False Censorship Claims Exposed by WSJ Author Attacked for Exposing Truth About Young Adult Books; Meghan Cox Gurdon Decries Incomplete and Uninformative Book Reviews

False censorship claims have been exposed by a Wall Street Journal contributor named Meghan Cox Gurdon.  Notice how she exposes the false cries of censorship and how she notes current book reviewers are "incomplete and uninformative":

• "Librarians Defend Teen Gore," by Tessa Berenson, FrumForum, 7 June 2011.

  "I did not expect this degree of hysteria," Gurdon said.  "And I really, really did not expect that people who work in the book industry would be so seemingly incapable of understanding a simple argument.  As a critic, I am describing what is in the literature, and the fact that it is different now than it was, say, 30 years ago.  These are cultural developments that are worth acknowledging and worth noticing."
  ....
  "I come out 'anti-reading' because I have the temerity to criticize what is in some of the books that are being sold to teenagers," Gurdon retorted.  Indeed she believes that one of the roots of the problem in the book industry lies in incomplete and uninformative reviews:  "One of the things that I think is missing from a lot of these reviews is that they very, very seldom address some of the more disturbing content that is in books."

David Frum of FrumForum, that was a truly outstanding blog post.  Thank you very much to you and Tessa Berenson.

Here is the article that started this kerfuffle:

• "Darkness Too Visible; Contemporary Fiction for Teens is Rife with Explicit Abuse, Violence and Depravity. Why Is This Considered a Good Idea?," by Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal, 4 June 2011.

By the way, even school superintendents have noted how useless book reviews can be:

• "School Excoriates Book Reviews that Fail to Disclose 'Graphic Sexual Details' in Books for Children; Lush by Natasha Friend is 'Wildly Inappropriate' for Certain Children"

See also:

• "It's Not Censorship, It's Parenting! -- Best Explanation Ever for What's Wrong With the American Library Association and its Effect on Public School Libraries"
• "In Defense of Meghan Cox Gurdon, Children's Book Reviewer," by Janice Harayda, One-Minute Book Reviews, 6 June 2011.

NOTE ADDED JUNE 9 2011:

Meghan Cox Gurdon was interviewed on public radio.  Listen to her here:

• "Is Teen Fiction Too Dark?," by Kerri Miller interviewing Meghan Cox Gurdon, Minnesota Public Radio, 9 June 2011.

  Young adult literature is a booming genre in the publishing industry, but one reviewer says we should be concerned about how dark and lurid the offerings for adolescent readers have become.

Also, this blog post is getting multiple hits per minute thanks to my comment appended to:

• "Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood," by Sherman Alexie, The Wall Street Journal, 9 June 2011.

Entirely relevant is this from an extremely popular librarian blog and all the comments by the librarians thereunder:

• "Surreptitious Censorship,” by Will Manley, Will Unwound, 8 June 2011. 

  Here’s an issue that I’ve often wondered about but never written about.  It involves intellectual freedom.  Intellectual freedom is often presented as a black and white issue.  You are either a supporter of intellectual freedom or you are a censor.  There seems to be no middle ground.
  
  ....
  
  Why are librarians so afraid of having a book challenged?  Patrons or groups of patrons who challenge library books are simply exercising their First Amendment right to the "petition their government."  What's wrong with that?  Intellectual freedom issues should be hashed out in the public arena, not behind the closed doors of some librarian’s office.
  
  [And here's a sample comment, this from "Deb"]:
  
  Back in the early 90s there were great debates about having public Internet in libraries.  One of the favorite arguments put forth by librarians at the time was that libraries needed to have and control public access to the Internet so that they could make sure that people got their information from "good" sites – i.e. librarian approved.  There were discussions of how libraries could limit access to selected sites the way that they limited selection of reference books to those vetted and approved by "experts" – i.e. peer reviewed and published by the correct presses.  It wasn't about intellectual freedom, it was about selection, and making sure that we protected our public and users from the crap that was out there.  Then Congress decided to force Internet filtering and Bam! it was suddenly an intellectual freedom issue, and now libraries were supposed to let anyone access anything, including providing porn to children and pedophiles as protected first amendment speech.  Of course it's hypocrisy.  The ALA as an organization is the embodiment of hypocrisy.  And yes, I am a card-carrying member.  So I, too, am a hypocrite, because I know that I will never change the organization, and that they don’t work for me, my library, or the community we serve.  But they are the only game in town.  Better the devil you know than no devil at all.  I have always considered it hypocritical to market ourselves to families and entice children in with storytimes, etc.; then tell parents that we don't recognize parental authority and that we will provide x-rated movies to their kids in the name of intellectual freedom.  Personally, I do not think ALA and OIF know what this term means.
  
