MODERN DAY BOOK BURNING

May 10, 1933 Nazi Book Burning

 MODERN-DAY BOOK BURNING:
Corporations and School Boards 
Destruction of Internet Archives
By Becky Hebert

March 1, 2022

This is very disturbing.  Not only are our school boards hell-bent to indoctrinate our children with ‘critical race theory’ (CRT), pushed by communist globalists and Agenda 2030 – NOW corporations are coming for our books in ARCHIVES.  John Milton's warned us that "He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself" .  We must have a conversation about this hard left agenda and the need to settle this in a constitutional and ethical way.

A power move by major publishers may result in the burning of over 1.4 million digital books, and prohibit the access to the last remaining digital copies of 'banned books' in the Internet Archives.

Sooo, is it really an archive if we censor what is in it?  Corporations are bullying the non-profit InternetArchives.org to remove banned books from their digital library.  This is a part of an evil plan to destroy our democracy.

Amazon controls over 80% of the world's digital library, and I have to wonder:  So what is it they are so afraid of?  I believe this is what their radical motivations are:

1. They want to punish 'free thinkers', (often done during wars.)  Thought police. Fact-checkers.  Destroy democracy.
2. Certain people want to destroy evidence.
3. They want to radically erase the identity of America.  Destroy the history, memories and cultures of society.
4. A sign of economic and political strength/control. One World Governance Agenda2030. Force their principles on all of humanity.  

 Big Tech and the globalist oligarts have gone too far, and WE need to stop these actions and preserve our archives at all costs.  Globalists, corporations and greedy politicians are destroying our country. 

This article, written by Chris Freeland, Librarian and Director of Internet Archive, really got my blood boiling:

A few days ago, Penguin Random House, the publisher of Maus, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, demanded that the Internet Archive remove the book from our lending library. Why? Because, in their words, "consumer interest in 'Maus' has soared" as the result of a Tennessee school board's decision to ban teaching the book. By its own admission, to maximize profits, a Goliath of the publishing industry is forbidding our non-profit library from lending a banned book to our patrons: a real live digital book-burning. (Read full article)

Mr. Freeland makes a sobering point: ..”In their pending lawsuit, the publishers are using copyright law as a battering ram to assert corporate control over the public good. In this instance, that means destroying freely available books and other materials that people rely on to become productive and discerning participants in the country's civic, economic, and social life.”

Corporations and bigtech digital media has already shuttered the local bookstores as a viable business model for middle-class America.  Don't let them destroy our 'archives'.

Archives are vital to the functioning of a democratic system.  They are important for our diversity and thinking, creativity, and the integrity of our decision making.  Whatever you do, please share this far and wide and encourage your friends, teachers, and politicians to get involved in this issue.  STOP this cancel culture.  Let your voice be heard and END the destruction of history, knowledge, and culture.  We MUST save our libraries and digital archives from destruction -- they are an essential part of a free society and our last hope of saving it.

(@BeckyHebert)

Freelance Writer - Beaumont, TX

Chris Freeland

Written by Chris Freeland,

Contributor

Posted in Tech Broiler on February 10, 2022 | Topic: Government : US | Editor: Jason Perlow

The disturbing trend of school boards and lawmakers banning books from libraries and public schools is accelerating across the country. In response, Jason Perlow made a strong case last week for what he calls a "Freedom Archive," a digital repository of banned books. Such an archive is the right antidote to book banning because, he contended, "You can't burn a digital book." The trouble is, you can.

A few days ago, Penguin Random House, the publisher of Maus, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, demanded that the Internet Archive remove the book from our lending library. Why? Because, in their words, "consumer interest in 'Maus' has soared" as the result of a Tennessee school board's decision to ban teaching the book. By its own admission, to maximize profits, a Goliath of the publishing industry is forbidding our non-profit library from lending a banned book to our patrons: a real live digital book-burning.

We are the library of last resort, where anyone can get access to books that may be controversial wherever they happen to live -- an existing version of Perlow's proposed "Freedom Archive." Today, the Internet Archive lends a large selection of other banned books, including Animal Farm, Winnie the Pooh, The Call of the Wild, and the Junie B. Jones and Goosebumps children's book series. But all of these books are also in danger of being destroyed.

In the summer of 2020, four of the largest publishers in the U.S. -- Penguin Random House among them -- sued to force our library to destroy the more than 1.4 million digital books in our collection. In their pending lawsuit, the publishers are using copyright law as a battering ram to assert corporate control over the public good. In this instance, that means destroying freely available books and other materials that people rely on to become productive and discerning participants in the country's civic, economic, and social life. 

Copyright law grants authors and publishers a limited monopoly over the books they produce. The law also enshrines a host of socially beneficial uses the public may make of those books without permission or payment. The famously flexible fair use doctrine has allowed libraries to continue serving the public in the face of rapid technological and social change. 

If ever there was a moment of compelling "socially beneficial" access to books, it came in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person library use almost everywhere. In response to the unprecedented crisis, more than 100 libraries holding critical books they could not lend signed a statement supporting the Internet Archive's establishment of a temporary National Emergency Library. The NEL allowed patrons controlled digital access to those collections that were locked away physically. It was a lifeline to trusted information for parents, teachers, and students around the world.

Yet, in an extreme overreaction to the facts, the publishers sued in June 2020 to shutter the NEL, along with our book lending practice as a whole. And in addition to demanding millions of dollars in monetary damages and fees, the lawsuit is calling on the Internet Archive to destroy all the digital books in our collections. It's a digital book burning on a massive scale.

If the publishers prevail, much more than the future of the Internet Archive will be at risk. What publishers want is to end libraries' ownership of their own collections. Instead, publishers want to rent digital books to libraries, like landlords. They want to control our cultural commons for their own commercial benefit. 

Think about what just happened with Maus. When a local government entity banned this book, the publisher decided to pull it from a digital library's bookshelves, restricting our patrons from reading it in order to extract maximum profits. Whether through corporate bullying or government banning, digital books are not immune from censorship.  

The Internet Archive's lending of a digital version of the book did nothing to diminish Maus's recent surge in sales. Even so, the publisher decided it had to do everything possible to remove the book from our library. It turns out you can burn a digital book.