Librarians in UK Increasingly Asked To Remove Books (theguardian.com) 156
An anonymous reader shares a report: Requests to remove books from library shelves are on the rise in the UK, as the influence of pressure groups behind book bans in the US crosses the Atlantic, according to those working in the sector. Although "the situation here is nowhere [near] as bad, censorship does happen and there are some deeply worrying examples of library professionals losing their jobs and being trolled online for standing up for intellectual freedom on behalf of their users," said Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip).
Ed Jewell, president of Libraries Connected, an independent charity that represents public libraries, said: "Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that requests to remove books are increasing." The School Library Association (SLA) said this year has seen an "increase in member queries about censorship." Most of the UK challenges appear to come from individuals or small groups, unlike in the US, where 72% of demands to censor books last year were brought forward by organised groups, according to the American Library Association earlier this week.
However, evidence suggests that the work of US action groups is reaching UK libraries too. Alison Hicks, an associate professor in library and information studies at UCL, interviewed 10 UK-based school librarians who had experienced book challenges. One "spoke of finding propaganda from one of these groups left on her desk," while another "was directly targeted by one of these groups." Respondents "also spoke of being trolled by US pressure groups on social media, for example when responding to free book giveaways."
Ed Jewell, president of Libraries Connected, an independent charity that represents public libraries, said: "Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that requests to remove books are increasing." The School Library Association (SLA) said this year has seen an "increase in member queries about censorship." Most of the UK challenges appear to come from individuals or small groups, unlike in the US, where 72% of demands to censor books last year were brought forward by organised groups, according to the American Library Association earlier this week.
However, evidence suggests that the work of US action groups is reaching UK libraries too. Alison Hicks, an associate professor in library and information studies at UCL, interviewed 10 UK-based school librarians who had experienced book challenges. One "spoke of finding propaganda from one of these groups left on her desk," while another "was directly targeted by one of these groups." Respondents "also spoke of being trolled by US pressure groups on social media, for example when responding to free book giveaways."
It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
All the ultra-conservative loons around the world who are obsessed with controlling everyone else's thoughts are able to easily coordinate from around the world.
They can be beaten, the issue is that it's fucking exhausting when all you want to do is live your life unmolested. We really need to reduce our tolerance level for them so they clearly understand they're unacceptable long before they get brave enough to come out from under their rocks.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if I was writing a constitution today, I'd make freedom of religion the least of all liberties, trumped every single time by every other liberty. You can litigate if someone tries to reduce your religious liberties, but you are stripped of any right under any circumstances to go after anyone else's, with significant penalties up to and including removal of society.
1. You can't ban reproductive freedoms because you believe God told you to.
2. You can't ban sexual freedoms or non-heterosexual marriages because you believe God told you to.
3. You can't ban books from a library because God told you to.
4. You can't force other people to live with horrifying debilitating diseases (physical or mental) because you believe God told you to.
5. Any attempt to do any of these things will see you removed from society until society can be confident that you understand that your personal beliefs have absolute no authority over any other mature human being.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
>Well, if I was writing a constitution today, I'd make freedom of religion the least of all liberties
I think the American constitution got that more or less correct, it's the people who didn't. You can't write anything down that will control future generations unless they want to be controlled by it.
Freedom of religion is necessarily also freedom from religion. Without a state-supported faith, everyone's allowed whatever they want.
Adding religion to the DSM and making indoctrination of children a crime would be an improvement, but with so many people claiming to be religious that just isn't possible.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:3)
Unfortunately the Constitution is total amateur hour stuff compared to any modern contract. There are clearer rules associated with any gift card today. They should have been a whole lot more explicit if they wanted it to be clear in the future.
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And, back during WWII, the only way Roosevelt and Churchill were able to get the Soviets to accept the Four Freedoms was by reminding Molotov of exactly that.
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2. Again, his prophets said gay marriage was wrong. They probably allowed anal/gay sex, which might be the problem: An unwanted result where bi-curious men are chased by homosexuals. We've realized homosexual love isn't a big deal.
3. God and his prophets were never against literature. That was a total invention of the churc
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2. Again, his prophets said gay marriage was wrong.
It is an insult to marriage--an institution created by God.
