But They Were Communists!

One of the many irritating features of the current conservative movement is that they frequently say American civil rights leaders and the civil rights movement was "communist." Communists ran the movement, funded it and generally got their fingerprints all over it.

Well, yeah. There's a simple reason. When the civil rights movement got started, both mainstream American political parties would not help the civil rights leaders. So, much like Stalin turning to Britain and America in WWII (and us turning to Stalin) the civil rights people went to whomever would help. Staying in WWII for a moment, the Resistance movement in Occupied Europe was started and, until fairly late in the war, ran by the local Communists.

Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, although both arguably left-leaning, went Communist because the US wouldn't help. In Castro's case, he was fighting against an American-backed dictator, in Minh's the US merely said "not our problem." The end result was the same - go with those who will help.

Saying "but they're communists!" doesn't prove anything. "But they're communists" doesn't equate to being wrong.