Articles

Sep. 18, 2004

Hula Hoops and McCarthyism

The 1950's was a time of fads. The fashion statement of the day was to buy a new car with each model year. Auto Manufacturers shrouded the new models in secrecy until the very last moment.

Fads were not limited to Hula Hoops, new cars or even TVs. Political trends also run in fads. While McCarthy rests in discredit today, the entire era was a fad and a very popular one. McCarthy's political backing was diverse traversing the political spectrum from Richard Nixon to Bobby Kennedy. McCarthy's organization controlled many businesses creating "black lists" while hunting "Reds" from coast to coast.

What made McCarthy compelling was fear. The Russians exploded their first nuclear bomb in 1950 - the same year Mao took over China. With the Soviets, consolidating their hold on Eastern Europe the world split down the middle. Paranoia became the motivating factor with the citizenry willingly trading freedom for security.

The value of the "Long Wave" is detecting social and political moods before they become reality. The US after WW II went from being the most powerful force in the world to a society diving under desks at the sound of a sonic boom. What was it that created such a transformation?

Terrorism is our McCarthyism of the day. When I first started writing about the next "witch hunt" back in 1999 US military superiority was unquestioned. There seem to be little on the horizon to challenge US superiority. However, today and the 1950's are not the only times when paranoia has swept across the country - and the world.

To quote for "The New War" written in 1997 by John Kerry - "The first great industrial era of the nineteenth century spawned the anarchist movement, the prototype of all modern terrorist groups. The anarchists never commanded much in the way of votes. But they had a substantial impact on the politics of their day, successfully assassinating heads of state and key political figures in Russia, Austria, France and the United States, provoking a wave if repressive actions, including mass deportations in the US and summary executions elsewhere." (pg 113)

As the Long Wave turns, new rules of engagement emerge. Those left out of the new collations strive for inclusiveness and lacking that move to destroy what others have built. Innovation displaces people, changes the mores of society and breaks down borders. Knowledge destroys superstition and builds generational gaps. If we are to project the direction of social trend, we also have to project the displacements from new technology

It is within change violence is bred.

The rise of the paranoid state is a reaction to the violence of the displaced. The greater the reaction the more the state perpetuates and establishes the anarchist as a viable force. What was first a few people organizing labor to protect jobs from a growing number of unemployed displaced by automation on the farm, grew to establish eventually the Bolsheviks and the Communist party.

Today the paranoid state has organized inside and outside of government. Where McCarthy worked in opposition to the executive branch and saw declining support over time, the rebirth of talk radio displacing many music stations provides a propaganda network to insure the religious cause in the perceived holy war against the heathens. As much as we speak of spreading democracy and making the world safer, we are by action cutting off dissent and insuring a common enemy for those we wish to defeat. Further, by supporting the economy on oil we provide a financial base funding of our enemy's operations. At least when fighting Communism we did not fund their growth.

While there is more time to run with the fad of religious paranoia, at some point the ineffectiveness and cost will begin to discredit the cause. As with all fads, the reversal will be sudden and complete. The key to ending the religious trend in the US is the development of technology freeing the US from oil dependency. Without the need for increased oil imports, there is no economic reason to support a religious war in the Middle East. With declining oil export revenues as alternatives replace oil, less funding will be available for terrorism. So far, the public has been stubbornly unwilling to make the connection of oil to terrorism. The same stubbornness existed around environmental concerns in the 1950s, but gained momentum resulting in the 1970s landmark clean air and water legislation.

Often trend reversals require a catalyst. The War on Terrorism should have been an instant hit when the Iranians kidnapped some US oil workers back under the Carter Administration. The need for oil compromised US values and made what should have been direct and uncompromising action a negotiation. The WTC attack became the catalyst, but the attack instead of being economic was direct military intervention with the naove assumption everyone wants freedom and a market economy. As chaos escalates in Iraq to unmanageable proportions, strategy will drive technology creating displacement of the oil infrastructure permanently altering US foreign policy.