Showing posts with label AlaDishonesty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AlaDishonesty. Show all posts

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.


Monday, September 4, 2023

Libraries to Become Sites of Socialist Organizing, Hopefully Accelerating Exodus from American Library Association

American Library Association has revealed that its driving purpose is converting libraries into sites of socialist organizing.  This news, from the mouth of ALA President Emily Drabinski at the Socialism Conference 2023, was investigated and reported by Dr. Karlyn Borysenko.  Her report contains the activation energy needed to accelerate the reaction of libraries and librarians in jettisoning membership in ALA, a reaction that has already started.  

Why fund any part of an organization actively working to subvert America by turning her libraries into sites for socialist agitation—taxpayer funded, no less?  

Here are the reports on the matter so far:

Borysenko, Karlyn. “Exclusive Recording: American Library Association President Emily Drabinski Says ‘Libraries Need to a Site of Socialist Organizing’; Undercover at the Socialism 2023 Conference.” Substack newsletter. Actively Unwoke (blog), September 4, 2023. https://karlyn.substack.com/p/exclusive-recording-american-library.

Charles, Jeff. “American Library Association President Says Libraries Should Be ‘Sites of Socialist Organizing.’” RedState, September 4, 2023. https://redstate.com/jeffc/2023/09/04/american-library-association-president-says-libraries-should-be-sites-of-socialist-organizing-n2163412.

Linebarger, Cullen. “Video: Lesbian Marxist American Library Association President Brags About Subverting ‘Normal Family Types’ and Makes Anti-White Statements.” The Gateway Pundit, September 4, 2023. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/video-lesbian-marxist-american-library-association-president-brags/.

Socialism 2023. “Socialism 2023: Freedom To Learn: Black and Asian American Solidarity Against Attacks on Antiracist Education,” September 2, 2023. https://socialism2023.sched.com/event/1PQxW.

A little history.  On 6 April 2023, Socialism Conference @SocialismConf announced Emily Drabinski would be a "featured speaker[] at Socialism 2023."  On 10 April 2023, Janice Danforth @DanforthJb alerted several others to this, including myself (@SexHarassed). That same day, quote tweeting Janice, I said, "Can any #moms #dads attend this and record for publication what this Marxist is saying and doing?"  

Then on 29-30 April 2023, I and Xi Van Fleet (@XVanFleet) tweeted how Emily's affiliation had been changed from ALA to CUNY, a university where she works.  As Xi put it: "Drabinski cowardly changed her ALA affiliation to CUNY.  Her updated title of Critical Pedagogy Librarian tells us she is a follower of the Brazilian Communist educator Paulo Freire.  Drabinski is the one leading our libraries in their effort to racialize, sexualize, & Marxianize our children!!!"  And of course Xi was right.

On 4 September 2023, Dr. Borysenko, already planning to attend and report on the Socialism Conference and now aware of Emily Drabinski's presence, reporting how Emily, at a conference attended by actual terrorists, introduced herself merely as "a librarian," then asked the people there to join her in the Marxification of school and public libraries:

I think your point that public education needs to be a site of socialist organizing, I think libraries really do too. 
I haven't seen that, working in libraries, but I think there’s a real opportunity here to both connect with what’s happening in public education, what’s happening in libraries, but also we need some help with libraries. 
We need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing.



It cannot be any clearer.  If anyone was looking for a sign to drop membership in ALA, there it is—ALA's President asking terrorists, including "dangerous terrorist Angela Davis," and other Marxists at Socialism Conference 2023 for "help with libraries.  We need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing."  

ALA is coordinating with terrorists/Marxists, it's coordinating to overrun local control, no local government wants libraries to become sites for socialist agitation.  Why pay ALA another penny?

The time to drop ALA membership is now.  Do it.  Don't fund it another day.

Remember, World Library Association has been created, and we are ramping up to help everyone replace ALA.  Visit WorldLibraryAssociation.org.