"A long-established institution taken over by God-botherers".
There, FTFY.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
you could have just written "my brain doesn't work so good"
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
So your argument is "These things I believe in because God says so can be defended, somehow, by not saying God says so, but ultimately, we are founded on God says so..."
Talk about incoherent. And economics led to the scientific revolution, not Christianity, at least not more than Islam (where a good deal of knowledge of medicine and optics came to Christianity through).
Your badly concealed argument still boils down to "God says so." Because no, you can't make an argument against reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights by anything other than invoking your God. I don't believe in your God, or in your historical revisionism either. Christian Supremacism, like white supremacism, is an evil doctrine used by those who want power over others.
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A zygote is no more a human being than a tumor is. Misrepresenting science to promote a fundamentally religious position is precisely what I'm talking about.
What I, and more importantly my daughters, do with our bodies is none of your fucking business. None of us believe in your God, and we refused to be bound by what you think your god is telling you to do.
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> You ban the murder of babies because it's morally wrong, not because some mythical God says so.
Only about 10% of atheists are anti-abortionists, so the belief from conservatives likely comes from religion, not raw morality. That a clump of 10 cells is a full legal human is logically preposterous.
> You curate books in a library - if they're still available on the private market, they're not "banned".
They are banned from public schools for religious reasons. That's anti-free-speech regardless.
>we n
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The science is clear - a new, unique, human individual is created upon conception. And the natural outcome of conception is the birth of a baby, the same way the natural outcome of eating too many carbohydrates is an increase in fat accumulation for someone who is insulin resistant.
Let's ask this question - if a woman could end a pregnancy by having the blastocyst painlessly teleported out of her body, and then gestated in an artificial womb, would it be more moral to allow that blastocyst to grow into a f
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It's possible to make billions of fertilized eggs in a petri dish. Is every single last one legally beatified? Sorry, but that's Sillyville in my book. (If it were, it would be easy to cheat on the census.)
We do have to the draw the line somewhere as a practical matter to manage laws, but not at early stages.
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Extracting billions of eggs would require several hundred million women.
The sperm, much easier to get.
But if you've gone through the process of harvesting 15 eggs from 200 million women, and then fertilized them, I do think you have legally created billions of lives that all represent unique, individual humans.
There are certainly odd corner cases that come up with IVF (since the natural course of conception is birth, but IVF is completely artificial), but it seems perfectly practical to draw the line at nat
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They can be beaten
They can't, that's illegal now unfortunately.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
Books that libraries don't shelve aren't 'censored' or 'banned', they are simply making decisions about what to have in the community-funded library... the books are available for purchase at local book stores any Internet book sellers, as well as online ebook services, etc.
Just because a book is published, libraries aren't obligated to buy and shelve it.
Also, what's frequently lost in these conversations is that a book may be removed from a middle school (grade 6-8) library or elementary (K-5) library, but
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...conservative loons?
Have you been on vacation for the last decade or so? Sightseeing Jupiter or something?
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the right thinks anything that conflicts with their worldview is 'propaganda'. Often they're just in disagreement with reality.
And public libraries exist to make information available, not just words that don't upset conservatives. That's why they're libraries and not churches.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the right thinks anything that conflicts with their worldview is 'propaganda'.
That's not the problem: the problem is that they believe adverse propaganda should be censored. The whole concept of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is completely subverted.
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The problem is that the right thinks anything that conflicts with their worldview is 'propaganda'.
That's not the problem: the problem is that they believe adverse propaganda should be censored. The whole concept of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is completely subverted.
The problem is, that British libraries aren't dealing with this like British libraries.
Anything that does not come from a UK postal address should be binned to begin with. Anything asking to ban a book that has not been banned by an act of parliament should be responded to with:
Dear busy body,
This work has not been banned by an act of parliament, so we suggest you go do one.
Kind regards,
Great Britain.
P.S. Shush.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:4)
public libraries exist to make information available, not just words that don't upset conservatives. That's why they're libraries and not churches.
Possibly the best quote of the week here.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
So what are the examples of things leftists are trying to ban from public libraries?