  As to selection – it is necessary because unlike the Library of Congress, most libraries do not have the time, the money, the staff, or the space to acquire every item ever published.  So, we have to pick and choose.  Of course personal taste enters into it.  We went to library school and took classes in how to do collection development, and we have convinced the people that hired us that we know more than the average bear about how to pick books for the library.  But what it comes down to is, we pick the ones that we think will be a good fit, and our personal tastes have everything to do with it.  Even if we are deliberately picking something that we personally dislike, we still consider our own reaction to it before we decide.  That's called being human.  Unless and until we automate the acquisitions process and let computers pick the books, we are always going to have human emotional content in our selection process.  Heck, even when the computers do start doing selection for us, we will probably end up with the emotional responses of the guy who programmed the computer.

If you like these kinds of issues, please consider subscribing to my SafeLibraries blog or to Will Manley's Will Unwound.


NOTE ADDED 22 JUNE 2011:

A Disobedient Girl,
by Ru Freeman

Another author has spoken out in support of Meghan Cox Gurdon.  Read what she is saying carefully.  You hear all these critics and the American Library Association saying children must be exposed to dark themes so they will learn about them.  Well this author, Ru Freeman (@RuFreeman), says the exact opposite.

• "I'm With Meghan Cox Gurdon," by Ru Freeman, The Huffington Post, 21 June 2011, bold and red emphasis mine, italics and hyperlinks in original:

  As the parent of three avid readers, I agree with Meghan Cox Gurdon's point that what is considered "banning" in the book trade is known in the parenting world as doing our job.  In a piece in the Wall Street Journal this week, she writes:
  
  

  It is a dereliction of duty not to make distinctions in every other aspect of a young person's life between more and less desirable options.  Yet let a gatekeeper object to a book and the industry pulls up its petticoats and shrieks "censorship!"

  
  Books transform lives.  That is why we write.  We write through the pain or memory of our own experience, we write through the gratitude or sorrow of others.  Every time we put finger to keyboard we write to tell a story that has the potential to change a person's life.  If we didn't have that expectation, the effort would be simply a form of public masturbation.  Which brings us to the question of how any book that is filled with gore that runs the gamut from rape to incest to addiction to murder and every variance in between, without any of those things being absolutely essential to the development of character or plot, can be lauded as being a solid addition to the life of the mind for a child.
  
  How can any writer claim, as Sherman Alexie claims, that he writes the particular kinds of books that he writes for teenagers not because he wants to "protect them" because, he says, it is "far too late for that," but to "give them weapons -- in the form of words and ideas -- that will help them fight their monsters."  Mr. Alexie, gushes that he "writes in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed."
  
  Well.  This country has sent thousands of its youth to die, and still some of us control-freak adults get off our posteriors and do our best to prevent the next "one" kid who is about to be turned into a killing machine.  What we don't do is present the kids around us with handbooks for how to become better murderers.  This country has spent its money substituting the regurgitation of facts for knowledge and still some of us interfering know-it-all adults lobby our schools to do things differently.  We certainly don't sit on the sidelines and congratulate our little oafs for just, you know, doing what kids these days are "supposed to be doing."  There are pederasts and psychopaths alive and kicking in the ether that is so easily accessed by our kids, but some of us adults believe it is a good thing to teach our kids how to navigate that world without exposing them to the pathologies of depraved adults.
  
  What we don't do is give them an alphabetized, cross reference index that points them to each heinous website.  And, just like the patron of the Boone County Library in Kentucky (who tried to get Cheryl Rainfield's book Scars off the shelves) points out, and this is close to my heart, we don't give a young anorexic girl a great ball-by-ball account of how to starve herself to death.  Because, you see, 40-60 percent of high school girls have considered that particular form of suicide and 2.3 percent of them have died from it while undergoing treatment, which leaves a nice healthy figure of those who were never diagnosed and never received treatment.
  
