Tuesday, March 12, 2024

ALA Details Bribes to Convince Governments to Sell Out Children

In all my decades of writing about the American Library Association, I've never before seen ALA detail the bribes used in local communities to convince local officials or legislators to sell out their own interests to those of ALA in Chicago, IL.  Chicago is such a paragon of a city—not—that ALA has to bribe locals into getting their own governments to implement The Chicago Way instead of applying common sense, community standards, and the law.  

The bribery is becoming so widespread I suppose ALA feels there's no further need to hide it, so now it's essentially advertising it.  With a Marxist fist, no less.

The details are provided by a crypto ALA organization called EveryLibrary.  It is structured as a separate organization from ALA but it most certainly is not, as I detail here directly from an ALA source:

The American Library Association as a separate 501c3 cannot provide direct support to the new 501c4, and the governance will be by definition not under any control by ALA. We want to make sure that ALA members with a comprehensive understanding of ALA's s mission and advocacy goals are involved in EveryLibrary mission development, governance and ongoing work, and that the activities of the new 501c4 complement the work of the ALA Office for Library Advocacy, Chapter Relations Office and Development Office (in the area of fund raising for advocacy and public awareness).

Kleinman, Dan. “Library Boards Trained to Lie by ALA; Banned Books Wedge Issue Adopted by White House.” SafeLibraries®, June 21, 2023. https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2023/06/library-boards-trained-to-lie-by-ala.html.

Just to illustrate how deeply tied together are these two supposedly separate organizations, ALA and EveryLibrary, here is FOIA evidence that librarians who defy their own administrations to report things directly to organizations seeking to maximize exposure of children to inappropriate material will report them to ALA/EveryLibrary: "Have we reported our challenges to ala or everylibrary?  Just curious."  "Yes," is the response.  This is from St. Tammany Parish Library in Louisiana:


So ALA (via its EveryLibrary organization) details the bribes used in local communities in a series of EveryLibrary posts on X.  Note the use of the Marxist fist for this "fund raising for advocacy and public awareness," pictured top right.

Here is the text of those posts followed by graphics:

Nearly 100 communities have launched campaigns against book bans on http://fightforthefirst.org

Over 70,000 Americans have signed their petitions

They've rallied thousands of Americans into action

They've won in communities across the country

Launch your campaign today!

We'll support your campaign against book bans with:  

1)  Up to $1k in funding 

2) Pro-bono consulting 

3) Digital tools like http://fundlibraries.org

4) Media attention 

5) Training and resources for the skills and knowledge that you need to win.  

And more!



And here's EveryLibrary saying something similar almost a year ago, only without spelling it out, other than "email and organize":


Well will you look at that.  The EveryLibrary 990 for 2023 states it CREATED and funded 18 LOCAL library ALLIANCES, spending $1611 on average for each one, so I guess the "alliance" ALA "created" is with ALA against the "locals":
  • $28,999 - "Created and supported 18 local library Alliances to conduct public education and outreach about the First Amendment in Libraries, along with research into book bans."
And ALA got directly involved in political matters, only through its EveryLibrary crypto subgroup so as not to upset the IRS apple cart, this time averaging $5200 per library:
  • $52,000 - "Provided direct support to 10 public library ballot measure campaigns through financial contributions consulting, and advising."
And just to sink the hook with ALA propaganda, ALA via EveryLibrary spent a chuck of change writing false documentation:
  • $12,479 - "Wrote, published, and syndicated numerous public education and informational articles about libraries, librarians, and current events."
Sounds like a boondoggle to me.  A whistleblower sent me EveryLibrary documentation and it is false line by line and exactly the same message as ALA, as I detail here:


What a coincidence, the 990 Schedule B list of contributors is, "RESTRICTED," emphasis in original.  What a coincidence.  Ditto for total contributions.  The free speech people are suddenly silent.

One group, "Citizens for Patmos Library," let alone that it should be called "Chicago for Patmos Library," got a whopping $25,000, per the EveryLibrary 990, Schedule I:
  • $25,000 - "To fund the work of Citizens for Patmos Library in supporting the Patmos Public Library levy on the November 8, 2022 ballot.  The Citizens for Patmos Library is a registered local ballot committee dedicated to passing the November 8, 2022 levy election for the Patmos Library.  Michigan Registration ID - 96365"
Look at this, especially people in Wyoming and New Jersey:
  • "Other Programs included grants to sponsor regional library conferences, revenue from supporting a Wyoming Statewide Campaign and consulting on a candidate questionnaire for New Jersey Association of School Librarians, program expenses for staff time allocated to various smaller programs."
Various odds and sods from the EveryLibrary 990, Schedule O, showing the infrastructure brought to bear on local communities by the local entities created, funded, and supported by the ALA:
  • "Payment to Megan O'Conner for internship stipend $500, payments to Tiffany Wilson for social media management $1,650, payments to Megan Blair for services as the Policy and Advocacy Strategist $11,800, Payments to Martha McGehee for Editorial and social media Management $23,832, payment to Charity Lounsbery for internship stipend $500, payments to Century Plant for article writing $1,000, payment to Megan Mullen for article writing $1,100, Payments to Joyce Johnson for database cleanup $5,651, payment to William Engquist for article writing $100, payments to Tasslyn Magnusson for services as a policy specialist in censorship issues $10,948, payments to Paula Younger for article writing $840, payment to Joseph Wimberly for services as Digital Coordinator $1,120, payment to Harry Brake for article writing $200, payment to Chloe Santiago for Capstone Project stipend $500, payments to Sophie Brookover for Campaign Training Standardization $5,000, payments to Kosi Harris for media relations $11,250, payment to Kevin Moore for article writing $1,600"
I have seen ALA bribe communities before, $1000 here (Wisconsin), $5000 there (Texas), I've just never seen it so out in the open before.  

