They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em
Posted by unbrand on 3 August 2004 | 0 Comments
Book burning. The concept brings up images of Nazi Germany, McCarthyism, and for the more imaginative, the Salem witch trials. Of course, in 2004 America we don’t do those things. No. We’re friendlier and more enlightened than that. We don’t resort to mob rule and we certainly couldn’t be accused of burning books. That’s so, um, ah, primitive. Maybe that’s why the recent news item about Attorney General John Ashcroft ordering the removal of certain documents from libraries hasn’t caused much of a fuss.
From the original document: “The Department of Justice has asked the Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy all copies of the materials listed below. Please withdraw these materials immediately and destroy them by any means to prevent disclosure of their contents.”
Here’s the interesting page:
So what are the nasty, mean books that need to be removed? They’re government documents relating to how to get your property back when the government seizes it. The federal government’s seizure of your property, including houses, cars, boats, etc. happens quite a bit in America. They also call it “property forfeiture.” Remember in Animal Farm when the pigs kept re-writing the rules that all the animals were to live by? After the rules were changed, the pigs denied that the rules were ever any different.
“No, you’ve never been able to retrieve your property after the government has seized it. Why, if you could, there would be rules about that process, right? And there are no such rules! Check your library! So you can see that you have no recourse. Next!”
Here’s a good discussion of the issue.