MovieChat Forums > Trumbo (2015) Discussion > Blacklist: Right Wing used the same meth...

Blacklist: Right Wing used the same methods as the Communists


Ironic that the American right wing used the same tactics as the communist bloc countries to stifle dissent.

If you worked in the entertainment industry during the time, you did not have the right to free speech ... in America!

Other tactics that were used by both the American right wing and the Soviet bloc countries include show trials, imprisonment and banning artists from working in their chosen field.

That is not supposed to happen in America, ever, and it is odd that these unconstitutional methods were advocated by "patriots."

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Actually, what's ironic is that this movie is coming out today, trying to inspire feelings of anger towards the culture of blacklisting, when it's still very real in today's Hollywood.

You really think John Malkovich stopped finding A-list work because he suddenly forgot how to act? And more recently, Maria Conchita Alonso, who isn't even doing features anymore, she's relegated to local theatrer in San Francisco, was blacklisted and forced to resign from her play because she appeared in an ad endorsing a Tea Party candidate and that "Goes against the beliefs of the organization" she works for.

It's pretty standard garbage from the left wing version of the two-party zealot/bigots.

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@second-eye


Alonso hasn't done features Hollywood films since the '90s, but I think that's more due to Hollywood's sexist sidelining of actresses when they turn 40,and she even admitted years ago in an interview that she just decided to take a break from acting,period----so saying that her career went down because of her political beliefs is nonsense. And also because the Tea Party have been exposed for the pathetic joke they are, and it's not cool to even be associated with them anymore. Don't even start trying to claim that left-wingers are zealots and that BS because that dosen't apply to all all left-wingers anymore than it applies to all right-wingers.

Also, what no one seems to have pointed out (I saw the film, liked it) was that a lot of the Communist sympathizers in Hollywood did not know about the extent of Stalin's atrocities until it came out after his death around the mid-'50s. So to claim that Trumbo and his cohorts supported these regimes supposedly knowing what he was doing is a little over the top,and i don't see any actual proof being presented here whether they actually did or not. I liked the film because I already knew about the history behind it, and of course Cranston pretty much nailed it as Trumbo. And,yeah,the McCarthy hearings was basically a political witch hunt---you even had some people who weren't actually Communists but got blacklisted simply because they merely knew,worked with, or associated with someone who was either a Communist. That's how it actually went down. Also none of the blacklisted were ever convicted or actual espionage against the U.S. or anything like that. If someone knows better about that than I do, feel free to correct me anytime.

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John Malkovich? I didn't know he's a republican. He never talks about politics.
And what about the biggest R in Hollywood: Clint Eastwood. He talked to a *beep* chair at the Republican Convention, ffs! And I don't see him struggling. So, cut the crap


If I don't reply, you're probably on my ignore list for something I forgot already

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Well one can see how movies like this need to be made , just by reading comments in this thread ,people who probably couldn't point out a communist country in the map , talking about politics.

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No different than the US government still using the nazi's tactics. Or using the same bread and circus since the medieval times.

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Actually the black list was generated by the same studio heads, to take into account the fact they had hired a bunch of treasonous communists.

Trumbo and his ilk went to jail because they refused to answer to a Congressional Committee.

And for all the suffering he endured, it pales in comparison to the misery and death that millions faced under the ideology he so admired, communism.

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so you think its ok for congress to harass innocent civilians and throw them in jail for not bending over. youre a right big government fascist.

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And for all the suffering he endured, it pales in comparison to the misery and death that millions faced under the ideology he so admired, communism.

Proving what, exactly? He and the other Americans who were blacklisted had nothing to do with that.

"I speak Spanish to God, French to women, English to men, and Japanese to my horse."

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Except for being members or supporters of the organization that committed those outrages.