NOTE ADDED 5 SEPTEMBER 2023:

Political leaders who already jettisoned ALA are seeing the Borysenko report and urging other states to get out now:



Monday, December 11, 2017

Homophobia at American Library Association Again

Homophobia rears again at the American Library Association [ALA].  When one fakes claims of homophobia so as to promote oneself, that results in increased real discrimination against the LGBT community, real gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, really being harmed.  And ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom [OIF] is at it again, implying the crux of whistleblower action against a West Bend, WI, library was 80 LGBT books:


Valerie Nye: You experienced a challenge eight years ago, to a large number of books when you were working at the public library. Can you describe the challenge?

Kristin Pekoll:
It was a six-month challenge that shoved me hard into the spotlight. The parent wanted over 80 LGBT books removed from the library. 
The truth is that claim about the 80 LGBT books was withdrawn, thus it was not the crux of the matter.  But ALA OIF is at it again with the false or misleading claims of discrimination, and resultant harm, against the LGBT community.

So I commented as follows, and the comment is currently "awaiting moderation":
"The parent wanted over 80 LGBT books removed from the library."  That is highly misleading and harms the LGBT community since fake claims of LGBT discrimination results in actual increased discrimination.  The complaint about the LGBT books was withdrawn because the claimant realized the request was inappropriate. So OIF saying that was the main issue means OIF is simply faking more discrimination against the LGBT community.  It follows a pattern of OIF faking claims about LGBT discrimination so as to raise its own profile for its own reasons.  I even recorded an author admitting ALA OIF fakes its annual lists, in this case 2010, to place LGBT books on the list of "banned books" even though other books had been challenged more often.  Indeed, after I exposed this, LGBT books fell off the annual hoax list for two years.  But the fakery started again and is continuing to this day with the resultant harm to the LGBT community.

"Organizations like this use superiority and self-righteousness to knock others down. Their goal is to convince librarians and teachers and parents and readers that there is something shameful in reading and learning about ideas that they consider wrong."  I did not do that (and we all know you are talking about SafeLibraries).  Point to a single instance where I did that, in West Bend or anywhere.  Reading is not the issue.  Writing is not the issue.  The issue is ALA OIF misleading communities to promote its own interests.  Faking claims about LGBT discrimination is just one of many examples of ALA faking claims to mislead communities, and people are being harmed as a result, especially in the LGBT community.  ALA even lost a major case in the US Supreme Court in 2003 but misleads people about the results of that case to this very day.

"My colleague, Deborah Caldwell Stone, has a great quote in her office that I have great fondness for: 'Dance like no one is watching. Email like it may one day be read aloud in a deposition.'"  This very same person used her personal email to order librarians to destroy evidence ALA OIF gave training featuring a trainer who asked why a women would let small children around a gay man, precisely to avoid FOIA disclosures.  ALA rehired that trainer who dropped out after being exposed--if I recall Deborah Caldwell Stone did the rehiring.  More homophobia at ALA.  It's like a group thing at ALA OIF.

So I'm saddened to see OIF continuing with the same false information that uses the LGBT community to give itself a bump. If ALA OIF were a private company, your group homophobia would have result[ed] in the lot of you being fired long ago.
There's so much more I could say about how ALA OIF's homophobia makes me angry because of the harm it likely causes.  But I might get sued again with another settlement offer that I delete this current reporting, like when I wrote Gay Hate @ Your Library.  It's still up, go read what ALA wanted censored, and it's staying up.


Librarians, this homophobia is never going to stop so long as ALA OIF continues on unabated, without even a single challenge, without even a single peep.

By the way,



URL of this page: 
safelibraries.blogspot.com/2017/12/homophobia-at-ALA-OIF.html

On Twitter:
@ALALibrary @jaslar @KPekoll @OIF

Monday, June 22, 2015

ALA Caught Hiding Data on 'Banned' Books — Again

The American Library Association [ALA] has again been caught hiding data on "banned" books:
So I got in touch with the ALA to get the full data set, and to verify that its numbers were sound. That proved problematic.
....