  Kids one block removed from my neighborhood in wealthy suburban Philadelphia go to bed hungry and, trust me, having been a hungry kid, I don't think they are begging to read about starvation.  I have been the child at the receiving end of violence and I would give my life to protect my own from such violence, and that includes the violence of the words and images that, once they take up residence in our heads, cannot be erased.  I can assure you that, growing up, I did not sit around wishing I could read about the hardships I was undergoing.  No.  I read Joyce, Blyton, Donne, Harper Lee and Shakespeare.  I held on to longing, fairytale, a human communion with whatever it was that I recognized as the divine and the beauty of language.  I read about snow and Santa Claus and sailing boats, having adventures and bringing down capitalist bastards a la Yury Olesha in The Three Fat Men.
  
  Suffering is just that, suffering.  There is nothing glorious or noteworthy about it.  If you've truly experienced it, it hurts.  Bad.  And the last thing you ever want to do is to inflict it upon a child.  The last thing that one should do for a child who has suffered is to introduce them to a little more of the same.  Here's to all those adults who, having undertaken to have children of their own, choose to care for all children by keeping their faith with the real-life dream of childhood, who try each day to hold the coordinates steady for them as the adults in our lives tried their best to hold them steady for us a long time ago.  Ms. Gurdon should take a bow for having the guts to tell it like it is.

NOTE ADDED 27 JUN 2011:

Meghan Cox Gurdon has written again!  Look how she tells the truth about the American Library Association and its false claims of "danger" used to force its will on communities!  Look how she illustrates how the "free speech" people use ad hominem attack freely—I see this all the time:

• "My 'Reprehensible' Take on Teen Literature; Raise Questions About Self-Mutilation and Incest As a Young-Adult Theme and All Hell Breaks Loose," by Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal, 28 June 2011, emphasis mine.

  If the American Library Association were inclined to burn people in effigy, I might well have gone up in smoke these past few days.  ALA members, mostly librarians and other book-industry folk, are concluding their annual conference today in New Orleans, and it's a fair bet that some of them are still fuming about an article of mine that appeared in these pages earlier this month.
  
  The essay, titled "Darkness Too Visible," discussed the way in which young-adult literature invites teenagers to wallow in ugliness, barbarity, dysfunction and cruelty.  By focusing on the dark currents in the genre, I was of course no more damning all young-adult literature than a person writing about reality TV is damning all television, but from the frenzied reaction you would have thought I had called for the torching of libraries.
  
  Within hours of the essay's appearance it became a leading topic on Twitter.  Indignant defenders of young-adult literature called me "idiotic," "narrow-minded," "brittle," "ignorant," "shrewish," "irresponsible" and "reprehensible."  Authors Judy Blume and Libba Bray suggested that I was giving succor to book-banners. Author Lauren Myracle took the charge a stage further, accusing me of "formulating an argument not just against 'dark' YA [young-adult] books, but against the very act of reading itself."  The ALA, in a letter to The Journal, saw "danger" in my argument, saying that it "encourages a culture of fear around YA literature."

  
  The odd thing is that I wasn't tracking some rare, outlier tendency.  As book reviewer Janice Harayda observed, commenting on my essay: "Anyone who writes about children's books regularly knows that [Mrs. Gurdon] hasn't made up this trend. . . . Books, like movies, keep getting more lurid."
  
  ....
  But, to some, those are desirable destinations. Many of the angriest responses to my essay came from people who believe that a major purpose of young-adult fiction is therapeutic.  "YA Saves!" was the rallying hashtag of thousands of Twitter posters who chose to express their ire in 140 characters or less.
  
  It is true that so-called problem novels may be helpful to children in anguished circumstances.  The larger question is whether books about rape, incest, eating disorders and "cutting" (self-mutilation) help to normalize such behaviors for the vast majority of children who are merely living through the routine ordeals of adolescence.
  
