September 4, 2019

"You don't have to like it, but we don't go after people because we don't like who they voted for. We don't go after them that way."

"We can talk about issues and stuff, but we don't print out lists.... Think about it. Read about it. Remember what the blacklist actually meant to people and don't encourage anyone — anyone — to do it."

Whoopi Goldberg gets intense, pushing back Debra Messing (who talked about making a list of Hollywood people who attend a Trump fundraiser).

This clip from "The View" begins with a milder statement from Joy Behar who uses the joke that it should be called a "white list" not a "blacklist," but Goldberg — who, unlike Behar, is black — ignores the joke and uses the traditional term "blacklist":



Goldberg's intensity was excellent. I might fault her for 2 things, but the overall impression is so good, I almost don't want to say it. But I will:

1. Goldberg instructs Messing, et al., not to make a list "because the next list that comes out, your name will be on and then people will be coming after you," as if the morality in question is nothing but self-interest, but it's wrong even if you can feel certain that you'll never be on the receiving end.

2. Goldberg says that in the old Hollywood blacklist days "a lot of really good people were accused of stuff" and "nobody cared whether it was true or not." The "stuff" was left-wing politics, and these days it's the left-wingers who are trying to cancel the people they don't agree with. It's not so much that people back then didn't care about what was true or not, but more that those who made the blacklist had too much certainty and rectitude about their own political beliefs and — perversely — thought it was a good idea to frighten, destroy, and silence those who wanted to say something else. (I say perversely, because if you're so sure your ideas are right, you shouldn't be afraid to have them challenged and talked about by people who think something else and also because freedom of speech was part of the traditional values system they purported to defend.)

What was the premise of Behar's "white list" joke — that Trump supporters are white or that Trump supporters are white supremacists? I don't know, but I'm glad Goldberg stomped on it, because "white list" already has a meaning — a useful meaning. It's a list of what is good. Instead of naming the people or businesses you want to exclude, you name the ones you've checked out and approve of and want to reward with your business.

"Blacklist" is a strong word with a precise meaning: "A list of the names of people, groups, etc., who have incurred suspicion, censure, or displeasure, and are typically therefore subject to a ban or other punishment." That's the OED, which has examples going back to the 17th century. "White list," as a play on "blacklist" has been around since at least 1842. From Christian Remembrancer:
In the black list of Ludovicus Vives were ‘Amadis de Gaul’, ‘Torante the White’, ‘Lancelot de Lac’, ‘Paris et Vienne’..cards, dice, and gay dresses. In the white list were Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, Plato, Cicero, Seneca's maxims and tragedies..and portions of Horace.

91 comments:

David Begley said...

Hollywood is the ultimate insular culture of cool kids. I read last night that 13 women turned down Sharon Stone’s role in “Basic Instinct.” The first 13 were deemed to be the cool kids. But they wouldn’t do the nudity. No body doubles were used.

The black list is about money and denying it to the wrong kids.

Goldberg makes an excellent point. These boycotted can be flipped to the other side,

Hagar said...

Tortuous.
Whoopi, wrongheaded as she may be, is honest.
Behar is just "us and them."

Fen said...

""because the next list that comes out, your name will be on and then people will be coming after you"

I just love how a Left-wing call to blacklist the Right results in Althouse lecturing us not to resort to such tactics.

Smells like David French in here.

rehajm said...

There's a false equivalence being drawn by Goldberg. The blacklist was secretive and intended to prevent employment. What Messing is calling for is publicly identifying names and addresses and workplaces in order to intimidate and instill fear of physical harm in persons and their families, as well as ostracize them from society.

It's a bad analogy that makes what Messing is doing appear less sinister than it is.

rehajm said...

You think there isn't a Hollywood blacklist today, functioning exactly as the old one used on Communists? Hollywood believes it's fair and right and righteous.

Swede said...

Messing likes lists because she can't envision herself ever being on one.

She's a victim supporter, you see.

Everybody who didn't vote for Trump is a victim.

She would absolutely support rounding people up. As long as it was the right people doing the rounding up and it was the right people being rounded up.

It would be for the Greater Good, and if there's one thing Messing is about, it's the Greater Good.

Fen said...

That always seems to be the pattern:

Left throws sand in our eyes, wins thw round.

Ref cautions both sides that's no longer allowed.

Left then kicks us in groin, wins that round too.

