It's true that the ACLU is a dedicated and dependable defender of liberty, and you have worthy allies in the organization as far as defense of civil rights and liberties at home is concerned. I'm not sure, however, of where members of the ACLU stand when it comes to the defense of republicanism, i.e. the principle of self-government of an independent people, which the rejection of the "White Man's Burden" entails. For all I know, some or even all in the ACLU actually share, for instance, your view of the "war on terrorism" (investigate, arrest, and prosecute terrorist suspects according to domestic and international laws, rather than drop bombs on Afghans and others, assassinate terrorist suspects, or take other illegal actions), but I'm not acquainted with its public stance on the Empire's claim to the right to intervention in other nations' affairs and exercise of power in pursuit of it in general, which I believe compromises freedoms of Americans and other peoples fundamentally. As the "war on terrorism" creates more and more cases of violations of civil rights and liberties of individuals in combination with violations of other nations' sovereignty (e.g., terrorist suspects kidnapped without formal extradition and then pushed into a legal limbo with no or few rights), the ACLU may have to say something more public about the Empire, too, even though the organization does not exist for that purpose. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>