  There are real-world reasons for caution.  For years, federal researchers could not understand why drug- and tobacco-prevention programs seemed to be associated with greater drug and tobacco use.  It turned out that children, while grasping the idea that drugs were bad, also absorbed the meta-message that adults expected teens to take drugs.  Well-intentioned messages, in other words, can have the unintended consequence of opening the door to expectations and behaviors that might otherwise remain closed.
  
  .... 

  In the outpouring of response to my essay, I've been told that I fail to understand the brutal realities faced by modern teens.  Adolescence, I've been instructed, is a prolonged period of racism, homophobia, bullying, eating disorders, abusive sexual episodes, and every other manner of unpleasantness.
  Author Sherman Alexie asked, in a piece for WSJ.com titled "Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood": "Does Mrs. Gurdon honestly believe that a sexually explicit YA novel might somehow traumatize a teen mother?  Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape?  Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?"
  
  ....

NOTE ADDED 8 JULY 2011:

Wow!  Get a load of these new stories/podcasts, particularly the apology from author Lauren Myracle:

• "Questions We Should Be Asking About YA Lit," by Rahma Krambo, Mystic Coffee, 7 July 2011. 
• "A Spade By Any Other Name," by Thomas M, Liberry Jam, 7 July 2011.
• "Is Young Adult Fiction Too Dark?," by Tracey Matisak interviewing Meghan Cox Gurdon and Maureen Johnson, WWHY Radio Times, 6 July 2011, podcast available.
• "YA Author Apologizes To 'Wall Street Journal' Critic," by Neal Conan interviewing Meghan Cox Gurdon and Lauren Myracle, NPR Talk of the Nation, 6 July 2011, podcast available.

  "I lashed out at you," Myracle said.  "When people get outraged they get angry, and then it becomes this weird argument instead of a discussion.  ...  I should welcome people who aren't on the same page with love and generosity.  ...  And I didn't with you.  And I'm sorry."

• "Gratuitous Violence in YA Literature," by Ru Freeman, Ru Freeman Author & Activist, 2 July 2011.

  To say children benefit from exposure to extreme violence in reality, or imagery?  Yep, bullshit.  Suffering is just suffering.  Bullshit is just bullshit no matter what patriotic utterance is wrapped around it.

And let me remind you of oldies but goodies:

• "Page Burners: Sex and the Teenage Girl; What Goes On Between the Covers Is Now What Goes On Between the Covers of New Fiction Aimed at Young Adults," by Tania Padgett, Newsday, 4 April 2006.
• "Young Adult Fiction: Wild Things," by Naomi Wolf, The New York Times, 12 March 2006.  And this article is an example that claims that only conservatives oppose inappropriate books are merely red herrings.
• "Why Teachers Love Depressing Books; Essay; 'A Good Book Should Make You Cry,'" by Laura Miller, The New York Times Book Review, 22 August 2004, p12(L) col 01.

NOTE ADDED 10 JULY 2011:

See also:

• "Some Teen Books Surprisingly X-Rated, Study Finds"

.

ALA Chills Free Exercise of Democracy by Publicly Attacking Mom and Pop Groups Who Dare to Oppose ALA Influence That Endangers Children

The American Library Association [ALA] is on the attack to silence the few moms and pops who speak out against it.  I did not know how to put it into words until I read yesterday's Wall Street Journal.  Now I do.

ALA On the Attack Against Mom and Pop Groups

The top ranking member of the ALA's "Office for Intellectual Freedom" [OIF] recently attacked me (SafeLibraries) and numerous other mom and pop groups who have spoken out about how ALA policy has negatively affected their community and others.  The attack was made to the public of West Bend, WI, in a crowded gymnasium and was based on a written attack that was distributed widely by the ALA.  It was made by the then Acting Director of the ALA's OIF, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, pictured top right.  It was filled with misinformation intended to undermine the credibility of the mom and pops so as to muffle their findings of how the ALA has been directly involved in misleading the members of that community.  Indeed, the ALA was successful in its efforts and the children in that community remain exposed to harms it is legal to block.

Wall Street Journal Article on Shooting the Messenger

Before I provide the exact wording of the ALA's attack, let me first present the Wall Street Journal article that has finally enabled me to explain exactly what the ALA has done and why.  Afterwards, read the ALA's attack, keeping the Wall Street Journal article in mind.

