NEW YORK -- Investigative records just released of grand jury testimony against the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for allegedly passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, reveal much about the nuanced mindset of the times. Recent revelations from witnesses appear to convincingly demonstrate the guilt of Mr. Rosenberg and imply at least a tacit knowledge of the activity by Ms. Rosenberg. What is lost in the binary guilt-innocence debate (raging for decades) is the undeniable fact that the Rosenbergs were denied due process and, essentially, given a show trial that would have more at home in the summary sentencing hearings of Stalinist Russia.
What this transcript hints at, and dozens of researchers have confirmed, is that The McCarthy Era was really just a late manifestation of a battle between free market capitalism and social democracy that began in the late decades of the nineteenth century and culminated in an orgy of hate in the 1950s. The current debate between Keynesian and Chicago School economic theory is a continuation of the battle. Untold thousands of Americans were blacklisted. Organizers were murdered. The inter-generational health of many families were seared by the distortion of propaganda and black bag hatchet jobs on innocent parties.
Perhaps The Schadenfreude Post is paranoid but the two children of Mr. and Ms. Rosenberg are living testament to the vile excesses of an era that many would rather forget.
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