Noam Chomsky: The ACLU Is a Conservative Organization

Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Roger Nash Baldwin became head of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) in 1917. An independent outgrowth of the American Union Against Militarism, the Bureau opposed American intervention in World War I. The NCLB provided legal advice and aid for conscientious objectors and those being prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 or the Sedition Act of 1918. In 1920, the NCLB changed its name to the American Civil Liberties Union, with Baldwin continuing as its director and Walter Nelles as chief counsel. Jeannette Rankin, Jane Addams, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver, Helen Keller, along with other former members of the NCLB, assisted Baldwin with the founding of the ACLU. Among the founding members was Felix Frankfurter, who later became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. DeSilver and Nelles were Baldwin's closest associates. The ACLU was formed to protect aliens threatened with deportation, along with U.S. nationals threatened with criminal charges by U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer for their communist or socialist activities and agendas. It also opposed attacks on the rights of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and other labor unions to meet and organize. abstract acquisition American analysis behavior biological Cartesian certain Chomsky Chomsky's cognitive systems component concept concerned constructed deep structure determined developed discovery procedures discussion doctrine empiricism empiricist English example explanatory expression Extended Standard Theory fact framework French function human hypotheses idealization ideological intellectual intelligentsia interaction interesting interpretation John knowledge language lexical linguistic theory logical form LSLT mathematics meaning natural sciences notion noun phrase object organ passive perhaps phenomena philosophy phonology political position possible principles problem properties proposed psychology question reason rewriting rules role seems semantic representation sense sentences social structuralist student movement surface structure Syntactic Structures syntax term thematic relations traditional grammars transformation universal grammar verb Vietnam Watergate