Book Banning

BOOKS HAVE POWER, which is why people fight over them. Until the Protestant Reformation, the Bible was printed only in Latin, according to the doctrine of the Catholic church. This served at least two purposes; to keep power in the hands of the church clerical hierarchy, and to accentuate the biblical divinity by forbidding its publication in "inferior" languages. Most people during the middle ages were illiterate; the few literate folks usually were literate only in their vernacular, the local version of French, German, Spanish, whichever. If only the clergy could read the holy bible, the clergy possesses all power within the church, particularly the pope and cardinals and bishops. Controlling books today is, of course, quite different. It has been estimated that approximately ten thousands books have been "banned" over the last few years in the United States, removed from public school and public libraries. To date, the book banning disease has not spread to higher education in the United States, but that doesn't mean that it can't or wont't in the future. The people, mostly Christian conservatives, who facilitate and support book banning are quick to argue that what they advocate and what they do is not really "banning" books, since the books they ban remain available practically anywhere. This is true. What the book banners are doing is merely removing selected books from libraries and from school classroom curricula. (curriculi?). Definitely, different. There is no almighty power or political or religious ruling overlord decreeing absolutely that any books must no longer exist. There are, however, thousands of local school boards all over America which are dominated and controlled by right wing Christian conservative extremists, who are voting to remove books from public school libraries and curricula. This, in essence, is book banning. Its essentially the same thing, or too close for compfort as they say, and, it should and will be called "book banning". It is perhaps the most malignant, the most vile ane evil component, manifestation of the entire malignant, vile consrvative agenda in America today,along with hatred of LGBTQ people and hatred of dark skinned immigrants. Banning books is always horrible, harmful policy. The book banners are never the good guys, as the saying goes. But the way it is currently happening in the United States is especially egregious, because the books being banned are for the most part, in fact almost nvariably, literary classics, literary masterpieces, great, brilliant books. If only the morons would ban garbage, but they don't. Book banning in America is entirely a right wing ideal. The progressive community has no interest in banning books, and is willing to accept and tolerate libraries which contain books by, for example, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Wm. F. Buckley, etc. What the Christian conservative censorship fanatics are trying to do is to eliminate all vestiges of progressive thought, including racial equality and discussion of racism, LGBTQ acceptance, democratic socialism, climate chnge, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, wokism, etc. Falsely claiming that including such topics in public schools is "indoctrination", the Christian right is trying to indoctrinate America's public schools, and America, with its extremist agenda precisely by eliminating any alternatives. In Oklahoma, the state legislature is forcing the Bible into public school classrooms, and keeping literary masterpieces such as "Of Mice And Men", "To Kill A Mockingibrd", and "Fahrenheit 451" out. And unless we the remaining sane step up and stop it, its only going to get worse. American Christian conservatism, with its representative entity the Republican party, has become a fascist movement, spearheaded by Trump and MAGA, determined to turn America into an authoritarian, right wing Christian theocracy. As part of this, they want to brainwash America's children with right wing extremist dogma, to ensure a conservative Christian future for our once secular democracy. These fascists would actually burn books, like Hitler, but they are smart enough to know it wouldn't do them any good.