New push by conservatives to ban books

[billvon 2,400]

There's a new push by conservative lawmakers to ban books about race, gender and sexual orientation afoot.  The effort is backed by rich conservative donors who fund "grassroots" campaigns to ban books and simultaneously pay off conservative lawmakers to put their plans into action.  So far there have been books banned in school libraries in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming - and the effort is accelerating.

This, of course, follows a new law in Florida that bans history that upsets right wingers.

As their efforts to cancel books and history accelerate, expect to see more draconian restrictions on both.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/24/us-conservatives-campaign-books-ban-schools

[SkyDekker 1,122]

Ah but having your Twitter suspended....that is an attack on free speech.

The Republicans scare me more, day-by-day. Wish the Democrats were just a tad bit more aggressive. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

I forget who the author was who begged 'the authorities' to ban his book. For the publicity.
Often, banned books get a jump in sales.
People want to know why they got banned and read the book to find out.

Kids are generally smarter than they are given credit for:
https://pennsylvanianewstoday.com/teens-appear-in-the-newly-created-kutztown-banned-book-club/304939/

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

There's a new push by conservative lawmakers to ban books about race, gender and sexual orientation afoot.  The effort is backed by rich conservative donors who fund "grassroots" campaigns to ban books and simultaneously pay off conservative lawmakers to put their plans into action.  So far there have been books banned in school libraries in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming - and the effort is accelerating.

This, of course, follows a new law in Florida that bans history that upsets right wingers.

As their efforts to cancel books and history accelerate, expect to see more draconian restrictions on both.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/24/us-conservatives-campaign-books-ban-schools

Hi Bill,

As I continue to say, right out of the pages of the Third Reich.  No pun intended.

Jerry Baumchen

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Aren't these the same bozos that screamed and yelled about 'banning books' when the Seuss family decided to stop printing a couple titles?

[GeorgiaDon 340]

But, that's completely different!  Dr Seuss depicted black people as apes, which is just free speech and sort of true.  Except that they vote just like Americans do (but we're fixing that). Those smut books depict LGBTQ people as humans, and that's just communism, or woke-ism, or pervert-ism. /sarcasm (just in case anyone doesn't get it).

Once again I am reminded that these days Republicanism=rank hypocrisy. 

[JoeWeber 2,299]

4 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

Ah but having your Twitter suspended....that is an attack on free speech.

The Republicans scare me more, day-by-day. Wish the Democrats were just a tad bit more aggressive. 

I wish we were a hell of a lot more aggressive. Maybe all of you high school quarterbacks had no problems with bullies, but, for my scrawny self, it wasn't until I unleashed my inner Tasmanian Devil that they gave up beating my ass. That and nothing less is what we need now.

[brenthutch 383]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-left-cancel-culture-books-hanson-20201204-jib62lsznvh3zfo2vvcidilblm-story.html

Hello kettle,  meet pot.
 

 

[JoeWeber 2,299]

17 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-left-cancel-culture-books-hanson-20201204-jib62lsznvh3zfo2vvcidilblm-story.html

Hello kettle,  meet pot.
 

 

Spot on again. We should also cancel the Santa Claus story because Rudolf is Trans. 

[brenthutch 383]

“A half-century ago, progressives used to push limitless free expression, blasting conservatives for their allegedly blinkered traditionalism. They boasted of obliterating once-normal boundaries in art, music and literature to allow nudity, profanity, sexuality and anti-American boilerplate.

Now?

The left is Victorian — increasingly puritanical, regressive and hypersensitive. Even totalitarian censorship and book-burning have weirdly become part of their by-any-means-necessary methods.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-left-cancel-culture-books-hanson-20201204-jib62lsznvh3zfo2vvcidilblm-story.html

 

 

[ryoder 1,384]

Sales soar for 'Maus' after its banning in Tennessee

Just days after the banning of “Maus” by a Tennessee school district made national news, two editions of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic story about the Holocaust have reached the top 20 on Amazon

[Phil1111 911]

5 hours ago, ryoder said:

Sales soar for 'Maus' after its banning in Tennessee

Just days after the banning of “Maus” by a Tennessee school district made national news, two editions of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic story about the Holocaust have reached the top 20 on Amazon

When you read so little, i.e. republicans, its easy to ban something. Its likely dems buying the book.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

9 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

When you read so little, i.e. republicans, its easy to ban something. Its likely dems buying the book.

There's a bunch of memes going around on FB about this.

Most of them are saying 'if they want to ban a book, go find it and read it because what they want to hide is what you need to know'.

One is a fairly well known Stephen King quote.

