FBI probed SciFi author Ray Bradbury for plot to glum-down America Among the many things the FBI of the 1950s and 1960s thought was corrupting America's youth and harbouring communism was, apparently, the science fiction scene. Documents recently released under freedom of information laws, show the G-men took an interest in one of the era's leading authors, Ray Bradbury. Their interest was …
"Is America a freere, less surveiled society now?"
Don't be silly, things have never been better. Happiness and Joy abound in all corners of the Land Of The Free as well as Gratitude and Love toward our Benevolent Protectors. We all enjoy paying taxes to support our American Way Of Life.
And I'm not just saying that because of the microphone planted in the lamp next to me by our capable Homeland Security agents.
Whoah. Fox News broadcast a terrible obituary of Kurt Vonnegut, so this report of the FBI's attitude towards Bradbury seems entirely plausible.
What's worrying is that Fox were looking to trash Vonnegut and his humanist values in 2007 - that is far less remote than the paranoia of decades ago.
Google: 'youtube fox news kurt vonnegut obituary'
To be fair, he does seem to have some success at "corrupting the youth". :D
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This post has been deleted by its author
>ChrisInAStrangeLand
Nice Heinlein-inspired tag!
You saw QI last night then? (Context for other readers: 'Third World' was first used top refer to countries that were aligned with neither the USA or USSR, before later being used to refer to poor countries. We now use 'Developing Nations' for the latter, a loaded phrase itself since it suggests an 'inevitable' direction.)
"Dubya's reign was even worse and its legacy lives on in the NSA."
Oh please, read your history books - the NSA has been in the surveillance business for years before Dubya ascended to power. And the UK has been an enthusiastic partner while all the time wringing its hands about the whole business.
Oh please, read your history books - the NSA has been in the surveillance business for years before Dubya ascended to power
Indeed. I'm no fan of George II, but the Clinton and Obama regimes quite happily stomped on civil rights, including privacy, in many areas. Putting multiple domestic spying agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security was a completely unnecessary bureaucratic boondoggle, but it doesn't mark W's administration as especially reprehensible in bulking up the US police state. He was pretty much par for the course.
And as bad as things are now, I'm very dubious of claims that they're worse than in the days of HUAC and COINTELPRO. That doesn't mean we should be content with the status quo, of course, but arguments that show some historical perspective are more persuasive.
There is a certain frame of mind that is always with us in society. It proliferates in organisations who have, or think they should have, the power to dictate what everyone else should think.
Most people go through that phase when they are young and see things in a simplistic fixed way. Some people never move past that phase. Unfortunately that apparent "certainty" can promote them into positions of institutional power.
Nothing encourages such behaviour in a wider population than the apparent promise of certainty and Infallibility.
From the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) report
“He noted that some of Bradbury's stories have definitely slated against the United States and its capitalistic form of government”
(my emphasis)
Interesting use of the word "capitalistic." Given the influence (then and now) of big money, it is perhaps a more important distinction than democratic.
I am also perennially amused by a certain group of Americans who shout at the top of their voices that America is the land of the free, and yet don't like liberals. Maybe they should look up the etymology of the word liberal. Just a thought
Many other Americans despair rather than smile at the attitude of these fellow countrymen
Then try to match the etymology to those who self-describe themselves as "liberal."
The 5 downvotes to 1 upvote you had for that comment also illustrates the judgmental mindset of the modern "liberal", a species that seems to be infesting El Reg's comment boards rather a lot of late. I've given you another upvote for it, but I fear the hivemind will gang up on me as well as you. At least we can take pleasure in knowing we're pissing the sanctimonious bastards off!
It seems that the FBI were simply desperate to keep their well paid jobs and their expense accounts. As they weren't able to find the real communist conspirators, they had to invent them. And a target for communist conspirator is basically "anybody more famous/richer/getting laid more often than I am", because this kind of spying is likely to be envy-driven.
Because the TLAs are opaque it is impossible to find out whether they are really successful at all.
No need to be desperate. If you are even close to being part of the intelligence community, everything you do can be wrapped in secrecy (so you can get away with anything, or nothing) and if someone *does* call you out for being an oxygen thief then you can resort to plan B which is to accuse them of being un-patriotic, or working for the enemy, or soft on crime, or ... well, it hardly matters because everything you might use to judge the accuracy of the accusation turns out to be secret. ("Trust us, our anti-terrorism squads have saved thousands. No, we can't tell you any more than that, just thousands.")
Keeping secrets has two costs. There's the explicit cost of whatever infrastructure you use to guard your secrets, and then there's the hidden cost of all the incompetence and waste that is never addressed. I suspect that the latter usually outweighs the former, which is why secrecy is something that a state should minimise.
"
"seeing as everyone is considered either a terrist or pee-doh"
Not so. Some are presumably presumed to be both.
"
It wasn't that long ago that it was widely reported that terrorists were cunningly concealing their dastardly plans inside child pornography. It was never explained just what advantage it was to use such material as a hiding place. It sounded to me about as sensible as trying to smuggle a deadly nerve toxin through airport security by putting it inside an illegal firearm.
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