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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

Do you remember Herb Philbrick? Back in the Fifties there was a TV program called "I Led Three Lives." Each episode told the true stories of Herb Philbrick. His three lives were: (1) wonderful family man, (2) communist agent in the United States, and (3) FBI counterespionage man. (How is it that I can remember the name of a TV character from fifty years ago and can't remember the name of some relatives?) When the draft board sent me my notice for induction, I was old enough to not be enamored by the thought of going to war. Nevertheless I felt communism had to be stopped, and if my number was called, well ... like a John Wayne thing (the movie John Wayne, not the real person John Wayne), I had to go.

So why did I have this Cold Warrior mentality? What propaganda was lodged in the memory cells deep inside my brain? I'm sure one of the important ones was Herb Philbrick. For a couple of years there, every week Herb Philbrick busted another dangerous commie cell. Just think, if Herb busted all those cells and other FBI agents were doing the same thing and it was probable that they couldn't get every one, then there must have been thousands of commie cells in this country back in the Fifties.

For forty-four years, Cold War propaganda held sway in this country. It had a large role in allowing politicians and corporations to have their way in domestic and foreign affairs — even if their way had nothing to do with the Russian or Chinese menace. For all practical purposes the menace mainly was an excuse for corporate America's efforts to secure markets and raw materials in other countries and feed at the defense industry trough at home. If the standoff with the Soviet Union hadn't existed, then they would have liked to invent it.

Then suddenly the Red Menace ended in 1989. How could we justify sticking in our nose around the world and spending high at Boeing and the rest? They scrambled for twelve years trying to get their story straight. When Dick Cheney announced that the War on Terrorism was going to last 50 years, you could just about hear the sigh of relief issued by his brothers on the board of directors at Halliburton. You could imagine the salivation of the chairman at DynCorp. This sector of business was again looking good.

So now we have the War on Terrorism. Domestically, it looks very similar to the Cold War. Remember Herb Philbrick busting those commie cells? Well, now we have to watch out for terrorist cells. There is a difference, of course. During the Cold War, political and military and technical secrets were stolen or sold, but any cells bent on sabotage or other mayhem either existed only in someone's mind, or if they did exist, were harmless. Al-Qaeda cells, on the other hand, brought us 9/11 and threaten more. Whatever they do to us, the most important point is that we know they exist. That affects our outlook and behavior.

That's what the government wants. When we look at these terrorist cells and other Al-Qaeda activities, they want us to see the same dangers we saw when we looked at international communism. Then they get to act and spend as they wish.

The Cold War perception and the terrorism perception are similarly painted. Back in the Cold War days you had to root out and destroy commie cells. Today we have to root out and destroy Al-Qaeda cells. Back then, when we were in grade school, we had air-raid drills where we had to sit in hallways away from windows with our heads tucked between our knees and our hands over our heads to ward off the nuclear bombs that were sure to come our way. Today we are told to use plastic sheeting and duct tape in our homes to keep out any toxin Al-Qaeda sends our way.

Back then we had an air-raid siren go off every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. for practice and to keep us always alert. I always wondered why the Russians didn't attack on Tuesday morning. If they did that, everybody in Chicago would go, "Yeah, right!" and wouldn't have time to get into the crouch with our hands over our heads to protect ourselves from the A-bomb. (Everyone who wasn't a baseball fan in Chicago in 1959 knew they were going to die. When the White Sox won the pennant in 1959, Fire Commissioner Quinn set off the air-raid sirens to celebrate, and it wasn't 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Those who didn't follow baseball figured they only had twenty minutes before the Russian planes would be overhead to end our lives — except for those who had confidence in their crouch. Fortunately for Chicagoans, we haven't faced another alarm, because neither of our teams has won a pennant in the last forty-five years.)

Back then we had air-raid sirens to keep us on our toes. Now we have an alert status. Sometimes it's yellow. Sometimes it's orange or green or purple and sometimes elevated and sometimes not. What it all means is Homeland Security saying "Trust us."

Back in the early days of the Cold War, especially when McCarthyism was in its heyday, people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors. If they found anything suspicious they could call in one of J. Edgar's men to make the neighbor come clean. Now from Homeland Security comes the suggestion that Neighborhood Crime Watch organizations be on the outlook for terrorists. "Hey, Matt, that kid across the street with the heavy backpack looks a little Arabic to me. Do you think ... ?" "Naw, man, that's his schoolbooks." They say kids are having problems with the weight of their schoolbooks nowadays. Except for poor kids who go to schools that are short of schoolbooks because money has to go to Homeland Security. Anyway, keep a watch out for neighborhood terrorists (A.K.A. gangbangers).

There was censorship in the Cold War as well as now. On "Nightline" one night, Ted Koppel read off the names of our dead soldiers in Iraq. So Sinclair Communications — owners of 62 ABC outlets — refused to show that particular program. Clear Channel radio stations have a list of songs not to be played. Included on that list are "Imagine" by John Lennon and other anti-war songs from the Sixties and Seventies. Back in the beginnings of the Cold War, no controversial movies came out, and popular songs were "safe." Back then, naughty writers were banned in Hollywood, and today the Dixie Chicks are boycotted.

The worry about communist cells probably died in the Sixties when millions took to the streets to demand civil rights and to oppose the war in Vietnam. The paranoids in the Johnson and Nixon governments figured that all the cell members were now in the streets. Millions of commies. They just knew it all along.

The War on Terrorism is in its infant stages, and we have to deal with its effects. There are two important and separate aspects of terrorism as it relates to the American people. The first is that it is real and must be countered. The second is that it is being used by this nation's ruling class for its own purposes: the suppression of civil liberties and dissent; and war-profiteering, including the pursuit of oil. Like the Cold War, if the War on Terrorism hadn't begun in the aftermath of 9/11, they would have liked to invent it. Now that it's here, we won't hear the end of it for a long time. And somewhere, Herb Philbrick has a smile on his face.