CANCELED! Libraries, Math Books, and Disneyland
If the party of Donald Trump can’t win on the issues, they’ll still have the performative actions of wingnuts to scare the crap out of voters who might otherwise consider a rational approach to the ballot box.
Despite all the angst of right wing talking heads over conservatives being “canceled,” the reality is that this sort of accusation is largely a projection of things being done by the right. In my opinion, it’s almost a given that this sort of action is in fact already in progress, funded by one of the many non-profits conservatives use to mask the sources of the cash being laundered.
The banned books hustle… Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and right wing performance artiste Milo Yiannopoulos have had book contracts canceled by major publishers in recent years as a consequence of actions they’ve taken that –for most Americans– crossed a boundary defining acceptable behavior.
Mr. Hawley’s open support and encouragement of the mob attacking the Capitol on January 6 preceded the rewriting of history portraying an attack on democracy (injuring 140 police officers) as “legitimate political discourse.”
Mr. Yiannopoulos also lost a major book deal, not because of his association with prominent neo-Nazi leaders, but because of remarks surfacing that approved of relationships most people would consider pedophiliac.
Meanwhile, big publishers continued to print (and make big money on) books by Sen. Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, and other prominent right wing figures.
Fast forward to 2022, and public libraries are in the crosshairs; not for carrying books by right wing politics, but for titles considered by Trumpsters to be pornographic or politically provocative.
Anything inclusive of discussions, suggestions, or mentions of non-heterosexual relationships is at the top of their do not read lists. Also books portraying American history as anything other than a triumph of (white) European culture are no-nos, including notable tomes like “Between the World and Me,” by author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, an exploration of the country’s history written as a letter to his adolescent son.
The Washington Post documented a recent round of righteous removals in Llano, Texas:
Leaders have taken works as seemingly innocuous as the popular children’s picture book “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak off the shelves, closed library board meetings to the public and named Wallace the vice chair of a new library board stacked with conservative appointees — some of whom did not even have library cards.
With these actions, Llano joins a growing number of communities across America where conservatives have mounted challenges to books and other content related to race, sex, gender and other subjects they deem inappropriate. A movement that started in schools has rapidly expanded to public libraries, accounting for 37 percent of book challenges last year, according to the American Library Association. Conservative activists in several states, including Texas, Montana and Louisiana have joined forces with like-minded officials to dissolve libraries’ governing bodies, rewrite or delete censorship protections, and remove books outside of official challenge procedures.
No book has been targeted more than “The 1619 Project,” a best seller about slavery in America based on a special issue of The New York Times Magazine in 2019. While there have been criticisms and debates about the project’s point of view and conclusions, there’s nothing making it more inaccurate than your average Texas Board of Education approved book on U.S. history. And there is no reason why it needs to be named explicitly in proposed legislation.
It’s not just race and sex that have these wanna-be censors in a tiff. The Laguna Beach Independent has a letter to the editor this month decrying the removal of a Ukrainian flag and the peace symbol in the outdoor flower garden of an Orange County library.
(For those of you unfamiliar with the political stances of the far right, many of its adherents are openly supportive of Vladimir Putin.)
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Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose campaign for the 2024 GOP nomination includes an “all of the above” approach to authoritarianism, is setting examples sure to be copied throughout the country. Election police, disdain for immigrants, anti-masking, and big bucks headed out the back door for friendly business interests are all part of his idea of governance. And then there are the book banners….
The state has rejected 32% of mathematics textbooks under DeSantis’ new policies because they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.” I’m guessing part of the offensive instructional exercises is anything related to calculating ratios, lest students become curious about comparing their state’s progress with some subversive entity like California.
From the Washington Post:
Although the department described the textbook review process as “transparent,” it did not mention which textbooks had been rejected or cite examples from the offending passages.
“It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core, and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was quoted as saying in the announcement.
Attempts to restrict what gets taught in schools and students can read are underway in states from coast-to-coast, politically lumped together with anti-vaxxers under the banner of parental rights.
Moms for Liberty; cultural shock troops. Although there are dozens of groups focused on this topic–which is sure to be part of 2024 Republican Platform (should they choose to have one)--, the highest profile group is Moms for Liberty, with 70,000 members in 165 chapters in 33 states.
In New Hampshire, the local chapter offered a $500 reward for reports on teachers violating the state’s newly enacted law passed restricting how teachers can discuss race in the classroom.
