Replies to post #490257 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Zorax]

I understand Burkhardt suffering. I have a confession to make too. I am addicted to page border cartoons. They can be very addictive and certainly lead to pornography as they have always been suggestive in many ways.

It started with Mad Magazine and it wasn't the main stories but the little cartoons that surround the pieces. A handful of artists did this and I started to search other magazines and books for little cartoons on the sides.
It became a costly habit buying issues with all night flashlight reading and saving. I lost my paper route because I started tearing out little cartoons I found in the papers I delivered throwing holey Sunday morning papers on their porch.

And yes it lead to reading Art Crumb and zap comics... highly pornographic and weird. I still struggle today.
If they had only banned Mad Magazine back then I would be happily reading Readers Digest. Warn your friends.

[fuagf]

The Right’s Raid on Libraries Is So Extreme, Even the Dictionary Is Under Fire

"Republicans will do anything to ban books, even saying they cause porn addiction
"ATT; B402, The Republican Party has become the very cancel culture it pretends to rail against""

The right to read is under attack. During National Banned Books Week, we fight back.

By Jesse Hagopian , Truthout
Published September 26, 2024

All links

A person looks at the free banned books during the MoveOn Banned Bookmobile Tour stop outside of Sandmeyer's Bookstore in the South Loop on July 13, 2023, in Chicago, Illinois. Eileen T. Meslar / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

It may have started off as an ordinary fall school day at a high school in the Wentzville School District of Missouri in 2022, but when a police officer entered the school library, the day took an unsettling turn. The school librarian didn’t know why the officer was there until he approached her and explained that he was investigating a complaint — she had been accused of distributing pornography to students.

The librarian listened as the officer told her that certain books in her collection, like The Handmaid’s Tale and Gender Queer: A Memoir, had triggered the accusations he had come to investigate. She was dumbfounded. These books were not pornography as someone had charged; they were award-winning works of literature and personal memoirs that explored themes of identity, gender and social control. Yet here she was, being interrogated by police for simply doing her job.

“It felt surreal,” she later told .. https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-09-23/school-librarian-recalls-surreal-police-visits-over-books-months-before-new-missouri-law .. reporters, declining to be identified for fear of her safety. “I was scared to have a police officer questioning me over books. It didn’t seem real.”

In the Wentzville School District, more than 200 books were banned as part of the wave of censorship sweeping through Missouri and the nation. Tom Bastian, the ACLU’s deputy director of communications, explained to the Columbia Missourian, “It is unconstitutional for Missouri’s lawmakers to threaten teachers and librarians with criminal offenses for observing students’ First Amendment rights.” But despite legal challenges and public outcry, bans have continued to grow around the country, turning school libraries into battlegrounds and pushing educators and librarians into the crosshairs.

In 2023 alone, the American Library Association reported 4,240 unique book titles being targeted for censorship — a 65 percent increase from 2022. Almost half of these attacks in 2023 were aimed at books representing the voices and experiences of LGBTQIA+ and Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.

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Worries over censorship and LGBTQ content has lawmakers in both parties casting doubt on the bill.
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout August 13, 2024
https://truthout.org/articles/controversial-kids-online-safety-act-is-getting-derailed-by-queer-youth-online/

Florida passed a law making it a third-degree felony .. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/book-bans-florida-public-schools/ .. for teachers to allow students to access banned books — many of which deal with issues of race, gender or sexuality — carrying with it up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

In Tennessee, a school district banned the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, which tells the story of the Holocaust, while the right-wing parent group Moms for Liberty (MFL) demanded the removal of a book about Martin Luther King Jr.

In Pennsylvania, Brand New School, Brave New Ruby and The Story of Ruby Bridges — which tells the story of a courageous 6-year-old Black girl who was the first to integrate a white Southern elementary school — were also banned. Idaho passed a law that could lead to the prosecution of librarians who check out books deemed harmful to minors.

In a suburban district near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide by Kathy Belge and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson were removed from shelves, and students’ library borrowing records were sent to parents on a weekly basis.

Even the dictionary is now too subversive because it does,
after all, contain the words “racism,” “sex” and “transgender.”

In Wyoming, a public library board fired .. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/librarian-fired-wyoming-books_n_64da5ab9e4b08e55c4cd8325 .. head librarian Terri Lesley in July 2023 after she refused to pull certain titles.

The Escambia school district in Florida even issued a ban “pending investigation” of — wait for it — Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary. Even the dictionary is now too subversive because it does, after all, contain the words “racism,” “sex” and “transgender.” The satirical Seattle newspaper the Needling ran the headline “Florida Bans ‘LGBTQ’ from Alphabet” .. https://theneedling.com/2022/05/04/florida-bans-lgbtq-from-alphabet/ — an absurdity rivaled only by the actual policy of banning the dictionary.

Beyond the books that have been explicitly banned, teachers have also reported the phenomenon of “shadow banning.” In some districts, books quietly disappear from shelves without any formal public process. A teacher from Texas told the Zinn Education Project: “Leaders in the district are quietly pulling books from shelves so that there’s no record of banning. This shadow banning is removing access to books as we increasingly focus on school culture and policy that polices students, forces assimilation, and dehumanizes our children.” Shadow bans not only strip students of their right to access information but do so covertly, without public scrutiny or accountability.

