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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paret who wrote (50735)	9/22/2005 3:04:27 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Respond to of 59480

No surprise there... GZ

To: paret who wrote (50735)	9/22/2005 6:35:57 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Actually, by 1939, he had become appalled with the totalitarian barbarian Bolsheviks and changed his tune Here's an excerpt: In 1939, Baldwin orchestrated a campaign to revise the ACLU charter. Henceforth, those affiliated with totalitarian organizations would not be allowed to serve on the ACLU board. The immediate target was the former-Wobbly and present Communist Party member, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. An organizational "trial" of Flynn ensued, resulting in her ouster and establishing a pattern for anti-communist policies and programs that flourished during the Cold War. In the meantime, Baldwin and the ACLU wrestled with the issue of internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens, which had been demanded by the U.S. military. In contrast to many of his longtime colleagues at the ACLU, Baldwin continued to challenge such violations of civil liberties, but he also sought to maintain good relations with the federal government. He opposed the prosecution of native fascists and Trotskyists alike, just as he later challenged the moves by government officials to abridge the rights of communists. Nevertheless, during the postwar period Baldwin's respectability and celebrity status both mounted. In 1947 General Douglas MacArthur arranged for Baldwin to serve as a civil liberties consultant in Japan; he also visited Korea during his Asian stay. Accolades poured Baldwin's way in late 1949, when he announced his intention to resign as director of the ACLU, an organization that increasingly appeared to be adapting to the landscape of Cold War America. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote to Baldwin, "You have done wonderful work with the Civil Liberties Union. More than any other agency in this country, it has kept alive the traditional rights of man." Margaret Sanger, an ally from his St. Louis days, declared, "The name Roger Baldwin and Civil Liberties are synonymous in the minds of all people in the United States. You have fought the good fight, Roger." (Courtesy of Peggy Lamson) Baldwin's trips to the Far East had merely whetted a long-standing determination to become more involved in the international arena. For the next several years, Baldwin sought to work for international human rights, producing a volume, A New Slavery, which condemned "the inhuman communist police state tyranny, forced labor." He continued to travel widely, visiting South Vietnam, where he both criticized the repressive regime of Ngo Dinh Diem and termed him "a charming idealist but tough on dissenters." By contrast, in Puerto Rico, Baldwin remained close to Governor Luis Munoz Marin, a former fiery socialist; the jailed independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos; and the cellist Pablo Casals, among others. In India, Baldwin maintained an old friendship with President Jawaharlal Nehru and his family. As the 1960s began, Baldwin remained a presence within the ACLU, which had become, to his displeasure, something of a mass organization under his successor, Patrick Murphy Malin. Baldwin also maintained an office in the secretariat building of the United Nations and continued as a consultant for the International League for the Rights of Man. Castigated by a segregationist congressman for supporting civil rights for black Americans, Baldwin was the recipient of accolades by others. In a moving tribute titled "The Underdog's Best Friend," Margorie M. Bitker referred to Baldwin as "long the moving spirit of the American Civil Liberties Union." Baldwin remained "a pacifist, the only label, by the way, that he is willing to wear." Bitker quoted him as affirming, "The rule of law in place of force, always basic to my thinking, now takes on a new relevance in a world where, if war is to go, only law can replace it." harvardsquarelibrary.org