Celebrity ACLU Slamfest

Did you think that campaign finance "reform" would put an end to the cynical issue ad?

Well, the American Civil Liberties Union is screeching, "No way" and it's getting some caterwaul assistance from Richard Dreyfuss, Sheryl Crow, Michael Stipe, Martin Sheen, Al Pacino, Samuel L. Jackson and Kristin Davis.

With a budget of $3 million, the supposedly nonpartisan ACLU is launching a multimedia attack on the Bush administration.

The print and broadcast advertising campaign points the finger of blame at the Bush White House for the usual claim of demolition of civil liberties.

Print ads that feature the likes of rocker Crow and "Sex and the City" actress Davis will be appearing in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.

For example, the TV spot with Dreyfuss will show the actor saying, "I am not an American who believes in selective due process." This is a reference to the notion that people who broke the law, were in the country illegally and came from nations that support terrorism should not have been detained after 9/11.

As he proceeds to heartily criticize, Dreyfuss jabbers that "the definition of 'crisis' has been changed and been made much more elastic." The actor adds, "Criticism of the administration is not looked upon as allowable or appropriate, because we're in a 'crisis.'"

The unmuzzled image of the lead singer of R.E.M., Michael Stipe, appears under these words: "I am not an American who wants to be shut up or have my neighbors be shut up."

The Left Coast Report says, "I am an American who sees that, in any way it can, ACLU seeks to maim and mangle Lady Liberty."

A lot of those people could use some humility and a big heaping tablespoon of reality.

It's always the same weenies complaining the same old strawman arguments. Why do we care what a bunch of overpaid fantasy artists think about politics? Answer: we don't. They do provide me with a useful, handy rule of thumb though - if they're for it, I'm probably against it. If they're against it, I'm probably for it, generally speaking. They unerringly choose the bass-ackwards position on any given issue.

History is important. Many Freepers need to brush up on what the Communists were doing in this country from shortly after the 1917 revolution onward into the 1940s and 50s. Today's Democrat party is merely carrying on what was begun back then but now it's doing it in the open.

The ACLU was founded by an avowed socialist and Communist fellow traveler in the 1920s, Roger Baldwin. According to William A. Donohoe, author of "The Twilight of Liberty," "...it is the redistribution of power, not the cause of freedom, that is at the heart of the ACLU's mission."

Donohoe says Baldwin wrote two books defending Stalin's terror and was active in Soviet front groups in the U.S. as late as the 1940s. Three years before the ACLU was founded Baldwin was laying plans to clothe his real socialist intentions in American patriotic disguise. He wrote to Louis Lochner, an associate in his role as director of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (a unit of the American Union Against Militarism), explaining his strategy:

"Do steer away from making it look like a Socialist enterprise." And: "We also want to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a good lot of flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution and what our forefathers wanted to make of this country, and to show that we are really the folks that really stand for the spirit of our institutions." As Donohoe notes, "By wrapping themselves in the flag, then, civil libertarians could pursue their political objectives while feigning loyalty to the nation."

Donohoe says the ACLU wasn't an actual Communist organization in the 1920s and 30s but, "...it is no exaggeration to say that the most active members of the ACLU, in its formative years, were partisans of communism. In fact, the ACLU loaned money and provided bail for many Communist party members and Front organizations. Was the ACLU a Communist Front? Yes, according to Earl Browder, general secretary of the [American} Communist party, the ACLU functioned as a 'transmission belt' for the Communist party."

The ACLU is no friend of the Constitution or liberty.

So, how do we go about getting rid of the ACLU?

I don't know, but there is a grassroots movement to withdraw from the UN, which is being presented in a bill in Washington. I never would have thought our voices would be heard on that issue, so I consider this a positive sign, even if it isn't successful -- at this time.

Calls, letters, emails and faxes to our representatives protesting our government's support of the ACLU might be a good starting place. (Otherwise, listen to Bill O'Reilly -- I don't always agree with him, but he voices very strong opinions against the ACLU.)

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