Osgood's Harvest of Shame
by Eric Blair (3/08/98)

Charles Osgood (CBS Sunday Morning), in a remembrance of Fred Friendly, who passed away last week, pointed out that Friendly's reputation would stand on just two performances: his bringing to light the demagoguery of Joseph McCarthy and the documentary called Harvest of Shame.
    God Bless the liberals!  They never, never, never lose a chance to redefine the language in their interest, rewrite history to support their arguments and present both in a way that shuts down freedom of speech.
    This is why I have often said that a late stage, or partial birth, abortion would not affect a liberal, since they don't have any brains to suck out.  Guile they have, but brains? No.
    In the baby/bath water department, we have the evil McCarthy going after Hollywood. We have called him bad, which means that everything he stood for was wrong.  Sorry, Charlie, but McCarthy was dead on, absolutely correct about LaLa Land.  Hard core communists not only did exist in the film business at the time, but in terms of the influence of their union, they  dominated the industry.
    Now, Charlie, here's what I want you to do.  I want you to find a copy of the Communist Manifesto (check your pockets) and carefully read it.  You will find everything you already believe in there.  And, in addition, you will find the foundation directions, the strategies, for bringing a People's Democratic Republic about.
    One of the first things you have to do is control the sources of information
    Since, as Winston Churchill said, young people are naturally liberal, and since they are also by nature deeply involved in themselves to the point that they couldn't name either one of their own federal senators ... music and movies are their communications modes.  Both, with their constant, repetitive use of sex and violence; with their constant bias against the authority figures with which the young must deal, constantly pander to the emotion based prejudices of youth.  These are the media by which you can best shape them.  
    You're aghast that the evil cigarette companies would go after the young, Charlie, but when the left does it via the music and film industries, it is just what the future subjects of a socialist autocracy need to fit them for the job.
    Joseph McCarthy was right about Hollywood.   That is why you hate him, Charlie.
    (Leonard's Law of Criticism:  Lies upset a liberal.  Truth sends him into a rage.)
    And, as to Friendly's other claim to fame: Harvest of Shame?  Where's the documentary about the Liberal Media's Harvest of Shame?  While you are pointing out the disparity between our "working" and management classes, Charlie, how about finally risking the displeasure of  black liberals with some hard-hitting blasts done in "the land of milk and honey?"
    Why don't you run on down to "The People's Democratic Republic of the Congo"?  Maybe take a side trip to NW Africa where pre-teen virgins are sold into sexual slavery for a new reason these days ... because the idiotic, uncivilized, barbaric African-African chieftains believe having sex with them will cure AIDS!  While you're at it, Charlie, hop a bit to the East, to the Sudan, and buy yourself a couple of negro slaves. (Two reporters from the Boston Globe did just that, last year!)  And, while you're at it, you might do a piece about how Winnie Mandella invented "necklacing," the savage act of putting a tire over an enemy's head and then setting it on fire.
    You know, Charlie, the difference between the system set up by the founding fathers and your favorite form of government is quite simple.  Both types can make some very similar mistakes, but only one has the capacity to eventually recognize the error.
    To put it in humanist terms, since you are a Progressive, Charlie, I believe that both liberals and conservatives make mistakes.  That, however, is where the similarity ends.  A true conservative, when he makes a mistake, will apologize and then go and sin no more.  When a true liberal makes a mistake (which, according to the New York Times, the Washington Post and you has never, in the purest sense, ever happened) it is Ronald Reagan's fault.
    Joseph McCarthy was a mean, nasty, self-serving, vindictive bastard, Charlie, just like Bill Clinton, although I kind of doubt that McCarthy's body count approached Clinton's.  (All those federal attorneys in all those states in '93, the dead Marines in Somalia,  the folks in the White House Travel Bureau,  the common citizens of Indonesia, the residents of Utah, buddhist nuns,  hundred's of women's husbands and on and on.)
    The difference, of course, is that Clinton's your mean, nasty, self-serving, vindictive bastard.
    McCarthy was not on your side of the ideological fence so, even when he was right ... no, especially when he was right ... he must be vilified.
    That's throwing the baby out with the bath water, old sock.
    That's your Harvest of Shame.

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