Banning Books Is Bad

THE PROBLEM WITH BANNING BOOKS, (and banning books in generally is indeed a tremendous problem, which must be fought against, and solved), is that almost invariably the books that are banned are among the greatet works of American literature. Simply looking at any list of banned books in any school district in America quickly reveals this. Amazingly,far right wing evangelical conservative types sometimes, (albeit seldom) read books other than the Bible, which in fact they tend to only read bits and pieces of, cherry picking, as we say. By doing this, the most devoutly religious people in America often claim that passages and statements are in the Bible which in fact are not, an they often fail to mention or to be aware of very pertinent Biblical passages which are indeed there. Such is the way of sloppy, lazy scholarship and study. These folks show up at school board meetings, and when they have the floor, speak passionately about the deleterious influlence of certain works of fiction on the young, tender, fragile American student mind, works like "Huckleberry Finn", say, or "To Kill A Mockingbird", because of their alleged baleful influence on the tender young pure Christian mind.This excuse is a cover for the actual intent: to remake America in the image of evangelical conservatism.In thousands of school districts all across America's fruited plain, lists of books which shall hereby be removed forthwith from all local public school libaries never to be seen there again spring up and grow like weeds, and the lists lengthen, and begin to include books which are not only fit for reading by anybody, but are of such high quality that they should be required reading for everybody. It becomes and remains amazing, the high quality, intellectually, literarily, and in many ways, of the banned books. It would be one thing indeed if all the banned books were indeed complete, absolute trash, blatantly nasty pornograchy,gratuitous violence, or something of that sort. But seriously bad books are not even considered or mentioned. All the books which end up banned by America's conservative Republican Christians - and it is in fact that segment of the population which is overwhelmingly responsible for book banning in America - are not only of the highst quality, but are indeed among the best books ever written. Again, please feel free to google lists of banned books in various American school districts, especially in Florida and texas,and you'll be shocked, if you are well educated and are aware of what good literature is. The best books, ancient, or modern, lay bare society ills and evils, or, as one author said, they show us our own shame and immorality. In Steinbeck's masterful masterpiece "The Grapes of Wrath", there is by the author a rather hard hitting verbal indictment of American corporate capitalism as being partly responsible for the great depression. In places where this great novel s banned, it is banned because some right wing evangelical Christian simply cannot abide criticism of the vaunted American corporate economic system, capitalism, the system preferred by God, and Jesus, doubtless. In Richare Wright's masterpiece novel "Native Son", racism in America is laid bare for all to see; so therefore ban the book, so that our tender vulnerable white evangelical Christian Republican children won't be psychologically damaged by this horrible version or reality.