It's NOT Working, Part 3. What does real "BOOK BANNING" look like?

This is part 3 of an ongoing series about the continuing saga of age-inappropriate books in Polk County Public Schools, and schools all across the country. Please make sure to read Part 1 and Part 2.

What IS BOOK BANNING? Real BOOK BANNING? In this post we'll take a peek into the history of BOOK BANS. Please see Part 2 to understand why those who call people "BOOK BANNERS" are LYING. It is complete PROPAGANDA. And they might not even know that they are spreading a LIE. This post aims to clarify the distinction between the removal of a book from a public school library due to its explicit, violent, or otherwise inappropriate content for minors, as outlined in Florida Statute 847.012, and what can be termed as genuine BOOK BANNING, which involves erasing historical records.

"If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree." Michael Critchton.

The intention behind BOOK BANNING or BOOK BURNING is to eliminate any remnants of the ideas contained within the book from the annals of history. Examples of BOOK BANNING or BOOK BURNING by Qin Shi Huangdi, who conquered/unified China, 221 BC:  

“I, your servant, propose that all historians’ records other than those of Qin's be burned.” “If anyone under heaven has copies of the Classics of History [Shu Jing], They shall deliver them to the governor for burning." "Anyone who dares to discuss the Classics of History shall be publicly executed." "Anyone who uses history to criticize the present shall have his family executed.” “Anyone who has failed to burn the books after thirty days of this announcement shall be sent to build the Great Wall.”   Qin Shi Huangdi

  The important thing to understand is that those who ACTUALLY want to BAN books, want ALL of them to be destroyed, burned, and not available for ANYONE. These books would definitely NOT be available for people to read, not to purchase, borrow, or even talk about. In today's environment, you couldn't have the book on your Kindle or audio file.

Did you pay close attention to the cost a citizen would pay if they refused to destroy the book?

The consequences entailed PUBLIC EXECUTION, the KILLING of one's entire family, or being sent to work on the Great Wall.

Let’s compare and contrast the above REAL Book Ban to the current call from concerned parents and citizens to simply remove age-inappropriate books from a Public School Library.

One of these things is not like the other. 

The PROOF? All of these books are readily available to purchase. You can get them from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, ThriftBooks, Books-A-Million, some are even at Wal-Mart. You see, if a book is actually banned, you can’t get it. Anywhere.

References to book burning date back far into history. In 213 BCE The Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti “thought that if he burned all the documents in his kingdom, history would begin with him." When “the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, the waters of the Tigris were said to have run black with ink from all the destroyed books.”

The defining moment for modern history came in 1933, with one of history’s most infamous book-burnings -  the one that prompted TIME MAGAZINE to coin the word “bibliocaust.” It was that year, in Berlin and elsewhere, that Nazi forces led the burning of tens of thousands of books, from the works of Sigmund Freud to those of Jack London. Along with the Nazi ideology that there existed a superior race of people came the idea that there was one true cultural and ideological canon; that which didn’t fit was consigned to the fire.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazis wanted to erase history.

"Let me control the textbooks, and I will control the state." Adolf Hitler

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi psychological warfare propagandist, stated “The old goes up in flames, the new shall be fashioned from the flame in our hearts”.

Joseph Stalin, was notorious for purging the libraries in USSR of books he found to even have a tinge of liberal Western ideology.

“Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Joseph Stalin

“Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world.”  Vladimir Lenin

“Official truth is not​ actual truth.” Lord Acton

In Mao Tse-Tung's Cultural Revolution (approximately 1949-1971) books identified as anti-Communist and anti-Maoist were censored and banned. During this time, public book burnings also became a tool which was used to destroy all literature which was not deemed appropriate by the CCP. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, only a few books were deemed acceptable by the CCP, including classic works by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin, books written by Mao Zedong and Lu Xun, a few political readings, and Revolutionary opera books. Books beyond this scope were all banned from selling and borrowing. In 1971, there were only 46 state-owned publishing houses. Students who wanted to see these censored books circulated handwritten, string-bound copies among their classmates.  Wikipedia

Again, compare and contrast REAL BOOK BANNING and BOOK BURNING to the current call from concerned parents and citizens to simply remove age-inappropriate books from a Public School Library.

All of these books are readily available to purchase.

In George Orwell's classic novel, 1984, Orwell’s​ character, Winston, works at The Ministry ​of Truth, known in the present day USA as the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). Winston’s job was to edit REAL history and put the evidence of the TRUTH  down a "memory hole."​

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered ...”

“History has ​stopped.​ Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right …"

"I know, of course, that ​the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains …”

“The only evidence ​is inside my own mind, and I don’t ​know that any other human being shares my memories"

“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”​

“Those who control the past ​control the future,​ and those who control the present control the past.”

Click to read a great opinion piece from Newsweek Magazine, What 'Book Ban' Really Means.  “For decades, the American Left rebranded "book ban" to mean something entirely different from either cancelling or an actual ban. Now it's used to characterize mere curation, and more often than not it pertains to the curation of children's libraries in public schools... But now that Florida public school librarians removed some books with pornographic content, activists are crying "book ban" and the President of the United States sends in the Department of Education.”

“Contemporary woke cancelling is done largely on social media, but something like this method was also in the Soviet totalitarian toolbox.”

To date, Polk County Public Schools have not removed ANY challenged books, including those featuring content that includes graphic rape, pedophilia, bestiality, and school violence, which are clearly in violation of Florida State Statute 847.012 from ANY of our schools.

ZIP.

ZERO.

CERO.

NADA.

零 (LING.)

Next Post in the series: What if content in a public school library VIOLATES DECENCY STANDARDS on television, cable, and even YouTube?