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.
The Presidential Alert System: Why Donald Trump is Texting You
At approximately 2:18 PM today, every cellphone in America received a message testing this new system.
The current chapter of American history feels like a piece of speculative fiction, something resembling a joke we collectively forgot the punchline to. In the past two months alone, we've watched our Commander-in-Chief demolish a foreign economy via Twitter, fall in love with a voluptuous beauty, and nominate a gang rapist to the Supreme Court. Donald Trump, by virtue of his absurdity, has sent the news into a state of quantum flux in which the country's more prominent newsrooms have been forced to hire full-time staffers to monitor social media, patiently waiting for the tweet that abolishes the SEC or makes it legal to kill your dog. Now, with the help of FEMA, the president has the power to send alerts directly to your cellphone, whether you want him to or not. At approximately 2:18 PM today, every cellphone in America received a message testing this system.
And no, you can't opt out of the messaging service. In 2006, Congress passed a law called the Warning, Alert, and Response Network Act preventing this. There's now a satellite uplink that telegraphs Trump's dementia-addled ramblings straight to your iPhone, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is kind of like having Bill O'Reilly's cirrhotic liver on speed dial. We live in hell.
Okay, so the above paragraph isn't exactly true. While the emergency texting program will light up your phone whenever there's "a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster or threat to public safety," Trump (probably) won't use this system as a means of continuing his many Twitter rants. That said, the question of what exactly constitutes a "natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made disaster or threat to public safety" might provide the president with just enough leeway to use the system as a means of communicating his private thoughts.
Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, is worried that Trump will abuse this system, saying, "I'm not sure that the system would protect us from rogue announcements by a president who has exhibited the kind of behavior President Trump has over the last two years."
Also, it's not as if the government's never made an honest mistake with its emergency broadcast system. Remember in January when this happened:
HAWAII - THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. pic.twitter.com/DxfTXIDOQs
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2018
Trump's steadily erratic Twitter posts and penchant for mocking the disabled have people worried that their phones are going to be inundated with a constant stream of presidential alerts. The fear is that if we get too many false alarms (or pointless rants), the text system will be rendered useless. Whether or not this happens remains to be seen, but the chances that this is the one function of his office that Trump uses responsibly seems unlikely.
Matt Clibanoff is a writer and editor based in New York City who covers music, politics, sports and pop culture. He currently serves as Lead Editor for Gramercy Media. His editorial work can be found in Inked Magazine, Pop Dust, The Liberty Project, and All Things Go. His fiction has been published in Forth Magazine. -- Find Matt at his website and on Twitter: @mattclibanoff
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