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I can't recall any calls for book bans that weren't coming from a church group or conservative political candidate.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:4, Informative)
Those books aren't banned they are just no longer required reading in the curriculum. In fact your site specifically says they are still available in school libraries for anyone to read.
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Your memnory seems be quite selective. Here you go:
https://www.marshall.edu/libra... [marshall.edu]
There have been numerous cases of liberal groups wanting books banned. Their favorite cause is, as in this case, because it uses the "n-word."
How is removal from required reading lists a ban? From your link, it's in their library.
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Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
Banning books and information was wrong then, and it's wrong now.
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This was actually an interesting thought exercise. Two examples came to mind -
1) Advocacy for editions of books like Huckleberry Finn that have the n-word censored or replaced.
2) Bans on un-annotated editions of works like Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
For what it's worth I'm personally much more sympathetic to #2 than #1.
I'd have to take longer on this post than I'm able to right now to carefully define what makes those scenarios different from banning a book because the protagon
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I am more sympathetic to #2 but even that is a bit on the line for me, I don't think words can be treated so dangerously as to require an un-annoted version to be pulled. if it was a matter of also having the annotated version that'd be fine, like you said, details matter here.
Same for #1, I'd have to see advocated pushing to ban-ban the book, i'd have to see sources on that since there was a similar uproar about Dr. Suess books being censored but it was by the books publisher and not a public institution.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
I think the Dr Seus "ban" was merely a decision by the authors estate to stop selling certain books because of racially offensive depictions of minorities.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/0... [cnn.com]
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I know in my country number 2 isn't a problem libraries have to deal with, it's completely banned in the country (you can get the book if you are researcher for relevant research).
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Huckleberry Finn, the original version.
Or the original Roald Dahl books, before they were neutered.
Or, "Art of the Deal", and "Johnny the Walrus".
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Can you give me examples of public libraries removing those books from their shelves? At least in a quick search about Huck Finn most things point to it being banned at the time of it's publishing.
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They replaced the original Huck Finn to change "N....r Jim" into "slave Jim" (2011)
(note, even slashdot refuses to let me type the character's actual name because of "lameness filter")
From school libraries, here's a list:
1957: Dropped from New York City’s list of recommended books for high schools, partly for racial language.
1969: Removed from Miami-Dade Junior College’s required reading for creating an "emotional block" for Black students.
1980s-1990s: Multiple challenges across states like Illi
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Who is "they" in that context?
And the last library ban was 27 years ago. These aren't good examples but I don't think the scale or context is quite comparable here. Thank you for the examples though, it is interesting to see.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
School libraries don't need to shelve how-to books explaining sexual techniques and practices, either straight or gay - kids have the internet, if they really feel the need to 'bone up' on something they heard about at lunch...
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
He is well researched, and has clear arguments against censorship of literature. Irawells.com
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
Dr Seuss's estate decided to stop publishing six of their own books. No one made them, the market didn't demand it, there were no protests or petitions, the people profiting off the works of Dr Seuss simply decided they didn't want to sell them any more, for their own reasons.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/0... [cnn.com]
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Nearly all of them seem to come from left-wing sources. I doubt a right winger would have requested a children's book be removed because there was one illustration of a young girl in traditional native attire, which was deemed 'racist'.
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Right wing books simply aren't purchased. Then you don't need to ban them after the fact.
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And you are, unfortunately, still perfectly free to instill your homophobia on your children so that they don't read anything that might turn them gay.
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First: a big [citation needed] here. Second: If you don't like reading about gay sex, don't read books with gay sex in them. Nobody is forcing a dick into your mouth. And you are, unfortunately, still perfectly free to instill your homophobia on your children so that they don't read anything that might turn them gay.
The only "book bans" in my area have been related to books in school libraries as opposed to public libraries. In my opinion, put whatever you want in a public library. The books that have been complained about in my area were school libraries having books about incest rape, statutory rape from a teacher, a book for kindergartners telling them that a doctor guessed at their gender when they were born, and similar ideological bullshit with no educational value.
Again, I don't care if you make the books avail
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
Can't someone choose to not read homo-erotic how-to books for teenagers and NOT be homophobic?
Cant a middle school library choose not to have a homo-erotic how-to book on their shelves and not be "banning" or "censoring" books?
