My Selection — “Exhuming McCarthy”
A song from R.E.M
When the Trinity appears in my classroom, I’m in heaven.
This means — literature, history, and music. And when a film gets added to the field, I get a lucky 4-leaf clover that not even St. Patrick could top.
Not even offering a bowlful of Lucky Charms — and we’re talking charms and no whole grains.
When I teach Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” every year in AP Lang and Composition and English III Honors, I usually start the unit with R.E.M.’s 1987 song “Exhuming McCarthy” from the awesome album Document. I was too into classic rock when I graduated high school during that year, but when I was roaming around Scotland in 1990, I bought the album on tape. That Athens, Georgia sound was the perfect contrast to the Highlands.
Since then, R.E.M. has been one of my favorite bands. I still wish I saw them at Rutgers University when they were still “a college band” with my friend Alec.
I start with that song because “The Crucible” is a direct attack on paranoia, hysteria, political henchmen, conmen, and sycophants. It’s about finding a scapegoat to purge the ills of society that we cannot own or accept.
In Salem in 1692, it was about blaming and putting innocent people to death on baseless claims of witchcraft.
In Germany during World War II, it was about blaming Jews, and so many others — that led to the horrors of the concentration camps and the ovens.
In The United States in the 1950s, and the House Un-American Committee, started in 1938 to The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate private citizens and those organizations that were suspected of communistic — or even fascist connections. It wasn’t disbanded until 1975. It concerned rooting out and blaming suspected Communists and left-wing liberals for sapping our “precious bodily fluids,” to quote Kubrick in his masterpiece “Dr. Strangelove.”
Arthur Miller was called before this Committee. He refused to “name” names. Being called before this Committee, you were almost presumed guilty — it was a hanging court — just like in the Salem Witch Trials. The fear of the devil and of communism was so real, logical people lost touch with reality.
In 1996, Arthur Miller wrote an essay for the New Yorker called “Why I Wrote The Crucible.” He says:
Fear doesn’t travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory’s truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.
Joseph McCarthy was just a junior Republican senator from Wisconsin before he zoomed into the national spotlight. In Wheeling, West Virginia, on February 9, 1950, he declared:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205 — a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
It was a total lie — but the American people were scared. The threat of nuclear war was real — as was the spread of international communism.
When my students watch speeches from McCarthy, they are baffled. He sounds like a drunken moron. The same goes when watching, in horror, Hitler’s speeches. How could such a moron persuade an intelligent country — and doctors, engineers, and the science community — to agree with his madness?
As Miller says, “Fear doesn’t travel well.” Will the same be said of Donald Trump? Boris Johnson?
In the essay, Miller writes:
Likewise, films of Senator Joseph McCarthy are rather unsettling — if you remember the fear he once spread. Buzzing his truculent sidewalk brawler’s snarl through the hairs in his nose, squinting through his cat’s eyes and sneering like a villain, he comes across now as nearly comical, a self-aware performer keeping a straight face as he does his juicy threat-shtick.
Okay — so let’s get to the song. It’s rather basic — the lyrics, but it’s loaded with terms that are perfect for discussion in class — realpolitick, jingoism, exhuming, Buy America, Bank of America, business acumen, landed gentry . . the list goes on.
The sign of the times — the refrain of the song — means that the American people will foolishly believe “the myth” and follow conmen — thinking they are doing the right thing for the country. They are being patriotic. They are being good Americans — but meanwhile, they’re sharpening stones, meeting each other at a book burning — because every generation seems to “exhume” a strong man who “promises to make the country great” again.
Sound familiar?
And such strongmen usually wrap themselves with red, white, and apple pie — and have the backing of Wall Street. The “landed gentry” like it because of tax breaks and corporate welfare.
And Michael Stipe sings, “Look who bought the myth? By jingo, buy America.”
Jingoism is excessive nationalism. It’s a dangerous form of patriotism. It’s the type of nationalism that led to the world wars. All it took was a Hirohito, a Mussolini, and a Hitler — and millions who “bought” the myth to kill millions and millions of people. And for what?
The fat cats and sycophants in Berlin to toast with champagne?
There’s a sample in the song that’s awesome. Michael Stipe not only sings allegorically about McCarthy — and those like him — but he brings in Welch who stands up against McCarthy at the Army Hearings in 1954
Joseph Welch says:
“Let us not assassinate this man further Senator, You’ve done enough, have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”}
After playing the song, I play a documentary where Welch stands up against the tyrant —says the same thing. He dared to fight back. It was McCarthy’s highwater mark. By 1957, McCarthy was dead.
But McCarthyism lives on — and we just realize it because we are often too afraid or too easily swindled by conmen — believing they have what it takes to “drain the swamp” and make us feel good about ourselves again by getting rid of people — journalists — immigrants — that dare to challenge the Powers.
What R.E.M’s song does is to remind us, time and again, that McCarthy’s will always be around. Each age, like what Miller said, has its fears. And we always need to be mindful of drinking the “rattlesnake juice” from someone who only wants power.
We have to ask ourselves: “Is the business of America really business?” “Are these people we vote for and see on the news actually “more beautiful” and “more honorable” than we are?
Should we be “loyal” to the Bank of America? Look what happened, after all, when everyone believed in the Lords of Finance, four of them, who bankrupted the world in 1929.
And when do we realize we are actually sharpening stones — to purge innocent people — all to help those who already have everything — “the landed gentry.”
Why did poor whites in the South fight? To uphold plantations that denied them jobs because the plantations relied on free labor? It doesn’t make any sense, right?
Have these people no sense of decency? The answer, is, no.
You’re beautiful, more beautiful than me You’re honorable, more honorable than me Loyal to the Bank of America
It’s a sign of the times It’s a sign of the times
You’re sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen Sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen
Vested interest united ties, landed gentry rationalize Look who bought the myth, by jingo, buy America
It’s a sign of the times It’s a sign of the times
You’re sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen Sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen
Enemy sighted, enemy met, I’m addressing the realpolitik Look who bought the myth, by jingo, buy America
{“Let us not assassinate this man further Senator, You’ve done enough, have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”}
You’re sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen Sharpening stones, walking on coals To improve your business acumen
Enemy sighted, enemy met, I’m addressing the realpolitik You’ve seen start and you’ve seen quit (I’m addressing the table of content) I always thought of you as quick
Exhuming McCarthy (Meet me at the book burning, meet me at the book burning) Exhuming McCarthy (Meet me at the book burning, meet me at the book burning) Exhuming McCarthy (Meet me at the book burning) Exhuming McCarthy (Meet me at the book burning)
Thank you for reading. Follow me on Medium at Walter Bowne.