ACLU vs. United States

I have been surfing for the past hour to attempt to find out information on the ACLU and communism. One of my coworkers and I had a discussion over the weekend. He claimed that the ACLU was involved in subversive activities, trying to undermine the United States, and that it was started by communists.

I know some communists. Some of them also claim to be anarchists. Are they trying to undermine the U.S. so that another country, like the Soviets or China can take over? No. They believe that an Ayn Rand capitalism doesn't work. I haven't talked with them for a long time though. I'm trying to throw the FBI, I mean the whadayacallit, the homeland security people who might be so very interested in my "connections." Shhh, don't tell anyone.

So I'm surfing, to find the meat of some real information from a conservative website. What I find is froth: people quoting authors like David Kupelian, or whatever his name is. That guy brings me back full circle to the one person who has caused the most political unrest in my direct experience than any self-appointed anarchist I've known - Scott Savage. He rightfully challanged OSU investigating him for sexual harassment when he suggested Kupelian's book, "The Marketing of Evil," for student reading. But then he went on to write an article on Kupelian's own website, telling his side of the story. He claims to have suggested that the university choose a book students might actually WANT to read. You know, books that aren't full of humanistic gobbledygook. And he can't understand what all the fuss is about now. Innocent him.

That isn't the first time he has made anger-provoking statements as the proverbial lamb in a pack of wolves. He called a town meeting in little Chesterhill, OH to try and do something about the drug problem there, and ended up later having a gun put to his head in his home by a drug dealer. Then he organized a neo-Luddite Congress in Barnesville, OH. (Wouldn't Luddites be considered workers?) I have a weird sort of regard for him, but the definition of anarchy as I understand it espouses this personage. He adopted the Quakers, but I never saw him at a Peace and Human Relations Committee Meeting. I think he had his own bees in the bonnet from the get-go.

Many people of both conservative and Christian mind do not think that communism and capitalism can coexist due to the idea that socialism is the path towards communism. So they create this black and white world where there is forever a struggle. Christians, particularly of the fundamentalist conservative leans like to do that, and this is the reason they are losing this black and white battle. Most people see shades and color. Most situations are full of shades and color. When every small err from the one-sided path is potentially a slide toward "the other side," and you MUST stay on the ONE SIDE, lest you be seen as either a communist or a pawn of communists, I for one lose faith in your cause.

So digging through the muck, the best I can make of it was that ...who were they? Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman - oh yeah. They wanted rights for ...workers... and ...peace... and - hey, WAIT! They called those ideas COMMUNISM. So they must be BAD, and HUMANISTIC. ooh. ouch. Maybe they just liked the communist ideas of rights for workers, and peace. Those can be capitalist ideas too, maybe, with a stretch. But, they might be too socialistic.

Then I found a columnist, Devvy Kidd, who made the stretch to say that Albert Herlong Jr. a former Democrat from Florida, read the 45 communist goals that the "ACLU PROMOTES" into the congressional record. Nope, Devvy, got that one wrong. Those were written by Skousen, in "The Naked Communist." The goals were about radical communists, not specifically about the ACLU, and transposing intentions one person perceives onto another entity based on their founders' political party is not accurate. Saying all communists are joined at the hips, is as wierd as saying all Christians are joined at the hips. It is a pretty big jump, particularly given Skousen was a Mormon professor of religion at Brigham Young and prior to that worked at the FBI. My son's high school sweetheart goes to Brigham Young. If you think I'm going to take a conservative Mormon's word, and apply their philosophy of an ideology practice in a blanket way to every activity of a self-professed communist Tom, Dick and Harry, you are wrong. If you want to say that the ACLU is doing everything Skousen thought communists were trying to do on his stent in the FBI, maybe you ought to look a little deeper into Baldwin's actions when he found out Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a hero of the Soviets. Maybe he really WAS just interested in ...workers rights and peace. Passionately.

But one thing is for sure, so far as I can see in nearly every conservative website I went to for information. No ultra-conservative is going to stand up for my constitutional rights. I'm no communist. I'm just a moderate Democrat. Espousing the values of the ACLU is about the only way the U.S. is going to survive in years to come, as I see it, whether their ideas came from communism or not. The Gestapo-style spying on peace meetings is scary; scarier than any commie I've ever met. Dictatorship comes in many shapes and sizes.

The true utopian idealism has not yet been found, and it surely isn't going to come about by taking the best trademarks of all idealisms and villianizing them. I ain't burning my card, Kidd.

Garden 7/19/08

This was after quite a bit of weeding work. The pumpkins have taken off out of the corn at the far end. We put down 4 bales of hay, shaken out across the grass for the pumpkin plants to crawl away on. On the upper end, the rutger tomatoes are all weeded and respaced. The top row is yellow squash which hasn't started to bloom yet. The second row is herbs; then tomatoes, peppers, a row of spanish onions, and then the bean poles in the middle.

Bruce planted some Jacob cattle beans between the peppers and onions, and they've come up nicely.

Below the beans are the Job's Tears; then the beets which are infiltrated with last year's volunteer tomatoes. Then basil and carrots, and before the horseradish came in so abundantly, we planted lettuce, mustard and green onions in there.

As you can see, the blue corn is tasseled. The hubbard squash south of the corn either was burnt off by the manure, or eaten off. The watermelon at the far end didn't have a chance. But its okay. The pumkins are coming out all sides of the corn.

What fun, what fun. I planted some persimmon seeds in the herb row where the cumin didn't come up. We will see if the persimmons do better. How I'd love to have some persimmon trees!