Here's the Wisconsin example, uncovered only during a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and never revealed by ALA or the library or the local acolyte.  In my opinion it's a bribe since money changed hands to sway governmental decisions and the public was never informed.  Only luck and a little bragging uncovered the truth.  It says, in an email from a local acolyte to a public library that was defending ALA policy regarding children's exposure to inappropriate material, "We got good news on Friday that West Bend Parents for Free Speech received a grant of $1,000 for our expenses from the Freedom to Read Foundation," and the FTRF is another part of ALA:


"I sent an email to Kristin yesterday asking her to track down my $30 check (room deposit) and put it towards the summer reading program fund.  I also put a post our website forum asking people to donate (funds or prizes) for the program."  

Do you see how ALA, libraries, and certain local citizens collude with each other to convince people to choose The Chicago Way over any wishes of local citizenry?  "Kristin," by the way, left her librarian job to join ALA to use her experience in pushing The Chicago Way and training others to do the same.  What a small world.  She has since left ALA. 

Here's the $5,000 Texas example (hyperlinks in original, archived if needed, emphasis in original):
Grants 
The FTRF Board authorized a $5,000 grant to HP Kids – a group of concerned parents and community members in Highland Park, Texas, who have been advocating against censorship efforts in the public school system.  See more about the group on their Facebook page.  ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has been working to support the community members’ efforts in a number of ways, including writing a letter to the school board opposing a move to use ALA’s annual list of Top Ten most frequently challenged books as a guide to restricting books, and providing advice and logistical support.

You know, if ALA is bribing local acolytes with money to affect local political issues, shouldn't the public be able to obtain Freedom of Information Act requests from ALA, FTRF, EveryLibrary even if they aren't government bodies?  It's Sunshine Week, so I'm asking.  Anyone know?  All this money is being spent to sway public law.  Isn't the public entitled to see this?

Nowadays the method of bribery (but not the bribes themselves) is out in the open, and its detailed.  Money.  Consulting.  Online fundraising tools.  Media attention.  Training and resources "that you need to win."  And by "win," ALA means the community loses.  All free.  

It's all a fake facade, all astroturf.  "Nearly 100 communities have launched campaigns against book bans."  Click on the links in the ALA/EveryLibrary tweets to see if your own community has been corrupted with ALA bribery.  Mine has.

I've written about this astroturfing before.  See:


Here's more on ALA astroturfing, from "Report to Council and Executive Board," by Keith Michael Fiels, Executive Director of ALA, December 11, 2014, page 1 (hyperlinks omitted):
Pro-Privacy Library Letters Let Loose on Congress 
As the “lame duck” Congress opened in mid-November, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised his colleagues by immediately maneuvering procedurally to bring the ALA-backed USA FREEDOM Act to the Senate floor for debate and, it was hoped, an “up or down” vote.  The Office of Government Relations immediately crafted and emailed an alert to more than 110,000 librarians and library supporters linked to ALA’s Legislative Action Center from where pre-drafted letters of support to individual recipients’ Members of Congress in both chambers could quickly and easily be sent.  The email alert was “clicked” open by more than 13% of all recipients, 2,000 of whom generated a total of 7,000 letters to Congress virtually overnight.  While Senator Reid’s attempt to move USA FREEDOM failed to garner the necessary 60 votes, the campaign showed the capacity of library supporters to respond quickly to legislative opportunities. 
So if you are a school board member or a county or parish board member or a state legislator or governor and a local group supports keeping school children exposed to educationally unsuitable and pervasively vulgar material that violates common sense, community standards, and the law, there's a very good chance that local group is just ALA itself astroturfing.  It's as if ALA flew in from Chicago and told you what to do, only they got local acolytes to do the talking, yelling, bullying, and especially the community organizing.

Such groups and their threats of lawsuits (I've been in three) and demands for acceptance of The Chicago Way (they lost and one is still ongoing) can be safely ignored just as equally as if ALA's own leadership from Chicago, Illinois, strolled into your community and demanded you follow their Chicago Way "Library Bill of Rights" that makes it age discrimination to keep anything from anyone, especially children, because that's what ALA has wanted for over 50 years.

Now that you know the above, you can easily tell local groups astroturfing for ALA and taking bribes to sell out children to take their Marxist fist-funded phoniness and, well, you can just ignore them as easily as you can ignore the Chicago Way from ALA.


Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments of a personal nature, trolling, and linkspam may be removed.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)