The infamous black list and the wanton destruction of unions...

-sometimes I can be pretty dense and it wasn't until I read this following article that I had that light-bulb moment of, "oh yeah, duh, that makes extremely obvious sense". And I'm completely ashamed of myself considering the amount of reading I do regarding history and social movements.

Anyway, it's a quick read and came out about 2 weeks ago, just before the oscars.

Without further adeu'...

The Oscars' Dirty Secret: Corruption, Bribery, Mafia-style Hit Jobs and Labor Struggles

http://www.alternet.org/media/oscars-history-corruption

-snip-

The whole blacklist thing had its roots in labor strikes led by an honest breakaway union from IATSE. Antisemitism in this heavily Jewish industry played a critical role in the blacklist. HUAC focused on actors and writers with “Jewish” backgrounds. All through the 1950s the professional guilds, including mine, cooperated with the blacklist Formerly liberal Ronald Reagan, Screen Actors Guild president, was an FBI informer against his colleagues as confidential source “T-10”.