I was hoping to find out more about challenges to “Tango” — what types of challenges have been made, how the challenges were relayed to the ALA, etc.  But I soon found there was no way to get any raw data about challenges, as the Office for Intellectual Freedom refused to give me access to its database or any more details about the methodology behind its collection of challenges beyond what’s on the website.  In my initial interactions with the ALA, a spokesperson offered to schedule an interview with someone “to get a perspective beyond the numbers,” but despite repeated requests, no one was made available.  I was, though, given this statement: “OIF maintains the database for internal staff use, as a means of encouraging libraries to report challenges, and to create awareness of the importance of protecting and celebrating the freedom to read.  Because the censorship database does not have the statistical validity demanded by many social scientists and researchers and may be vulnerable to misinterpretation and misuse, we must deny any request asking OIF to share raw data.”

The American Library Association is saying that its challenge database isn’t statistically valid and that despite the hundreds of news articles about its list, the database is not meant for public consumption.  I sent a list of follow-up questions about the database and the publicity around it, but an ALA spokeswoman said no one would be able to comment until at least July, citing busy preparations for the organization’s upcoming annual conference.

The list’s statistical validity is in question because we have little idea how it is put together.  We don’t know how challenges are collected — based on past descriptions from the OIF, it seems like an amalgam of news reports and calls from concerned librarians.  We also know that at least one author self-reports challenges: Parnell tells me that he lets the ALA know whenever he hears news of “Tango” coming under fire.  (Whether those reports make it into the tally or not is unknown.)  In addition, the ALA’s system seems to be agnostic to the type or severity of the challenge or its effectiveness. A parent questioning whether a Batman picture book is age-appropriate for the kid shelves appears to be given the same weight — a “challenge” — as a school board removing “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the syllabus of schools throughout an entire county.

“We lose a bit of our rhetorical power when we put them under the same umbrella,” said Jessamyn West, founder of Librarian.net, a popular progressive site about librarian-related issues.  A former ALA councilor just a decade ago, West is no longer a member and has used her site to note her issues with conflating these very different types of challenges, noting that questioning whether something is age-appropriate is very different from wanting it gone altogether.  “How we count things and how we reflect those to the people is super important,” she told me.

It may not be rigorous or even particularly accurate, but the ALA’s yearly list has drawn attention to many books.  Perhaps as a result of that spotlight, “And Tango Makes Three” has been a huge hit, at least as far as books go.  It has been debated on “The View.”  A decade after it was published, customers still buy dozens of copies a day on Amazon.  It has been translated into 11 languages and even turned into a play.  Simon & Schuster released a 10th anniversary deluxe edition of the book in early June, complete with an audiobook narrated by Neil Patrick Harris.

In the accompanying press release, David Gale, a vice president at Simon & Schuster, says: “Although ‘And Tango Makes Three’ has been on ALA’s list of ‘Most Frequently Challenged Books’ many times, readers worldwide have embraced its heartwarming message about the true nature of family and love.”  Gale’s quote begins with “although,” but the more appropriate word may be “because.”  Sometimes controversy can get a book — or a list — some extra attention.
I say again because I exposed a recording I made of an ALA-listed author admitting that ALA fakes its annual list.  And I spoke directly with the man at ALA who compiled the list one year and he too admitted ALA faked the numbers ("dozens" was really four).  I stopped "And Tango Makes Three" from being falsely listed after five years straight and thereby hurting the LGBT community with faked claims of discrimination:
Notice how ALA would not answer that reporter's questions, dragged things out interminably, then refused to answer his questions.  It is one way ALA continues to get away with making up the numbers, by never responding to requests for information by reporters that ALA thinks might hurt ALA's agenda—except that one time that one ALA employee answered my questions, revealed ALA faked the numbers, then was somehow no longer working with ALA, the Office for Intellectual Freedom specifically.

Then reporter David Goldenberg zeroed in on exactly what I already reported, namely, one librarian gently points out so no one hears how she knows ALA is misleading people, and he cites the very source I already cited.

More significantly, ALA fakes the numbers of "banned" LGBT materials to whip people up into a frenzy.  As David Goldenberg put it, "Sometimes controversy can get a book — or a list — some extra attention."

Bingo.  Who cares if the LGBT community gets harmed in the process, right?  The ends justifies the means.

