'It's a culture war that's totally out of control': the authors whose books are being banned in US

[babylonsister]

‘It’s a culture war that’s totally out of control’: the authors whose books are being banned in US schools
There has been an unprecedented rise in attempts in the US to have books removed from shelves.
From Art Spiegelman to Margaret Atwood, books are disappearing from the shelves of American schools. What’s behind the rise in censorship?
Claire Armitstead
Claire Armitstead
@carmitstead
Tue 22 Mar 2022 02.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 22 Mar 2022 04.45 EDT


When the owners of a Tennessee comics shop learned that a local school board had voted to remove Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust classic Maus from its curriculum, they sprang into action with an appeal calling for donations to fund free copies for schoolchildren. Within hours, money started pouring in from all over the world. “We had donations from Israel, the UK and Canada as well as from the US,” says Richard Davis, co-owner of Nirvana Comics.

Ten days later, they closed the appeal, after raising $110,000 (£84,000) from 3,500 donors. “We bought up all the copies the publisher had in its warehouse and we’re now in the process of shipping 3,000 copies of Maus to students all over the country, along with a study guide written by a local schoolteacher,” says Davis, who has relied on volunteers to help with the distribution.

For Spiegelman, it has meant an exponential sales boost for a 30-year-old book – the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer prize, in 1992 – and a flurry of speaking engagements across the country. “It just shows,” he says, “you can’t ban books unless you’re willing to burn them and you can’t burn them all unless you’re willing to burn the writers and the readers too.”

That’s just as well, adds the 74-year-old cartoonist, “because this is the most Orwellian version of society I’ve ever lived in. It’s not as simple as left v right. It’s a culture war that’s totally out of control. As a first-amendment fundamentalist, I believe in the right of anyone to read anything, provided they are properly supported. If a kid wants to read Mein Kampf, it’s better to do it in a library or school environment than to discover it on Daddy’s shelves and be traumatised.”

snip//

“It’s definitely getting worse,” says Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of the free-speech organisation PEN America, which has led the resistance against book banning for more than a decade. “We used to hear about a book challenge or ban a few times a year. Now it’s every week or every day. We also see proposed legislative bans, as opposed to just school districts taking action. It is part of a concerted effort to try to hold back the consequences of demographic and social change by controlling the narratives available to young people.”

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/22/its-a-culture-war-thats-totally-out-of-control-the-authors-whose-books-are-being-banned-in-us-schools

[RKP5637]

1. Hmmmm ... seems I remember this well, WWII guy Hitler did this ...

[Thomas Hurt]

2. A burgeoning christofascist theocratic movement.

Not sure if it worse but it seems we see this crap more whenever a Democrat is in the WH.

[gab13by13]

4. It is more anti-democracy,

these people want to kill our democracy. Can't have minority rule in a democracy.

[Thomas Hurt]

5. yes, a one-party, authoritarian, christian theocracy.

The christofascists have been angling for this since the Reagan admin. The Pig emboldened them further.

[gab13by13]

3. The usual suspects,

The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society, and many other less well known anti-democratic American oligarch funded groups.

The Federalist Society even wrote the anti- voter bills that have been passed in the states.

We have an FBI director who is a member of the Federalist Society. He didn't vet his law school acquaintance Brett Kavanaugh even though there were 4,500 Kavanaugh complaints on the FBI tip line.

[RAB910]

6. Please don't call this cancel culture, never ever every, that's what the right wants

call it what is really is, another step toward a GOP police state.

You call it cancel culture you are creating a "both sides" false argument


You talk about once again the GOP robbing Americans of their rights and freedoms, you have a winning point

[Wednesdays]

7. Did anyone say, "cancel culture"?

I read "culture war" in the OP, and that's a whole different thing.

[sarisataka]

8. I seem to recall hearing recently

From more than a few voices the the First Amendment is too broad and should be limited...

*snark on*
Where was it I heard that... 🤔
*snark off*

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R