Spooked By His Sci Fi, FBI Looked Into Asimov As Possible Communist Tipster 190
v3rgEz writes "By September 14, 1960, Isaac Asimov had been a professor of biochemistry at Boston University for 11 years, and his acclaimed "I, Robot" collection of short stories was on its seventh reprint. This was also the day someone not-so-subtly accused him of communist sympathies in a letter to J. Edgar Hoover. They ominously concluded that "Asimov may be quite all right. On the other hand . . . . ." The "tip off" wasn't given much credit, but it didn't matter since Asimov's science fiction writing alone was enough to warrant FBI monitoring, particularly as the FBI hunted for the mysterious ROBPROF, a communist informant embedded in American academia. MuckRock has Isaac Asimov's FBI files in full, and a write up of the more interesting bits."
Re:Same story, different time (Score:2, Interesting)
When I read stories like this, it's easy to imagine people from bygone eras to be not as educated or as informed as people are now, and this is why things like this occur. And then I'm reminded by the nightly news that human intelligence hasn't appreciably increased between now and then. Chances are that history is repeating itself today, and our descendants will eventually see some declassified documents about the stupdity of the current people in power. I wish there was a bug fix for stupidity and small mindedness.
Re:Same story, different time (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope, the simpler answer is that most Americans are completely ok with this shit.
Of course history doesn't repeat; but it rhymes. IMHO we've nailed down that aspect of the 1950s. Most Americans didn't care who got blacklisted; but there were rumblings beneath the surface. The 50s had "the beat generation". So far all we have is "occupy" on the Left and Tea Party on the right. There hasn't been any really interesting literature coming from the Left, no Ginsberg or Keroac; but it's a bit early to tell, or it might be missing this time. Those guys had the GI bill that allowed them to persue writing. This generation is coming back from war with debt...
Re:Same story, different time (Score:5, Interesting)
What the FUCK is going on with this country?
"Communist" and "Terrorist" are just labels used as excuses to exert control over the population because the leadership is fundamentally afraid of the populace. The Nixon tapes clearly demonstrate Nixon's paranoid fear. Other leaders share the same fear, though not the same paranoia hence there is no public demonstration of said fear. The new leadership (the wealthy business oligarchs) are afraid because if people recognized the level of control under which they live, they would likely revolt.
The US has taken and used the Nazi propaganda model of polarizing the population in opposition to something and using this for the benefit of the nation as a whole. It was during the second world war that the US discovered the productive power of focussing the populace on a common enemy. The NEOCONs have just taken this to a whle new level by controlling all forms of mass media and religious discussion in conjunction with political ideology. By controlling the information, the terms "communist", "terrorist", "pirate" and hosts of others can gain traction as a mechanism for the production of fear driving the populace to fight in common need for a goal suiting those promoting the fear.
Ignoring the harm this causes to the global view of the propagandists, you can say that the mechnism is a sound motivator. What has happened in modern America (which has happened countless times previously in failed dictatorships) is that the wealthy continue to accumulate unreasonable amounts of wealth at the expense of the poor. The poor rarely notice the problem until they're unemployed, lost their homes and are starving whilst being increasing oppressed by unreasonable regulations imposed by the leadership.
Re:Same story, different time (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I believe nurb432 below [slashdot.org] summed it up best in his tag (emphasis mine):
---- Booth was a patriot ---- If you dont agree with me, dont bother replying as i dont care what you have to say ----
Politics in USA are based on the idea that those who disagree can always leave and go West to find a new community that embraces their ideas, rather than trying to negotiate a compromise that everyone can live with. Well, they can't anymore since that pesky Pacific Ocean blocks the way. So now you have people who's mythology prices independence and individuality forced to live and work together. It worked somewhat as long as the Soviet Union provided a boogeyman of external threat, but now that it's gone and Al-Qaeda being too pathetic to provide a serious threat it's breaking down.
So, what's happening is that US is finally being forced to confront the fact it has no frontier anymore. It has no land that could be settled or virgin resources to be tapped for quick economic growth. This also means that most people will never be economically independent, no matter how hard or smart they work. The political machine is breaking down as its assumptions break, the budget circus being a symptom of that, and everyone who can is trying to grap as much power as possible to control the direction the country takes. And of course there's always the possibility that the union falls apart entirely, which is reason enough for the federal government to grab as much power as possible.