In "Don't Shoot the Pollster; Attacks on Scott Rasmussen and Fox News Show a Disturbing Attitude Toward Dissent," by Patrick Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen, Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2010, p.A17, we learn how powerful organizations use "political intimidation" and "increasingly virulent attacks" to "undermine ... credibility, and thus muffle ... findings."  If you are "willing to take on issues like ethics and corruption in ways no other[s] ... have been able to do" then "[t]he reaction against [you will be] strident and harsh."  "[T]he message [is] clear:  criticize the [powerful organization] at your peril."

The authors "view this unprecedented attempt to silence the media and to attack the credibility of unpopular polling as chilling to the free exercise of democracy."  They say, "[t]he thing most feared is independence."  They conclude by saying, "comments and recent attempts by the Democratic left to muzzle Scott Rasmussen reflect a disturbing trend in our politics:  a tendency to try to stifle legitimate feedback about political concerns—particularly if the feedback is negative to the incumbent administration."

Transcript of ALA Attack on Mom and Pop Groups

Now, keeping the above in mind, please read the following, after which I will describe exactly what is incorrect, at least with respect to myself.  This is part of a speech given by the ALA's Acting Director of the OIF, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, on 2 June 2009 in West Bend, WI:

In the past decade we have observed a more organized and more sophisticated efforts to remove books from schools and libraries.  Several Internet-based groups and organizations exist that believe that educational institutions, and even the public library, should support particular values and causes by denying a forum to competing values and causes, thereby limiting access to ideas, opinion opinions, and information.  These groups have made use of websites, blogs, and other Internet tools to identify so-called bad books and then to encourage and assist individuals who want to remove books from schools and libraries.

One such group is called Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, or PABBIS.  PABBIS has campaigned for over a decade now to remove books from the Fairfax County schools in Virginia.  It maintains a particular website that has nothing but lists and excerpts of books that they believe should not be shown to children.  Ah, they provide this information to other groups to help them organize their own efforts to challenge books.

Another active group is Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, or PFOX, whose website asks, quote, Tired of seeing only gay affirming books in your public library or your child's school library?  You can change this.  Ask your county, school, or city library to order books on unwanted same-sex attraction, the origins of homosexuality, or other ex-gay books.  There's nothing wrong with this.  Library patrons are entitled to ask their library to obtain books for their interests.  But what  we're also seeing is this group advocating for the removal or restriction of books that they view as pro-homosexual as well as adding these books to the collection.

Another Internet-based organization is SafeLibraries which argues that libraries are dangerous places for children unless the library censors access to so-called "bad books" and the Internet.  Operated by a single individual, this organizi organization identifies library controversies and provides assistance to the individuals challenging books in the community's libraries.  They have done this in over 25 communities that we have identified.  Most often, SafeLibraries helps the individual mount a public campaign aimed at removing books from libraries and requiring the use of Internet filters.  In full disclosure, SafeLibraries, as a matter of policy, opposes the intellectual freedom policies and privacy standards developed by the AS ALA that are based on librarians' professional ethics and the First Amendment.

There are several other Internet-based library censorship advocates across the country.  These include Family Friendly Libraries; Library Patrons of Montgomery County, Texas; Grassroots American Values;  Pure Pioneers, and a group called Know Your Library.  Now, these groups appear to share information and tactics.  For example, Know Your Library, based in St. Louis County, Miz Missouri, just last year mounted a campaign that would ask the library to label all young adult novels as sexually explicit and to remove those books to the adult collection of the library.

Um, I'll be happy to take any questions if the Board has any for me at this point.

Listing of False Claims Made By the ALA to Undermine Credibility of Mom and Pop Groups; Office for Intellectual Freedom's Claim to Support Intellectual Freedom is Not Credible

Statement after statement in that report is either misleading or flatly false.  The irony of the "Office for Intellectual Freedom" using completely false information to fool a local populace into leaving children exposed to harm is unbelievable.  Let us go through this lie by lie:

"Several Internet-based groups and organizations exist that believe that educational institutions, and even the public library, should support particular values and causes by denying a forum to competing values and causes, thereby limiting access to ideas, opinion opinions, and information."  False.  Inappropriate material for children, almost always inappropriate for reasons of extreme sexuality such as graphic anal rape, has nothing to do with "denying a forum to competing values and causes" or "limiting access to ideas, ... opinions, and information."  Is anal rape an idea or an opinion?

In addition, the US Supreme Court recognizes, in US v. ALA, a case the ALA itself lost, "The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree."  Legitimate, and even compelling.  Now unless the ALA wants to proclaim that the US Supreme Court is "denying a forum to competing values and causes" or "limiting access to ideas, ... opinions, and information," then the ALA cannot conclude that efforts to open the eyes of communities to the words of the US Supreme Court is wrong.  So the ALA's statement here is 100% false.

Another lie: "[PABBIS] maintains a particular website that has nothing but lists and excerpts of books that they believe should not be shown to children."  100% false.  A simple look at the web site will tell you that instantly.  There's more there than just lists and excerpts.  Further, PABBIS says:

Bad is not for us to determine. Bad is what you determine is bad. Bad is what you think is bad for your child. What each parent considers bad varies and depends on their unique situation, family and values. The main purpose of this webpage is to identify some books that might be considered bad and why someone might consider them bad.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, the ALA knows it, but the ALA instead chooses to say PABBIS lists "books that they believe should not be shown to children."  False.  The obvious effort is to undermine PABBIS's credibility.

These lies are not mistakes.  The ALA has been monitoring groups like PABBIS for a very long time.  It has thoroughly reviewed their web sites.  Yet it makes statements that are 100% false, but that are effective in misleading local communities.  The ALA and its "Office for Intellectual Freedom" clearly do not practice intellectual freedom, unless that means lying to fool people.  And the lies continue—let's go on, this time the Eye of Mordor turns to SafeLibraries:

"Another Internet-based organization is SafeLibraries which argues that libraries are dangerous places for children unless the library censors access to so-called 'bad books' and the Internet."  First, I oppose censorship—recommending communities read US v. ALA is not censorship, and neither is using Internet filters in compliance with US v. ALA.  So why the "censor" reference if it is false?

Second, my concern is not with "bad books," rather it is with advising communities that the ALA recommends books containing inappropriate material for children without providing adequate notice to the very parents the ALA claims should be responsible for their own children.  Let them be responsible by consulting ALA lists or awards and their children still get exposed to inappropriate material.  In one case, for example, I got the author of an ALA award winning book to admit he would not give his own book to his own 12 year old if he had one, yet the ALA recommended it for 12 year olds with no notice that it contained oral sex and was otherwise pervasively vulgar.

And the claim that I oppose "bad books" is false for another reason.  See how the ALA references "so called 'bad books'"?  That statement means I called the books "bad books."  I have never said that and I never will.  In all my years of writing on this topic I have done that not once.  Go ahead.  Search for the phrase "bad books" on my up-to-the-minute Safelibraries blog (search the blog here), Safelibraries.org (search the web site here), or my much older and outdated Plan2Succeed.org (search the old web site here).  You will find hits only referencing the PABBIS name spelled out or the title of a radio broadcast on which I appeared.  Not a single time do I talk about "bad books."  Not once.  I challenge the ALA to show me and Google where I reference "bad books."

The next statement burns me up the most.  "Operated by a single individual, this ... organization identifies library controversies and provides assistance to the individuals challenging books in the community's libraries."  A single individual?  I used to have a partner, Mark Decker, RIP.  He died in a tragic car accident.  He tried to stop the library in Oak Lawn, IL, from making Playboy magazine available to children.  I helped him.  We launched SafeLibraries.org.  He came up with the name, for example.  He did so much to protect the children, culminating in his village government asking the library to drop the Playboy subscription.  The ALA's OIF rode to the rescue to ensure the magazine remained available to children, yet here it is commenting that I'm the only member of SafeLibraries.  That really burns me up.  What total disrespect for Mark Decker.  The ALA does not have to laud Mark Decker, but to leave him out as it did in this circumstance is particularly cold and cruel.  And I am the bad guy for having "done this in over 25 communities that we have identified."  I guess the goal of undermining my credibility trumps respect for the dead.

