by Dr Les Sachs
With regard to the illegal banning of my freedom of speech by the USA government - in the crimes involving Bush celebrity friend Patricia Cornwell and U.S. Federal Judge Robert Payne, and now joining him, Judge Moon - some important broader questions arise regarding the much-ballyhooed American Civil Liberties Union, an organization better known as the ACLU.
(For those unfamiliar with the scandal with Bush's friend Cornwell, see the online "Patricia Cornwell Biography: Crimes, Bribery, Scandals and Mental Illness", easily available on the web at Patricia-Cornwell-biography dot net and in newsgroup archives such as Google Groups.)
Since I began exposing the whole Cornwell scandal after my arrival in Europe, one of the most common questions from people back in America is, "What about the ACLU?" Americans have an image of the well-known American Civil Liberties Union, thinking that it is an organization eager to fight for civil liberties and especially the defense of free speech. People always ask why the ACLU hasn't helped me.
Amid the general public, people have the impression that the ACLU is some kind of major legal resource organization, consistently helping Americans whose freedoms have been violated. But this oversold image of the ACLU turns out to be not merely deceptive, but also very harmful for the victims of America's legal system. The myth that the ACLU is generally helping victims of the legal system who have their civil liberties violated, is a false and dangerous fable, and this "ACLU
Regrettably, the reality is that the ACLU is a very weak and timid organization, despite the huge amounts of money that they raise. The ACLU often refuses to help many important cases in which freedom of speech is being denied. The ACLU is big on raising lots of money and issuing press releases, and chasing after a few cases that are already in the media and which already have other organizations involved in them, like the Guantanamo Bay prison scandal.
The fact is that the ACLU abandons and systematically denies help to many of the people, who deserve the ACLU's help the most, and who have nowhere else to turn. The ACLU has also been very weak on confronting some of the most important civil liberties issues connected with the George Bush regime and America's right wing. The ACLU totally abandons and ignores, and leaves to persecution, jail and even death, many victims who are outside the notice of America's corporate media.
The ACLU was actually known as a disappointing fraud in the Joe McCarthy era, too, when the ACLU submitted to the government witch-hunt against leftists. The ACLU was so worthless in those times, that famous civil-rights advocate Corliss Lamont quit the board of the ACLU in disgust in 1951. So the ACLU was a sham and a failure even in those days more than half a century ago. (Corliss Lamont founded the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee as a rival which actually fought Joe McCarthy, and which helped the victims of the government, instead of ignoring them like the ACLU. Lamont's organisation no longer exists.)
The ACLU is notorious for some past high-publicity cases helping people to publish pornography, and issues involving atheism and trying to dis-engage the government from religion. These cases, especially the pornography cases, have given the ACLU a reputation something like, "The ACLU, they'll represent some pornography guy, they'll represent anybody!"
But the fact is, as ACLU officials themselves have told me, cases like pornography and atheism are what they actually prefer to do. The ACLU doesn't like making too many political waves, they don't like confronting the real central issues of political and legal corruption in America. Their code phrase for this betrayal, is saying they want to "work within the system". The ACLU would rather work on fringe cases, like objections to government money for Christmas decorations, or like people's right to avoid saying the word "God", or to spread pornography (which is a big-money business supported by the ACLU, and with ties to both of the big two American political parties).
The ACLU was absolutely worthless to me, even though I communicated with them continually while I tried to fight Bush's friend Cornwell and her hired thugs, and their attack on my rights and the Constitution. The first time I called the ACLU on the phone, in those first days my freedom of speech was initially banned, I talked to a young lady on the phone at the ACLU office. She said to write them a letter. I asked if I could fax them, as the matter was urgent, as the federal judge had already called me to issue a gag order on me the same day I got the legal papers.
The ACLU staffer just chuckled, "Like, everybody thinks their case is urgent," she laughed. "Just send us a letter." She made it clear that she could really care less.
The ACLU did nothing while a federal judge and his personal goons threatened to illegally jail and murder me. (I had criticized fascist activities of Bush's big donor Patricia Cornwell, and Cornwell then bought a fake legal proceeding with Virginia federal Judge Robert Payne, who was appointed by the first President Bush. In his fake trial, Judge Payne's friends posed as my lawyers, and claimed to be part of a non-existent "First Amendment civil rights Foundation". After a few weeks, with no physical trial, they announced a fake "settlement" where they claimed I agreed to the banning of my own freedom of speech for the rest of my life, plus to pay $100,000 plus 18 per cent interest to Judge Payne's friends with the phony "Foundation". Judge Payne's thugs warned me that I face USA jailing under the illegal orders, and that I would be murdered in jail, if I didn't keep quiet about Cornwell and about the fake trial.)
In the months after the fake trial, I talked to the ACLU several further times, before I was forced to escape America, with my freedom of speech illegally banned, and as the Bush-Cornwell thugs demanded their extortion money from me, as their price for not jailing and murdering me. As I looked for help, I talked to a number of ACLU people, both in Virginia and at their national headquarters. I got a bunch of excuses and explanations that are really quite sad.
