Ruminations

 

Ruminations

Peter Schultz

 

                  From Athan Theroharis’s Seeds of Repression: In the 1940s, “the Justice Department succeeded in making [the case] for stricter surveillance of federal employees and American communists. This concern over communist ‘espionage’ was fortified by fears … of communists in labor unions, racial incidents, and other radical activities … in 1945-46.” [125]

 

                  Question: which was more problematic, communism or labor strikes, racial incidents, or other radical activities? The latter were more problematic than the former because the latter threatened more directly the status quo. It is crucial to keep this distinction in mind if you are to understand the political because it points to the repression that is endemic to politics generally.

 

                  Conventionally thinking, engaging in repression to defeat communism is not problematic insofar as communism threatens freedom and, so, once communism is defeated, then freedom is saved. But insofar as the political is innately repressive, then feeding that tendency when combating communism is problematic because such policies reinforce, fortify the repressive character of government as it deals with labor strikes, racial incidents, and other allegedly radical activities. So, even in the face of communist threats, the character of the political, especially its repressive character, needs to be recognized. The political is not repressive only in its communistic manifestation. The political is innately repressive. And defeating communism or Islamofascism or racism will not change that fact. Thinking and acting as if defeating communism or Islamofascism ultimately leads to a viciously circular politics.

 

                  Again, from Theoharis’s Seeds of Repression: “The outbreak of the Korean War put an end to White House efforts to restrain the zeal of the Justice Department. Not only did Korea raise popular fears of a third world war, but it also sharpened popular anxieties about subversion.”

 

                  Clearly, from this description, popular fears and popular anxieties preceded the Korean War. Hence, they are “raised” and “sharpened” by the war. So, internal security was threatened by more than communism, as reflected by a Justice Department press release in July, 1950, calling for “full public cooperation with the FBI.”

 

                  “The forces … most anxious to weaken our internal security are not always easy to identify…. They [include] cleverly camouflaged movements, such as peace groups and civil rights organizations…. It is important to learn to know the enemies of the American way of life.” [141-42]

 

                  But what makes “the American way of life” “vulnerable to its enemies?” Why are those who oppose that way of life able to subvert it? Why are they able to “cleverly camouflage” themselves and their subversions? Do they have satanic powers or is there something fragile, ephemeral even in the American way of life?

 

                  As questions like these are pursued, pretty soon a picture emerges of human societies that are arenas characterized by endless conflict, including conflicts between fundamentally opposed parties, e.g., the God-fearing and the god-less. No wonder that people are fearful and anxious. They should be as life is seen as essentially a war of all against all. If it had not been the Korean War, some other event would have raised popular fears and sharpened popular anxieties, especially because the world is thought to be populated by clever enemies who are difficult to know and even harder to oppose and defeat. And, so, once again, the vicious circularity of American politics is visible. And that viciousness has more to do with America’s most cherished political beliefs and much less to do with fears of communism, Islamofascism, or racism than is conventionally assumed.