Ref cautions both sides that's no longer allowed.

Left throws acid in our face, wins round

Ref cautions both sides that's no longer allowed.

...

Tell you what, I will start actually obeying these rules once I see there are consequences for breaking them.

So where do Debra and Eric live? Where do they like to eat? Where do they work out? When do they walk their dog? Who do they care about?

Jeff Brokaw said...

Not defending blacklists necessarily—that is a separate argument—but there were actual Communists in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, and they were putting Stalinist messages in movies, and this is all established fact. Ditto for Communists in government, advocating for Stalin. It was a big and growing problem.

So arguments that rest on unstated “blacklist victims are innocent” assumptions—which is nearly all of them—are invalid.

Roger Sweeny said...

Behar's reason was obvious. If a blacklist is bad and a whitelist is good, that's anti-black. But that has racist connotations. And if you are a certain kind of person, any use of the word black to mean something bad is potentially very dangerous.

Roger Sweeny said...

Even worse to use the color white to mean something good.

AllenS said...

Blacklist vs whitelist

Money wise, would you like to be in the black or in the red? Nothing against Injuns.

Fen said...

I forget what Behar's most recent facism was - something akin to wishing our children were put in cages with illegals and gang raped.

Goldberg is an actual racist who "cares" so much about freedom that she cut off Jeanine Pirro's mic and walked off the set of her own show.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/802049002




tim in vermont said...

Milnius was blacklisted in Hollywood for Red Dawn, an anti Soviet movie. That on top of Apocalypse Now, All he had ever done was write hits. Denounced as a right winger in The Guardian, he struggled to find work from then on. Though he did get some scraps now and then. He wrote the bit in Jaws about the sharks and the Indianapolis. One of the best parts of the movie.

rhhardin said...

la lista negra

tim in vermont said...

Connecting “black ink” to “black people” is the kind of “orange man bad” associative thinking that is strongest among people with weak reasoning abilities who are driven by their “heart” instead of their head. It works for puppies, usually, most animals, but it also makes them easy to trap.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

How are the people involved in the Will and Grace show not problematic.

The lead gay character is played by a straight man and the sidekick gay character is a steppin-fetchit stereotype.

Clearly they are homophobic and showed be banned from polite society

wendybar said...

For once, I agree with Whoopie, but the left is too far gone. They are nuts, and only a nut can win the primary, or else all hell will break loose.

Mike Sylwester said...

Many years ago, I thought that Hollywood's blacklisting of Communists was a good idea.

A couple years ago, I changed my mind.

In a civil society, political disagreements should be discussed. Disagreements should not be suppressed by trying to prevent political opponents from earning their livings.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

In continuously amazed that Hollywood can make 100 movies, plays and TV shows about a subject and still be so clueless about currently practicing the same evil. But then Debra and Eric aren’t the brightest lights in the marquee anyway.

ConradBibby said...

I don't believe the Cold War-era Hollywood blacklist was motivated by a desire on the part of studio execs to impose their political beliefs on their employees (writers, actors, etc.). I believe that the studio heads created the blacklist in response to demands by politicians and the public to purge the industry of perceived Communist influences in the movies (which was not the paranoid delusion that has often been made out to be, btw). Really, the studio heads back then were acting in a manner similar to Dick's Sporting Goods or Walmart today in taking guns and ammunition off the shelves. However, it should be noted that, in the late '40s and '50s, America as a whole was much, more fervently anti-Soviet and anti-communist than the country is today with respect to gun rights or Trump (which have the support of a much wider segment of the public). And, there was a not-crazy perception that communists in Hollywood were somehow trying to use movies to advance that ideology. Messing's suggestion that Trump supporters not be able to find work in Hollywood is therefore, in some ways, more extreme: She wants Trump supporters to suffer unemployment and shame (and perhaps worse) not to keep pro-Trump sentiments out of films and tv shows, but simply because she thinks they deserve it (or at least this is my perception of where she's coming from).

Fernandinande said...

"You'll never work in Hollywood again!"

True!

Browndog said...

Goldberg makes an excellent point. These boycotted can be flipped to the other side,

Or, to put it another way, liberals accuse conservatives of what they themselves do.

When I see any evidence at all that Hollywood conservatives even want to blacklist because of their political views, I'll agree.

Until then, it's "hey, conservative would be just like us if they were in power", and I don't buy it.

rhhardin said...

