JOSEPH R. McCARTHY
Joseph R. McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term “McCarthyism”, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used in reference to what are considered demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. (More from Wikipedia)
Rolling Stone’s article provides reflections from some of the rock artists involved in the PMRC controversy. Blackie Lawless, frontman for W.A.S.P., is also a born-again Christian today; but he isn’t letting these people off the hook: “At the time, to have a female senator hold up a picture of my crotch in front of the Congress of the United States made me ask myself, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m just some kid in a rock & roll band. Do these guys have nothing better to do with our tax money?’ But now being a born-again Christian, I’ve not played that song [‘Animal (F--k Like A Beast)’] for almost 10 years. Knowing what we know now, the PMRC should have stood for ‘Politicians Masked as Reelection Campaigns’. It was Al Gore’s ‘Joe McCarthy moment’.”
(June 2016)
