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book burning
Defend Our Liberty From Moms For Liberty
The far-right group embraces book banning, but held its national convention in Philadelphia, in an unmistakable message about the central role the group sees for itself in American culture and politics.
Jul 04, 2023
In May of 1933 in Berlin, Nazis gathered in the streets, built a gigantic bonfire, and burned thousands of books.
The books had been seized from the city’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. The nonprofit institute was the first in the world to focus on the science of gender and sexuality. It was supportive of LGBTQ studies and provided gender-affirming health care.
Before the raid, the organization had a number of transgender employees and hosted an extensive library of materials on LGBTQ health. Tragically, at least one transgender woman is believed to have died in the violent attack that preceded the book burning.
As Nazi atrocities go, this was an early and foreboding event.
We’re witnessing the wholesale forgetting of the authoritarian forces behind book-banning and censorship. And the worst thing we could do would be to look away.
The attack on scholarship and on a vulnerable community heralded an eventual descent into unimaginable violence. Book burning and banning, while not invented by the Nazis, became closely associated with them—and with authoritarian repression more generally.
It’s stunning now, after so many years and lessons learned, to watch the meteoric rise of the right-wing, pro-censorship group Moms for Liberty.
The group embraces book-banning as a centerpiece of its activism. Its favored targets are materials relating to Black, brown, and LGBTQ communities. For its national convention the weekend before the Fourth of July, it chose to bring its supporters to Philadelphia, a city with a rich civil rights history and ties to our nation’s independence.
That sends an unmistakable message about the central role the group sees for itself in American culture and politics. So does the attendance of the half-dozen presidential candidates, including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
This is especially disorienting for a younger generation that grew up with incremental but seemingly irreversible progress toward freedom and inclusivity.
We saw the rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at work and school and the legalization of same-sex marriage. We saw the election of our first Black president. We took it for granted that we would always have the right to reproductive freedom. Until we didn’t.
We’re witnessing the wholesale forgetting of the authoritarian forces behind book-banning and censorship. And the worst thing we could do would be to look away.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is not looking away—it named Moms for Liberty as an extremist group in its annual Year in Hate and Extremism report.
Some media outlets have been vigilant about debunking Moms for Liberty’s claims to be a low-budget, grassroots group. Ditto any claims that it is peaceful: There are numerous reports that local Moms for Liberty operatives have turned threatening and aggressive.
The organization was even forced to apologize after a local chapter approvingly quoted Hitler in its newsletter.
But this criticism hasn’t really dented Moms for Liberty’s ability to attract money or the attention of presidential candidates. It will take more than that to protect the freedom to learn.
We need a multiracial, multigenerational, cross-cultural response that clearly affirms American values.
We need to assert the right of parents to decide if their kids are mature enough to read a book, but not to make that decision for everybody else’s kids.
We need to stand up for accurate and honest school curricula in which our nation’s full history is taught and the stories of all Americans are included. That fosters respect, understanding, and empathy—and prepares kids for meaningful civic engagement.
The last big right-wing group to promote book-banning and censorship—the Moral Majority—collapsed under the weight of its own financial and sexual scandals, but not before it did serious harm to marginalized communities in this country. We can’t wait around for this movement to burn itself out as well.
Fighting censorship is as American as you can get, and that’s what this year’s celebration of our country’s birthday should be about.
Before the raid, the organization had a number of transgender employees and hosted an extensive library of materials on LGBTQ health. Tragically, at least one transgender woman is believed to have died in the violent attack that preceded the book burning.
As Nazi atrocities go, this was an early and foreboding event.
We’re witnessing the wholesale forgetting of the authoritarian forces behind book-banning and censorship. And the worst thing we could do would be to look away.
The attack on scholarship and on a vulnerable community heralded an eventual descent into unimaginable violence. Book burning and banning, while not invented by the Nazis, became closely associated with them—and with authoritarian repression more generally.