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Can't someone choose to not read homo-erotic how-to books for teenagers and NOT be homophobic?
Of course, you're free to read or not read whatever you want. That's not the same thing as "[leftists are] too busy saturating libraries with gay porn." Their expressed problem isn't "porn" in libraries, their problem is "gay porn". If it quacks like a duck it's probably a duck.
Cant a middle school library choose not to have a homo-erotic how-to book on their shelves and not be "banning" or "censoring" books?
I'm not engaging in hypotheticals on "should should random book I have in my mind be allowed in schools libraries", nor particularly interested in debating the finer points around the process for determining what books are in what l
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
It's ok though. It's cartoon gay porn. With some anime tentacle books thrown in to have an interesting selection!
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That an opinion piece article and it doesn't contain examples of organizations to ban books from libraries in the same manner that is being done/discussed here, the only example was advocacy groups burning Harry Potter books so not the same thing at all.
Can you link me those specific examples since this is a positive claim?
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Dr Suess, wasn't a ban, it was censorship and it was done by the books publisher I believe. I still don't think it's good, it's actually bad but it's not the same in critical ways. I hadn't heard of anything attempting to force public libraries to remove those books but if you have an example my mind could be changed.
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The problem is that the left thinks anything that conflicts with their worldview is 'fake news'. Often they're just in disagreement with reality.
The difference in worldview can be summarized as the right says it's "plain" ice cream and the left says it's actually vanilla. That's why on the right everything has to be made out to be a difference of opinion because they know the flavor is vanilla, but they can't be wrong. They know vaccines and fluoride are safe, but they have feelz about them and can't let their fee-fees be hurt by being wrong. It works for everything, try it.
Teaching evolution in schools, men and women playing sports together, anythi
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Is that a rhetorical question, or would a few examples change your mind?
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Dr. Seuss Books:
In March 2021, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would cease publishing six titles due to racist imagery, following months of discussion and pressure from educators and diversity advocates. The Chicago Public Library responded by temporarily pulling these books from circulation, citing their "hurtful and wrong" portrayals of people of color. This action was influenced by left-wing activism, including the NAACP's call for censorship of all Dr. Seuss works in public libraries, arguing they we
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So, saying a word is "oppressive", but censoring that word is not "oppressive"?
Remind me again which side you're on - are you trying to make speech and expression free, or are you trying to put constraints on speech and expression?
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider anything related to Christianity to be political "propaganda" so let's purge all that next. Also any works of Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Ludwig Mises, Ayn Rand, hell any of the President's books and any books by any of his current or former staff all qualify so let's just ban those two, I don't agree with those ideas and I pay taxes. Hey this slope feels a little slippery all of a sudden.
Or maybe libraries being public institutions (so distinctly NOT THE SAME as Meta and Twitter) shouldn't make those subjective determinations of what is and is not "propaganda". Maybe we the citizens deciding that certain words are too dangerous for others to read is a problem.
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>I consider anything related to Christianity to be political "propaganda" so let's purge all that next.
Honestly, there's so much of it pervading pretty much all the Western media I grew up with. Lots of Christ imagery and such everywhere, a lot of Catholic guilt stuff, too. Lots of normalizing/sanewashing of church-going characters, etc. It continually weirds me out that if I say an invisible father figure in the clouds tells me how to behave people will recoil in fear... UNLESS I say it's 'god'. The
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Yeah I was making an example out of it but the 40 years rise of Evangelism in politics I would agree has been an issue. Hell most of the real world horrors of Christianity and Islam arise from the evangelist side of things, the directive to not just practice your religion but spread it even through political means is quite dangerous. Also as a raised and former Roman Catholic but there is even a dangerous conservative strain of that about combined with Orthodox gaining a foothold.
That has to be part of why
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Jews got the short end of the stick because they've been an insular minority. They are an 'other' and that makes it pretty damn convenient to use them as a scapegoat. Once started down that path, it's self-reinforcing from both sides.
Re: It's the Internet's fault (Score:2)
It doesn't help that their book says they're God's favorite people and describes a genocide that they committed against a people who their primary figure at the time was married to one of.
