AWARE Inc. was a self-appointed morality group of the nineteen fifties who brought blacklisting to Hollywood by accusing whoever they pleased of having Communist sympathies.
Ed Sullivan reportedly would only book performers on his variety show who were cleared by AWARE Inc. It took a slander suit to end their paranoid witchhunts, but by then hundreds of lives had already been ruined. Ironically, AWARE Inc. arguably practiced stereotypical Communism (revoking freedom) in accusing people of having Communist sympathies.
Fifty plus years later, there are still numerous self-appointed morality groups who continue their frivolous witchhunts against freedom of action, choice and expression. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and later as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays.]
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