It’s also quite telling which books are not being banned. As the historian Robin D.G. Kelley wrote in the book he recently co-edited, Our History Has Always Been Contraband, “For example, there are no calls to ban Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, which asserts frequently that Black people are innately inferior to whites—physically, intellectually, and even in terms of imagination.” The book banners aren’t trying to remove books like Master George’s People: George Washington, His Slaves, and His Revolutionary Transformation that gloss over the brutality of slavery. Instead, the targets of censorship are books that challenge white supremacy and heteronormativity. Books that glorify the framers’ enslavement of Africans or sanitize the U.S.’s violent history remain safely shelved.

The banning of books is not just an attempt to suppress information but also an attempt to maintain inequitable power distributions. Yet, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.”

What is it, then, that the U.S. has to be ashamed of today? Structural racism, transphobia, homophobia, the widening wealth gap and the continued exploitation of the most vulnerable, to begin. These are the issues that young people have a right to read about and discuss.

“My school library has been entirely cleared out and locked in a closet,” a 15-year-old student in Ohio told the Books Unbanned campaign for their “In Their Own Words” .. https://booksunbanned.com/documents/Books%20Unbanned%20Teen%20Testimonials.pdf .. report. “And the only public libraries nearby are outright removing every piece of LGBT … media [they] possibly can. I just want to read.”

The supreme irony of book banning is that the same right-wing voices bemoaning “cancel culture” are themselves engaging in the most tyrannical form of cancellation — using the power of the state — to censor any books, ideas or stories they disagree with. Consider Donald Trump’s denunciation of canceling when he said, “The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it.” And then consider that Trump also led the charge to ban any discussion of race in the government, writing on X, “I BANNED efforts to indoctrinate government employees with divisive and harmful sex and race-based ideologies. Today, I’ve expanded that ban to people and companies that do business with our Country, the United States Military, Government Contractors, and Grantees. Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”

“My school library has been entirely cleared out and locked in a closet,”
a 15-year-old student in Ohio told the Books Unbanned campaign.

They’re not just banning free speech and removing books from shelves; they are intimidating educators, threatening librarians and enforcing their will with the force of law.

Thanks to a movement of librarians, educators, students, parents and writers — including an open letter signed by 27 authors and illustrators calling on Missouri school boards and districts to end book bans — the Missouri school district of Wentzville reshelved most of the over 200 books they had banned. And yet, 17 books — including The Handmaid’s Tale – The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood, Renee Nault (illustrator) and Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, Albert Monteys (illustrator) — have been permanently banned.

A 16-year-old student from Georgia summed up .. https://booksunbanned.com/documents/Books%20Unbanned%20Teen%20Testimonials.pdf .. well the stakes of this struggle:

The freedom to read is the freedom to explore and uncover worlds that were previously unknown. It is the ability to understand the important conversations being discussed around you, and the decisions that are being made on the Congress floor. To have the freedom to read taken away is equivalent to taking away the ability to see, to talk, to listen, to understand, to be compassionate, and to be informed. How can one learn if they are restricted to a certain selection of books?”

The voices of young people, educators and librarians are clear: Censorship erodes our freedom and the ability to question, learn and grow. During this year’s National Banned Books Week .. https://bannedbooksweek.org/ .. (September 22-28) and beyond, let us commit to defending access to anti-racist ideas and stories that lift up LGBTQIA+ people, for without them, we close the book on our history — and with it, our humanity.

Jesse Hagopian is a Seattle educator, an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, a founding steering committee member of Black Lives Matter at School and serves as the director of the Teaching for Black Lives Campaign for the Zinn Education Project. Jesse is the author of the forthcoming book from Haymarket Books, Teach Truth: The Attack on Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Antiracist Education, editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing, and the co-editor of the books, Teaching for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter at School and Teachers Unions and Social Justice. You can connect with Jesse on IG @jessehagopian or via his website, www.IAmAnEductor.com.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-rights-raid-on-libraries-is-so-extreme-even-the-dictionary-is-under-fire/

[fuagf]

Trump’s Assault on PBS and NPR Chooses Oligarchy Over Press Freedom and Democracy

"Republicans will do anything to ban books, even saying they cause porn addiction
"ATT; B402, The Republican Party has become the very cancel culture it pretends to rail against""

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See also:

*The United States is in a free fall
"A free fall not seen in modern history": 100 days of destruction
Trump has been more aggressive in his efforts to destroy democracy than any other autocrat in recent decades
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=176156267

* Trump's fondest wish: Cleansing the USA of democracy: Project 2025: The right-wing wish list for Trump's second term ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175818228 .
All in line with the Yarvin/Musk "unitary executive" dream .. The Memo: Trump ratchets up confrontation with judiciary ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175940253 .. of course.
All that aside one of Trump's most important policies is his love for distraction ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175993537