And I reported this four years ago.  Only now is a single reporter finally raising the issue again and finding the same deception.

How many more years will it take for main stream media to finally stop reporting on falsified numbers based on smoke and mirrors?


NOTE ADDED 23 JUNE 2015:

Stung by the truth and its being so publicly available, ALA OIF has gone on the offensive, responding repeatedly on Twitter and with a blog post that absolutely misleads people and completely ignores that it has been caught faking data and removing "And Tango Makes Three" from the list as a result.

How dare a "freelance journalist question[] ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom's reputation and professionalism"!  Protest too much?  Read:

NOTE ADDED 24 JUNE 2015:

Even the author can see he is attacked by ALA's "Office for Intellectual Freedom" that cannot stand anyone exposing how it manipulates people, data, media, etc.:
I, by the way, challenged ALA OIF to a public debate.  It will not tolerate public debate because it cannot control the message.  And in a rare instance where it was forced into public debate, it lost spectacularly, like when it was forced into admitting library filters work well and no longer block health-related information (link).

Here's my debate challenge:


URL of this page: tinyurl.com/ALACaughtAgain

On Twitter: @ALALibrary +Valerie Hawkins +Banned Books Week
 @dgoldenberg +FiveThirtyEight Channel @FiveThirtyEight @OIF #alaac15 #BannedBooks #BannedBooksWeek #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqi #msm

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Open Borders and Illegal Immigration Support is the American Library Association's Latest Non-Library Venture; Welcome to Choose Privacy Week

Open borders and illegal immigration support is the American Library Association's [ALA] latest non-library venture, thanks to George Soros:

I am quoted extensively in this article about the ALA's new venture into illegal alien support:

Kleinman asked of the grant from Soros and the video production, "Why is the American Library Association prostituting itself out to the likes of George Soros to issue propaganda for him and his message on topics that are not a library issue?"

He added, "The video is clearly promoting an end to illegal immigration enforcement, to usher in an era of open borders.  What do open borders have to do with libraries?"

....

He added, "The bottom line is this.  The ALA has expanded its mission to promote causes that have nothing to do with librarianship – and that's concerning."

The ALA did not respond to a WND request for comment.

See also:



If you are a librarian and you are learning for the first time that the ALA is promoting open borders propaganda in exchange for large sums of money, how are you not wondering how the ALA has wandered so far from its mission?  Welcome to "Choose Privacy Week."

Here's one way to oppose the ALA on this issue:

Illegal Immigration: "It's a Crime."

Monday, September 26, 2011

Banned Books Week is Gay Promotion? Author Admits ALA Faked 2010 Top 10 Challenged Book List

A recording I made of an author essentially admitting that the American Library Association's [ALA] Top 10 challenged list is faked and used to promote a political agenda has become the subject of an exclusive, top billed report on WorldNetDaily:


I am just the messenger.  I am just reporting what author Amy Sonnie said as to why her book placed #9 on the ALA's 2010 list of challenged books.  Actually, Amy Sonnie is reporting, and I merely have a tape recording of what she said at a New Jersey Library Association meeting that I attended.  The story is big because the ALA faked its top 10 list, one of the listed authors essentially admitted as much and the admission was recorded, and the list is promoted and taken as the truth nationwide.

Go read the WND report to see for yourself.

The ALA faked #9 and awarded school librarian Dee Venuto for LGBT-related reasons (archive link), a librarian who admitted in a New Jersey Education Association publication that she cannot bring herself to read racy material for children so she lets her students read it for her.

Might the ALA have faked #1, And Tango Makes Three, also about the same "big deal"?  Well, it was challenged only four times yet it is supposedly #1.  We are talking about an organization that used plagiarism to promote Banned Books Week, after all.

The story is an exclusive, and it headlines WorldNetDaily!

Think about it.  If the top book challenged in the USA was challenged only four times in a year, obviously there is no crisis that the ALA keeps shouting about.  If the ALA has to artificially push LGBT material higher on the list, obviously there is no crisis about the "big deal."  Even progressive critics of the ALA decry the ALA's use of BBW as "propaganda."