[brenthutch 383]

Some lefties want to ban Jonnie the Walrus even though it is #1 on Amazon’s LGBTQ+ category. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by brenthutch

[ryoder 1,384]

The books made him do it.

Northland school book ban advocate now facing child molestation charge

[Phil1111 911]

1 hour ago, ryoder said:

The books made him do it.

Northland school book ban advocate now facing child molestation charge

His anti-literacy agenda may take a hit after conviction. But Kansas has no provisions  that he can't attend school facilities for future board meetings.

Kansas, ban books but don't ban sex offenders from hanging around schools.

Figures.

[metalslug 31]

On 1/25/2022 at 7:01 AM, billvon said:

There's a new push by conservative lawmakers to ban books about race, gender and sexual orientation afoot.

 

On 1/25/2022 at 7:13 AM, SkyDekker said:

Ah but having your Twitter suspended....that is an attack on free speech.

In your opinion; are both actions 'right' or are both 'wrong' ?  As you have correctly pointed out the double standard, you would surely not want to be guilty of the same ?

Edited January 30, 2022 by metalslug

[wmw999 2,122]

Somewhere in the middle is the distinction between free speech and yelling “fire” in a theater. The direct call out to violent and/or illegal action is generally considered to be the dividing line. And in the US that only counts for governmental banning; private entities can follow their own rules. For instance, no jokes about pedophilia on dz.com, even if they’re really funny. Site rules. 
Twitter and FB are also non-governmental. And they can be sued by individuals for harm done to them perceived to have been started by them. Maybe they’ll win, but enough lawsuits, and settlements to avoid court, and they just say “nope, not going there any more.”

Wendy P. 

[metalslug 31]

28 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Somewhere in the middle is the distinction between free speech and yelling “fire” in a theater. The direct call out to violent and/or illegal action is generally considered to be the dividing line.

Certainly, although the 'fire' law is rather unambiguous; one does need to actually yell 'fire!' rather than 'hot air!' to be charged. Trump was subsequently acquitted by the Senate (on incitement specifically), was he not ?  Didn't change the status of his Twitter account.

I have indicated before; I am actually *not* a Trump fan. Many of his comments are asinine and I don't have a Twitter account myself to follow anyone, although I do think that suspension over anything less than really extreme content (some very radical groups still have Twitter accounts) is bad for democracy. With regard to the OP; book banning is also wrong unless content was found to be unequivocally inciteful, libellous or other breaches of publishing law.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

2 hours ago, metalslug said:

...Trump was subsequently acquitted by the Senate (on incitement specifically), was he not ?  Didn't change the status of his Twitter account.

Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one.

The circus of the impeachment 'trials' (both of them) demonstrated that pretty clearly.

The Jan 6th committee, OTOH, can recommend criminal charges to the Attorney General.
I'm hopeful, but not terribly optimistic that Trump will face real consequences.

But, as you correctly point out, conviction or acquittal in a criminal court won't change his Twitter status.

 

[kallend 1,623]

19 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

When you read so little, i.e. republicans, its easy to ban something. Its likely dems buying the book.

"Boris Johnson has written more books than Donald Trump has read"; GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

Edited January 30, 2022 by kallend

[Phil1111 911]

47 minutes ago, kallend said:

"Boris Johnson has written more books than Donald Trump has read"; GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

So without checking ....none? Given that he certainly never read any at Wharton.

trump is a good counter argument to those who say public schools should be replaced by private ones.

[ryoder 1,384]

47 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

So without checking ....none? Given that he certainly never read any at Wharton.

trump is a good counter argument to those who say public schools should be replaced by private ones.

Here is a list of books by Boris Johnson:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/boris-johnson/476809/

Of course the question is: Did he actually write them, or just have them ghost-written, (like every book "written" by Trump)?

[Phil1111 911]

51 minutes ago, ryoder said:

Here is a list of books by Boris Johnson:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/boris-johnson/476809/

Of course the question is: Did he actually write them, or just have them ghost-written, (like every book "written" by Trump)?

I'd bet that he sent an autographed copy of the "72 Virgins" book to trump. It's an area of mutual interest it seems.

[kallend 1,623]

1 hour ago, ryoder said:

Here is a list of books by Boris Johnson:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/boris-johnson/476809/

Of course the question is: Did he actually write them, or just have them ghost-written, (like every book "written" by Trump)?

Well, he attended Oxford on scholarship (rather than having a place bought for him by daddy), became president of the Oxford Union, and won prizes there in Latin and ancient Greek, it seems he is pretty smart.  He also worked as a journalist in the Brussels office of the Telegraph, being fluent in French as well as English, so presumably he can write for himself.  Given all that, I doubt he needed a ghost writer.