Bob and Ray were mocking blacklisting while it was happening. A regular feature.

rhhardin said...

The Professor and the Madman (2019) about the OED was good but I bailed out pretty quickly when it turned into soap opera and scriptwriter-manufactured difficulties. I don't think they saw script opportunities the words part.

Like Words and Pictures (2013) where the scriptwriters went to a drinking problem script instead of using the theme's material.

speaking of the origin of blacklist.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I should also point out Messing’s blacklist is illegal in California. She is a producer on the new and disproved Will and Grace and therefore part of management and subject to CA employment law which says it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of political beliefs. So a law written by leftists to protect leftists could be used to sue Debra were she so stupid as to put her tweet into tangible actions. Hell, if I were a gaffer or electrician on set there I would sue for a hostile work environment.

Many of the crew jobs are held by deplorables, who have suffered from the huge exodus of jobs to Canada and elsewhere. When productions “save money” producing outside Hollywood it isn’t star salaries they’re skimping on, its everyone else in the business. What a business!

You know the difference between a Republican and a pedophile? Hollywood will work with a pedophile.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Fen @ 7:59

Exactly.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I should also point out Messing’s blacklist is illegal in California. She is a producer on the new and disproved Will and Grace and therefore part of management and subject to CA employment law which says it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of political beliefs. So a law written by leftists to protect leftists could be used to sue Debra were she so stupid as to put her tweet into tangible actions. Hell, if I were a gaffer or electrician on set there I would sue for a hostile work environment.

Many of the crew jobs are held by deplorables, who have suffered from the huge exodus of jobs to Canada and elsewhere. When productions “save money” producing outside Hollywood it isn’t star salaries they’re skimping on, its everyone else in the business. What a business!

You know the difference between a Republican and a pedophile? Hollywood will work with a pedophile.

Caligula said...

"Goldberg says that in the old Hollywood blacklist days "a lot of really good people were accused of stuff" and "nobody cared whether it was true or not." The "stuff" was left-wing politics, and these days it's the left-wingers who are trying to cancel the people they don't agree with."

The analogy between McCarthyism and today's Leftist intolerance seems obvious, although there are obvious differences. McCarthyism was based mostly in government (HUAC, etc., and that senator from Wisconsin) although supported by NGO's such as Hollywood but today's intolerance is not so much in government (Title IX enforcement excepted) as in the academy and entertainment worlds.

And today's intolerance seems to have larger and more mutable targets: nearly everything comes under its view, and what's acceptable and what's not seem endlessly mutable. In comparison, the target of McCarthyist disapproval was relatively narrow.

Nonetheless, it does seem astounding that so few of the Left seem able to see themselves as latter-day McCarthites.

Bob Boyd said...

Good for Whoopi Goldberg, but her appeal will fall on deaf ears. A lot of powerful people have been pushing to eliminate political disagreement via social sanctions for a long time. The campus has been their lab and is now their model. They look with envy on the Chinese system and they are pushing for an American version. Messing isn't one these people, but she's been swayed by their efforts without even knowing it.

Should being on The List affect your credit score?
Should a sanctuary city issue a building permit to someone on The List?
Should colleges turn down applications from the children of people on The List?
Should people on The List be denied a kidney?

I mean these are Nazis we're talking about, right? Inglorious Bastards in cubicles is what America needs, right?
These ideas are being seriously discussed by the best and the brightest. If we don't change direction, it's only a matter of time. How do you make a case against this stuff to someone who accepts the premise that those who disagree are not just wrong, but evil?

Michael K said...

Whoopie and Hollywood in general have no idea of the origin and use of the "blacklist."

They recently had a biopic of Dalton Trumbo, who was a good writer but a communist who used his ability and power to block others who opposed the communists in Hollywood.

I suggest reading "Red Star Over Hollywood.

Fen said...

A couple years ago, I changed my mind. In a civil society, political disagreements should be discussed. Disagreements should not be suppressed by trying to prevent political opponents from earning their livings.

Interesting. I respect you Mike and bear no ill will, but my experience was the opposite:

I once believed that even the Nazi should be allowed to march down Main Street and preach their hate. Let the public see how mad they really are.