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Do not turn religions into a legal cash cow to sue over such things. It's damaging enough to expose all of it which harms their membership and the whole organization as well as the religion itself. The money doesn't really solve anything; having some imposed oversight that they pay for is reasonable.
I am not religious and fairly strong against such organizations.
You may like George Carlin's talk about UFOs vs God in the media.
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>Do not turn religions into a legal cash cow to sue over such things.
Why protect them from consequences? Companies get sued for wrongdoing, if a church harms members of its congregation and a court decides financial compensation is in order, it should be rendered.
You write that "money doesn't really solve things", but I disagree - it is a strong motivator to stay away from actions that cause it to be taken from you.
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What exactly is "my propaganda"? Is that just code for ideas you don't like?
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it's almost impressive that any educational system is capable of the staggering failure of producing people like you
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Good, so we can now remove the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon from libraries as well, right?
I'd be curious by the time we're done removing all the books from the library that we've justified with "not my tax dollars", what would be left?
What is even the point here? It looks to me like you're trying to use the "tax dollars" argument to disguise your real reasoning for wanting books banned from libraries. So why not just come out in the open and tell us what it is you want banned, and why you feel yo
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Hey, let's shift the goalposts, heck, let's move the goalposts to some other field entirely.
Re:It's the Internet's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
...propaganda being put in libraries is not censorship
Let's play a game of "change the name" and see if you still think the above s a valid point:
Fox News offends me and I don't want my tax dollars funding it on military bases, airports, senior centers, or VA hospitals.
I don't like sports, so I don't want my tax dollars paying for sports stadiums, tax breaks for sports billionaires, or those loud cars at the race track.
I don't like police violence, so I don't want my tax dollars funding police.
Here's a thought: If you don't like something in the library, stay out of the library. Or at the very least, ignore it while you're there. (Speaking of, when is the last time you actually used a library?)
Remember, they made Socrates (Do you even know more than the name? Most people post 1980 K-12 public education do not - proving that the self appointed, self righteous "guardians of the youth" have won) drink poison for what he was thinking. Do you want me to have that kind of power over you? Why should I let you have that power?
You have civil rights - also civil responsibilities to do things you may not agree with as long as you take your government entitlements and benefits, like police and fire protection, military protection, meat and drug inspectors, weight and measure compliance, and all the other things you know as "your rights".
To put it in terms that you might be more comfortable with, watch the move "V for Vendetta" - this is the battle V was fighting against his government - The battle for the right to know, without leave of let by the government.
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Newsflash: objecting to my tax money being spent on your propaganda being put in libraries is not censorship. As you were oh-so-fond of saying before Musk bought Twitter and Zuck switched sides: "Free speech does not mean anyone is obligated to provide you with a platform".
Says the conservatives legally obligating libraries to change their platform. Can't make this stuff up, lol.
"Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests" (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a typical Guardian mess of an article based on nothing. It says
"Ed Jewell, president of Libraries Connected, an independent charity that represents public libraries, said: “Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that requests to remove books are increasing.” The School Library Association (SLA) said this year has seen an “increase in member queries about censorship”."
"One cause for concern in the UK is the “lack of robust evidence” about how widespread censorship is, said Coiffait-Gunn. “It’s hard to evidence what doesn’t happen and which books are not available.” The government does not tally how many school libraries or librarians there are, “let alone track book bans”.
In other words, we have no idea if anything meaningful has changed but we are sure it's the fault of US pressure groups somehow.
obfuscation (Score:2)
Article does not distinguish between "libraries" and "school libraries." There is a profound difference.
Re: obfuscation (Score:1)
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Most the school libraries around me are gone or became computer labs.
I went to the library more than my school's library. As far as damaging materials, I just can't see how books are so harmful... the kids who'd read them seem largely immune from such harm. Crazy people get triggered by all sorts of things and are not the norm. Some books like Atlas Shrugged are a problem for teenagers if they never mature any further but those books are an equal problem for immature adults reading them as well. Some schoo
I don't know about the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
You saw the same thing with challenges for voter registrations and signatures in the last election. Coordinated organizations making requests They really shouldn't be allowed to.
There's a whole lot of infrastructure that was put in place in the last 45 years to do things and to get people power over your day today life. Basically a morality police.
