Banned Book Week

One crime against humanity that sickens me is the burning of books. As a crime it's not a violent as aggressive war or genocide, some see it as comparable to torching small animals or mercilessness beating a child. Still the burning of books is the first step towards barbarianism. Civilization is built upon a great edifice of ideas and knowledge. Some of those ideas might not be popular and some of those ideas might promote tolerance and free though when leaders are more concern with blind collective obedience. Always question a person's motives when they declare knowledge is dangerous.

Every act of enforced ignorance; every fact and idea that is ignored, censored or suppressed is an attempt to enslave. If you take away a person's ability to think or express what he thinks you also take away that person's ability to act. George Orwell in his book 1984 played out the concept that if you debase the language enough no one can formulate the thought of freedom or inalienable rights.   

I had seen a book burning sponsored by a church in South Jersey. It started off as a rally against the questionable content in recorded music. Back then Tipper Gore set off a small storm over her concerns as a parent and what kind of music kids were listening to. All of it was political theater to comfort neglectful and alienated parents in thinking their children will be protected from musical smut by putting a label on records with explicit lyrics.

Back to the rally, the pastor of the church had a fiery speech on how evil has a physical presence in this world. That Satan was real and and the modern world was his creation. Honestly it was a pretty effective speech and it whipped up everyone there into a frenzy of fear and excitement.

A large pile of vinyl records where set on fire but it wasn't long until books where included in the blaze. It was a shocking sight. I went to this on a dare with a friend never expecting the event would be so big and attended by so many agitated people looking to vent their anger.

I'm not sure what they were anger over. They were burning records and books most of them never hear or read. Some where upset their children didn't want to grow up and be like them or that their children questioned authority and had their own ideas.

 

The author Richard Price once said "books are the siege engines of class warfare".

This week is Banned Books Week. It's comical to see what books get banned and why. There always seems to be somebody out there trying to protect us -even if we don't want them to.

One of the most seditious and all around bad ass thing to do is to read a book. There are still places in the world where the wrong book can be a punishable crime. So celebrate with friends -read together and share your thoughts.