"Yea [I invented McCarthyism], apparently so. That's the first use made of that word that I know of. I remember how it originated, because they wanted to put something on that top barrel, and you couldn't call it McCarthy himself, and you wouldn't say 'McCarthy techniques" or so on. I thought well we could maybe use just one word, "McCarthyism". And it caught on."Video in full here.
"In his history of the first Australian penal settlements, "The Fatal Shore", the art critic Robert Hughes described the standard modern perception of Georgian England thus:
"A passing reference to violence, dirt and gin; a nod in the direction of the scaffold; a highwayman or two, a drunken judge, and some whores for local colour; but the rest is all curricles and fanlights. Modern squalor is squalid but Georgian squalor is ‘Hogarthian’, an art form in itself."
Note that adjective. By now it’s so well entrenched we instinctively know what it means, though it’s probably not the meaning Hogarth himself would have wanted. He had definite ambitions for his name to be associated with his practice, and yet the paint strokes or engraved lines and slashes aren’t, of themselves, "Hogarthian".
And however much he wanted - pretty successfully - to found an entirely new school of British art, there’s nothing really "Hogarthian" in his proto-impressionist study "The Shrimp Girl" or in his innovatively realistic portrait of the philanthropic sea-captain Thomas Corum, or his portrait of David Garrick or his murals in the Inns of Court or for Bart’s Hospital. These are all by Hogarth, for sure; they might even be "Hogarthish"; but
Ian Knox from today's @irish_news. I really do wish the BBC would put his stuff back on TV again. We need him. pic.twitter.com/DsxDUFg6xD
— Alex.Kane (@AlexKane221b) January 8, 2014
"Thanks to people like Herb Block and his ilk, McCarthy became an American laughingstock, allowing communism and socialism to become "cool" in Hollywood, while Conservatives became unofficially "blacklisted." Sixty years later his methods of using humor and sarcasm for social influence are a template for those still seeking to destroy conservative values."Herb Block popularised the term "McCarthyism" and through his cutting cartoons managed to discredit and pull down the entire edifice of the McCarthy enterprise, as he did with the cartoon above which helped Herb Block to win the Pulitzer Prize.
"Cartoons are a traditional feature of British political coverage and the cartoonist's pen stroke has often conveyed judgments more deadly than anything journalists would dare to express."They're called "ink-stained assassins" for a reason, as The News Statesman put it here. As Diane Abbott said:
"The idea of John Major in his underpants: he used that over and over and it became part of the political lexicon. It spoke of his timidity, caution and greyness."Likewise, of Ed Miliband, Tim Benson wrote in the book 'The Best of Britain's Political Cartoons 2013':
"[Peter] Brooke's believes that [Ed Miliband's] comparison with Wallace has damaged Miliband's chances of ever becoming prime minister. This is because, like Wallace, Miliband's also appears hapless, making the public's perception of him unsuitable prime ministerial material."
