Sometime ago, the following words were published nationwide:
A document describing the Russian system of exile and forced labor has been produced by the British Government. and it's to be placed before the United Nations. It is estimated that some ten million persons in the Soviet are subject to compulsory work. These persons include the "unstable" elements, the déclassé elements. The concept of forced labor is so abhorrent to the American temperament, one wonders why there is so little concern in this country over our own system of forced idleness. The disease is the same - the difference is in the method of treating the victims. In the last couple of years, a handful of American citizens have been banished from industry for political reasons and forced into the camp of idleness. From this nucleus there can easily grow (and in fact there is growing) a group of American political prisoners. They are the "déclassé," the "unstable." Their crime is to have belonged to a wrong organization in a bygone year, to have once entertained a bubbly thought (or a second cousin at dinner), to have worn a hat backward, to have been seen by an agent at a rally. Industry is being encouraged to get shed of these unstable elements, these nebulous people. Laws are being framed to help detect and debar them. They may never have broken a law, or a piece of pottery, but they are being marched steadily, imperceptibly, toward the queer Siberia of our temperate zone. This is a dangerous exodus, an unhealthy state of mind. Perhaps a report should be placed before the U.N., but we would rather see it placed where it belongs-just a memo in the hatband of every democrat, reminding him that no country has a monopoly on political terror.
This is, of course, E.B. White, August 6, 1949, the pages of The New Yorker.
Note the date. This was published before Senator McCarthy made his speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling West Virginia the following February. White is describing McCarthyism before Tail-gunner Joe joined the party.
Make no mistake, however, this is cancel culture writ large.
So next time your MAGA hat wearing, Fox News OAN/Newsmax addicted in-laws start ranting about how the "Democrat Party" is the party of "cancel culture," remind them of the Second Red Scare.
