The American Library Association (ALA) celebrates so-called “banned books week” every year. But no books are banned in the united states. All books are available in any bookstore and many libraries nationwide. So why is the ALA telling us about the banning of books? Because that propaganda ensures people continue to allow children unfettered access to inappropriate material for children, a Goal only the ALA, the ACLU, and the like hold, by lumping such material in with the works of John Steinbeck, William Shakespeare, and even Dr. Suess.
Propaganda? Who says? Thomas sowell says banned books week is “the kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of ‘censorship’ or ‘book banning’ has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own” that he calls it “national hogwash week.” the annoyed librarian says we are being “subjected to some inane ala propaganda.... now no place is safe from the grasping tentacles of the ala, and we’re all a little worse for it. somehow, though, a fake world seems like the right place to talk about fake ‘banned’ books.” Linda Harvey points out, in an article called “Banned books week: smoke screen of hypocrisy,” that “this is the dirty little secret behind the bluster and outrage of banned books week: private, library-initiated censorship is a routine practice throughout america.” RIght, Scott savage? Speaking of a dirty, little secret, even ala members, here former ala councilor jessamyn west, tacitly admit to the dirty little secret, “the thing we know about banned books week that we don’t talk about much--the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. while i think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it’s totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all.”
At the same time the ALA is propagandizing about banned books, it itself is banning anything that does not promote its agenda. cuban librarians being repressed? that’s fine by the ala. Fellow ala members being left off ballot cards? perfectly acceptable to the ALA. Praying in library public meeting rooms? Are you kidding? The Boy Scouts of America? Off with their heads! hurdles being created and raised again and again to exclude people despite pennsylvania supreme court rules? come on, this is the ala, it gets a free pass on anything.
Here’s the ultimate free pass. the ala gets to ignore the us supreme court in a case the ala itself lost and lost big! the court said, “The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all members of the court appear to agree.” the ala, undeterred from its agenda, said, “despite the 2003 U.S. supreme court ruling on the children’s internet protection act (cipa), ... ala policy is unchanged....” you and i don’t get to ignore the us supreme court; that right is bestowed only on those who know better than everyone else that material inappropriate for minors is actually good for the children.
And what effect does this have? well, for one example, in oak lawn, illinois, where 98% of the public did not want children accessing playboy magazine in the public library, the ala uses its bully position and propaganda to defend the children from the “would-be censors” evil enough to want to keep children from accessing playboy magazine. essentially, local control is absent in many public libraries that are effectively controlled by the scotus-defying ala. and as another propaganda pearl, the ala claims parents have control over the books the children read so control could not get any more local than that. Yet claims of a loss of local control are used by the ALA to block efforts to pass internet filtering legislation. You see, anyway you turn, the local control propaganda is used to ensure children retain maximum exposure to inappropriate material. Here another possible effect of ala propaganda: 8 year old girl attacked in philadelphia library. There are More cases like this.
And, having beat down oak lawn once, the ALA comes in for a second bite. It awards oral sex masterpieces of literature with awards for children, and poof, its instantly acceptable to recommend children read. So in oak lawn, the children can get playboy in the public library and get inappropriate material for which the school board apologized but refused to stop.
Oak lawn? Sound familiar? this is The town THAT NEARLY wipED out halloween and christmas IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, but playboy and inappropriate materials are still safe. Phew!! I was worried!! School district 126’s slogan is “where children come first.” Now we know why.
ALA propaganda is effective in part because the ala intentionally creates then promotes confusion. first, it lumps together inappropriate material with material to whiCh some people object. Then, by pointing out how silly it is to pull “harry potter” or “the giver” from a library, it states no book should be pulled. oh yeah? board of education v. pico, a 1982 us supreme court case meant nothing when it allowed the removal of “pervasively vulgar” books? This is another case of the ala knowing better than the us supreme court. And the ALA advertises the harry potter book and the giver book as being “banned,” books that challenge religious or political thought, but rarely mentions the books that are just plain filled with inappropriate material of a prurient nature. Is inappropriate sexual content “information” as the ALA claims that children must have to become “thinking adults” and “an informed electorate”?
Another confusion the ala uses to its advantage is to lump together all people trying to protect their children then throwing them all out as a group. Once you do that, it’s easy to say oh, they are all just religious nuts, or oh, they are all just trying to promote their own agendas.
Another confusion the ala uses is to argue that no one can really be the judge of what’s inappropriate. Therefore, anything goes, and only parents can say no. Again, this ignores the various us Supreme Court cases. if only parents can tell what’s wrong for only their own children, then us v. ala and board of education v. pico are worthless cases the court wasted its time on to justify its own existence. now does that sound logical?
another confusion, of course, is that the ala gets to create and use terminology favorable to itself. like banning. nothing is banned in the USA but the ALA claims dozens of bannings. Really? What is the ALA’s definition? where are the pulitzer prize winning stories exposing the systematic banning of books in the usa, other than, of course, the total rewriting of school texts to remove politically incorrect information?
and creating its own terminology allows the ALA to Mislead the media to ask questions and write headlines that instantly favor the ALA. BANNED BOOKS HERE! BOOK BANNING THERE! Read all about it! Keeping inappropriate material from children is not banning books, rather it doing what everyone expects and what the us supreme court put into words that the ala defies. why does the ala gets to propagandize in this fashion? why doesn’t the media ask better questions, like why, ala, should a book detailing in a prurient fashion the act of felatio be made available to public school children at all, let alone without notice to the parents. That is a better question than asking why someone is banning the book.
Oh, the best is the “authentic literature” excuse. Well, graphic rape scenes, raping children still in diapers, having sex with animals, these are all authentic! Let’s teach it to the children! Did you know parents in Howell, MI, tried to stop the public school from recommending a book containing bestiality but the ala complained the parents were really racist because the author was black? The ALA won that one too -- no local control again. now, much later, two howell boys are arrested for oral sex, at ages 9 and 11! could it be what they are learning in school-provided inappropriate material?
And watch the ala ridicule individuals and small groups trying to educate the public about what the ala is doing. we do not have the time or resources of the ala, such as the playboy foundation funding, and the ala uses that against us in the good, old ad hominem method of argument. Obviously if i have not dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s the ala must be right, right?
it is time people begin to realize the wool has been pulled over their eyes. this fight has been going on for decades. but what’s changed recently is that us v. ala case in 2003. it’s no longer the ala’s opinion anymore, now it’s just flat out defiance of the us supreme court. i urge anyone injured as a result of the ala’s policies to file for punitive damages against the ala. please contact me for further information.
President eisenhower said, “Don’t join the book burners. don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book. as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. that should be the only censorship.” isn’t that better than “anything goes” as promoted by the ala on “banned books week”?
Speaking of presidents, the democrat debate at dartmouth raised the issue. The number of controversial books is increasing exponentially, or at least the books the ala is recommending and awarding, and content has become so sexually graphic and prurient that people are stepping up and taking issue with this all over the country. it is a significant national issue that has made its way into the presidential campaign, as we saw in dartmouth. Here’s a transcript of the democrat debate at dartmouth regarding book content so you can see for yourselves.
thank you.