It's just the death struggles of the American Dream. We shall see what replaces it, and whether the country can avoid a slide to either dictatorship or break-up. It's not going to be easy, and depends on how much shared culture still exists between the states - and the Federal government isn't exactly helping by constantly wiping its metaphorical body opening with the US Constitution, thus illegitimazing itself and discrediting the document.
Re:Used to this yet? (Score:2, Interesting)
I said it before, and I'll say it again:
If you have nothing to say, you have nothing to fear.
Re:Same story, different time (Score:2, Interesting)
No they aren't. The trust and happiness in the US government with all its people is at an all time low. Its less than 10%.
Gerrymandering is what makes them get away with it. People aren't happy with the government, they are happy with the guy they elected. Why? Because the election zones aren't random or geographically divided, they are divided in such way to group up people that vote alike.
I highly, very highly, if you ever take advice from a stranger on the internet to take this one and not the one that tells you to strip in front of your webcam, to read http://www.amazon.com/The-Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Politics/dp/1610391845 . It will help you understand the situation of why bad people are chosen over and over again pretty well. I won't claim its perfect, although I believe it explains politics very good and most likely correctly, but I am not sure.
Re:Used to this yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stalin's political repressions have a direct death toll of roughly 1 million. When GB archives were declassified with the fall of the USSR, the numbers turned out to be quite a bit lower that people who were all hyped up by Solzhenitsyn expected them to be. For the period of 1921 to 1953, the records show:
Total convictions for political ("counterrevolutionary" - Article 58) crimes: 3,777,380
- sent to prison or gulag: 2,369,220
- executed: 642,980
Quite a few of those send to gulags have also died - which is also recorded in the 1 million total figure that is the consensus at the time.
Of course, this does not count famines like Holodomor, and various other policies which resulted in deaths. But those were not witch hunts for "enemies of the proletariat", which is the Soviet analog to the activities of Hoover and McCarthy.
You obviously still have a point - a million is still a very large number compared to a few hundred - but it's worth putting the correct figures in place, now that we know them.
Re:Used to this yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
The number of victims prevents any such comparison... The number of own citizens perished in American "witch hunts" is, pretty much, zero.
Collectivist ideologies — Fascism and Communism (as well as Communism-light, otherwise known as Socialism) — don't value the Individual for much and would not hesitate to kill thousands and millions "for the greater good", while in America Individual still usually trumps the Collective and any attempts at mass-murder (or even mass incarceration) tend to fail.
So, in demolishing your ridiculous attempt to compare America to Nazis, we could stop right here. But I'll go on... The number of foreigners dead off American weaponry — in the 60 years from Korean War to the Iraq one — is well under 5 million, whereas just the USSR lost, by official figures, over 20 million dead to the Germans — in only 4 years.
Re:In those days (Score:2, Interesting)
It makes things — metal is poured, people retain (and improve) their skills at it and the many other things required to make the tank. I agree wholeheartedly, that it is wasteful — but not as wasteful (and destructive) than the endless subsidy.
Citation needed... But, even we accept these numbers, why is it, that numerous immigrants — legal and otherwise — come to this country and manage to not only do rather well, but to support extended families back home? They are, we are told — by Democrats and certain Republicans alike — "taking jobs Americans would not do"... Of course, Americans don't need to take such jobs — various government programs provide the "safety net", that's more comfortable, than getting up in the morning.
Oh, now the truth comes out... It is not the kind benevolence, that keeps you wanting to pay them — it is the fear of them robbing you... Makes sense.
But, no, the first option you listed — and dismissed so quickly — is perfectly practical. There is plenty of work to be done, but some of it pays less, than the government's handouts do — so, why bother?..
Christy Walton's late husband provided for her — her current wealth was earned by him. She is the lucky beneficiary of our civilization's notion, that the dying are allowed to decide, who gets their wealth after them — whether she "deserves" it is not for us to decide, the monies are her husband's.
I am neither adulating over Ms. Walton, nor condemning anybody to death. I am not counting other people's monies — you do...
As for your poster-vet (assuming he actually exists and is not collecting the pay he duly earned in Vietnam [va.gov]), you've already admitted, that your own concern for such people stems not from compassion, but from fear, he would turn to robbing you.
But even if it were compassion — you are welcome to help him out, if his case seems compelling to you. You are even welcome to attempt to convince perfect strangers (like me) to help him out. What you are not entitled to (or should not be) is forcing me (at gun-point — implicit in all tax-collection) to pay for the guy, who did not manage to save for his own retirement in over 40 years since his military service ended...