Regrettably, de Havilland also played a more troubling role in Hollywood. By the end of the Second World War, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal. Like many others in the film industry, she joined the Independent Citizens’ Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, an organization which promoted a number of liberal policies. Among its ranks were several members and supporters of the Communist Party.
Prior to and during the Second World War, the Communist Party, in accordance with Stalinist Popular Front tactics, entered into subordinate and politically suffocating political alliances with the liberal bourgeoisie—in the US, with the Democratic Party. When the war ended, and with it the temporary partnership between the US and the Soviet Union, the Communists and their supporters were viciously targeted by their erstwhile liberal allies.
De Havilland was among the liberal anticommunists who shifted significantly to the right. She joined with another member of the ICCASP—future US President Ronald Regan, who was then preparing to spill his guts as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee—to oppose the Stalinist elements within the organization. She later testified about the experience in a private session before HUAC.
Whatever she thought she was doing at the time, de Havilland contributed to the purge of left-wing and socialist elements from Hollywood and cultural life more broadly—indeed, the very elements that provided the best qualities of the films in which she had herself appeared up to that time. It is a stain on her legacy.
De Havilland moved to France in the early 1950s. She appeared in fewer films. The elegant and formal quality of her acting was somewhat out of place in postwar cinema. Despite this, her films of the 1930s and 40s remain. Her behavior during the period of the witch hunts does not alter that. Her best work should be seen.
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a momentary fear on the Left that the Trump administration could seize on the crisis to lethal political effect. With news of a federal evictions freeze and initial buzz about massive stipends to the unemployed, would the Republican Party, traditionally sycophantic towards its corporate paymasters, embrace a populist welfarism and outflank the Democrats?
In retrospect, the question feels absurd. Trump, true to form, quickly returned to his preferred theatre of the culture war and has proven too politically and ideologically lazy to take the kinds of measures that might boost his flailing poll numbers and salvage a victory in November.
Over roughly the same period, a parallel story was being told in liberal media circles about the Democratic Party’s then all-but-certain presidential nominee Joe Biden. A lifelong moderate (the word liberal pundits use when they actually mean “conservative”), could the former vice president remake himself as the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and usher in a suite of reforms as ambitious as the New Deal?
The question has always been silly, as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Biden’s history and career would instantly conclude. Some version of it, furthermore, invariably appears in the weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention — right as the party’s presumptive nominee is starting to perform the conventional pivot to the neoliberal center they’ll maintain right up until election day (and afterward, should they win).
On paper, Democratic elites always seem to be “moving to the left.” In practice, they’re fighting it at almost every turn and making clear that they categorically reject the Left’s demands — even when these demands enjoy robust popular support throughout the country.
If past precedent doesn’t put to rest transparently silly media chatter about an ambitious liberal agenda in the coming general election, the past week offers strong clues about where the center of gravity really lies in senior Democratic circles amid a global pandemic, an unprecedented popular uprising against racism, and what will probably be the most destructive economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Last Wednesday, 139 House Democrats voted to reject a 10 percent cut in the Pentagon budget proposed by Congressional Progressive Caucus cochair Mark Pocan. On Monday, delegates on the DNC’s platform committee rejected Medicare For All (M4A) by a margin of 36-125-3, alongside an amendment urging the party to embrace the legalization of marijuana.
On Tuesday, House majority leader Steny Hoyer signaled that the party is ready to budge on extending the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits millions have been receiving during COVID-19 — echoing right-wing talking points that such benefits would serve as a “disincentive to work.”
Tying together what has been a truly stellar month for elite Democrats, Biden — who currently has a solid lead in the polls — explained to a group of Wall Street donors that he won’t actually propose any new legislation to rein in corporate power or change corporate behavior. “Corporate America has to change its ways,” said Biden at a fundraiser headlined by Blackstone executive Jon Gray, adding: “It’s not going to require legislation. I’m not proposing any.”
Imagine being a progressive forced to vote for Joe Biden. There aren’t enough clothespins in the world to hold your nose. Biden has lately tried to make inroads with the left, jumping onboard the post-George Floyd campaign for racial justice and releasing an economic plan that encompasses many progressive priorities. But even that can’t mask the smell of his support for the Iraq war, his authoring of the 1994 crime bill, his backing of 1996 welfare reform legislation.
Oh, and he essentially wrote the Patriot Act too. Here he is bragging about that during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2002, featuring, natch, a smirking Robert Mueller:
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart was dismissive of the story, which appeared in a Wall Street Journal interview. She also spoke to The Post’s Steve Dunleavy.
“I spend very little time reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page,” Lockhart said. “They lost me after they accused the president of being a drug smuggler and a murderer.”
Broaddrick said she chose to tell her story now because rumors were rampant after NBC reporter Lisa Myers taped an interview with her in January that the network has not yet aired.
Broaddrick said she is speaking out because NBC News “threw me to the wolves.”
Despite the violations, kidnappings and assassinations that have targeted activists throughout the years by Iraq’s security forces and unknown militias, the country was still shocked by a video that showed a teen being tortured by Interior Ministry forces.
The video, which emerged on Saturday and was recorded some three months ago, showed Hamed Saeed Abed, 16, being beaten and insulted by the Ministry’s Law Preservation Forces for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at them during a protest. Abed was stripped naked, while one of the security forces shaved his head. Others asked him about his mother’s skin color, insulted her and his family.
The shocking video and the ensuing uproar prompted Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to order an investigation into the assault.
His spokesman said: “The prime minister and supreme commander of the armed forces ordered an immediate probe into the unethical and unprofessional treatment of a citizen.”
Hamid Saeed, 16, was reportedly assaulted by three members of the Interior Ministry’s Law Preservation Forces and stripped naked, with videos of the abuse shared online.
He and his mother were threatened with sexual assault, he was also beaten and had his hair cut with a blade.
Videos of the incident and of the boy explaining what happened have gone viral in Iraq, sparking a backlash against security forces accused of heavy-handed tactics that have caused over 500 deaths in the months of anti-government street protests.
Mr Al Khadimi's Twitter account shared photographs of the prime minister meeting Mr Hamid.
“The prime minister received Hamid Saeed, who was subjected to an immoral and unlawful attack. The perpetrators were arrested and relieved from their positions after an investigation,” a statement from his office said.
It said the officers in question had been referred to the judiciary.
