It’s National Library Week, so I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and the idea that knowledge should be readily available – for all. An informed populace is crucial to the health of the nation and a bulwark of democracy. The ability to think, to reason, to avoid being fooled, all these notions are tied to reading and easy access to the wisdom of the ages.
And this is exactly why libraries – and their contents – are under siege these days.
HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery recently told readers:
“Librarians are living in constant fear. They have become the targets
of Republican politicians and far-right groups like Moms for Liberty
Liberty that are hellbent on burning books about LGBTQ+ people,
people of color and racism. Some librarians are quitting their jobs
because of constant harassment; others are getting fired for
refusing to clear shelves of books that conservatives don’t like.”
If that’s not bad enough – and it is – Bendery informs us there’s another evil twist in the tale: “The GOP’s censorship campaign has shifted from book bans to legislation threatening librarians with jail time.” Idaho’s tried several times to enact such legislation; this February, West Virginia passed a bill “making librarians criminally liable if a minor comes across content that some might consider obscene.” Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia are also considering various means of keeping books they don’t like off the shelves...and they’re not alone.
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom shared some frightening statistics: “The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.”
Given these ever-more-frequent, ever-more-strident attacks, what can a concerned reader do to stem the tide of book-banning?
PEN America, an organization whose mission “is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible,” offers a number of ways to make one’s voice heard. Whether you’re a student, a parent, an author, or a librarian, PEN America provides advice, assistance, and resources to keep you informed and ready to push back.
The need to support the nation’s libraries is more urgent than ever. In Bendery’s HuffPost piece, American Library Association President Emily Drabinski draws a chilling conclusion: “What gets lost in conversations about book banning is that it’s really about eliminating the institution of the library, period. It’s not about the books. Well, it is about the books, but the books are the way in to gut one of the last public institutions that serves everyone.”
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s finest fabulists, the author of The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the worldwide blockbuster Fahrenheit 451. Published in 1952, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future where books are illegal and firemen don’t put out fires – they start them. Printed matter is what they burn.
Bradbury was writing in the tense, paranoid early years of the McCarthy era. But he might as well have penned those words last Thursday.
Support your local library. Speak up for the voices the hate-mongers would shut down. Before – as history’s proven again and again – they try to shut down yours.
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Students fight a book ban by giving away free banned bookswww.youtube.com
The New York Public Library has also weighed in on the matter, you can find its suggestions here.
Paris on Fire: French Police Tear Gas Protesters in the Streets
A third swell of protests over hikes in gas prices erupts in violent riots and public outcry over France's social inequality.
In the heart of Paris, the Champs-Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe were scaled by protesters and graffitied on Saturday. Police fired tear gas, stun grenades, and water cannons at masked citizens donning bright yellow vests as they (the citizens) set fire to buildings and hurled crude projectiles in the streets.
Recent hikes in gas prices under President Emmanuel Macron have driven people to form a leaderless movement on social media and take to the streets.The most recent announcement of another tax increase set to begin on News Years Day initiated the first wave of demonstrations in mid-November. The price hike will add to an existing 23% rise in diesel costs that's occurred during Macron's first year as president.
UPI
In France, all drivers must keep reflective yellow vests in their vehicles under a 2008 policy; the "gilet jaunes" or "Yellow Vest" movement represents motorists' protest of the added tax burden on fuel and government officials' blindness to civilian struggles.
The 36,000 demonstrators created the most violent display of civil disobedience to take place in the capital in more than a decade. The protests left 3 dead, 100 injured (including members of the French police), and nearly 400 arrests. The third wave of protests in as many weeks turned into "urban warfare" and "the worst riots in a generation," according to witnesses of flaming cars, vandalized buildings, and clashes between the French police and a faction of criminals who are said to have joined the protest solely to wreak havoc.
While prices of oil have risen worldwide over the past year, the French government has added its own taxes to the burden as part of their environmental policies. Macron's administration defends the new taxes as efforts to lower carbon emissions and encourage people to purchase more energy efficient cars–but the expectation that French citizens can alter their lifestyles and modes of transportation at the government's behest is out of touch with reality. Furthermore, increasing fuel prices places an unbalanced burden on working people who can't afford to reside in major cities and who rely on their cars to commute from and around rural and suburban areas.
Times Now
But in many ways, the tax hike is only a capstone of social inequality that has frustrated citizens for too long. Florence, a 55-year-old demonstrator who works for a freight company outside Paris, expressed his motivations to The Guardian:
"We are here to protest against the government because of the rise in taxes [in general], not just petrol taxes, which is the straw that broke the camel's back. We've had enough. We have low salaries and pay too much tax and the combination is creating more and more poverty."
In response to public dissent, President Macron called an emergency security meeting on Sunday. His official statements have condemned the use of violence and defacement of national monuments. He said, "No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc du Triomphe is defiled." He also praised the emergency responders and French police, whom are seen below firing tear gas and water cannons at protesters, saying they've "showed unrelenting bravery throughout the day and evening."
French police fire teargas at 'gilets jaunes' protesters in Parisyoutu.be
Outside of France, Parisians' actions against inequality seem to have inspired copycat riots in Belgium. Famke Krumbmuller, head of a Paris-based political consultancy, noted the protests touched a familiar chord and sent reverberations throughout Western Europe. She told CNBC, "I guess what's specific to this movement is that it is relatively apolitical, so they (the protesters) are not from just one party on the left or right. They're white, middle-class people that are squeezed by the welfare state. They pay a lot of taxes but they don't get a lot of benefits in return."
Looking ahead, President Macron's asked Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to hold a meeting with leaders of France's political parties and representatives from the "Yellow Vest" movement in order to negotiate a return to peace. However, according to the French paper Le Télégramme, some members of the "collective" oppose a meeting, claiming, "The government is only looking for a communication plan and we do not want to be a puppet." Another representative of the group, Christophe Chalençon, actually looks forward to the meeting, where he plans on asking the Prime Minister to resign.
Meg Hanson is a Brooklyn-based writer, teacher, and jaywalker. Find Meg at her website and on Twitter @megsoyung.
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