Kenders' Musings

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU



Hat tip: Danegerus

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to stop the Miami-Dade County school district from removing a series of children's books from its libraries, including a volume about Cuba which depicts smiling kids in communist uniforms.

The ACLU and the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on Wednesday that the school board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive.

Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba" from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation.

The book, by Alta Schreier, targets students ages 5 to 7 and contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba's communist youth group and a carnival celebrating the 1959 Cuban revolution. The district owns 49 copies of the book in Spanish and English.

To the ACLU it doesn't seem to matter that the books are misleading, inaccurate, and inappropriate for this age group. It doesn't matter to the ACLU that the book is pure propaganda. To the ACLU it is a book ban. It just so happens that the message portrayed in the book seems to go along with their founder's beliefs.

"I have been to Europe several times, mostly in connection with international radical activities...and have traveled in the United States to areas of conflict over workers rights to strike and organize. My chief aversion is the system of greed, private profit, privilege and violence which makes up the control of the world today, and which has brought it to the tragic crisis of unprecedented hunger and unemployment...Therefore, I am for Socialism, disarmament and ultimately, for the abolishing of the State itself...I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

~ Roger Baldwin-founder of the ACLU~

Here is another one from Mr. Baldwin.

"Do steer away from making it look like a Socialist enterprise...We want also 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."-Baldwin's advice in 1917 to Louis Lochner of the socialist People's Council in Minnesota.

I'm sure the ACLU's founder would be proud of the ACLU's move to protect the propaganda of his ideology. The ACLU's main point of argument is that banning one point of view is the wrong way to deal with the situation is lost when it is five year olds potentially being exposed to this crap. To the ACLU this is nothing more than a book ban, and they are asking the school to include more alternative views instead of banning unpopular ones. No one has to ask if they would fight this hard to keep a Bible in the school library, or whether their strength would be focused on getting rid of it. Take this however you want, but the ACLU has never strayed very far from its founding principles.

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