Fighting Liberalism, Everywhere

THE PHOTO was of a library, or what appeared to be and claimed to be a library, an ordinary, modest, brick, stately local library type building. Like all photos, "pics", it was on Facebook, so it could have been fake, AI, computer generated, or somebody's house made to look librarish. None of that matters. For our purposes here assume it was an actual lbrary, somewhere.It might as well have been. The sign on front of it said "library"; that's good enough. What matters is the caption, which, hilariously, said: "Liberal propaganda storage facility". Conservatism, in full bloom, on full display, rearing it ugly but hilarious head. What would we do without it, God bless its distorted twisted soul, other than restore some semblance of sanity to an increasingly insane American culture? The idea of your average American small town public library as a bastian haven of subservsive anti-American progressive propagands is not without merit nor basis in reality, nor humor. In a culture which seems increasingly to accept LGBTQ people and ethnic minorities as equal citizens under law, which increasingly seems to embrace cultural and especially religious diversity, tolerance, atheism, and secularim as normal, acceptable aspects of modern society, conservatism, from the point of view of conservatives, would indeed seem br be under seige and continuous assault, not unlike Ft. Sumpter in April, 1861, which finally surrundered. In the America of 2024, "pride" banners hang brightly strung across and above college town streets during "Pride" month, while tucked safely away on some nondescript street corner on the other side of town, the Pentacostal church needs a new coat of whitewash, and an influx of new congregants, or at least a few new converts. Down on main street in cities large and small all across America's fruited plain, in the nightclub district, the letters on the message sign are rearranged to read "drag show tonight"! This, about once a week, not once in a lifetime. The local police don't even bother to investigate. A few of them may even drop in for a cold beer after getting off duty, still in unniform, just to make the scene and have a few laughs, or smiles. the unashamed uniformed cops may be male, female, or anything in between or transitional. Sermons are being delivered by women and gay clerics in traditional, mainstream protestant demoninations, while the honchos in blue suits, red ties,and MAGA ball caps in cloistered high rise world denominationl headquaters argue whether it should be happening, even while it is happening. Their votes aret cast too late to count. Women hop aboard commerical flights to fly across and over right wing rural country, far away from red state retrogression, to have the abortion they know they need and the regressives know they are powerless to prevent, despite their most frantic, histrionic attempts to turn back the clock. And in the local library itself? A display rack of "new releaes" giving insight on how to be an assertive successful women, another volume on organic gardening, another detailing the history of civil rights, and still another best seller about the semi fictional historical romances of Bengiman Franklin and his many mistresses. Back in the stacks, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, Bill and Hillary, along with the atheist religion bashing Mark Twain, and radical social reformers like Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright,and Charles Dickons. Liberalism on the attack, conservatism in full retreat. The local library, like the rest of America, is chock full of progressive liberalism, on full display, and there aint a damned thing Trump, MAGA, or the heterosexual, evangelical Christian right can do about it. And that,as Skakespeare once wrote, is the rub.