Can anyone ever trust the ALA for anything ever again?  Really, I mean it.  Faked lists.  Plagiarism.  Political agenda.  Propaganda.  So much more I'm leaving out for brevity.  Is there no limit to the ALA's dishonesty?

See more on National Hogwash Week here:

NOTE ADDED 6 OCTOBER 2011:

Remarkable.  The ALA posted a YouTube video of author Amy Sonnie speaking in support of Banned Books Week.  I "favorited" the video and left a comment in favor of the author but critical of the ALA.

The ALA removed the comment!  The self-arrogated freedom of speech advocates deleted my free speech!  I'll take that as further evidence of guilt.

Here's what I said, followed by a graphic of what it looked like online with "All Comments (1)" before the ALA deleted it:
I really admire Amy Sonnie.  I spoke with her for a half hour at a New Jersey Library Association meeting and saw her speak there. 
That said, her book has not been banned and the ALA admitted to her that in truth her book was not the 9th most challenged of 2010.  See "Is Library Association's 'Banned Book Week' Really 'Gay' Promotion?; Critic Calls Event a 'Hoax Perpetrated on the American Public Since 1982,'" by Dave Tombers, WorldNetDaily, 25 September 2011. 
So the ALA top 10 list is faked.

Comment supporting Amy Sonnie but criticizing
ALA's faked top 10 list

And here is what it says now in bold, red typeface with "All Comments (0)" when I tried to repost the comment:

You have been blocked by the owner of this video.


So much for freedom of speech.

I'll be posting soon about how the ALA has tacitly admitted it plagiarized a low quality "censorship map," exactly as I said about a year ago.  I'll point out that plagiarism violates its own code of ethics and I'll demand some action be taken, else the code is mere window dressing.  Let's see if/how the ALA will block me on my own blog.  We already know the ALA has gotten me blocked on Wikipedia.  So the free speech people got me blocked from Wikipedia and now from YouTube.

So much for freedom of speech.

Remarkable.


NOTE ADDED 9 APRIL 2012:

In what I view as a major if tacit acknowledgement by the ALA that it fakes the annual top 10 challenged book list to use the LGBT community to promote the ALA's own interests, after claiming And Tango Makes Three is in the annual challenged book list "for the past five years," and after I exposed the fraud used to promote that work and another, the book has disappeared from the 2011 list:
Indeed, "homosexuality" as a reason to remove material is entirely missing from this year's list.  So the very two books I pointed out were falsely promoted by the ALA, the only two claiming "homosexuality" as the reason they were on the list, even one being persistently on the list, have been removed, and there are no others under the "homosexuality" category to replace them.

Listen to the 2010 award-winning author admitting the ALA faked the list to promote her LGBT book, starting at about the 45:13 mark, as reported in the WND piece above.

As research shows faking claims of LGBT harassment results in increased, not decreased, LGBT harassment and suicide, I am very happy that I have, it appears, stopped the ALA from faking claims about LGBT community harassment that harms the LGBT community while helping the ALA.  Yes, the ALA harms the LGBT community, and faking the 2010 list was just one way.

I'll never hear from any in the LGBT community who have not been harassed as a result of stopping the ALA from making false harassment claims that thereby harms the LGBT community, but I still feel good that I may have contributed even a little to improving the lives of those in the LGBT community who may have been targeted as a result of the ALA false harassment claims.


NOTE ADDED 22 JUNE 2015:

Here is further evidence ALA fakes data used to create its annual "banned" books fraud:

NOTE ADDED 3 NOVEMBER 2017:

Dropbox dropped all the URLs, so I think this one is now correct, to hear the awarded author admitting ALA faked the list to promote her LGBT book, starting at the 45:13 mark:

NOTE ADDED 6 JANUARY 2018:

I added the link to the recording of the author admitting ALA fakes it annual banned books list to some of the text above. and checked all the links for currency.  Changed some links to archive links.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Banned Books Week Propaganda Exposed by Progressive Librarian Rory Litwin; ALA Censors Out Criticism of Its Own Actions in a Manner Dishonest to the Core