It’s stunning now, after so many years and lessons learned, to watch the meteoric rise of the right-wing, pro-censorship group Moms for Liberty.
The group embraces book-banning as a centerpiece of its activism. Its favored targets are materials relating to Black, brown, and LGBTQ communities. For its national convention the weekend before the Fourth of July, it chose to bring its supporters to Philadelphia, a city with a rich civil rights history and ties to our nation’s independence.
That sends an unmistakable message about the central role the group sees for itself in American culture and politics. So does the attendance of the half-dozen presidential candidates, including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
This is especially disorienting for a younger generation that grew up with incremental but seemingly irreversible progress toward freedom and inclusivity.
We saw the rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at work and school and the legalization of same-sex marriage. We saw the election of our first Black president. We took it for granted that we would always have the right to reproductive freedom. Until we didn’t.
We’re witnessing the wholesale forgetting of the authoritarian forces behind book-banning and censorship. And the worst thing we could do would be to look away.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is not looking away—it named Moms for Liberty as an extremist group in its annual Year in Hate and Extremism report.
Some media outlets have been vigilant about debunking Moms for Liberty’s claims to be a low-budget, grassroots group. Ditto any claims that it is peaceful: There are numerous reports that local Moms for Liberty operatives have turned threatening and aggressive.
The organization was even forced to apologize after a local chapter approvingly quoted Hitler in its newsletter.
But this criticism hasn’t really dented Moms for Liberty’s ability to attract money or the attention of presidential candidates. It will take more than that to protect the freedom to learn.
We need a multiracial, multigenerational, cross-cultural response that clearly affirms American values.
We need to assert the right of parents to decide if their kids are mature enough to read a book, but not to make that decision for everybody else’s kids.
We need to stand up for accurate and honest school curricula in which our nation’s full history is taught and the stories of all Americans are included. That fosters respect, understanding, and empathy—and prepares kids for meaningful civic engagement.
The last big right-wing group to promote book-banning and censorship—the Moral Majority—collapsed under the weight of its own financial and sexual scandals, but not before it did serious harm to marginalized communities in this country. We can’t wait around for this movement to burn itself out as well.
Fighting censorship is as American as you can get, and that’s what this year’s celebration of our country’s birthday should be about.
Nazi Germany and the Contemporary Republican Party
On some differences and on the similarities.
May 05, 2023
[T]wo equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. —Jules Henri Poincaré
Republican governors and legislators would be the first to tell you that what they are doing is not the same as what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 and during the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, more than 400 decrees were promulgated that restricted all aspects of public and private Jewish lives in Nazi Germany.
The United States is not Nazi Germany. Select Republican governors and legislatures are not doing anything that vaguely resembles what the Nazis did to control the personal lives of their citizens. Of course, some states have passed laws that could confuse someone trying to distinguish legislation enacted by the Nazis targeting Jews and legislation in the United States targeting those with different sexual orientation from the legislators enacting the laws in the United States.
In Ohio, legislation has been passed that bans gender-affirming care for youth who have gender dysphoria and bans Ohio residents from going to another state for abortions. In Montana, a law was just signed that bans transgender care for minors and prohibits transitional hormone treatments and surgeries for transgender people under the age of 18. Idaho has just passed a law that criminalizes gender-affirming health care for youth who have gender dysphoria and bans puberty blockers and hormones for people under age 18. Since the first of the year more than a dozen states have passed legislation affecting the medical rights of their citizens. There are other areas in which apparent similarities are in fact not similarities.
The Nazis banned all Jews from their legislatures. Nothing like that has happened in the United States. In fact, as of this writing only two state legislatures have banned members. In Tennessee, legislators voted to expel two of their black members. (A third person who participated in the offensive conduct was not expelled. She was white.) Republican members of the Tennessee legislature were quick to explain that the legislators who were expelled were expelled because of their breach of decorum on the floor of the legislature and not because of the color of their skin or their sexual preferences. Breach of decorum in Tennessee is an offense almost as serious as being Jewish in Nazi Germany. One of the Republicans who voted to expel his two black colleagues said the two had acted with “disrespect” and showed “no remorse” for their actions. He said they had conducted a “mutiny.”
