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January 28, 2006
The Left's Rosenberg Fetish Still Lives
The Left's half-concealed sympathy for psychopaths who would like to kill us — currently highlighted by the War on Terror — isn't actually new. Nor is its dogged insistence on living in some alternate reality where the only real threat to America is America itself. Liberal elitists' fetish for the Rosenbergs is a case in point. Demonstrating a third characteristic of the Left — its refusal to live in the present — a piece in the Wall Street Journal reveals that the Rosenberg fetish is still alive.
A quick refresher on settled history: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were justly executed for espionage in 1953 after helping Stalin's Soviet Union develop nuclear weapons by stealing American secrets. It is no thanks to the Rosenbergs that these weapons weren't used to kill us by the millions. Hell's hottest fires are richly deserved by these profoundly evil communist spies.
Naturally their execution made them martyrs to moonbats. For years the Left pretended the Rosenbergs were innocent. By now everyone knows better. For example, Khrushchev's memoirs make note that the Rosenbergs "vastly aided" Soviet development of weapons of mass death. Their guilt was corroborated by the 1995 declassification of the Venona documents, as well as by NSA intercepts in the 1940s (no wonder the NY Times doesn't want the NSA doing its job).
The WSJ piece reports on a forum sponsored by Fordham Law School, which convened in Manhattan to discuss the "artistic influence" of the Rosenbergs. The invitation referred to the Rosenbergs as "the accused" — as if there were some question of their guilt even now.
Heavy hitters at the event were novelist E.L. Doctorow and playwright Tony Kushner, both of whom have created fictional works expressing sympathy for the Rosenbergs. The forum was "arcane and self-serious" as the participants bloviated about the nature of "historical art," which was defined as "an aesthetic system of opinions."
Apparently liberal intellectuals still won't admit that Stalin was a threat to us, any more than they will admit that Saddam was a threat.
"We knew that the Russians were no threat, but we wanted to persuade Americans to be afraid," Doctorow intoned, in denunciation of those who did not want our nuclear weapons technology going to a genocidal dictator clearly hostile to our civilization.
The connection to the current War on the War on Terror by this same class of useful idiots is so obvious, even Kushner could see it:
Our failure to come to terms with a brutal past, our failure to open up the coffins and let the ghosts out, has led to our current, horrendous situation.
By "brutal past," he was apparently referring to our execution of the Rosenbergs, not the tens of millions Stalin killed. The "horrendous situation" presumably refers to the War on Terror.
Of course, the audience ate it up:
As the artists [Doctorow and Kushner] turned the Rosenbergs' treason into dissent and then into patriotism, the audience was enthusiastically in tune. Present were the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and Michael Meeropol, who continue to contest their parents' Soviet entanglement, and the former editor of the Nation, Victor Navasky. When it came time to ask questions, the moderator warned off any "Cold War warriors" from asking "disrespectful" questions, like, presumably, how these authors could defend an ideology that took millions of lives. No one did.
No doubt a generation from now, if Manhattan hasn't been nuked by then, elitist morons will gather there at snooty forums to discuss the martyred Saddam Hussein's noble contributions to "historical art."
Posted by Van Helsing at January 28, 2006 5:11 PM
Comments
The evidence against the Rosenbergs is and was simply overwhelming and should convince. The only possible defense is to argue it is fake.
The counter theory that can work runs roughly:
The Feds really didn't like American Communists. True enough.
The case against them was manufactured. Fake physical evidence was carefully planted, false witnesses rewarded in some manner. Although it was a large undertaking no one every talked.
The Rosenberg were executed.
Over several decades defectors from the USSR were rewarded for keeping their mouth shut about the actual facts. Sone (purported) electronic intercepts were manufactured or never existed.
Half a century later when the USSR archives became available fake evidence was planted there too. Several Russians who should know were bribed to bolster this material.
I am interested in the era and the spy cases. Either frameups in this case and several others were amazing masterpieces or they were guilty.
This will never go away. For absolute proof cannot be done in law and some wukk always believe mysterious councils direct all mankind. Councils which talk it out in the morning, break for latte, vote. Take lunch then play golf. Except on Wednesdays when the damn doctors tie up the links.
Posted by: K at January 28, 2006 6:31 PM
"...nothing new under the sun."
Posted by: bigwhitehat at January 28, 2006 7:28 PM
"Hell's hottest fires are richly deserved by these profoundly evil communist spies."
Readers of Dante's Inferno will recall that traitors are indeed housed in the Ninth and lowest circle of Hell, but it's not exactly the hottest fires that they have to worry about.
Analogously, we can expect the Left to recognize the Rosenberg's guilt when Hell's other eight circles freeze over......
Posted by: Gary at January 28, 2006 7:38 PM
Some things never change. The left's sympathy for the devil of communism is alive and well, even though the old Soviet style regimes are mostly gone. Take a look at the loony tunes currently trashing the US as paid guests of the Venezuelan government if you need a reminder.
Anything to undermine the West, and particularly the United States is the goal of these deluded socialist/Marxist/progressive/communists.
Posted by: Mike's America at January 29, 2006 12:47 AM
Yep, the Rosenbergs were framed. Revisionist history at work with that comment.
The Rosenbergs got what they deserved.
VW
Posted by: Violence Worker at January 29, 2006 2:40 AM
I'm a Forham Law grad and I must say that FLS is CHOCK FULL of leftist idealogues. I've even had exams in which the teachers have bashed Bush, the Military, and Fox News in their hypothetical questions.
If Fordham, as a catholic jesuit school, is as biased as it is, I can just imgaine what's being crammed down the throats of Yale, Columbia, and NYU law students....
The funny thing is, the more blatant leftist propaganda I've had to put up with, the further to the right I've moved. Its a natural reaction. While I'd like to see the leftist stranglehold on education broken (just for the sake of those students who are extremely impressionable and naieve), I feel maybe the universities are doing the right a favor in their moonbat crusade. Most top quality students are repulsed by someone trying to think for them.
Posted by: TLA at January 29, 2006 3:10 AM
"artistic influence" of the Rosenbergs? In what, the Traitorous-to-Mankind Bullshit Artiste Category?
Oh, hey, aren't they up for a Nobel next? With Jimmah Carter presenting. /s.
Excellent essay, btw - while the subject itself is nauseating your piece was a well-written pleasure to read.
Posted by: Laura at January 29, 2006 11:20 AM
I just had a horrible frighteningly possible thought - (George) ClooneyTunes' next film will be an artfully-shot sepia-tinged homage to the Rosenbergs. *SHUDDER*
Posted by: Laura at January 29, 2006 11:31 AM
Your only mistake? You refer to them as "useful idiots."
What exactly is useful about them?
Posted by: Hal at January 30, 2006 12:30 AM
"Useful idiots" in Wikipedia: The term is purported to have been coined by Vladimir Lenin to describe those western reporters and travellers who would endorse the Soviet Union and its policies in the West.
Posted by: Byron at January 30, 2006 4:07 PM