Among other excuses were these: The ACLU doesn't like confronting dishonest lawyers, or crooked judges. The ACLU doesn't like cases that involve big newspapers planting false evidence to help the government. The ACLU doesn't like cases that seem "complicated". However, the ACLU very clearly indicated, that it does like cases that involve the right to be an atheist, or the right to publish pornography, or otherwise meet the ACLU "requirements".
Well, the banning of my freedom of speech involved false evidence planted by a right-wing Republican newspaper. It involved misconduct by lawyers and by a federal judge. There were a number of people involved in the scheme to ban my freedom of speech, so a few people might call it "complicated", though it really isn't. And I'm not an atheist, I believe in a higher spiritual power. My case was about freedom of political speech and journalism, not pornography.
So the ACLU wasn't interested in me. You look on some of the ACLU state websites - most noticeably in Virginia, where I was asking for their help - and you see that the cases that they claim to be handling are sometimes relatively trivial and minor, or they are working on some vague general long-term project of gathering data.
Whereas in the Patricia Cornwell crime scandal, I was offering the ACLU a clear cut case with smoking-gun documentary evidence, where a right-wing friend of President Bush bought a fake federal court proceeding that directly attacks the U. S. Constitution. Here was a Bush judge committing criminal acts, to deny a writer's freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and ban his journalism. Exactly what you think the ACLU would handle, and a case that, if the ACLU had acted, could have grabbed national headlines long ago, given the clear crimes involved, and the celebrity weirdness of Bush's friend Cornwell.
But no, a fake trial to ban an American's freedom of speech, with a U.S. federal judge inventing and selling a phony "First Amendment civil rights charity foundation", that was not a case for the ACLU. The ACLU was simply ready to let them jail and murder me.
Even when I briefly got rich before leaving America, and I offered to pay the ACLU huge amounts of money to help me, out of a $150,000 a year job that I secured for myself, the ACLUACLU opted to play along with the bribery game of America's judges.
The ACLU didn't want to confront crooked lawyers and judges tied to Bush, no matter that the Constitution was being directly attacked via a Joe-Stalin-style fake trial, with the judge's friends posing as my lawyers. The ACLU was rock-solid on ignoring me, even though, in the end, I could offer them huge six-figure amounts of money, and they could have raised millions of dollars from publicizing their battle over the fake trial for Bush's friend.
In the end, the ACLU didn't want to rock the political boat of President Bush's friends among the Virginia good ol' boys. The ACLU doesn't want to reveal the American culture of bribed judges and crooked lawyers, that is destroying the freedom of American citizens.
The ACLU left me with my freedom of speech effectively banned by illegal orders in the fake trial. The ACLU left me to face the threats of illegal jailing and murder by the Bush - Cornwell - Judge Payne thugs, until finally I had to leave the country.
Even the way that the ACLU blows you off, shows you how creepy they are, how much they have made a habit of ignoring the real victims of the American courts and government. The ACLU sent me a few form letters and e-mails, stating their bland refusal to help me, but usually with a note attached, asking me to nonetheless donate money for their "important work".
One can understand that the ACLU doesn't have the resources to handle every case. But the way they blow you off is a way that makes it clear, that ignoring victims is just a ruthless business for them. There's an absence of personal kind words or suggestions, no helpful assistance toward other resources; they are ice-cold and don't want to converse with you. They avoid mentioning the many worthy cases that they blow off and ignore. The ACLU message to you is: Just suffer and die.
Like with so much else in America, the reality of what they do, is utterly different from the public image that the ACLU keeps on selling to the public. The ACLU is just another part of the establishment smoke-and-mirrors, to deceive the public into feeling that they have someone on their side, when they are actually alone and abandoned.
Yes, the ACLU does do a bit of good work, on some cases, to help keep up the public image. But even some of that work, is the kind where they jump on issues already in the public media, like the Guantanamo Bay prison scandal, and then the ACLU tries to trump publicity for other organizations, by getting some government documents released or some other stunt. What you don't find very much at all, is the ACLU truly breaking ground as a vanguard of legal change, when it is the American legal system itself that is now a major tool of the denial of freedom, and of America's slide into the neo-fascist bog.
The ACLU is still trading on the image of an older and now lost America, like in the 1960s, where some clever legal briefs before the right judge, could suddenly turn the tide in favor of justice. The truth is, however, that it is a much different and more dangerous kind of battle in America now, against what has become the most corrupt legal system in the developed world.
The ACLU itself has degenerated into another one of those fat, fund-raising groups that is more a part of the establishment machine, than anything opposed to it. With its false and misleading public image, the name of the ACLU has actually become a tool for America's criminal goons to carry out their crimes. Such criminal goons connected to the government, like in the crimes connected to Patricia Cornwell, will actually cite the ACLU's non-involvement as some kind of "proof" that the victim doesn't deserve to have any rights.
Lawyers for the government, or for Bush's friends or other crooks, will denounce a victim, saying that "even the ACLU won't get involved here", as if that's proof you don't deserve to have any rights or protection. The goons like to suggest that because the ACLU helps people who sell pornography, but won't help you, that is like the ACLU verifying that you are worse than a pornographer. And the ACLU continues to let this happen, and lets its name be used in this way, with its horrible silence about particular victims, and the continued ACLU cultivation of its false mythical image.
