Communism is responsible for more deaths in the 20th Century than both world wars, yet liberals have defended it for decades. A new book by Grove City College professor and top Reagan scholar Paul Kengor – Dupes – documents this, showing how Communists used liberals to further their efforts in the U.S. This book masterfully documents dupes in the U.S. from the Hill to (my focus here) Hollywood.

Kengor’s strength is research (the book’s introduction alone lists 35 citations), and Dupes authoritatively identifies both dupes and true Communists in Hollywood, documenting them down to their Communist Party USA registration card numbers and how many times they wrote for Communist publications.

Take playwright extraordinaire Arthur Miller, for example. It is widely accepted that “The Crucible” is about McCarthyism. Beyond that, today’s educators have allowed what Senator Joe McCarthy and his “witch hunts” found to blend with the work of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In reality, they were entirely separate.

Kengor points out that the falsely titled “HUAC,” (a recent New Yorker article, which gives a good review of former Communist Elia Kazan, used the “HUAC” abbreviation too) which suggests the committee was the actual un-American organization, was chaired by Democrats for much of its existence, and it was attacked for its work by Communists regardless of who was in charge. (more…)

One of the greatest ironies of so called “progressive politics” is that it destroys what it’s supposed to save. California has been run by statist politicians for over 30 years now, and most of them would call themselves “progressive.” The alleged goals of progressives are to take care of “the little guy”; they’re supposed to make a society that’s more “open and fair.” In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Progressive politics have the net effect of doing the reverse of everything it claims to be about.

I’ll be getting into that in detail in another series of articles, but we’re here to talk about Hollywood. Hollywood was once a conservative town run by immigrants who believed in the American way. Many of the stars fought in WWII and acted in patriotic movies. But there was a labor struggle in Hollywood starting with the unions, which began to get infiltrated by communists and socialists in the 1930s. They made more and more demands of the studios that they didn’t like. In 1947, the studio bosses decided to take advantage of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), with which Senator Joseph McCarthy had no direct involvement despite misinformation to the contrary. The Hollywood studio bosses wanted to bust up the unions and the method they used was the HUAC investigations and the blacklist. (more…)

This recent attempt at a SAG Awards’ boycott of eight actors by some Hollywood members of the Screen Actors Guild got me thinking about an Oscar night from almost ten years ago when the Academy was honoring Elia Kazan with a lifetime achievement award.

I remember being on sets or in casting-session waiting rooms and getting into heated “discussions” with actors about The Red Scare Blacklist, and how we should “never forgive anyone who named names to save their own skin.” 

But Kazan only ever admitted to doing what he thought was right. But my actor friends, most of whom were born long after the period in question, and whose knowledge of The House Unamerican Activities Committee was usually limited to lectures from their favorite college professor, wouldn’t buy it. “Phooey,” they said. There was only one explanation: anyone who cooperated with HUAC was a coward motivated by ruthless career ambition. Anyone who refused to testify, however, did so only out of a high minded commitment to principles.

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