But then I came across the Marxist creature. Every time we beat them, we help them get off the mat, only emboldening them to take another swing at us. And they keep connecting. And they suffer no consequences. We cannot endure more "victories" of this sort. The Long March continues and everything we hold dear is slowly sliding left into a black hole of socialism and enslavement. And the High Road is littered with the gravestones of men who's righteousness and principle was of little comfort to the people they claimed to champion, the people they left behind to suffer under Marxism.

So the Marxists changed my mind, broke my principled position. Because, just like rats, they are pestilence that will multiply and overwhelm us. And there is a reason humanity never practiced No Kill Shelters when it came to vermin. There is a reason we exterminate them with extreme prejudice.

Punch a Nazi? Sure. But kill the Marxists too. Kill them in the streets, kill them in their homes, kill them in place wherever you find them.

Kevin said...

So it wasn’t just a blacklist but a blacklist-blacklist?

ThunderChick said...

Debra Messing and Eric McCormick are has beens, like Alyssa Milano, who are trying to make themselves relevant again by being extreme in their leftist positions. McCormick's back peddling on his comments shows what a weak POS he really is - he originally said he wouldn't "work" with any of the attendees at the Trump fundraiser, but then he changed his tune and said he wanted to know where Trump's funding comes from. No Eric, us deplorables see right through your twisted mind. You really don't want to "work" with anyone associated with Trump and you post this position publicly to curry favor with all the other narcissistic sychophants in the entertainment industry. I despise Hollywood more and more each day - the "tolerant" group that wants to suppress any opinions other than those that match theirs.

Nonapod said...

I find there's some basic tenets in life that can help you understand the rightness of your position. One of them is essentially that if you find yourself advocating for the composing of lists of people who you consider enemies, you probably want to reconsider your position since you may be on the wrong side of the argument. Authoritarianism is dangerously alluring.

Jay Vogt said...

Althouse's analysis was excellent. I might fault her for 2 things, but the overall impression is so good, I almost don't want to say it. But I will:

1. Althouse notes that morality of Goldberg’s plea is tabled and that it highlights the issue of self-interest. Goldberg does not owe us a singularly moral argument, because that’s not all there is.

2. Althouse says “that, it’s not so much that people back then didn't care about what was true or not, but more that those who made the blacklist had too much certainty and rectitude about their own political beliefs and — perversely — thought it was a good idea to frighten, destroy, and silence those who wanted to say something else”. In the context of Goldberg’s diatribe this a distinction without a difference.

Jersey Fled said...

Once again I have to point out that Trump is polling close to 50% approval with Hispanics in a couple of recent polls. This is higher than his overall approval numbers. So it's incorrect to characterize his voters as just white.

Unless of course they are polling only "white hispanics".

buwaya said...

"Torante the White", more usually called its Catalan name, "Tirant lo Blanc", Martorell, has an actual sex scene, though nor, er, descriptive, other than the cries of the young lady.

It deserves a better movie than its gotten. The history is fascinating, concerning as it does the adventures of the Catalan Company.

Darrell said...

Funny how Whoopi doesn't mention that Hollywood has been blacklisting conservatives since the 1970s. I just heard a Chris Mitchum interview on YouTube (in the Word on Western Series) where he talked about not being able to even audition for a part for 11 months after hitting it big in Big Jake with Oscar talk and a load of magazine covers and multiple appearances with Carson. He finally got back from doing a movie in Spain and showed up for an open call on Steelyard Blues (1973) and the female casting director took him aside and said she couldn't interview him because he had starred with John Wayne. Fortunately for him, the movie he made in Spain became the biggest grossing film in their history, and he started getting offers from Spanish, Italian, and French production companies and he wound up doing 60 films in 14 different countries.

John henry said...

We must never lose sight of the fact that the blacklist was a Hollywood invention from beginning to end.

Not government, Hollywood.

Cooked up by The Hollywood Reporter trade magazine. Imposed and enforced by the studios.

Purely a private endeavor.

John Henry

mikee said...

Laurence Sterne, writing in his wonderful travelogue A Sentimental Journey, describes women as they age thusly:

"There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.—She is coquette,—then deist,—then _dévote_: the empire during these is never lost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it with
slaves of infidelity,—and then with the slaves of the church."

The Left has dropped religion and adopted in its place politics, but leftist women are still following the path through life which Sterne describes so adroitly.

Roughcoat said...

