Kyungho Dean: Edward R. Murrow vs. Joe McCarthy

Source:Kyungho Dean- CBS News anchor Edward R. Murrow, I'm guessing with his son.

Source:The New Democrat 

"In 1958, Edward R. Murrow stated, "Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live."

Next year, Mr. Murrow's speech will "celebrate" its 50th anniversay...

The citizens in our free countries (I'm Canadian) are in such desperate-desperate need for Edward R Murrows. Not just on television, or in national printed media --but even at the smallest of local levels.

Yes, Washington and Ottawa affairs are important. But the day-to-dayness that most affects people's lives play themselves out at the local, municipal level.

I reached the sad and unavoidable conclusion that some of our "city halls" are dominated and run by a Corporate Repressive Evil Empire Power Structure.

I despair that I'm just not smart enough, tenacious enough, courageous enough to right the problem. I realize it isn't me whose most affected since I'm part of the comfortable class.

I despair though at the statistics of "The Others"

"Harvest of Shame" aired just after Thanksgiving 1960. The Dec. 5, 1960.

It was a documentary on the grinding poverty of migrant workers in Florida. 

Edward R Murrow made these closing remarks:

"The migrants have no lobby. Only an enlightened, aroused and perhaps angered public opinion can do anything about the migrants. The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do. Good night, and good luck."

It isn't just migrants who have no lobby. Our working minimum-wage poor neighbours living right here in our own municipalities "do not have the strength to influence legislation." Or do not speak sufficient English.

From Kyungho Dean

To quote Edward R. Murrow: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." Which pretty much sums up the difference between people who believe in free speech and fascists. "We cannot defend freedom abroad when we are making it weaker at home". Going to other countries to defend freedom and American values as we are crushing those values at home for the American people. That is what this debate in the early and mid 1950s was about.

Ed Murrow and his nightly newscast See it Now and their investigation into Senator Joe McCarthy's committee hearings about supposed Communists inside of the U.S. Government put CBS News on the map as far as TV in this country. And probably led to the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite that eventually became a half-hour show. Because Murrow and See it Now took down a movement that was trying to destroy free speech and assembly for the rest of the country. Which is what Joe McCarthy and his supporters were about.