets and the wickedness of profiting from genetic engineering; warning us against the perils of "genetic pollution" and the menace of the unknown; railing against the alleged potential horrors of genetic engineering; the greed and dishonesty of multinationals, especially Monsanto; the injustice of intellectual property rights in genetically engineered organisms; the danger of allowing multinationals the right to patent and market their genetically altered products. (No wonder it reads like a political tract). Yet the authors failed to provide a shred of genuine credible evidence that warranted their dire predictions or justified what amounted to a ban on genetic engineering.

Regardless of the word debate in the title, debate was the last thing on the authors' minds. They made no genuine concessions to genetic engineering; they stressed only 'facts' and allegations that could be used to condemn the technology; alternative opinions are ignored and nightmare futures are a staple ingredient; multinationals are attacked along with science; much is made of the alleged social costs of genetic engineering while the benefits are treated as mere assertions.

Astonishing increases in agricultural productivity made possible by chemical and genetic engineering do not rate a mention along with their social benefits; ideological claptrap is passed off as informed opinion and scientists are denigrated as being part of some mysterious "bio-elite"; green organizations are paraded as acting in the public interest, though they are self-appointed and ideologically opposed to economic growth; public fears and concerns about genetic engineering that environmentalist organizations fuelled are used to justify political control of the technology.

Particularly irritating was their tactic of frequently quoting themselves or each other in support of their own arguments. A sure sign that there is little or no genuine scientific support for their views! What is particularly striking, however, is the book's complete lack of humanity, despite its humanitarian pretensions. People merely appear as background scenery for the authors' ideological setting.

There is no acknowledgement of the role Western science, technology and chemical companies have played in eliminating the threat of mass famine from the planet. The extent to which the Third World has benefited from technology transfers is completely ignored. But this attitude should not surprise us once we consider that the book's proposals would even see an end to the production of life-saving genetically engineered vaccines. The very fact that their proposals would literally amount to a death sentence for millions of people, just as the ban on DDT did, is enough to condemn them as a vicious bunch of misanthropic green.

The real Frankensteins are greens fanatics and their media mates who have tried to create a monster out of a life-saving technology so they can get it banned. What does this say about them? Plenty, is the answer.

Gerard Jackson is Brookesnews' economics editor