Jeff Brokaw @8:03 AM makes a good point. Before the Hollywood blacklist against leftists there was a de facto blacklist by Communists and fellow travelers who were both numerous and influential in the film industry, particularly in the creative echelons. The Coen brothers' "Hail Caesar!" addresses this issue, with devastating humor. The scene depicting a meeting of wealthy Communist screenwriters in a swank seaside mansion is hilarious -- and tellingly on the mark.

John henry said...

We need to start blacklisting messing and Mccormick.

Any show they are on find out the advertisers and send a letter. Not email but stamp & envelope letter.

Complain that you will not buy their product if they support m&m.

I understand that even as few as 1-200 letters cause serious panic in advertisers.

Deplatform m&m

John Henry

Darrell said...

And during the 1950s "blacklist" period, there was an underground network run by all of the big studios to funnel work to anyone who had trouble. Sure, you might have to write or work under a pseudonym, but opportunities actually increased--at lower rates, of course. The studio owners knew how to take advantage of a crisis they created.

Roughcoat said...

I agree with Fen @7:59 AM. Conservatives should undertake a vigorous and relentless campaign of doxxing the leftists/progressives in Hollywood, politics, and public life. I am quite serious about this. They sowed the whirlwind, now let them reap the storm.

Jeff said...

Sunny Hostin made the point that campaign contributions are already public. So what Messing is proposing is just compiling and publicizing information that is already out there.

I think we should be clear about just what it is that we're objecting to. Where do we draw the line? If we don't like going as far as Messing is advocating, what about a web site that runs a script to compile and present that information to you, but only if you click on a button? What if the site cached that information?

Whoopi says that if you go and dig up this info on your own and use it personally, that's OK, but she doesn't want anyone making lists. So she's OK with individuals refusing to work with Trump supporters, so long as they discovered that Trump support on their own. But it's wrong to help them do so. This is incoherent.

You might say that the problem is bringing your politics to work. But that would rule out all kinds of conversations with your coworkers and in itself violates principles of free speech that most of hold dear.

The real problem is that people, mostly on the left, are equating political views with morality. Those who disagree with their views are subhuman and don't deserve the dignity of being treated as human beings able to think for themselves.

Roughcoat said...

Fen @9:10 AM:

Again, I agree.

Darrell said...

The Hays Code implemented by Hollywood in 1930 to address the backlash coming from Hollywood scandals is a lot like what is going on today with the new Hollywood Wokeness after #metoo. Easy to see in everything now.

Ken B said...

Good for Whoopi.

Whoopi Goldberg as the sane. Criminy.

mockturtle said...

Althouse's argument #2: It's not so much that people back then didn't care about what was true or not, but more that those who made the blacklist had too much certainty and rectitude about their own political beliefs and — perversely — thought it was a good idea to frighten, destroy, and silence those who wanted to say something else.

Are you suggesting that this does not apply, to a tee, the Progs' agenda?

mockturtle said...

And Whoopee for Whoopi! I always suspected she had a little more sense than most of her Hollywood colleagues.

Ken B said...

I do not recall anyone, anyone at all, calling for a boycott of those who worked with Weinstein.

buwaya said...

As for all the above - tell it to Brendan Eich.

Hollywood is not the only place with blacklists.
You will find the same in all the F1000.

Rick said...

You don't have to like it, but we don't go after people because we don't like who they voted for. We don't go after them that way.

Factually though this just isn't true. Hollywood has long engaged in political discrimination which is why so many former stars start pushing left wing politics. It's their pension plan.


Hollywood has never admitted it publicly before because it shows their claims of victimhood from the communist blacklists to be farcical.

Rick said...

Fen said...
[""because the next list that comes out, your name will be on and then people will be coming after you"]

I just love how a Left-wing call to blacklist the Right results in Althouse lecturing us not to resort to such tactics.


This concern is of little interest to the non-left. There are two levels of security, qualification and identification. Everyone non-left is already qualified, they don't need to support a blacklist of left wingers to become targets.

William said...

They say the smartest person in the room is the room. Maybe, but the most prejudiced person in the room is the room. I can remember when political correctness dictated that Doris Day could not be hugged by Harry Belafonte on network television. Back then, Confederates weren't proto-Nazis but rather bold, rebellious spirits. The most acclaimed movie in Hollywood's history was pro slavery. Homosexuals, if they were portrayed at all, were depicted as either frivolous or decadent.
These were the politically correct views that were used back then......More pernicious than blacklisting is all this political correctness crap. The entertainment media present a world that doesn't exist anywhere but in their own imaginations.

