My Bar Mitzvah came four days after attorney Joseph Welch delivered his immortal line on June 9, 1954 at the Army-McCarthy Commie witch hunt hearings. (Full context)
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
It was the knockout blow to Sen. Joe McCarthy, coming just a few months after Edward R. Morrow’s historic “See It Now” broadcasts on CBS exposing McCarthy’s fascist mindset.
Three weeks after that broadcast, the senator, given the chance to respond without questions or commentary, accused the legendary broadcaster of being a “symbol, the leader and the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose Communists and traitors … Mr. Edward R. Murrow as far back as 20 years ago was engaged in propaganda for Communist causes.”
Despite the heroics of a few, the witch hunts chilled the political activism of millions of Americans who grew up being taught to never sign petitions, never join anything but status quo political activities and crouch under their desks in case of nuclear attack.
To a 13-year-old reading “Catcher in the Rye” for the second time, the lesson didn’t fully hold and might have more than a little to do with my decision to become a journalist, and something of a provocateur in my own right.
All this came to mind today listening to your City Council spend more than an hour defaming KFI, John and Ken and the news media in general for promoting “racist and sexist slurs.”
Paul Krekorian, whose eloquence is being put to use in service of the City Hall political machine, denounced vile, disgusting, hate-filled speech on their airwaves and even brought up Welch’s famous quote, adding: “At long last, folks, have we no decency as a society?”
Clearly, brilliant legal mind that he has aside, he didn’t see the contradiction between his insistence the controversy over John and Ken has “nothing to do with the First Amendment” that we all are somehow guilty by association — the core of McCarthyism — for what others say.
I, too, am disgusted with much of what I hear on talk radio and agree that the success of so many talk show hosts who run roughshod of the boundaries of good taste says a lot about the “coarsening of our society,” as Krekorian put it. The simple answer is don’t listen to them.
What I do listen to is the City Council meetings and I find them vile, disgusting and filled with lies that make me angry enough to write about on this blog every day for the last four years just as I drove coverage of City Hall’s disgraceful betrayal of the people of this city for the previous 30 years.
This was a Council meeting that began with a long presentation honoring the well-paid and highly-benefited General Services mechanics who maintain the 10,000 city vehicles under their care as heroes for doing their jobs every day in difficult times, symbols of the kinds of middle-class jobs that should be available to all, according to several Council members.
A sub-text that brought lots of snickers but no explanation involved references to those mechanics who got transfers in the hard times to Department of Water and Power jobs where the pay is so much higher and the expectations so much lower.
The irony of all this praise for these middle class city jobs brought not even a titter from anyone. After all, these are the last middle class jobs in the city since policies made by this Council and mayor and their predecessors have chased away the good jobs. In fact, they have reduced the number of any kind of job by nearly 100,000 even in the time the city’s population has grown by one million.
No. the stupid and reprehensible “crack, ho” remark of John & Ken doesn’t stack up against the cruel and destructive policies that have made life so much harder for the poorest among us, the very people these phone posturing politicians pretend to care so much about.
The final hypocrisy of this awful session came near the end when Jan Perry — the good Jan Perry who is smart and tough and courageous — stood up to the 14 men who surround her on the horseshoe and refused to yield an inch until they voted down her motion with Bernard Parks to give the Koreans and blacks of this city the chance to be heard on how they want new Council district to be drawn.
She dared them to “man up” and at least vote the motion down instead of leaving it locked up in Herb Wesson’s committee or filed into oblivion — a comment that unbelievably inspired Richard Alarcon to defend his manliness and suggest she was being sexist.
No, my friends, John and Ken are big-time jerks but these people, they are worse.
I can’t help thinking that maybe if Joe McCarthy was just a talk show host and not a senator who could convene a powerful government committee to destroy the reputations of so many honorable people, it might not have mattered so much.
Lest we forget, he was a pal of the Kennedy family, dated Patricia and Eunice, and hired son Bobby to be part of his team.
As you can read on Wikipedia: “McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port .. (He)was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy’s first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Robert was chosen by McCarthy as a counsel for his investigatory committee.
You see this is all about free speech, not the repression of free speech.
Murrow and Welch and the American people sorted out the truth after a long and tortured public debate and we got it right, sort of at least.
What the LA City Council did today was not to speak freely against what was more than a month old transgression but to chill the right of free speech, free association and free thinking of all of us.
This is worse than McCarthyism; it is mindless totalitarianism — if there were an ounce of integrity in any of it. John and Ken and their corporate masters will do anything for a buck just as these second rate Council members will do anything for political advantage.
Here’s the famous historic Murrow broadcast:
You can watch McCarthy’s response on “See It Now” by clicking here. The only difference between his rhetoric and what I hear from City Hall is they don’t have the courage of their convictions, don’t even have the courage to use the tough language he uses.
THANK YOU RON!!! Not everyone can take John & Ken but in my opinion people want to censor them for speaking their minds. I like when John & Ken out these idiot city council members for their incompetence. This is what the issue is about. This has nothing to do with hate speech. Just like the Nat’l Hispanic Media Coalition not liking John & Ken for opposing illegal immigration and Dream Act they too tried to shut them down. WAKE THE HELL UP PEOPLE. These idiots in council again are trying to DEFLECT their incompetence going after anyone else. If you don’t like KFI turn it off or change the dial. We can’t change the dial on the incompetence in City Hall. I hope that rumor of starting a petition to get rid of Wesson comes to fruition.
