Defunding public libraries: Republicans' war on reading goes nuclear

[marmar]

Defunding public libraries: Republicans' war on reading goes nuclear
Republicans in Texas and Missouri open up a new front in the war on public education

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED APRIL 13, 2023 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) In a sign of how unhinged the Republican war on books has gotten, Texas conservatives have decided fart jokes are "pornography." In a text message exchange between two book-banning advocates in Llano, Texas, one wrote that it would be better to "close the library" than "put the porn back into the kid's section!" Among the books that her group deems "porn": "Larry the Farting Leprechaun," "My Butt is So Noisy!" and "Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose." Other materials that conservatives in Llano determined were sexually explicit materials meant to arouse libidinous desires include "They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group" by history writer Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Tillie Walden's Eisner Award-winning graphic memoir about ice skating, "Spinning." All this does make one want to learn more about the masturbatory habits of Texas Republicans, but sadly, the more pressing issue at hand is that this "porn" designation for these books is being used as a pretext by those who wish to shut down the library altogether.

For months, the nationwide frenzy of book banning that has infected the GOP has been inflicted with special vengeance on this small town about an hour and a half's drive from Austin. It started when county officials in Llano, jumping on the GOP book-banning bandwagon, drew up a list of books to remove from the library. A librarian who refused to comply was fired. Many of the books were targeted for fart jokes, but other targets included books that were anti-racist or pro-LGBTQ, as well as "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak, which is commonly targeted by the religious right because it has an innocent drawing of a kid's naked butt. Local residents successfully sued, forcing the books back onto the shelves, where they were all immediately checked out.

All this reading simply cannot be tolerated by today's GOP.

On Thursday, the Llano County commissioners have scheduled a special meeting to discuss shutting down the library entirely. But, as Vice News reported, "text messages entered as evidence in the case show that the vice chair of the library advisory board from February 2 indicated that closing the library system may have been the defendant's plan all along if the judge's decision didn't go their way."

Republicans behind the book-banning typically deny that they have a larger agenda against education or literacy, instead claiming their goals are limited to keeping a small number of books out of people's hands. But there's good reason to think there's a much larger goal afoot, of stigmatizing the very idea of reading and education. In Florida, the restrictions on books are so severe that many teachers were forced to deny kids access to any books, lest they run afoul of the censorship law. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/04/13/defunding-public-libraries-republicans-on-reading-goes-nuclear/

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. I just found out last nite that Assassination Classroom has been banned in Florida and Wisconsin

This is a friggin ANIME. Yes, an anime/manga has been banned.

[TheBlackAdder]

2. Public libraries also serve as bible study, church meeting, Girl Scout and other group meeting sites