Fight Censorship (CS)

So I am now a proud member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. For those of you who don't know, The CBLDF is a non-profit organization devoted to the defense of comics on First Amendment related issues.... Sort of like an ACLU of the comic book medium. They've done a lot of great work over the past +15 years including recent victories regarding parody comics confiscated by customs in South Carolina and a satire case some newspapers were involved in in Texas.

And y'know, I don't entirely agree with their policies and actions. They certainly do a lot of good work, but of all the CBLDF publications I've read, criticism of comic book creators and vendors is conspicuously absent. I realize that the organization's job is to fight legislation and acts that would restrict First Amendment rights as far as comic books are concerned. However, I feel that there is very little recognition that comic book creators and vendors have to exhibit a level of responsiblity as well. I'm only asking for a little bit of honesty amongst friends.

All the same, I feel no shame in being a supporter and member of the CBLD. In fact, i'm quite happy to join an organization i can feel good being a part of and I highly suggest any of you comic fans out there check it out yourselves. And for those of you who aren't comic book fans, why not check out the ACLU or anyone else in the Free Speech Community.

It's about time terms like "a card carrying member of the ACLU" stopped being derogatory. Granted that we need some sort of intelligence organization to look out for us in some ways. All the same, in an atmosphere of fear, regulations tend to become a bit overzealous. Compare the sentiment behind the Patriot act to those of McCarthy's HUAC or the Smith Act or the McCarran Act and you start to get the picture. So just as it is important to have people watching out for us, at the same time we need some sort of watchdog to make sure these organizations and our gov't do not get out of control and in the current political climate ask yourself, "Which side would you rather be on?" As it has been said, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" .... And as Will Esiner's The Spirit says on 2005's CBLDF Membership card, "Consider this an act of patriotism"