The Tennessee school board voted unanimously, earlier this month, to remove the graphic novel "Maus" from the curriculum and school library. The Pulitzer Prize winning book, drawn from the author's own life, tells the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of a survivor and his son who is attempting to understand it all. Germans in the book are depicted as cats, while Jews are depicted as mice.
The Tennessee school board says they banned the book based on profanity and nudity. The language they cited was the use of the phrase "God damn". Seriously, you will hear far worse than that on any TV show, today. And, even in my era, kids knew all the dirty words by the time they hit First Grade. As for the nudity... Remember, Jews in "Maus" are depicted as mice. We're talking about an image of a naked mouse, for Pete's sake. The Tennessee school board counters that they found the image of the naked mouse gratuitous. But both the "GD" and the naked mouse have to do with the suicide of the author's mother. I find nothing gratuitous there.
In Texas, over 200 books have been removed from the shelves "pending review". And Texas teachers have been instructed that they must teach "both sides" of the Holocaust. There are NOT two sides to the Holocaust. In Indiana, a bill is pending that would forbid teachers from taking a side or giving any value judgements on the Holocaust. If we can't agree that the genocide of over 6 million people is a bad thing, then we're already lost as a society. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with protecting children and will not stop at school libraries. The book banners are already attacking public libraries and the book stores will be next, then the Internets.
We know what this is really all about, of course. The same thing book banning and burning has always been about. When knowledge and ideas are deemed by the powerful "too dangerous" for the public at large, what they really are saying is that it is too dangerous to THEM and THEIR hold on power. Ideas and information in the hands of the people are a far more powerful weapon against an authoritarian government than any gun or bomb.
"When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible"--unknown, but often falsely attributed to Sinclair Lewis
"When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism.'"--Halford E. Luccock
Fascism is here. It's home is the Republican Party. They are the party that is banning and burning books. They are the party that is trying (and succeeding) to take away rights Americans have enjoyed for a generation or more. They are the party that promotes the theory of the "Master Race". They are the party that preaches violence as an acceptable solution to any disagreement you may have with government. They are the party of The Big Lie, "alternative facts", and endless propaganda. They are the party that has given up any pretense of believing in democracy. And they persuade their audience through time-honored authoritarian methods of distraction and misdirection. Do you think it's just a coincidence that the right is seemingly flipping out over the sex appeal of cartoon candy at a time when the economy is going gangbusters and the Nazis are banning books? Find a phony grievance, make it much much bigger, and then blame it all on some group of "the other"--a disfavored minority. When someone--anyone--tells you, "I alone can fix it", you should run as fast as you can in the other direction. When someone tries to take away voting rights, you should throw them to the curb. When someone or some group starts banning books and any attempt to teach about racism and the Holocaust, you should understand that fascism is here, now, today. Be prepared to stand your ground and fight against it, lest we become what hundreds of thousands of our forefathers died to defeat.