Actually, what doesn't work in 2014 is yelling "McCarthyism". Nothing says "progressive" than throwing around 1950s era epithets.
In the first place, McCarthy was right about some things: there were a large number Soviet agents in the State Department and elsewhere in the government. Please read the Venona transcripts. You probably think McCarthy had something to do with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, too. (Hint: He was a Senator...)
Did you actually read any of the links I posted, in which a decidedly non-right wing, non-crazy writer for the mainstream Atlantic Monthly demonstrates that the key research Friedan used in her book was deeply flawed, and that she misrepresented her personal background and circumstances in that same book and during its promotion?
She was pretty "homophobic," too.
Two Friedan biographers agree and they weren't writing hit pieces.
You probably believe that Ted Kennedy tried super duper hard to save that drowning woman, too.
So the book just magically fell out of the sky, untouched by its supposed author and her biases? If you read the links I cited, you'll notice that Friedan went to great lengths to present herself as an ordinary, average housewife even though she was a red diaper baby, the product of an elite education and continued to work through her "concentration camp" of a conventional marriage.
It isn't a matter of "consideration": the labor unions Friedan associated were communist, as the article shows.
As to how the book came about, again, the mythology is that little Betty took a notion to look at a bunch of magazines and survey her alumni sisters.
This is like Michael Moore selling himself to the public as an aw-shucks blue collar worker even though he didn't actually grow up in Flint and only lasted a few days on the line before quitting.
Lying for a good cause is always wrong, and ultimately poisons the well it digs.
As the Atlantic noted back in 1999: "In the thirty-six years since The Feminine Mystique appeared, much has been written challenging the authority of the sources on which Friedan relied, raising the uncomfortable question of whether a book can arrive at the larger truths if the bricks on which it is built won't stand up to time."
"In the past year two biographers of Betty Friedan, Judith Hennessee and Daniel Horowitz, appear to have shown that her treatment of her personal experiences was unreliable as well."
Why the left never seems able to make its cases -- for global warming, abortion, etc -- without lying or at the very least, exaggeration, is something they might want to look into.
That's the key to Tarantino's appeal: cultural illiterates who've never seen a movie older than Star Wars think he's a genius, just because he bothered watching all those older, far better films. No one ever got broke making stupid people feel smarter than they are.
In the first place, McCarthy was right about some things: there were a large number Soviet agents in the State Department and elsewhere in the government. Please read the Venona transcripts. You probably think McCarthy had something to do with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, too. (Hint: He was a Senator...)
Did you actually read any of the links I posted, in which a decidedly non-right wing, non-crazy writer for the mainstream Atlantic Monthly demonstrates that the key research Friedan used in her book was deeply flawed, and that she misrepresented her personal background and circumstances in that same book and during its promotion?
She was pretty "homophobic," too.
Two Friedan biographers agree and they weren't writing hit pieces.
You probably believe that Ted Kennedy tried super duper hard to save that drowning woman, too.
Try harder.
It isn't a matter of "consideration": the labor unions Friedan associated were communist, as the article shows.
As to how the book came about, again, the mythology is that little Betty took a notion to look at a bunch of magazines and survey her alumni sisters.
This is like Michael Moore selling himself to the public as an aw-shucks blue collar worker even though he didn't actually grow up in Flint and only lasted a few days on the line before quitting.
Lying for a good cause is always wrong, and ultimately poisons the well it digs.
As the Atlantic noted back in 1999:
"In the thirty-six years since The Feminine Mystique appeared, much has been written challenging the authority of the sources on which Friedan relied, raising the uncomfortable question of whether a book can arrive at the larger truths if the bricks on which it is built won't stand up to time."
"In the past year two biographers of Betty Friedan, Judith Hennessee and Daniel Horowitz, appear to have shown that her treatment of her personal experiences was unreliable as well."
Why the left never seems able to make its cases -- for global warming, abortion, etc -- without lying or at the very least, exaggeration, is something they might want to look into.
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/friedan-per-horowitz.html
And at this late date, who still believes the myth that Friedan was "just a housewife" who happened to write a book that spawned a movement?
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/10/28/david-horowitz%E2%80%99s-archives-betty-friedans-secret-communist-past/
"is a _rationalization_ to those who have been there, and will stay there."
You're welcome!
http://www.criterion.com/films/27620-kiss-me-deadly
That's the key to Tarantino's appeal: cultural illiterates who've never seen a movie older than Star Wars think he's a genius, just because he bothered watching all those older, far better films. No one ever got broke making stupid people feel smarter than they are.