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Canto XXXVIII

Michael Ceraolo


And yet,
freedom fighters falter,
though
it should have been scant surprise
that an organization founded by former Progressives
who had favored the First World War
and supported some sort of repression of those opposed
(before experiencing a late-life conversion
to a version of free speech,
way belatedly
coming to the realization that
a little repression was like being a little bit pregnant)
And thus
even the originator of the orthodoxy,
the American Civil Liberties Union,
would one day hold a heresy trial

The Thirties had wound down,
and
another World War had worked its way up,
a war that America had not yet entered

(officially)
(yet),
but
that did not stop a sort of ideological holy war
Apostates of certain faiths
would clash with apostles of those same faiths,
and
the advocates would abdicate their advocacy for all
in the futile attempt to remain ‘acceptable’,
in order
to continue their access to those in power,
laboring
under the delusion that they exercised
some degree of influence


“the personnel of its governing committees and staff
is properly subject to the test of consistency
in defense of civil liberties
in all aspects and all places
(italics added)
Since there were no known Nazis
on the ACLU Board of Directors
it was crystal clear which country
was being called out:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
The Rebel Girl
woman Wobbly from way back
committed to civil liberties
when the putative Progressives were putting her friends in jail for their opinions
one of the founders of the ACLU in 1920
a board member since 1936,
the same year she joined the Communist Party
And
because she did not disavow the Communist Party
she was subjected to trial as a heretic
“This charge violates every principle we fought for in the past”
but
such arguments did not carry the day
And
thus it was
that the American Civil Liberties Union
purged her from its board
for exercising her rights
(Board membership restored to her,
posthumously,
nearly
forty years later
Emeritus in Eternity)



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