Banned Books Week propaganda
Progressive librarian Rory Litwin of Library Juice fame has just exposed the propaganda used by the American Library Association [ALA] that is "Banned Books Week."  Read him carefully to see how his statements remarkably align with the ALA's activities I have been reporting, and later I will show how the ALA is dishonest to the core, even apart from the propaganda:


Comparison of Rory Litwin Quotes with Past SafeLibraries Observations

Rory said:
My problem with Banned Books Week is one that is probably shared by some conservatives, and it has to do with the loose definition of what a 'banned book' is, and what a 'challenged book' is, 
and I said essentially the same thing in:



Rory said:
The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, is a propaganda exercise that fails to model good standards for democratic communication, 
and I said essentially the same thing in:



Rory said:
School districts have policies in place for reviewing challenges to books on the basis of age-appropriateness.  Challenged books are reviewed and evaluated by committees that are charged with that responsibility, and then the school district makes an official decision regarding the book.  Regardless of what the school's decision turns out to be, regardless of its reasonableness or unreasonableness, and regardless of the objectivity or bias within the decision-making process in a specific case, all challenges to a book by a parent get counted as an attempt at book banning, 
and I said essentially the same thing in:



Rory said:
But when a book is challenged and reviewed on the grounds of age-appropriateness, it is ultimately not the family that brought the challenge that makes the decision. The decision is made by the educational institution itself, 
and I said essentially the same thing in:



Rory said:
But the decision about whether a book should remain a part of the curriculum or not is ultimately made by the public institution that put the book in the curriculum in the first place, which means that book challenges happen as a part of a process that the institution puts in place in order to get feedback from the community on the curriculum, 
and I said essentially the same thing in:




ALA Finally Gives Dissent Significant Coverage

Remarkably, the ALA has done something it almost never does, namely, give significant coverage to disagreement with ALA propaganda.  Here it purports to quote Rory Litwin's criticism:

  • "Actions & Answers," by American Library Association, American Libraries Direct, 31 August 2011:
    My problem with Banned Books Week
    Rory Litwin writes: “The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, fails to model good standards for democratic communication. Here is what I mean. Book banning, good people agree, should be fought against and is a source of inspiration to fight for what is right. Banned Books Week taps into people’s responses to these historical narratives and aims to prevent the suppression of ideas from recurring. But what counts as a ‘banned book’ is actually a ‘challenged book,’ and what counts as a challenged book is something quite different from an effort to prevent a book from being published, sold, or even made available in a library.”... Library Juice, Aug. 28

Screen shot of American Libraries Direct in case ALA
should whitewash it by changing language after I publish
this blog post, as it has done before.
For example, the ALA has never given coverage to my exposing its use of admittedly low quality material that it plagiarized to promote a "censorship map" as part of its propaganda for Banned Books Week.  That plagiarized map is still being promoted by the ALA even after a year and a half.  See:



But look carefully at that ALA quote of Rory Litwin more closely.  It is a misquote, and apparently intentionally so.  The ALA leaves out select portions of the quote referencing propaganda and the problem with Banned Books Week, making it sound completely different than what Rory Litwin actually said.  The ALA does this by using a technique remarkably similar to Soviet-style censorship that makes things disappear that are not politically palatable.


Compare the Actual Text to the Whitewashed Text

To make it more obvious, allow me to place the relevant sentences side by side, then highlight the section the ALA conveniently left out or added.

Example of Soviet-style censorship.
The actual Rory Litwin quote:
The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, is a propaganda exercise that fails to model good standards for democratic communication.
Here is what I mean.
.... Book banning, good people agree, should be fought against, and is a source of inspiration to fight for what is right. Banned Books Week taps into people’s response to these historical narratives and aims to prevent the suppression of ideas from recurring. ....
The problem that I see with Banned Books Week is that what counts as a “banned book” is actually a “challenged book,” and what counts as a challenged book is something quite different from an effort to prevent a book from being published, sold, or even made available in a library.

