 |
| Source: Michael Vermeylen- Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo. |
"Combining familiar newsreel footage with freshly shot material, David Helpern's Hollywood on Trial is a documentary concerning the "communist witch-hunt" era. In the years following World War II, several ambitious Washington politicos were anxious to dissipate the last traces of Roosevelt's New Deal, and in so doing labelled virtually everything hinting of liberalism as communistic.
These cynical crusaders couldn't make the headlines if they merely concentrated on such "radicals" as college professors and pamphleteers, so they targeted the most public industry of all: Motion Pictures. That's why the House UnAmerican Activities Committee conducted one-sided "investigations" of the Hollywood Left, and that's why so many actors, writers and directors found themselves on the Blacklist that no producer would ever admit existed.
Most of Hollywood on Trial concerns itself with the misadventures of the "Hollywood Ten," a group of writers and directors who refused to answer the committee's questions and wound up in jail as a result. John Huston, himself briefly under scrutiny from the HUAC for being "unfriendly," narrates this surprisingly objective, multi-viewpointed film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi"
From Michael Vermeylen
My whole problem and issue with the so-called Communists in Hollywood investigation that Congress investigated in the 1940s first in the House and later in the Senate in the 1950s, is that it was hypocritical and violated most of the individual rights that Americans love and cherish and that so-called Conservatives back then said they cherished as well which was our individualism, free expression, free speech, free assembly, the right for Americans to believe what they want and to practice their own politics as they please. Whether they were Far-Left Communists and Socialists that believed America was the real Evil Empire and Russia as misunderstood. Or Far-Right Neo-Confederate Nationalists who saw African-Americans and other non-Europeans as animals.
You had these Far-Right Republicans in the House of Representatives and Neo-Confederate Democrats especially, who saw even the belief in communism and people having communist beliefs as some threat to American and Western civilization, that even having Communists in America at all even as private citizens with no foreign government connections and people who just had communist beliefs, would somehow destroy America.
And saw Communist Americans who again only had those political beliefs as people who don't have the same constitutional and individual rights as people who believe African-Americans aren't real Americans and therefor underserving of the same rights as European-Americans. You literally had right-wing racists believing that Communists who weren't bigots, weren't real Americans and therefor should be put in jail simply for their political beliefs.
You have political correctness on the Far-Left and some of that comes from Communists or people with communist leanings at least who believe they know best how every American should think and what they should believe. And believe any humor and criticism of racial and ethnic, as well as religious minorities is bigoted and therefore should be censored even though law even if the humor and criticism is accurate.
But you also have political correctness on the Far-Right in America coming from the Christian-Right as well as Nationalist-Right or Alt-Right, who believe they the real Americans because of what they think and how they live and believe anyone who looks at the world differently are Un-American and therefor do not deserve the same rights as these supposed real Americans. And the so-called House Un-American Activities Committee was a big part of that.
The only Un-American thing about HUAC ( House Un-American Activities Committee) was the committee itself. They should've been investigating themselves for being Un-American. The House should have created another select committee to investigate the Un-American activities of UUAC.
Because in America we have a guaranteed right to free speech under the First Amendment. That cover the freedom to practice any religion or no religion at all. The right to believe what we want, to associate with who we want short of known criminals, and the right to say what we want short of falsely libeling people or harassing people, inciting violence. And the so-called HUAC committee violated most if not all of our First Amendment rights and should have never been put together.
