UPDATE (03/13/08): Thanks to Grits for Breakfast (from the blog of the same name), I’ve come to understand that the title of this post is somewhat misleading. Jeff Blackburn is not (nor has he ever been) an ACLU staff attorney (which is what most people think of when they hear the phrase “ACLU attorney”). He has been, according to the ACLU’s website, an ACLU “volunteer attorney” and was referred to as an ACLU cooperating attorney in an early press release regarding the Tulia civil rights suit. On at least one other website, Mr. Blackburn is referred to as a member of “the local ACLU board.” I had thought about retitling this post “This Is a Story About an ACLU Volunteer and/or Cooperating Attorney and/or Local ACLU Board Member Who’s Not Ashamed of His Marxist Roots,” but even the original title was too cumbersome, so I decided to handle it this way. I hope this addendum clears up any confusion that might have arisen from my original title.
While visiting our favorite left-wing website, I came across an interesting post entitled “some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness spilled upon them.” In it, our friend Spacedark waxes eloquent about Jeff Blackburn, the hero of a “Tulia Texas,” a new documentary about the imfamous Tulia Drug Bust.
Spacedark was kind enough to provide a link to the film’s website, which provides some great photos of Tulia, as well as a preview to the film (click on “watch the preview” at the top of the page). In the preview, each of the main characters gives their take on what the story is all about. The last to speak is Jeff Blackburn, defense attorney in the criminal case and plaintiffs’ attorney in the subsequent civil rights suit.
I’m not going to comment on the merits of either the criminal or the civil case; that’s already been played out in the court of public opinion. But in the preview, something about the footage of Jeff Blackburn (presumably shot in his office) caught my eye.
If you look at the bookshelf, directly above and to the right of Mr. Blackburn’s head, there’s a bust of none other than Владимир Ильич Ленин (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin), founder of Bolshevism and leader of the Great October Revolution.
And people wonder why we call PTS the “Panhandle Правда Squad”!
More gushing over Comrade Blackburn (just click on the word “gushing”).
For the record, let me state unequivocally that I in no way support or condone the antics of Tom Coleman, Terry McEachern or Larry Stewart in the Tulia Drug Bust. On the contrary, I’d place this incident in the same category as the Brian Deneke murder, the Oprah trial, the late Judge Kaiser’s comment that speaking Spanish to your children is a form a child abuse, and the flying of the Chilean flag over the Potter County courthouse. All of these incidents have put the Texas Panhandle in general and Amarillo in particular in the worst possible light in both the national and international press.
That being said, I find it refreshing that an ACLU lawyer from Amarillo would be so candid as to display his true political allegience when the rest of the members of that organization try so hard to disguise theirs.
Your a step ahead again. I’ve been making connections to socialism and communism at another forum, http://www.motorcitymarauders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5660 I had brought up the fact that the ACLU was founded by Roger Nash Baldwin an avowed socialist and mmost likely communists.
I recall probably the late 60s or early 70s something about the ACLU managing to get a judge to rule that the source of thier founding was protected by the constitution. Allegations have always been around about them getting much money from communists nation specifically at the time Russia.
I was unable to find anything about it, but I have a hard time believeing that with the amount of litigation they do on behalf of so many perverts and anti American groups, the source of funding they do claim, mostly donations from private citizens would support them.
Anyway good catch good post. I had misssed that one.
Appartly he’s not an ACLU lawyer, although he did work with them for a short time on hte Tulia farce. But in thought I can’t see any real difference.
Neither can I. Here’s how I commented on the subject at Grits for Breakfast.
Yeah I saw it. Like you said if it walks like a duck yada yada. Any way I had to back down from my oroginal position. After some basic questions were answered it would indeed appear that guilty or not they should not have been convicted. It’s just really hard to believe that the police work was that bad. No one should go to jail on just the word of one man. They said there were no pictures no video, no defendent turned states evidence, no sound recordings. Nothing. Just one cop that said it was true. I’m still suspicious but if true I have to agree with them.
I always wondered why I never knew much about this whole deal and then when I read about it I looked at the dates. I was in the marine corps when all this was going on.
Crazy stuff. Small town politics is so nuts.