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We Will Not Walk in Fear

Jennifer Bryant

Excellent documentary short about how the McCarthy era's irrational hysteria ended with the help of famed CBS newscaster and journalist Edward R. Murrow. His show, See It Now, brought a level headed, rational response to McCarthyism's misinformation and accusations which had descended into a witch hunt on the level of the Salem Witch Trials. The episode "used footage of McCarthy speeches to portray him as dishonest, reckless and abusive toward witnesses and prominent Americans(wiki)". By the time McCarthy responded, his countrymen had already begun to turn against him.

There are parallels we can draw from this episode in history to make sense of our own time. The Bush Years have have left in its wake a country misinformed and fearful. From Guantanimo, to the Iraq War, CIA wiretapping, terror warnings and the Axis of Evil, we have all been made to witness fear once again used as a political tool for the blind and irrational.

Below is a famous Edward R. Murrow quote from his episode entitled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy"

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.