The actual ALA quote quoting Rory Litwin:
Rory Litwin writes: "The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, fails to model good standards for democratic communication. Here is what I mean. Book banning, good people agree, should be fought against and is a source of inspiration to fight for what is right. Banned Books Week taps into people’s responses to these historical narratives and aims to prevent the suppression of ideas from recurring. But what counts as a ‘banned book’ is actually a ‘challenged book,’ and what counts as a challenged book is something quite different from an effort to prevent a book from being published, sold, or even made available in a library."


Dishonesty to the Core

No, Rory Litwin did not write that.  The ALA left out "is a propaganda exercise that" without the proper use of the ellipsis. The "propaganda exercise" is Rory's point and is the subject of the sentence.  "That fails to model good standards for democratic communication" is a modifier of the subject.  The actual sentence is, "The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, is a propaganda exercise that fails to model good standards for democratic communication."  By leaving out the subject and the modifier, the ALA effectively changes the subject and that changes the entire sentence to something Rory Litwin did not say: "The Banned Books Week project, well-intended as it may be, fails to model good standards for democratic communication."  No, it is not Banned Books Week that fails to model good standards.  Rather, it is that Banned Books Week is propaganda, and the exercise of propaganda fails to model good standards.

And what the ALA left out is Rory Litwin's main point and his essential criticism of the ALA.  He uses the word root for "propaganda" three times and even links one use to a hyperlink, so important was that subject to Rory.  But the ALA, acting in its own self interest, just cut it out without the slightest indication of having done so.  That's no mistake.  That is dishonesty to the core.

The ALA left out "The problem that I see with Banned Books Week is that," while adding instead "But" without the proper editorial marks to let a reader know the author as quoted, and he is quoted with quotation marks, did not actually say those words.  One uses square brackets to do that, like [this].  "To give context to a quote or otherwise add wording to it, place added words in brackets, []; be careful not to editorialize or make any additions that skew the original meaning of the quote—do that in your main text...."  The ALA did not do that.  It simply left key phrases out with no indication they were ever there in the first place or added material in place of critical text.

Failure to use the proper form of an ellipsis could misrepresent the work of another person and result in legal liability for the writer.  Correct use of ellipses, on the other hand, shows that the writer has carefully attended to detail, and thus increases the reader's confidence in the reliability of the written work


ALA Omissions Misrepresent Others and Decrease Reliability of ALA Statements

I contend the omissions do indeed misrepresent the work of another, and do indeed decrease the reliability of statements from the ALA, especially so where the omissions appear to be both intentional and self-serving.

The omissions give a whole different reading to Rory Litwin's quote.  That is obviously why the ALA left out those phrases.  But in doing so it also left out the required editorial marks needed to make quotes accurate.  And given it left out references to propaganda and the problem with Banned Books Week, this action is likely intentional, particularly in light of past instances of similar whitewashing by the ALA, as we are about to see.


The ALA's Propaganda Whitewash is Ironic But Not Novel

The irony of this is unbelievable as the ALA advises local communities it is censorship to keep children from inappropriate material.  But this is consistent with previous ALA miscues involving redaction of records after having been caught, such as I detail here:


One has to wonder why the ALA continues to feel the need to cover up for its own actions.


When Will the ALA Stop Besmirching Its Own Reputation By Using Propaganda And Whitewashing Missteps?

I am truly shocked I even have to bring this disgraceful conduct by the ALA to your attention.  Were the ALA to act honorably, none of this would be an issue.  I would not need to say what I say.  Rory Litwin would not need to say what he said.  People of all political stripes are starting to stand up to the ALA's propaganda.  Don't let anyone claim it's this or that political bent.  False.  It's everyone.

It's time for the ALA to represent people, not mislead people with propaganda and a variant of Soviet-style censorship that is dishonest to the core.  I challenge the ALA to do so.  Thank you for reading my opinion.


Bravo, Rory

Remember, read "My Problem with Banned Books Week," by Rory LitwinLibrary Juice, 28 August 2011.

Bravo, Rory.


NOTE ADDED 13 SEPTEMBER 2011:

Rory Litwin has today interviewed me via FaceBook and published the interview: