Fighting the Book Burners

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER SAID: "Don't join the book burners. Don't think that you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in the library and read every book". Now, obviously, there are books that are not worth reading. And, in truth, one must to a certain extent be selective and picky about what books to read. After all, there are so many out there, and one must use one's precious reading time wisely..But the point Ike was making is quite obvious, and valid, even sacred. An eloquent defense of the sacred principle of intellectual freedom. There are so many ways in which President Eisenhower was a truly great man,so much greater and oh so extremelly different from today's scurvy batch of Republicans. For one thing, he constantly encouraged te nations of the world, including his own, to reduce military spending and preparation for war, in order to reduce the likelihood of war. If anyone knew well the horrors of war, it was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Also, a quick look at the Republican Party official platform for the 1956 pesidential campaign, in which Einenhower was running for reelection against Adlai Stevenson, who himself might have been a great president. Just google it, the G.O.P. party platform adopted at ther convention in 1956. Hell, it reads like Bernie Sanders: it advocted expanding women's rights, corporate investment in workers and commmunities, limiting military spending, support for labor unions, and so on and so forth.The nineteen fifties was a time of political moderation, with most Americans in the political middle. Oh, how the Republican party, and for the most part the Democrats too, have moved to the right. The Republicans are banning books and criminalizing freedom in education. The number of officially banned books in Republican controlled states is increasing enormousl, alarmingly. the books being banned are usually those in which gay people are mentioned or featured as fictional characters, or books which onestly, incisivelly discuss the history or racism in the United States. And of course any book even remotely atheist in viewpoint. Thie book bannign movement is one hundred percent Christian conservatism Republican. Democrats andprogressives generally are staunchly, heroically opposed to book banning or burning. This fact is worth considering on election day. It depends on what kind of society you want: intellectually free, or fascist.