The Williamson County, Tennessee chapter of the group filed an 11-page complaint with the state, claiming that a second grade curriculum, which includes works about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has a “heavily biased agenda” that would make kids “hate their country, each other and/or themselves.”
The signed complaint appears to suggest slavery and Jim Crow were “positive achievements, like unity and the overall improvement of our country.” Moms for Liberty had issues with Frances Ruffin’s Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington, and the autobiographical Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story.
Fortunately, the complaint was tossed on a technicality, which means it will likely be refiled this year.
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Returning to Florida, the Disney Corporation is now the target of the people in power who used to be conservatives against government interference with private enterprise.
The home of Mickey Mouse is now being denounced as pedophilia-friendly by conservatives upset with its statement (words made up of pixels on the internet) against Florida’s Don’t Say Gay Law.
Gov. DeSantis sent a fund-raising email to supporters saying that “Woke Disney” had “lost any moral authority to tell you what to do.” And the shock troops of the loony-tunes right jumped right into the fray, picketing the Florida playground, and staging a “broken car” blockade to keep customers away.
Calling somebody out as pedo-friendly comes out of the QAnon movement, one of who’s foundational conspiracy theories held that Hillary Clinton and other deep stators were kidnapping children, subjecting them to sexual abuse and then draining certain fluids from their soon-to-be-lifeless bodies to enable creation of a fountain of youth elixir
This conspiracy theory has gone mainstream in the Republican Party –except for the elixir deal, which would run counter to the many supplement hustles favored by right wing advocates.
Here’s David Neiwert at Daily Kos:
The long-running gradual consumption of the Republican Party by the authoritarian QAnon conspiracy cult is nearing the terminal takeover phase: A recent survey by Grid found 72 Republican candidates with varying levels of QAnon affiliation. The most salient fact, however, is not only is the cult presence growing, but not a single Republican in any capacity can be found who either denounces the trend or works in any other way than in concert with it.
That reality is terrifying not just because QAnon has a long record of inspiring unhinged, violent behavior with its fantastically vile beliefs and rhetoric. Most of all, QAnon at its core is deeply eliminationist, with an agenda calling for the mass imprisonment and execution of mainstream Democrats for ostensibly running a global child-trafficking/pedophilia cult—which seamlessly fits the people being targeted by Fox News and mainstream Republicans as “groomers” for opposing the right-wing attacks on the LGTBQ community.
So just about anybody who opposes these folks is tagged as pedo-friendly.
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In Texas, Houston politician Briscoe Cain has sent cease and desist letters to Citigroup and abortion funds announcing he would introduce a bill barring them from doing business with any company “that pays abortion-related expenses of its employees or that provides abortion coverage as an employee benefit.”
Via Daily Kos:
Cain wrote that “employees, volunteers, and donors of abortion funds will be criminally prosecuted if they do not immediately halt their illegal acts and stop paying for abortions performed in Texas.”
“These are criminal organizations,” he added. “It is a crime to pay for another person’s abortion in Texas, and anyone who gives money to these abortion funds will be prosecuted.”
Citigroup has 8,500 employees in Texas. Travel expenses provided by the company would provide for things such as lodging and airfare if a person must leave their home state to receive an abortion, according to Bloomberg.
Once again, the politicians who were so loudly championing the rights of companies to be free **from government interference have forgotten their pledges from yesteryear.
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The dude who launched the anti-Critical Race Theory panic on the internet has yet another plea for attention:
Like all these conservative crusades, the real goal has little to do with the performative noise. It’s always about weakening institutions that are parts of the framework of democracy. And if you had to pick the one that would do the most damage, it would have to be education.
This is why trying to “negotiate” with Republicans is pointless. There’s nothing to compromise on. What is there to negotiate when the opposition is using lies to encourage suggestible supplicants to engage in acts of stochastic terrorism?
The GOP leadership has ruthlessly purged the party of people who actually believe in government accountability or expanded personal freedom. Their party is now exclusively one who views the role of the state not to get out of the way, but to reward friends and crush political enemies.
Finally, the Republicans randomly screaming “groomer” and “pedophile” at those they disagree with is a godsend to the actual people who commit those kinds of crimes. By muddying the waters the disapproval society should be addressing at actual criminals engaged in exploitation and trafficking is misdirected.
It’s almost as if they were projecting….
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Sad but true:
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