Pynchon's to the left....I think Pynchon's anti-secrecy, is what....

[Prsamsa at aol.com]

earlier, Mike Weaver wrote:

____
The IWW material may be little more than backstory but it offers a glimpse 
of US history likely unknown to many of the books readers. Why would he do 
that if unless he has the sympathies you are keen to deny him?
As I pointed out in my notes the HUAC section focuses on the workforce 
rather than the stars. The Hollywood Ten continued working, in Europe or 
via pseudonyms or fronts, not an option for the gaffers, script readers or 
best boys forced out of work by their political choices. (Do you know of 
any factual coverage of that?)
--------------------------

Perry chimes in:

       Some facts on the Hollywood Ten and that era:
Ring Lardner, Jr. is mentioned in Catcher in the Rye, very warmly--or is it
Ring, Sr--anyway, the refutation of McCarthyism is clear;   Dalton Trumbo
is credited with screenwriting in Spartacus, a move seen as "giving him
his name back," and a clever move by an English director, Stanley Kubrick,
early in his career; 

     Dashell Hammett, author of several well-written
detective stories, was also "named" as a sympathizer and he and 
Lillian Hellman suffered poverty and rejection through the the 
1950's--So why were'nt the papers of the time all up in arms,
well, McCarthy had so much power and support among
the paranoid rocket-fearing right, that up until the new generation
took over, the LA Times was generally seen as the worst paper in any
major city for objective news, not even counting the Hearst organs and
gossip rags, which were sometimes the same.  And basically, journalism
history admits McCarthy fooled and manipulated the press for several
years until Ed Murrow, Hellman and others stood up to him and 
called him what he was, a drunken idealogue, "with as much reliance
on actual facts as any propaganda minister".  (rhetoric and emphasis, mine.)  
 
    Sidebar:   You could count Orson Welles as affected indirectly by the
Commie scare, as he became known as such an auteur  that he
had trouble scaring up production money and had to work acting jobs
to come up with money for his projects, which qualifies Welles as the
best-known, if not the earliest, "indy" director.   Truly, he had pissed
off Hearst so badly the picture barely opened, kept getting mentioned
as one of the top 10 of all time by people who'd only heard of it, not seen 
it,
since the movie distribution system was so centralized and dependent
on newspapers for ads, etc.    
     Sad reading also about John Garfield, birthname Julius
Garfinkel out of a tough Lower East Side neighborhood, star of Body and
Soul, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gentleman's Agreement, Tortilla
Flat, Force of Evil, The Sea Wolf, among about 20 movies:  My Katz 
"Film Encylopedia" say Garfield was blacklisted after refusing to name
names and died in 1952, at 39 years old, from a heart attack that those
close to him attributed to the blacklist.  

Which reminds me, and this is a personal opinion, which those of
any politics may want to consider:  I opine that the chances of Los Angeles
1952, being overthrown by a commie cell of actors and writers are about
the same as presentday terrorists causing any more catastrophic damage
in the US.  

Perry, 
"Samsa" 
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