A book titled " Bertrand Russell's America - 1945-1970 - has some amazingly relevant essays by the old radical British philosopher to the present political atmosphere in the United States . Russell writes :
" The elimination of dissent [ in the McCarthy era ] was achieved by identifying dissent in the popular mind with the support of the ... inconceivably wicked Russians .. Russia was the means of ending American radicalism " ...
" ... the crudest persecution of dissident opinion " [ " to impose an acceptance of capitalism and the power of large industry " ]
The book chapter was aptly titled : " The Myth of American Freedom ". Mentioned was the case of a Young Socialist group at the University of Indiana " indicted under a 1951 state law TO EXTERMINATE COMMUNISTS AND COMMUNISM AND ANY AND ALL TEACHINGS OF THE SAME " ( my emphasis ) .
Russell wrote that he was disgusted that " three courageous people can be sentenced to up to six years imprisonment for no other offence than membership in the Young Socialist Society ".
..... How ludicrous the propaganda about the ' Free World ' . Not only does this ' free world ' consist mainly in tyrannies all over the globe , but those who dare to point this out are imprisoned for doing so in the ' free ' United States ".
Russell pointed out that " I have been a socialist for over half a century " ( page 203 ) .
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