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If being a member of the Communist party in the United States was the same as being a Communist working for Joseph Stalin in the U.S.S.R. they wouldn't have been blacklisted, they would've been charged with treason. They weren't. Ever. Why? Because the two aren't the same things at all (which I think you know perfectly well), so you still don't have a cogent argument.

"I speak Spanish to God, French to women, English to men, and Japanese to my horse."

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If being a member of the Communist party in the United States was the same as being a Communist working for Joseph Stalin in the U.S.S.R.

Given the CPUSA was directed from Moscow making it simply a branch of the CPSU or perhaps more accurately the MGB, it was.
they would've been charged with treason.

Do look up the legal definition of treason in the United States.

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Now imagine yourself as a Federal District Attorney trying to make a case. Given that it requires that the US be at actual war with the Soviet Union, the absence of one might be a problem. Even members of the German-American Bund during WWII were not generally charged with treason.

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"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Now imagine yourself as a Federal District Attorney trying to make a case. Given that it requires that the US be at actual war with the Soviet Union, the absence of one might be a problem. Even members of the German-American Bund during WWII were not generally charged with treason.

If they're the same or directed by them that sure sounds like "adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" to me. The word OR in that sentence means the United States doesn't actually have to be at war with a nation for a citizen to commit treason by supporting them in the ways listed.

Obviously, because none of them were charged with treason, it wasn't. And they knew this.

"I speak Spanish to God, French to women, English to men, and Japanese to my horse."

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Context here is pretty clear that "Enemies" means people with whom the US is at war and not just some unfriendly foreign power. You can check other treason trials for precedent here and do note that while German American Bund members were investigated and interned during a real shooting war with Germany, none were charged with treason just for being members.

Also note that the blacklist was purely a private, non-governmental action that did not have the force of law. No was was prosecuted for hiring Communists because there was no law against it. Trumbo et al supported an organization that stood for violent revolution and the imprisonment and murder of their political opponents that also happened to be controlled by a hostile foreign power. No wonder some were not willing to hire them any more than a known member of the American Nazi Party would have much luck getting a job in Hollywood.

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Sure, buddy, keep telling yourself that. No sane individual is buying what you're selling.
What a delusional putz.

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[deleted]

I love how the left prides themselves on being innocent victims and proclaim themselves as heroes. Always depict the right as evil bullies as if it's all black and white. As if the left never did anything wrong and all the benefits of today's society is thanks to them and all the downfalls are directly caused from the right.

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Oh, great...another moronic right wing blowhard with a superior grasp of the truth as he knows it. You really need to wake up and realize that you're a callous dullard living in a hermetically sealed, thought-free zone. My dearest of Lords, the willful ignorance in this thread is appalling.

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It's the left wing now taking away Christian's freedom to worship and live their lives according to the rules of the Bible and also forcing us and our little children to occupy restrooms and locker rooms with others of the opposite sex. Where's our right to free speech now? Yup, in America!

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Who's stopping you from worshipping? We just don't want you all up in our face while you're doing it!

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If I don't reply, you're probably on my ignore list for something I forgot already

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@clearthinkernow

It's the left wing now taking away Christian's freedom to worship and live their lives according to the rules of the Bible

You keep saying ignorant,paranoid BS like this, and then you have the nerve to wonder why people think right-wing Christians are crazy as hell. Nobody is taking away your freedom to worship anything away at all, and the bathroom thin only came up because some right-wing nut in South Carolina made up this stupid law to prevent trans folks from using the same bathrooms as cis folks, when there really were no real problems with that subject---he created it making up that stupid,uneccessary law.

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"Used"? They still do. Thats how dissent is silenced by all sides. Its the easiest way. Look how wissleblowers are treated. Its just less extreme today. Its more about personal atacks and avoiding to work with, instead of a straight up blacklist and firing people.

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If I don't reply, you're probably on my ignore list for something I forgot already

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FASCISTS OPPOSE PEOPLE THINKING ONTHEIR OWn RIGHT OR LEFt WING THey're all fascists.

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