Plenty has been said in the progressive blogosphere about the witch hunt for left-leaning staff in the Obama administration led by Glenn Beck and Faux News.  Over the Labor Day weekend, Van Jones resigned from his post as Green Jobs Czar.  Today, Yosi Sergant was forced to resign from his post at the National Endowment for the Arts.  Jeff Chang, in particular, has an excellent analysis on The New Shape of the Culture War.

Thanks to Glenn Beck and Faux News, there is definitely a revival of a witch hunt culture against anyone expressing dissent from the status quo.  Tonight, I had my own brush with Congressman McCarthy's ghost via Twitter.  Here's how it went down...

(5:30 p.m.) I retweeted my friend J's message: "Impeach the Muslim Marxist" sign appears at another townhall. I don't think Obama's speech killed bipartisanship, ignorance did!

(5:35 p.m.) Fellow blogger and good friend Taz (Sepia Mutiny) tweeted: @spamfriedrice Would you consider me a Muslim Marxist?

(5:36 p.m.) Random McCarthy ghost/red scare troll tweeted: McCarthy wuz right? RT @tazzystar @spamfriedrice Would you consider me a Muslim Marxist?

(9:40 p.m.) Without knowing about this red scare troll on Twitter, I tweeted: @tazzystar Muslim, yes. Marxist? Not really.

(9:41 p.m.) Red scare troll tweeted: Bring back HUAC RT @spamfriedrice @tazzystar Muslim, yes. Marxist? Not really.

First, I googled "HUAC," and found out it stands for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, which was Joe McCarthy's charge for several years.  The Congressional committee led by McCarthy famously went after intellectuals and artists for supposedly engaging in anti-American activities. Many careers and lives were ruined.  After promptly blocking the Red Scare troll, I immediately called up Taz, and discussed how humorous it was that some random person was retweeting our tweets as examples of "un-American" activities.

Yes, Taz is Muslim. Is she a Marxist? No.  Do we both believe in social justice and work to improve our society so that human rights are valued and upheld in our country? YES!  I'm at a loss as to how our tweets constitute examples of un-American activities.

But then we realized that McCarthy's Red Scare witch hunt is clearly continuing, even though HUAC was dissolved in 1975. This time Congress doesn't need to take the lead.  Fox News and Glenn Beck are out front and center, leading the charge to put a chill on freedom of speech.  They're out to find anything to take down left-leaning voices in the political sphere and democratic institutuions.  Like Joe Wilson, Beck and buddies don't seem to believe in respectful dialogue. Instead, they're out to silence anyone who disagrees with them, even trying to silence the President of the United States with nonsense.

Scary times folks... Let's FIGHT BACK!