The ACLU Communists

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is at it still, fighting to protect child pornographers from a Congress that wants to prevent them from taking over the Internet. This is no surprise since — presumably in defense of the First, Fifth and 14th amendments — the ACLU long has stood side by side with a pornography industry run by organized crime. This coincides with the ACLU's indefatigable efforts to exile God and outlaw religion on public property in the United States. Any day now I expect an ACLU plea to the United Nations to declare the Supreme Court and the Congress unconstitutional because they begin all their sessions with a prayer, denied to others, by a chaplain paid with federal funds.

There is nothing new about this. The ACLU has from its inception encouraged political and moral anarchy. This curious organization wraps itself in all kinds of lofty rhetoric designed to separate some of our more soft-headed financial nabobs from the coin of the realm. Meanwhile it prefers that no one smarten up the chumps about the aims and principles of its founder, Roger Baldwin, who wrote in 1935 that "Communism is the goal." In its early days, the ACLU was not shy about making known its agenda. In a kind of manifesto written for Soviet Russia Today, then one of the Kremlin's major propaganda organs, Baldwin stated:

"Those of us who champion civil liberties in the United States and who at the same time support the proletarian dictatorship of the Soviet Union are charged with inconsistency and insincerity. … If I aid the reactionaries to get free speech now and then, if I go outside the class struggle … it is only because those liberties help create a more hospitable atmosphere for working-class liberties. The class struggle is the central conflict of the world. … When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. … We want also to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a good lot of flags, to talk a great deal about the Constitution" [italics Baldwin's].

Years ago, in working on a piece about the ACLU for the American Legion magazine, I focused on its own official declarations. In the 1930s, the ACLU published a pamphlet, Who's Un-American?, that lumped the American Federation of Labor with "proto-fascism" and attacked "patriotic" organizations for wanting to "make it a crime to incite soldiers to disobey orders." It poked a finger at the mainstream media for such high crimes as "loyalty to private initiative [and] capitalist enterprise." Among the "un-Americans" listed were the Elks, whose members, it held, had "much in common" with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

In the war years the ACLU openly advocated "guilt by association" and argued that the First Amendment did not apply to those with whom it disagreed. Even columnist Walter Lippman, the liberal icon, would protest that "the directors of the [ACLU] have missed one opportunity after another to show that they really stand for what they profess, that they care for civil liberty as such [and] not merely because it is a convenience for communists" — a view seconded by most of organized labor. And the ACLU was perfectly happy when the government sought to regulate the Associated Press as a "common carrier" lacking the protection of the First Amendment.

When 30 union leaders of Trotskyist persuasion were convicted under the Smith Act, the ACLU loudly applauded. But it was passionate in its condemnation when 12 Communist Party leaders were convicted under the same act. It said not a word in defense of Japanese-Americans thrown into internment camps during World War II, instead launching a full-throated attack on the Republican Party, U.S. business and conservative values.

The ACLU moaned in the late 1940s that the FBI's functions "have been expanded under laws penalizing opinions and associations, risking for the first time in our history the creation of a secret-police system." This was too much even for Morris Ernst, the ACLU's general counsel, who denied the existence of any such laws and described the accusation as a rank libel.

President Harry Truman's loyalty order, the ACLU said, reflected "the widespread belief, unsupported by any evidence, that communists with a primary loyalty to Russia have infiltrated into many federal departments." The ACLU's practice at membership meetings of booing, insulting and silencing members disturbed by some of its policies became notorious. The Judges and the Judged, a book on "blacklisting" in the communications media, was sponsored and financed by the ACLU. But in two newspaper articles Merle Pitzele, a member of the ACLU board, showed that it suppressed its own research and was "full of half-truths, distortions and lies." The ACLU blithely continued to promote the book.

Much can be added to this catalogue, and I had some 6,000 words to do so in my piece for the American Legion. They demonstrated conclusively that the ACLU has little interest in civil liberties. Seeking its help in defending myself in a First Amendment case involving a lawsuit by Ralph Nader, its then Arab-American president answered with the most vicious and vituperative letter I ever have received.

And no wonder, for the ACLU's agenda still is that of Baldwin and its other founders. Who were they? Socialist Party patriarch Norman Thomas; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, later chairman of the Communist Party; and Agnes Smedley, eventually exposed as a Soviet espionage agent in China. That, of course, is all quite legal. But perhaps someone should seek a ruling by the Food and Drug Administration compelling a proper labeling of the ACLU product.

Ralph de Toledano is the dean of Washington columnists and is a frequent writer for Insight magazine.

If youve just now figured out that the ACLU is a bunch of commies you are way late, but since there isnt really an "America" left to defend who cares how many commies are out there?

If there were really a secret police, There would be no living ACLU members. Now I have to think if a secret police would be a good thing or a bad thing.

Whenever I think of the ACLU...I remember the story about the 71 babies in boxes that were found, dumped in a field by an abortuary worker. Some churches got together, bought caskets and wanted to have a funeral. Others donated plots. The ACLU screamed bloody murder...and sued. They called it a violation of the separation of Church and state. They insisted that by law, this "material" should be incinerated. If I remember correctly, they backed off because it was just too much bad publicity.

The ACLU and the ADL are joined at the hip. Think there is no free lance police agency in America? Check this out:

Law Enforcement From Across The U.S. Participate In Joint ADL-FBI Conference On Terrorism

What backlash? Here in Alabama our Demon party govenor , who is a clinton clone last class, has a wife who is an ACLU operative. The idiot mush mouth demon party yellow dogs love little Bill jr. and little hitlery!!!! The so called bible belters are secret baby murderers and perverts just like our governor and Billy bob Klinton!!!! Screw a bunch of demoncrap-ACLU scumbag murderers!!!!

They portray themselves as "tireless guardians of the Bill of Rights." How many times have they defended, e.g., the Second Amendment?

For the ACLU, the BoR consists of the First, Fifth, and (by extension) the Fourteenth...and maybe the Fourth.

The Second, Ninth and Tenth do not exist.

For them, the BoR is a Chinese restaurant menu; they select the 'dishes' that please them and reject all of the others.

--Boris

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