In Montana, Democratic lawmaker Zooey Zephyr is a transgender member of the Montana House of Representatives. Zooey was banned from attending or speaking during floor sessions of the House and will only be allowed to vote remotely during the last days of the session. That is because she spoke out against a bill passed by her colleagues that bans gender-affirming care. She is a transgender member of the legislature that can longer fully participate on behalf of her constituents. The Germans never expelled Jews from their legislatures. Of course, Jews were not admitted to their legislatures in the first place.
As anyone who has read a book knows, the contents of a book can have a profound effect on the reader. The only way to avoid that result is to keep books from readers. Nazis dealt with the problem posed by books containing content deemed inappropriate by those in control very differently from people in the United States who disapprove of books. On May 10, 1933, German universities participated in organized book burnings of books that were believed by the arsonists to reflect an “un-German spirit.” The goal was to remove Jewish influence from German society. The burning of the books was cause for great celebration. In Berlin, an estimated 40,000 people gathered to watch the burning of the books.
Republican Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and others like him who fear the contents of books and their effect on readers, have taken a different approach from the Nazis. They do not think the books should be burned. They think that books with inappropriate content as determined by them and other critics, should be removed from library shelves so as to render them inaccessible to readers.
Although DeSantis has received the most publicity for banning books, Texas has in fact banned the most books. It has banned 800 books in 22 school districts. DeSantis comes in second best having banned 566 books in 21 of the state’s school districts. DeSantis has, among other things, banned books that deal with issues related to race which is similar to banning books dealing with or written by Jews as the Nazis did. Like Florida, Pennsylvania has many book bans in place and in many counties has banned books that are centered on people of color.
Nazi Germany is well known for its treatment of Jews. The United States is becoming well known for its treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and other minorities. A pity that.
When the Book-Burners Come to Your Town
In the future Ron DeSantis would build, self-appointed bands of bounty hunters would be authorized to roam the countryside suing local libraries for having "banned" books on the shelves.
Mar 15, 2023
Not so long ago, book burnings were considered a festive group activity by assorted right-wing zealots. Today, though, burning seems so old-fashioned and, well... crude.
Yet, the concept is burning hotter than ever among a gaggle of testosterone-driven Republican leaders eager to show voters that they will go to extremes to incinerate progressive ideas and people's personal liberties. Rather than lighting bonfires, though, the new fad for GOP politicians is simply to use government power to ban the offending books (thus saving the expense of matches and lighter fluid).
It might not surprise you to learn that our Lone Star State's extremist political operatives are leading today's book-banning frenzy. One Jonathan Mitchell, for example, is going from town to town pushing Texas Republican officeholders to pass local ordinances he labels "Safe Library Patron Protection." Yes, patrons, censoring what you can read is necessary to "protect" you. The GOP ban prohibits libraries from having books, videos, etc. that contain "immoral content," which he defines as depictions of nudity, sexual behavior, mentions of masturbation, LGBTQ+ life, etc. It's also autocratically homophobic, making it illegal for librarians to display LGBTQ flags or even mention "LGBTQ Pride Month."
This repressive monomania stabs even deeper into our freedom of expression by concocting a "right" of right-wing vigilantes to enforce the ordinances. Yes, self-appointed bands of bounty hunters would be authorized to roam the countryside suing local libraries (and individual librarians) for having "banned" books on the shelves. To spur this political malice, Mitchell's scheme provides a $10,000 reward for every violation a vigilante finds (or fabricates).
Well, you say, thank God I don't live in Texas! But — Hello! — repression doesn't recognize state borders, so the pernicious idea of paid library marauders is spreading across the country.
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