ACLU Fights To Keep Communist Propaganda In School Library

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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