OBIT

I do not buy into the arch-conservative (read: Republican) narrative of what took place during the 50's, that has been popularized by today's right-wingers. American communists, socialists, and other fellow travelers were not the boogeymen that right-wing witch-hunters made them out to be. Nor were the Soviet Union and Red China the threat that conservative ideology found it necessary to paint them. The wheels of conservativism today are still greased with that same kind of absurd, baseless fear-mongering, with only a change in some of the casted villains, since the communists are no longer around to come out and play. These days it's liberals, socialists, and homosexuals.

Well, first of all, I am not a Republican (nor am I a Democrat), so I certainly don't take my cues for interpreting television from any political party.

Every ideology, by its nature, tries to "win." This isn't a conspiracy. This is human nature. Whether or not one considers communists a "threat" simply depends on whether one favours communism or not. If one likes communism, then obviously its encroachment is not seen as a threat but something one wishes for. On the other hand, if one think that communism is a terrible method of government that leads to a horrible existence for its subjects, then one does consider it a threat.

Personally, I had family in East Germany and in Poland before the fall of the Berlin Wall, many of whom managed to find their way to North America through desperate measures, so I have their personal testaments as to what life behind the Iron Curtain was like. It was horrible beyond imagining. And the totalitarian and insidious behaviour of the commmunist Stasi in East Germany is thoroughly documented.

One man's "right-wing witch hunters" is another man's "defenders of a non-communist political system." Again, it simply comes down to whether one likes the ideology or not.

Likewise, someone who likes fascism would understandably say that today, there are many "left wing witch hunters" who oppose fascism as vehemently as McCarthy, etc., opposed communism. The left engages in "fear mongering" against fascists just as much as the right engages in "fear mongering" against communists. (This is inevitable.) Now, whether these anti-fascists are "witch-hunters" or "defenders of a non-fascist political system" also depends on whether one likes fascism or not. To a fascist, they certainly would be seen as "witch hunters." A fascist wouuld also say that Germany and Japan were "not the threat that liberal ideology found it necessary to paint them." So you see, it's all subjective.

"Witch hunting" thus, is also purely subjective, based on whether one wants the system being hunted to triumph, or to be prevented.

But all this is a digression from the purer discussion of the episode. Most who analyze OBIT tend to see it as an indictment of television itself, a sort of "biting the hand that feeds it" sort of episode.

Yes, there is undoubtedly that. But I was pointing out that IF one brings in politics, then there is no question that the episode, as it was filmed, more closely ends up being a defense of "witch hunting," because in the episode, the "witch threat" is real and immediate.

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