Robert Cook said...

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine

The essential foundational philosophy and practice of any free society that wants to stay free. (We lost that battle long ago.)

Yes, it may seem self-serving, rather than the more selfless "one shouldn't do bad things because they're a bad," which, of course, is correct, but it's a loser as a motivating rationale. People have to understand that that which they will allow (or encourage) to be inflicted on others will eventually be inflicted on them in order to get some to realize the real world reasons for prohibiting certain behaviors. The Bill of Rights is Thomas Paine's statement writ large.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Gotta say, Goldberg’s got guts.

Robert Cook said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Cook said...

"Not defending blacklists necessarily—that is a separate argument—but there were actual Communists in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, and they were putting Stalinist messages in movies, and this is all established fact. Ditto for Communists in government, advocating for Stalin. It was a big and growing problem."

How big and problematic was it? What Stalinist messages?

That aside, in a "free" nation, aren't citizens permitted to form or adopt any political beliefs and parties they wish? The treatment of the Communists in the 40s and 50s could as easily be applied to any political faction as times and opinions change.

Thomas Paine's axiom hold true in all cases.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Messing doesn’t realize that SHE is the fascist here. LOL what a dumbass...

Hollywood is like a bunch of fifth graders, with nannies and 6 car garages.

tim in vermont said...

This is starting to look like that issue of National Lampoon where the rednecks and the blacks went to war against the elites.

“No redneck ever repossessed my Cadillac!”

Bob Boyd said...

as if the morality in question is nothing but self-interest

Goldberg knows her audience.

tim in vermont said...

Trumbo got out from under the thumb of the blacklisters by making great movies like Roman Holiday. Milnius was blacklisted by the left after a long string of hits.

The left cares about power, the right cares about money. So Trumbo had an opening. Hollywood figures they are rich enough, besides, the Chicoms like where they are going philosophically.

tim in vermont said...

The elites require this unnatural split between poor blacks and poor whites. Divide and conquer is as old as war.

mockturtle said...

Cookie, as you probably know, the Lutheran pastor Niemöller wrote the following confession during the Nazi era. It was subsequently adopted by the ACLU and, with slight variations, on the Holocaust memorial.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.


As a once-upon-a-time ACLU member I took that caveat seriously. Unfortunately, the ACLU went off the rails to the left and never recovered.

Fernandinande said...

“No redneck ever repossessed my Cadillac!”

I'm pretty sure a redneck repossess a Cadillac, from a black guy, yet, in the Charley Varrick documentary.

Fernandinande said...

False alarm, it was just a Chrysler Imperial.

tim in vermont said...

I guess National Lampoon should print a retraction then.

Skippy Tisdale said...

First they came for the deplorables...

mockturtle said...

First they came for the deplorables...

First, they came for the deplorables' guns...

Bay Area Guy said...

Whoopi is making sense here!

Sgt Stedanko said...

I am not a fan of Whoopi or any of those harpies for that matter, but I must give credit where it’s due. Calling Messing out was the right thing to do.

chuck said...

> and these days it's the left-wingers who are trying to cancel the people

Well, in *those* days they also did that with reeducation sessions and suchlike. The left hasn't changed, they have always been that way.

tcrosse said...

Hollywood cops a superior attitude about the Blacklist of the '50s, but it was Hollywood that enforced it.

Tomcc said...

"We don't go after them that way" seems to suggest that there are alternative, more subtle ways of "going after them".
Or is that just me?

Jim at said...

Goldberg is upset only because it exposes the left for who they truly are.

Don't be fooled. She supports the thuggery espoused by Messing. She always has.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hollywood is the ultimate insular culture of cool kids. I read last night that 13 women turned down Sharon Stone’s role in “Basic Instinct.” The first 13 were deemed to be the cool kids. But they wouldn’t do the nudity. No body doubles were used."

What does that have to do with the topic under discussion?

John henry said...

Cookie,

Song of Russia
The North Star
Mission to Moscow

Are three well known pro-stalin movies.

Major Hollywood studios. Semi-major casts and Crews.

They are on on YouTube. Or used to be. I've tried to watch all three. Could not make it to the end of any of them.

John Henry

RichardJohnson said...

"Not defending blacklists necessarily—that is a separate argument—but there were actual Communists in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, and they were putting Stalinist messages in movies, and this is all established fact. Ditto for Communists in government, advocating for Stalin. It was a big and growing problem."

