posted by perkiset on Nov 16

It is true, and I am proud to relate that I have been a card-carrying member of the ACLU for a great many years. I not only laugh, but get often disgusted by the attacks on the ACLU as some kind of ultra-left or wildly out of the mainstream organization. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. By defending the Constitution, prosecuting legal wars against laws that violate our civil liberties and taking up legal arms in the defense of our essential American rights, the ACLU might well be the most conservative and patriotic organization that exists today.

The ACLU is, of course, the American Civil Liberties Union. It was founded in 1920 by a room full of civil liberty activists and today has over 500,000 members and prosecutes over 6000 legal cases per year. A quote from their website states:
 

To this end, the mission of the ACLU is simple and articulate:

The ACLU will work to preserve and guarantee:

• Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
• Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
• Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
• Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

At times, just like any organization, they may take on or be involved in cases that seem extreme or even wacky, but in fact the underlying principle of every case taken on by this excellent organization is either supported by Constitutional law, local or federal law or is a challenge to a law that is in conflict with either the Federal or State Constitutions.
 

 
So it was with both fear and delight that I watched the linked video, which was passed to me by a dear friend this morning and whom I will simply call DB. In it is a set of common interactions with police, as well as both how they went wrong and how they could go right for the citizens involved. The video is 45 minutes long and I strongly recommend every citizen of the U.S. to watch it. It gives excellent and detailed advice on how to adhere to the law, while at the same time making sure that lawmen adheres to your rights and civil liberties.
 
Thank you DB for this excellent link and for caring enough to share it with me.

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posted by perkiset on Nov 11

Last night I took my family to go see Across The Universe. After having looked at the trailer I was mildly interested – we really went for my daughter who thought it’d be a cool love story. What I found was a 60’s tail wrapped in 21st century production values, a reverent updating of a wide variety of Beatles music and imagery that was simply breathtaking.

But what I really walked away with was a pit in my stomach, because the film made even more clear and obvious the nature of the young and focused people of that time, compared to the apathetic and selfish young people that populate my America today.

Now to be sure, if you are a Guiliani supporter and believe that we could have “won in Vietnam” if we’d just stayed longer, this film is not for you – but frankly neither is my blog so simply get away from me now – your mere presence is polluting my webspace. But I digress.

So to my question: Where have all the hippies gone? The people of the 60s were willing to put themselves on the line to cure a monstrous ill… which was our involvement in Viet Nam. I was brought back to Kent State, End The War marches, the civil rights movement, the fantastic diversity in music, the acceptance of all things different… and the repressive governmental and old-societal forces that pushed back. The 60s represented a time of enlightenment – the dawning of the age of Aquarius. A time when we threw off the confining borders of the cold-war ethos, a time when we yearned to be more that we were told we could be – a time when the best parts of the utopian notion seemed with grasp.

Of course that very mental and spiritual enlightenment also brought about the drug culture as well as sexual freedom that was so repulsive to a great many in the U. S. – so much so, that we gave rise to the contemporary conservative movement and the birth of the Goldwater conservatives. That movement has been bastardized and mutated into the neocon movement that created the war in Iraq, the notion of Values Voters and a push to constitutionally ban same sex marriage. Which in turn has begat the modern progressive movement.

By why is the moderm progressive movement so seemingly less effective than the hippies of old?

In my opinion, because it’s the same people. And they are tired, older, are less willing to claim that “Possessions are a bummer” and in fact ARE over 30 and therefore untrustable . The younger generation that might be moved by what we as a nation are doing are interested in changing the world only in as much as it affects their ability to play video games and interact in their own way. Has Internet Fund Raising been effective? Yes of course! Has it actually gotten people to talk about issues more? Yes of course! But computers will not line up at the foot of the Washington monument mall and scream for peace and justice. And the problem, is that the very thing that has made us more capable of communicating is in fact makin us more lazy and unwilling to do the REAL work of getting out there and letting our faces be seen. Regardless of how big the number is in an online-poll to change a piece of legislation, this is NO SUBSTITUTE for actually getting out there and being seen.

Don’t get me wrong – by simply reading my piece and forming an opinion of me for-or-against, you are doing something – you are thinking. But that’s still not the same as the commitment and conviction that my parents had when they were pissed off enough to try to move the earth… and stop a horrible international excursion and the deaths of countless Vietnamese people (as well as our own boys and girls) with marches, sit ins, rallys and all manner of peaceful civil disobedience.

Perhaps if we simply could get Dick Vader or his Imperial Lord And Master Dubya Bush to drop a little window pane our world would start to shift again. But again, I digress.

The answer is not just to be pissed off, but to actually do something about it. Be willing to speak out to your neighbor that takes smack about liberals. Be willing to attack, head on, the forces that make hate seem more acceptable than love. Be willing to fight for the notion of live and let live.

You say you want a revolution?
Well you know, we all want to change the world.

Well,

All you need is love.

Go see Across The Universe. Watch, listen and apply the imagery that confronts you to the world around you. If you’re not moved and a bit pissed off, then you need to read someone else’s blog.

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