Written by Frank Hartzell   

After belatedly reading former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser's appalling defense of corporate personhood and unrestricted corporate spending, and upon finding the current ACLU supports the Citizens United decision, I have an apology to make.

In my 25 years as a newspaper editor, reporter, teacher, and publisher I have often defended the ACLU from critics who said the organization was elitist, anti-religious and grossly out of touch.

You right wing nuts were right. Sorry.

I still support ACLU efforts to block discrimination in the Boy Scouts and stop our government from committing torture and persecution of teachers for naughtiness on their own time on the Internet, but I now see these efforts, like their very recent ardent and needless support for funeral crashing Pastor Fred, as publicity stunts for a group whose real agenda is militant atheism and an even uglier support for big money and the elites.

Goofy old Pastor Freddie and his attacks on grieving families at "gay" funerals isn't worth any thought or brainspace by any intelligent person but the ACLU's support of him is. On the surface it's an effort to apply free speech to everyone. But look deeper and you will find that this is nothing but one of many publicity stunts by an organization great at raising money by kissing the frogs -- and hugging princes, even the priests of our day.

In the Middle Ages, religion controlled government and people in the same way that corporations control most aspects of our lives today. While the church claimed the magical power to change wine into blood, they never went as far as giving flesh, blood and free speech rights to the pews, the steeple and the belfry.

That's what the ACLU and Glasser are supporting; full human rights for corporations "beings" who suffer none of the sickness, death or legal accountability of real humans.

I'd like to think that Mr. Glasser-Scalia simply has some bats in his belfry, but there is nothing amusing about an organization that purports to defending human rights instead supporting the creation of millions of new wealthy, powerful, lifeless and soulless humans.

Mr. Glasser; its not tough to determine who Constitutional rights should apply to;- those with human DNA. Humans are limited in the injuries they can cause to the reach of their arms, can be locked away, can be killed and can be held accountable in a myriad of ways by fellow humans.

None of these work on the new corporate human that Glasser is helping create.. Corporations, protected by human rights and the lack of accountability that comes with their creation are dangerous way, way beyond simply bribing government.

The ACLU is using its high ground to participate in an unprecedented campaign of injury to human rights. Its time to show the ACLU actually stands in the muck of religious bigotry, its educated brain lost in spectacular heights of elitism.

As a reporter I often wondered why the ACLU was so weak on the issue of workplace rights, tenant rights and all the growing ways that money finds to rob us of our civil rights. They only appeared when it was time to bash religion or maybe to defend porno or Nazis.

If 11th graders were to start a Bible study after school, the ACLU and all its money would be there the next day to stop them. But when big corporations restricted speech of their workers, the ACLU wasn't interested, (unless flags or Bibles were involved).

Yet, until I read Glasser's appalling support for corporate America I generally supported them. I can now see how thin, how elitist and how truly bigoted against religion this organization is.

If I started a church tomorrow and called it the Church of Frank and Jesus, the ACLU would watchdog me. If I called it the church of Frank and Mega-oil, the ACLU would fight to the death for the rights of my organization to deprive humans of their civil rights.

Glasser and the ACLU are blind to all the abuses of power by wealth. If ACLU high brows could spend a year as a reporter on any community newspaper, they might learn how ugly money and power can be in the hands of the unaccountable.

Glasser and the ACLU somehow missed the lessons of history about the role of unaccountable corporations in creating slavery, imperialism, war and financial crisis.

Allowing wealth and power to overwhelm the process favors the little guy? Where and when? Mr. Glasser give me one frekkin' example!

Yes, the ACLU's desire to allow unlimited wealth unlimited access does result in "insurgent" candidates winning. Take Bill Simon Jr., who bought the California gubernatorial Republican nomination in 2002 with his own money, much to the

chagrin of most Republicans. When I was Managing Editor of the Napa Valley Register our editorial board interviewed him and members of our board of all parties found him profoundly and shockingly uniformed. He promptly lost big to the incredibly unpopular Democrat, Gray Davis. How did the Republicans nominate this name from the past who wasn't even really from California? They didn't, his unrestricted money did. The loss caused the big money to find another more qualified "insurgent" candidate named Arnold, who bought a recall and a new election a few months later.

Money, money, money and Democracy exterminated.

This is what the ACLU wants for all elections. When Glasser says insurgent candidates he means those with lots and lots of money, who are mostly out to supplant long time, effective legislators who take unpopular positions like supporting global

warming or any sensible tax increase for a Republican or a Democrat going for

Single Payer.

Glasser thinks that giving Exxon-Mobil free speech rights will be great news if we simply restore public financing? Has he ever seen a major developer overwhelm a local planning process, seen corporations deprive the opposition of free speech rights through physical threats and violence? I have. Is he so rich he never had to work a day in his life for a corporation that bullied, silenced and harassed its workers?

Just sit back and think about this; The ACLU really and truly thinks that corporations deserve to be treated with equality, that you can just as easily deprive them of their rights as they do to you. Religion can steal your rights but not money?

The above statement is strong evidence of one thing; the ALCU and Glasser must be space aliens, as they could not possibly have developed that viewpoint here on earth, could not possibly have studied history or current events unless their sole reading material for history was Ayn Rand "novels" and their sole source of current news was the Fox News Channel's opinion section.

The ACLU is so deeply in bed with corporate power they should forgo appeals to us average idiots who still think human rights belong to human beings. Instead of looking for money from powerless humans not smart enough to be born a corporation, why don't they start accepting sponsorships from these new humans they like so much, like soft drink companies and mega-banks?

I like the sound of the "ACLU, brought to you by Capital One and its Barbarians."

Thanks very much to RSN for providing a rare platform beyond the mainstream and Amy Goodman.