Somewhat hilariously, even some of the lawyers who are padding their resumes with membership on some local ACLU board or other, will privately admit that the ACLU is often just a bogus and worthless money machine, that routinely betrays victims and sells them down the river. The ACLU may talk a good game sometimes, but the reality for the people who need its help, is usually abandonment and betrayal.
At the risk of my own life, I stayed in America for as long as I could, collecting evidence and trying to fight the Patricia Cornwell - Judge Payne gang of thugs from inside the American system. I thought that with my many months of incessantly searching for a lawyer, and with my launching myself into a $150,000 a year job, I would eventually find a way to connect with perhaps some "radical" lawyer somewhere, some very bold, aggressive lawyer who would take a stand against powerful political forces. The kind of lawyer whom you would imagine, would be at least associated with the ACLU.
But it turned out that those kind of "radical" lawyers just about don't exist any more in the USA, in the way that they existed in the 1960s and 1970s. As one lawyer told me, "You can forget about some lawyer fighting for your rights. That kind of sh*t went out with Bill Kunstler," referring to the famous radical lawyer of a generation ago, who defended so many radicals like the Chicago Seven after the American riots of 1968.
I contacted not only the ACLU, but many other so-called human rights and justice organizations in America, looking for legal help, and telling them I would be glad to pay for big donations and pay lawyers out of my own pocket, if they would just connect me with some legal assistance.
But none of them would help me. I would typically get a form letter telling me they couldn't help me, but they would like me to send them money anyway.
It seems that many such organizations are heavily involved in fund-raising and self-promotion, but aren't interested in rocking the boat, they have no desire to directly challenge crooked lawyers and judges - that's too frightening for them, a taboo subject. They are not interested in working on a specific case of judicial corruption, even for someone who could pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nobody seemed to know of any lawyers anywhere in America, who would take on a sitting federal judge involved in proven fraud, extortion and threats of murder, and certainly America's wimpy ACLU wouldn't be involved.
I wound up communicating with thousands of lawyers in America, developing a quite clear picture of the whole environment of legal corruption, and I discovered that you can almost never find a USA lawyer to fight a case where a judge is himself involved in the felony crimes. For a deeper and broader analysis, see my FAQ on American Judicial and Legal Corruption.
As you browse the internet, you can read the tragic cases of victims betrayed and abandoned by the American Civil Liberties Union, the anguish of people who thought the ACLU was there to help them, but found that this was only a myth. For the sake of avoiding more cases of tragedy, and for understanding the real crisis of America's judicial and legal system, everyone needs to understand that this public image of the ACLU, this myth that the ACLU is a great gladiator for people's freedom and civil liberties, is just plain false.
Too many Americans are still buying into the ACLU myth, still giving themselves false comfort with the story that the ACLU is fighting for people's rights, because they read of some case years ago when the ACLU defended some pornographer in their neighborhood, or because an ACLU staffer was quoted on television talking about the technical problems with Bush's Patriot Act legislation. They are eager to believe the myth because it sounds so nice, and because they are desperate to believe that there is hope out there, when actually there is little hope left in America.
The power of the ACLU myth is shown in how often it comes up, from Americans of all sorts who hear about the illegal banning of my freedom of speech by a Bush judge in a fake trial. I can often just count 1, 2, 3 and then I hear, "Well, what about the ACLU, why didn't they help you? . . ."
Even though the ACLU can trot out some victims here and there whom it has helped in some way, the real story of the ACLU is what it is not doing, and how the ACLU is still selling a false image of itself. If the ACLU were really what it claimed to be, it would be in the headlines nearly every day, with a far different set of cases than is now revealed on its websites. For one thing, it would be out there protecting the lawyers who have been disbarred for complaining about legal corruption, it would be out there connecting with a lot more of those victims whom anyone can find on the internet, and whose desperate letters begging for help, fill up the ACLU file cabinets.
And if the ACLU was honest, it would reveal more about how it abandons and ignores so many people. The ACLU itself, should not allow the "ACLU myth" to provide false comfort to those who imagine the ACLU is a systematic resource for those who have their civil liberties denied. The ACLU should itself stop the "ACLU myth" from hurting so many victims, as lawyers for the government or wealthy criminals cluck with joy over the fact that "even the ACLU won't help" the victim they are trying to destroy.
With the puncturing of the myths about the ACLU, Americans can begin to undertake a more realistic assessment of the corruption and moral collapse of its judges and legal system, this sell-out of the citizenry by America's lawyers, the putrid rotting of American justice.
Otherwise, if America does complete its slide into full-blown fascism, the ACLU's misleading image, and its congenital timidity, will be among the factors by which America's civil liberties were finally extinguished.
[This article was originally published 15 August 2005 on "Banned in America", and then suppressed by Google via illegal US "court orders" purchased by US neo-Nazi terrorist and Bush family friend, Patricia Cornwell.)
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