Declan McCullagh wrote:
Jamie, I may have missed the fab 50s but I suspect you spent a little too much time in the psychadelic 60s.
In fact, there was quite a bit of red baiting in the 60's. We (this country) actually fought a war in Vietnam, in part because many American political leaders didn't want to be accused of being soft on communism. Red baiting, making non substantive and usually irrelevant accusations about one's values (and loyalties), was a popular sport then, for certain demagogues. Nixon was good at this, in both decades. In the late 60s and early 70's, there was also a time when anyone with a necktie was in danger of being called a fascist. Much of this wasn't anything to be proud of either. The 90's don't seem to me to be a period when labels from the early part of this century are the most telling. I'm often surprised to find what people really think or want, once you move away from older battles or stereotypes. I think its safe to say that stalin-like communism isn't an appealing future for anyone I know. I find these increasingly frequent references to "leftists" or "fellow travelers" (something I recall from an earlier thread) a bit odd. One one sense, it is a form of content labeling, designed to get people to filter out or ignore certain information. On the other hand, it seems designed to polarize communities that often have much in common, even as they disagree on other points. Mr. McCullagh isn't the only one who does this. I'm sure I do this in my own way, from time to time. But perhaps from having lived through more decades (and fads) than Mr. McCullagh, I increasingly find this counter productive. Jamie -- James Packard Love Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org