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You're skipping over the fundamental problem, these organisations are people, not in the US Supreme Court says they are people, but rather they are actual people. These "orangisations" is what you get when 5 parents name Karen get together in a room and figure out how to 100% speedrun the how to talk to the manager game.
They are parents. Just a collection of the dumbest ones grouped together.
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But here in America 85% of the requests are coming from organizations and not actual parents. You would think that the school districts would be required to ignore requests that weren't coming from parents in their school district but nope.
You saw the same thing with challenges for voter registrations and signatures in the last election. Coordinated organizations making requests They really shouldn't be allowed to.
There's a whole lot of infrastructure that was put in place in the last 45 years to do things and to get people power over your day today life. Basically a morality police.
Dear America,
Can you keep this kind of shit to yourselves.
Ta muchly,
The Rest of the World.
Fair is fair (Score:2)
pardon my crocodile tears (Score:2, Insightful)
...for a society where saying "speak English" is a hate crime, people can be arrested for posting things like "go home", AND LITERALLY where sentencing guidelines require different treatment based on ethnicity, religion, and minority status.
Yeah, those darn conservatives are the problem!
How are those grooming gang prosecutions proceeding, again?
Proud of my library (Score:2)
The library system in my medium-sized Canadian city received seven formal requests to remove or relocate material in 2023 and it denied them all [www.cbc.ca]. It received 11 requests in 2024 and I believe those were also all denied.
Our library is also a book sanctuary [biblioottawalibrary.ca].
Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests (Score:2)
Yeah, "Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that requests to remove books are increasing."
Click the bait
Asked by whom? (Score:2)
And why could the answer be anything else than "no"?
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The right usually wants to censor a whole bunch of stuff. Sex, politics, science that conflicts with their views, etc.
The left usually wants to get rid of hate speech and is possibly too permissive setting 'age appropriate' age limits on things. I can't recall the left ever wanting to ban even Mein Kampf. Germany banned it (and I think we should all understand why) and some Jewish lobbies have tried.
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That troll mod makes my point for me. Some conservitard with mod points was offended by facts.
Must be awful to be so afraid of everything all the time. If only they'd figure out that the fear is because of their ignorance and stop fighting to remain ignorant.
Re:I'd like to see (Score:4, Interesting)
Germany banned Mein Kampf and other Nazi writings for a pretty explicit reason. Actually, it wasn't Germany itself, these bans started during the Allied occupation as a key piece of the Denazification of the country, which also included the destruction of Nazi symbols (statues, motifs, etc.), the criminal and administrative proceedings against Nazi party members, were all part of a concentrated Allied attempt to destroy the very foundations of National Socialist political doctrine in the aftermath of a brutal general war and a genocide that had seen millions of Jews, Roma and political dissidents murdered by an industrial death machine.
Perhaps if the same ethos had been applied during the Reconstruction Era, instead of just hand waving away the culpability of most the Confederate politicians, military officers and officials, and ultimately not merely permitting, but actively supporting the Lost Cause myth, the US might not be in the place it was now. The plans of men like Thaddeus Steven to essentially crush the wealthy landholding class in the South and remake the states were ultimately thwarted by those who wanted an abbreviated Reconstruction for political and commercial expediency.
If the Confederate leaders had been executed or faced lengthy imprisonment, if the former Confederate states had faced the same kind of full social and economic reconstruction that Germany (in particular West Germany and Austria) and Japan had faced, and entire generation had been raised to see clearly and without myth and celebration, just what their fathers had fought not merley to preserve, but to expand; namely, the enslavement of human beings as chattel property, and been taught the fundamental moral evil of that belief, maybe, just maybe, the poison of racism might have, if not been removed, then at least substantially mitigated, making it less likely that the ideological heirs of the slaveowners would have remained a quiet, subterranean group of malcontents, and not a powerful force at the national level, inhabiting the halls of power throughout the US.