Before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the party line was against US involvement in WW2. Before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Dalton Trumbo wrote 2 books that pushed the party line against US involvement in WW2: Johnny Got His Gun and The Remarkable Andrew.
His anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun won one of the early National Book Awards.....

His novel The Remarkable Andrew featured the ghost of President Andrew Jackson appearing to caution the United States against getting involved in World War II. In a review of the book, Time Magazine wise-cracked, "General Jackson's opinions need surprise no one who has observed George Washington and Abraham Lincoln zealously following the Communist Party Line in recent years


I find it interesting that Trumbo wrote 2 books with distinctly different reasons for avoiding war. That suggests to me that avoiding was was more important to Trumbo than a specific reason for avoiding war. As if there are reasons 1, 2, 3.... for following the party line.

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Dalton Trumbo shed his pacifist views.What a surprise.

Similarly, the Almanac Singers- which included Pete Seeger- released an album in the spring of 1941,"Songs for John Doe," which included a number of anti-war songs. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the album was withdrawn from record shop stores.

At the least, Dalton Trumbo and Pete Seeger deserve our contempt for using their creative powers in support of the party line, and for then changing their opinions in accordance with the changing of the party line.

ken in tx said...

I am surprised no one has used the term "Shit list". That's the term used in some work places for those the powers that be don't like. That's what a blacklist really is.

rcocean said...

Mel Gibson was on a "Blacklist" for about 12 years. He seems to be off it. R. Lee Emery said he was "blacklisted" by Hollywood after he come out strong for Bush. of course, if we had true "free enterprise" then some studio exec who wanted to make $$$, would've hired all these people. Its reason no. 243 why libertarian-ism is bullshit. People aren't motivated by entirely by Money. Especially in Hollywood.

Scott Patton said...

To pick a nit. A whitelist isn't necessarily what is good. It's what is allowed.

narciso said...

note how the post was edited,


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dalton_Trumbo

Todd Roberson said...

Christ! Goldberg has become a fat disgusting hog.

RichardJohnson said...

narciso
note how the post was edited.
Indeed. Tells me that the battle didn't stop with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

narciso said...

They try to eliminate any negative association with communism they leave out the smith act of 1940, that did proscribe the party.

chickelit said...

Goldberg is probably a closeted Trump supporter.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

Narciso,

Would that be Rep. Howard W. Smith (Democrat-Virginia)by any chance?

And let's not forget the loyalty oath that Joe McCarthy made all government employees sign.

Oh, wait. That was President Truman who did that. In March 1947. When McCarthy had been in office about 2 months.

Well, there's always the horrendous McCarren Act that McCarthy got enacted. Ummmm... maybe not. That would have been Patsy McCarren, Democrat-Nevada.

Surely there must have been something that McCarthy did that was bad to get his name vilified for all these years. He gets blamed for more things than the anti-Christ yet it turns out he never did them.

I just don't know what it was.

John Henry

RichardJohnson said...

John Henry to Narciso
Would that be Rep. Howard W. Smith (Democrat-Virginia)by any chance?
Yes.
Howard W. Smith.
Smith proposed the anticommunist Alien Registration Act of 1940 18 U.S.C. § 2385, which became known as the Smith Act. It required resident aliens to register. It also banned advocating the overthrow of the US government or its political subdivisions. American Communist Party chairman Gus Hall was one of many communists later convicted of violating its provisions. The US Supreme Court ruled in Yates v. United States (1957) that the First Amendment protected much radical speech, which halted Smith Act prosecutions under the Act.

In addition, Democrats established the House Un-American Activities Committee. (HUAC)

Speaking of Gus Hall, I got a kick out of reading Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin (Cold War Classics)
The FBI thought so little of Gus Hall's operation that for a quarter century it provided the bagman who delivered Kremlin gold to Hall.
Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 27 years, Morris Childs, code name "Agent 58", provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets.From the Amazon review:

Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 57 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because of his high ranking in the American communist party and his position as editor of its official paper, the Daily Worker, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders such as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Mao Tse-tung.

Unknown said...

THE CORRECT TERM IS NOW

"LISTS OF COLOR"

Unknown said...

> but there were actual Communists in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, and they were putting Stalinist messages in movies, and this is all established fact.

I AM GLAD THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN ANYMORE