Ideological Allegiance Quotes
The loyalty and sometimes hypocrisy that is often called for by political parties tends to be offensive to people of serious thought and intellect. However, America has developed two major political parties which while from time to time tend to lock-step obedience, over time tolerate wide diversity and there are few areas in which there can be a party loyalty test. In nations where there are many parties each can be very well-defined and narrow, while if essentially only two, they must have broad tents in order to win. Thinkers are more comfortable in that kind of party.
He lists a number of employees including his own wife. The foundation was the L. Ron Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation Inc. In this case a religious leader was asking the government for assistance in determining who was and was not fit to be a member and an associate of his organization. The FBI apparently ignored his accusations, and there was no government action though he continued to accuse associates throughout his life. The FBI agent who met with Hubbard to investigate his charges wrote “mental case” on the file.
Welch was a conspiracy theorist paranoid and gave the legitimate conservatives of the time a bad name. The quotation was in the first version of the book, and then it was removed.
The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer, like most sophisticated intellectuals and scientists of the time had acquaintances who were communists or Communist sympathizer in Oppenheimer's case his brother and wife were both members of communist organizations. They too severed their connections. At the time Russia was on major ally in the war against Hitler and fascism. However since the Communist Revolution of 1917 there had been an animus between the American and Russian governments. The work on the atomic bomb was so secret that everybody was a potential suspect and security risk, even our allies. In the final analysis it was a spy in the Manhattan project who was there as part of the British contribution to the project. The security people were chasing after all the scientists who had friends or acquaintances who were communists and missed the real spy who had no such connections.
Even before the Russian Revolution there was a Red Scare in America based on the writings of Marks and Engels. Labor Unions were automatically viewed by ultra-conservatives as Communistic and revolutionary. Ironically, the greatest offence that the President committed in many eyes was to have labor leaders to the White House for lunch or dinner or, as he did with the coal strike crisis, have labor negotiators in the White House for mediation. The symbolism of accepting these “radicals” as worthy citizens, in some conservative views, elevated the labor movement to a much higher status than they deserved and to treat them with the same dignity and respect as corporate executives was very offensive. Roosevelt had been made an honorary member of the Locomotive Engineers Union, and this enabled the Sun and other critics to say that Roosevelt joined labor organizations.
This quotation illustrates one end of the range of union leadership regarding communism. Some union leader were communists; some were pro Marxist but against the Russian style of dictatorial communism. Others did not care for Communism at all but saw the communists as an effective tool that really frightened American corporate management and politicians so they looked reasonable by comparison and they therefore wanted the communists around. Last were those like Reuther who was aggressively anti-communist and wanted labor to expel them whenever they turn up. However, what is ironic is that Reuther himself was labeled a Communist by many right wingers who also used Reuther’s “duck” test. Reuther wanted a national health insurance system; so did the Communists. He advocated and end to segregation; so did the Communists. He fought for workers having a say in management, a classic communist demand, and many other similarities.