* Media capture is no joke
For the past week, Elon Musk has repeatedly commented about buying MSNBC. At the same time, Musk accused the news outlet of peddling "puerile propaganda" and derided MSNBC's ratings, which have—as might be expected—dropped since the election. The result has been a string of comments on Twitter and Fox News in which Trump supporters chortle over the thought of replacing Rachel Maddow with Joe Rogan and exult in the distress they believe Musk's comments must be generating on the left.
P - Many of Musk's "jokes," and those of toadies like Rogan, have been accompanied by the kind of homophobic, racist, or misogynist memes that have come to dominate Twitter since Musk laid down $44 billion to destroy that platform. But even as Musk and his social media pals laugh, no one should consider this a farce. It's a threat. And it's not just a threat against MSNBC.
P - Musk is signaling that he has the limitless resources and unchecked power to purchase and shutter any outlet he believes represents a threat to Donald Trump or the incoming array of kleptocrats. He can not only silence perceived critics, he can do it on a whim.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175459688
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As the supporters of speaking truth to power celebrate World Press Freedom Day,
Trump seeks to defund public media in the United States.

John Nichols


A $50 bill is seen in US President Donald Trump’s back pocket as he boards Air Force One prior to departing from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on May 1, 2025. (Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s Thursday-night order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS…to the maximum extent allowed by law” came just hours before advocates for democracy-sustaining media mark World Press Freedom Day on Saturday. It was no coincidence.

This 47th president has made no secret of his disdain for the sort of robust independent media that World Press Freedom Day .. https://www.unesco.org/en/days/press-freedom .. celebrates—print, broadcast, and digital media, both public and private, that speaks truth to political and economic power and serves as a bulwark for democracy.

Trump and his oligarchic allies have long bristled .. https://www.nprillinois.org/2025-03-25/republican-lawmakers-seek-to-put-pbs-and-npr-in-the-hot-seat .. at even the most modest efforts of public broadcasting outlets and community media to hold the billionaire class, multinational corporations, and their congressional retainers to account. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 outline .. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/project-2025-democracy-fcc-fec/?nc=1 .. for how a Republican White House would deliver politically for the right and its corporate donors declared last year that “all Republican Presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake.”

“To stop public funding is good policy and good politics,” the Project 2025 agenda explains. “The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become ‘a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,’ but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism.”

Of course, the idea that public broadcasting “immediately became a liberal forum” is a conservative myth.

After all, one of the first, longest-running, and most prominent public TV programs was Firing Line, a broadcasting project initiated by William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley founded National Review magazine, counseled figures on the right such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, and in 1965 mounted a nationally noted bid for mayor of New York on the ballot line of the Conservative Party—which warned that the Republican Party of the 1960s was too liberal. Added to the lineup of many public TV stations in the late 1960s, Firing Line was from 1971 onward distributed nationally by PBS and produced by the noncommercial Southern Educational Communications Association. It would continue to be one of PBS’s premier programs until 1999, when Buckley stood down.

A next-gen version of Firing Line continues to appear on PBS stations to this day, hosted by Margaret Hoover—the great-granddaughter of Republican President Herbert Hoover, a veteran of the George Bush administration, and the author of the book American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party. While Hoover has been prepared to criticize Trump’s misdeeds, she’s more than willing to call out liberals.

But Trump’s executive order failed to mention Buckley, Hoover, Firing Line, or the fact that PBS and NPR regularly feature conservative members of Congress and authors. Nor was note taken of the fact that both networks have over the years faced thoughtful critiques from the left regarding their coverage of Middle East affairs and a host of other issues. Instead, the “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” executive order and associated paperwork repeated a standard litany of conservative complaints about “the taxpayer subsidization of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)—entities that receive tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

Nor did the White House mention that, even as they have been criticized by GOP presidents, NPR and PBS have historically continued to receive federal funding at least in part because a group of House and Senate Republicans—some of them stalwart conservatives—have recognized the service those networks provide to the news deserts of rural America.

Most funding of public and community broadcasting these days comes from listeners and private donors, not the government. And the cuts Trump proposed will certainly be challenged ..

PBS is out with a very strong statement: "The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years.  We are currently exploring all…

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 2, 2025

. As media commentator Brian Stelter notes ..

Last night Trump signed an exec order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. But the corp is a private entity that is supposed to be protected from executive orders and other political pressure.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 2, 2025

, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting “is supposed to be protected from executive orders and other political pressure.”

But Trump’s assault on NPR and PBS still sends an awful signal.

“Attacking journalists and the media is on page one of the authoritarian playbook. This is why everyone who cares about accountability and democracy should be deeply concerned about public media’s future,” says Craig Aaron, the president and co-CEO of the media reform group Free Press (an organization I helped to found). “The current system is far from perfect, and for too long public broadcasting’s leaders have cowered and conceded when they should have been pushing back. But all of us who care about an independent press, an informed populace, a responsive government, and a thriving democracy have a stake in the outcome of this fight. If we unite to defend public media—and I believe we can and will prevail—then we might just save our democracy, too.”

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John Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-npr-pbs-threat/