Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
Fri Jul 19, 2019, 12:21 AM Jul 2019

First they burn the books. Then they kill people. History has shown us this repeatedly.

As wisely and eloquently stated by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 play, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” this adage holds that the written word is a powerful tool in the transmission of ideas. Why else would oppressive regimes and other ruthless upholders of the status quo engage in censorship and book burning throughout the ages?

For example, Pope Gregory IX in 1239, in his quest to maintain the Catholic Church’s economic and ideological stranglehold, ordered all copies of the Jewish holy book, the Talmud confiscated, and one of his successors, Pope John XXI, commanded that the Talmud be burned on the eve of the Jewish Passover in 1322.

The Christian “reformer,” Martin Luther, in his 1526 treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, argued:

“First, their synagogues should be set on fire.” Jewish prayer books should be destroyed, and rabbis forbidden to preach. The homes of Jews should likewise be “smashed and destroyed” and their residents “put under one roof or in a stable like gypsies, to teach them they are not master in our land….These poisonous envenomed worms should be drafted into forced labor. The young and strong Jews and Jewesses should be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and the spindle and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses.”


more...
1 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
First they burn the books. Then they kill people. History has shown us this repeatedly. (Original Post) Behind the Aegis Jul 2019 OP
The nazis set back the trans movements by decades when it was only decades old... Saviolo Jul 2019 #1

Saviolo

(3,268 posts)
1. The nazis set back the trans movements by decades when it was only decades old...
Fri Jul 19, 2019, 10:20 AM
Jul 2019

That article sort of breezes over it, but yeah, they burned the archives of Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for the Science of Sexuality) including vast quantities of groundbreaking work on transexuality (Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term transsexualism). Then the researches were either arrested or exiled.

Latest Discussions»Alliance Forums»LGBT»First they burn the books...