If, as a nation, we are losing our freedom to speak, then we are also losing our national sense of humor.
For Robert De Niro to be forced to apologize for a joke he told at a Democratic fund raiser shows just how thin-skinned we’ve become and just how Republicans will jump at any opportunity to condemn Democrats for the most insignificant thing.
De Niro’s joke, which I found just this side of hillarious, and I’m sure I’ve heard it before — possibly on Bill Maher, Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert — wasn’t the least bit racist from my point of view. And if it were, I’d have to do a lot of conjuring to figure out which race he was dissing: black or white. You read it; you decide.
When discussing the possibility of a Republican winning the presidency, his brief two-liner went like this:
“Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney,” De Niro said. “Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?”
Jan Perry ISN’T anything but a pro-DWP ratehike, pro DEVELOPER, pro AEG PUPPET. She’s running for MAYOR with the backing of the same CAMPAIGN DONORS who pack our ballots each election cycle with SELLOUTS, CROOKS, and STOOGES. Good to see Perry getting the axe by fellow clown Wesson (King Herb I.)
Parks takes TWO SIX FIGURE PAYOUTS from our BANKRUPT CITY so he’s also got zero credibility.
I called KABC’s Larry Elder show to discuss this anti-KFI topic. On Tues—Larry left me on hold for 30 minutes! Then on Wednesday the best one I’ve seen—he announced my call would be taken after a commercial break–then he took 5 callers ahead of me (when I was 2nd) AND THEN WITH 10 MINUTES LEFT—HE CUT OFF ALL COMMENTS on all topics AND PLAYED A CONTEST FOR TICKETS TO A SHOW!!!
This is your media in L.A.—State Owned, State Run, AND FULL OF IT 110%. Larry got fired for 2 years by KABC—and over that 2 year period he went through back problems (he just had another surgery), he lost his home from what I heard, he went flat broke from what I heard. So on Wednesday, March 21, 2012—LARRY ELDER SOLD OUT ALL THE WAY. Now he can can register as a Democrat and I’m sure live the good life feeding off the public trough. Now you see why L.A. has all the broken roads and sidewalks and debts. Don’t blame Larry—he’s just too old and weakened to stand up and deliver for all of us. Oh…4 houses I looked at in Ventura County—all four are in ESCOW—the exodus from L.A. County is fully underway. If you’re lucky enough to move—DO IT. If you’re not, to quote Rev. Jerimiah Wright—GOD DAMN!
The Los Angeles City Council conducting a debate over “the course discourse” our society has fallen into is dripping with irony.
People are quite disgusted with government. Rightly so. We used to have politicians who acted with a bit of integrity and not in goosestep to the criminals who now run our public unions and real estate development industry. The link between unlimited campaign contributions and the corruption of our society’s political institutions is nearly complete. The unwillingness of the rich to pay a fair share of the cost of basic government services for education, public safety, and infrastructure means our society is crumbling before our eyes. We are being intentionally put on course to miseducate the next generation because uneducated dolts who vote based upon manipulated mailbox flyers and television ads are preferred over free thinkers. Public safety is fine as long a the wealthy can purchase their own private security and feel safe themselves. Infrastructure outside the compounds of the rich no longer matters to them. All that matters is that they got theirs and screw everyone else.
Don’t be surprised when the anger rises up against our corrupt elected officials. They are bought and paid for and everyone knows it. The only question is where will the civil uprising begin: at City Hall? on a college campus where more students are shut out of courses because the rich are unwilling to pay taxes for education? in a ghetto in anger over losses of basic utility and infrastructure services in that part of town due to disinvestments in infrastructure?
Many are losing hope and moving out of Los Angeles. Voting with their feet is easier than changing the system of corruption that makes Chicago and New Jersey pale in comparison.
Bravo, Ron. As well said as it is depressing.
John and Ken are entertainers and do not pass rules/regulations/laws like Alarcon, Perry etc. J&k have exposed many instances of public officials corruption, thievery and malfeasance. On the other hand alarcon is an indicted felon. Why is this delay for his trial? Just because he belongs to a particular racial group who had an upper hand in LA? Or you are too thin skinned to even contemplate this possibility? How come nothing came out of Villar and his ticket gate ?
By the way McCarthy was right about communists infiltrating the state department. It was proved later on about Alger Hiss.
As soon as the council is caught falsifying the fire data in order to justifying cutting $200 Million from the fire budget, while giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their political buddies, the council decides to attack free speech.
Dumb people make dumb voters which explains the fools and crooks on the City Council.
Bad speech needs to be protected. It is one thing for people in general to try to suppress free speech with boycotts of advertisers, a practice which ignorant people favor since they usually lack the skills to compete in the market place of ideas to rebut vile racists and other bigots, but it quite different when a government body even entertains such matters.
Speaking of suppression, from various reports Trutanich is attempting to cover up the LAPD’s falsification of the fire statistics to justify Garcetti’s demand that $200 Million be cut from the fire budget.
There is no system of government which Corruption and Incompetence cannot screw up.