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Perhaps if the same ethos had been applied during the Reconstruction Era, instead of just hand waving away the culpability of most the Confederate politicians, military officers and officials, and ultimately not merely permitting, but actively supporting the Lost Cause myth
Agree 100% and my personal feeling depending on how the next few years play out we might have to go with a "Reconstruction 2.0: Finish the Job"
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Not everyone who supported the Union did so because they cared about the plight of the enslaved. Many individuals did, but the most powerful industrial factions in the North were primarily interested in stopping slavery from expanding northward and into the Western territories, where it competed with free labor. With the South defeated, that objective was basically accomplished.
After the war, the industrial North was focused
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If Jefferson Davis and the others had swung like Jodl, von Ribbentrop and other leading Nazis later did, and a lengthy period of military government in which all the symbols of slavery and the Confederacy were actively destroyed and an entire generation brought up learning about the evils of the fathers, then maybe. It didn't entirely work in Germany, well at least in East Germany, but I'd argue that the intentions of the Allied Powers was very much not to make the same mistake the Union had made with the C
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Apart from equivocating over 19th and 20th century racism in the Democratic party and ignoring Nixon's Southern Strategy which inverted that curve, the Civil War was explicitly fought over slavery. You're just repeating the same Lost Cause myth that the Union allowed the former Confederate states to spread. The Confederate leaders made their reasons plainly known for secession, and it had everything to do with slavery.
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Why did the Union have 4 slave states that didn't free their slaves after the Emancipation proclamation?
Secession happened because of slavery (it was explicit). The war started because of the Union being unwilling to let their fellow states self-determine. Ending slavery was a lucky side effect, not the intent, of Lincoln's War of Northern Aggression.
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Jesus Christ, even use Lost cause names for the war is enough to suggest you're not debating in good faith.
Lincoln sought to restore the Union, that was his primary goal, but the mere fact that he was an abolitionist and he was elected was enough for most of the slave states to secede. The irony of all of that was that there were still a lot of pro-Union people in those states, but for the leaders of the Confederacy, it had everything to do with leaving the Union before the numbers finally stacked up suffic
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Why are you avoiding the question?
If Lincoln was an abolitionist, why did he let 4 slave states stay in the Union, and keep their slaves, even after the Emancipation Proclamation?
If he could compromise with 4 slave states, why couldn't he compromise with all of them?
Did you know that in fact, he was ready to make slavery a permanent part of the Union, if the slave states in secession were willing to rejoin the union?
We have a lot to be grateful for northern, abolitionist Republicans who co-opted Lincoln's W
Re:I'd like to see (Score:5, Informative)
...a list of the books that have been censored. And what do they mean by censored? Does it just mean oversexualized stuff in middle school libraries?
From the article:
The types of books targeted may also differ. “Almost all the UK attacks reported in my study centred on LGBTQ+ materials, while US attacks appear to target material related to race, ethnicity and social justice as well as LGBTQ+ issues,” said Hicks.
While the study was small, the “LGBTQ focus of book challenges was undeniable”, wrote Hicks. Challenges were levelled against Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series, about the love story of two British schoolboys, and “coded” narratives in books such as Billy’s Bravery by Tom Percival, about a boy who wants to dress up as his favourite superhero, Nature Girl.
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While I don't want to see libraries turned into gay porn emporiums, it is absolutely critical that the homosexual equivalent of heterosexual materials be made available equally freely. Nobody should grow up feeling excluded and like they're less than human because they're different in some ultimately harmless way. As a straight kid I had no trouble reading about straight kids having experiences that I could connect with and maybe learn a thing or two from. If I'd been gay the lack of gay protagonists (a
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While I don't want to see libraries turned into gay porn emporiums,
Why not? A good library might already contain the work of the 18th century English novelist John Clealand. So, I don't see why gay porn should be left out simply because it's gay.
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I didn't say leave it out. A library containing erotica is still a library. A porn emporium would be light on the non-porn content. Presumably a gay porn emporium wouldn't have any straight stuff.
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Does this still all come from the idea that these things are choices? For real who here believes if you read enough "gay books" you'd actually become homosexual or of a gay person watches enough rom-coms or porno they'll turn straight? A belief in that is the same idea that playing too many video games will make someone a murderer, it's one step away from phrenology.
A pure case of "gay people make me feel icky so I want to use the violence of the state to hide it from myself any everyone else"
Re: Britain is becoming more Muslim. (Score:1)
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