I don't know why anything should come as a surprise, but the R's trying to brand us D's as commies does somewhat take me aback. I suppose they're grabbing onto whatever straw they can to distract from their own stunning performance. I suppose that some of the pronouncements of the more extreme elements of the Democratic Socialists of America give them a bit of fodder.
But yikes-a-palooza.
I don't know the Bible very well - it was never much of a Catholic thing - but isn't there something something something about taking the log out of your own eye so you can see the speck in the other guy's eye?
Given that the log in their eye seems to be contain elements that include fascism, dishonesty, racism, misogyny, corruption, grift, and incompetence, they might want to ease up on their messaging about communism, especially given that they probably couldn't find more than one or two card-carrying members in the entire Democratic party who believe that communism, as manifest throughout the 20th century and into the 21st wherever it manages to endure, is anything other than a discredited crock of hooey.
But, hey, if you can find an audience credulous enough to embrace the blather, what the hell?
Anyway, commie this, commie that, has gotten me thinking about the Red Scare of the late 1940's through mid-1950's.
I don't remember anything about it. When the Army-McCarthy hearings were underway, I was too busy watching Ding Dong School and Big Brother Bob Emery's noontime kiddy show, where each day he toasted the President of the United States by hoisting a glass of milk, and where we began each show singing "The Grass Is Always Greener" and ended each show with "So Long, Small Fry." Accompanied by Big Brother on the banjo.
But over time, I did - of course - learn plenty about the Red Scare: the hearings, the blacklisting, the lives ruined, and - of course - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. And their two little boys, Michael and Robert.
Ethel and Julius were both found guilty of espionage, of giving away atomic secrets to the Soviets, and were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing.
For years, there were true believers who maintained that the Rosenbergs were innocent, including their sons. And there's little denying that the prosecution was flawed. But as more documentation was released, the brothers came to acknowledge that their father was guilty of spying for the Soviets. (But that he never gave away atomic secrets, which is what both parents were convicted of.)
Julius was, however, spying.
Naive? Idealistic? A dupe? Someone who bought into the wonders of communism myth without figuring out the Stalin was a psychopathic maniac responsible for killing millions of people?
(As an aside, an aside putting me a couple of degrees of separation from the Rosenbergs: During World Word II, my childhood dentist was stationed at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, where and when Julius Rosenberg was working as an engineer (and stealing info for his handlers). I don't know if Dr. Wigdor actually knew Julius Rosenberg - or just knew of him - but on more than one occasion, he told me quite vehemently that Rosenberg was "guilty as sin.")
There was little or no evidence tying Ethel Rosenberg to spying. Yet when given the chance to save her own life - maybe by admitting she knew (or suspected) her husband was a spy, or offering up a name or two of people she and Julius were friendly with who might have been in cahoots, she chose to die. She could have lived to take care of her boys, but wanted to keep maintaining that she and her husband were innocent.
Anyway, over the years, I had kept an occasional eye on what became of Michael and Robby Rosenberg, who became Michael and Robby Meeropol after they were adopted. I read their book, We Are Your Sons, when it came out in 1975, and would occasionally see articles on them.
The most recent article I read was in The Atlantic, an article which recounts their lives and how they've grappled with finding out their father was guilty, and that their mother wasn't - but chose to abandon her boys (who were by all accounts beloved by their parents).
The Rosenberg boys ended up with careers that were pretty typical of Red Diaper Babies - the children of old lefties who were caught up in the romance (unimaginable today) of communism. Michael became an economist of the lefty variety, Robby a lawyer of the lefty variety. Both have been involved with civil rights, the environment, and a non-profit organization that supports the children of parents who have been targeted for their progressive activism.
Both men married and had children.
And led what seems like pretty typical old lefty lives.
While unfortunate when it came to what happened to their parents, the boys were plenty lucky when it came to the couple who adopted them.
After spending time with their grandmothers, and time in an orphanage, Michael and Robby were adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol, who first met them at the home of W.E.B. Dubois, of all things.
Abel Meeropol was a high school teacher (who had James Baldwin as a student!) and a song writer, and the family pretty much lived happily on the residuals from his songs, which included Strange Fruit (a song about lynching, made famous by Billie Holiday) and the lyrics to The House That I Live In (a pro-diversity anthem sung by Frank Sinatra, Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson, and Sam Cooke, among others). No need to mention that the Meeropols were old lefties, is there?
Once the Meeropols normalized the childhood circumstances of the Rosenberg brothers, they have had lives that seem - to this outsider - to be happy, successful, and fulfilling, the overhanging scrim of their parents' lives and deaths aside.
Anyway, given the current red baiting, interesting timing to read about the Meerepol/Rosenberg brothers, no? Just hope that the red-baiting powers that be don't start rounding up those whose political thinking is not to their liking. Never mind looking for spies who are "guilty as sin," they've certainly shown themselves to be capable of going after anyone they don't like.
Image Source: History
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