Scoundrel Time in the 21st Century

Lillian Hellman

In her memoir of the 1950s blacklist era Scoundrel Time, Lillian Hellman quotes her letter to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee where she was expected to name colleagues as Communists. When called as a witness before HUAC, she wrote a letter to the Congressmen saying she would answer for anything she had said or done, but would not name others whose careers and lives could be ruined. "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." She meant that in the 1930s in the depths of the Depression when capitalism was seen as a failure to many American citizens, it was okay to join the Communist party, but at the time of the McCarthy and HUAC hearings, it was not only unfashionable, but down right traitorous to hold to Marxist ideals. Many former party members were turning in their ex-comrades to save their own reputations. Hellman was not a perfect person. She played fast and loose with the truth in her memoirs, but she was right on this.

I thought of Hellman's words in the days and weeks following the second Trump inauguration. Many tech and communications giants are acting like the friendly HUAC witnesses and dropping their liberal stances to kiss up to Trump's authoritarianism. People and entities like Jeff Bazos, Mark Zuckerberg, ABC and CBS were giving money, directly and indirectly, to Trump because evidently they didn't want to get on his wrong side. Bazos paid several million dollars to Melania Trump for her life story for Amazon. Zuckerberg settled a lawsuit with Trump out of court over banning him from Facebook right after his dangerous bogus claims of really winning the 2020 election. ABC also settled Trump's lawsuit over George Stephanopolous' saying a judge had adjudicated the Orange Felon as a rapist. CBS is probably going to give him money over his suit for editing a 60 Minutes story on Kamala Harris to make Trump look bad. Zuckerberg said you can go overboard in hiring women and there should be more "male energy" in the work place. WHAT? What is he talking about? If he means there should be more aggressiveness and ruthlessness in the work place, there are plenty of women who can be just as ferocious as men. Does he mean women are too nurturing? There can be too much kindness in his offices? 

We are now seeing the results of this ass-kissing with Trump slashing and destroying vital programs in the federal government. Okay, stopping minting pennies which cost more than their face value is not a bad idea. But stopping shipments of food to starving people and letting it rot is not. Claiming the US should "take over" Gaza, exile its people, and turn it into a luxury resort for rich people is not. Making yourself chairman of the Kennedy Center because they hosted one or two drag shows is not. Turning over all the keys to the kingdom to an unelected billionaire who has a financial interest in the outcome of his government actions is not.

I haven't written about politics since the election, but I had to get my thoughts out.