Next stop, the First Amendment lie: "In full disclosure, SafeLibraries, as a matter of policy, opposes the intellectual freedom policies and privacy standards developed by the AS ALA that are based on librarians' professional ethics and the First Amendment."  That is false, but cleverly so.  It is false because of the tying together of "librarians' professional ethics" with "the First Amendment," as if they were equivalent.  Is it wrong to point out that library privacy policies should not trump national security?  Am I not allowed to point out the New York Times article were the de facto leader of the ALA wished a Delray Beach, FL, librarian had followed library privacy laws instead of turning in a 9/11 terrorist's library activities to the police days after 9/11?  Does that oppose intellectual freedom policies but lying about me doesn't?  Doesn't a statement such as that "undermine [my] credibility, and thus muffle [my] findings"?  Of course.  It is false, but the ALA's OIF doesn't let truth stand in the way of getting what it wants.

Now after besmirching me, PABBIS, and PFOX, the ALA goes on to pile on others, obviously to say they are just as bad—after all, they are "library censorship advocates," aren't they? "There are several other Internet-based library censorship advocates across the country.  These include Family Friendly Libraries; Library Patrons of Montgomery County, Texas; Grassroots American Values;  Pure Pioneers, and a group called Know Your Library.  Now, these groups appear to share information and tactics."  Share tactics?  The ALA holds seminars on sharing tactics but refused to allow me to attend!  And a few mom and pops around the country are evil for "sharing information and tactics"?  Did the "Office for Intellectual Freedom" really say that? Is the OIF's interest in intellectual freedom credible?  No.

Watch this lie—this one is the cleverest of all:  "For example, Know Your Library, based in St. Louis County, ... Missouri, just last year mounted a campaign that would ask the library to label all young adult novels as sexually explicit and to remove those books to the adult collection of the library."  Not only is that 100% false, but the ALA does not reveal that as a result of the actual activity, the library itself moved one book on its own, then two more were moved as requesting by the group.  Why?  Because it was the right thing to do!  I know because I spoke with one of the authors of one of the books that were moved.  Yet here the ALA misleads people about the truth then leaves out the full story that would have shown the group to be successful.

The ALA Lies Were Intentional; The Propaganda Fooled the Public

These lies are not mere misstatements made off the top of someone's head while giving a speech.  The speech was based on years of experience by the experienced Deputy/Acting Director of the ALA's OIF, was placed in written form, distributed widely, then personally read with limited variation from the script at a public meeting in a packed gymnasium.  There is no mistake.  The ALA flat out lied, knowingly and purposefully, with intent to deceive.  Further, since the library board voted in accordance with the ALA's guidance, ignored the "library censorship advocates," and many in the community believed the ALA's misinformation, the ALA's propaganda worked and worked well.

Conclusion Based On the Wall Street Journal Article

Now let's go back to the Wall Street Journal article.  Like what Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen reported about how Scott Rasmussen is being besmirched, isn't the ALA using "intimidation" and "increasingly virulent attacks" (calling people "censors" and First Amendment opposers) to "undermine ... credibility, and thus muffle ... findings"?

I have been "willing to take on issues and corruption in ways no other[s] ... have been able to do."  (Like my exposing of the $2.5M fraud at the Brooklyn Public Library, the $.5M Fraud at the Brownsville Public Library, the whitewashing of rape by the ALA that resulted in the ALA correcting the title and text of an article in its monthly magazine, or the ALA's ignoring Afro-Cuban civil rights, etc.)  Here are my blog posts about West Bend, WI.  Has not the ALA's reaction been "harsh and strident."  100% false lies is harsh and strident, is it not?  Clearly the message is "criticize the [ALA] at your peril," is it not?

And here's the worst part.  The Office for Intellectual Freedom's "comments and recent attempts ... to muzzle [me and numerous moms and pops] reflect[s] a disturbing trend ...  a tendency to try to stifle legitimate feedback ...—particularly if the feedback is negative to the [ALA]."  That the OIF would muzzle anyone is astounding.  How it continues to get away with this again and again is beyond my pay grade.

One thing is clear.  "[T]his unprecedented attempt to silence the ['library censorship advocates'] and to attack the credibility of unpopular [views is] chilling to the free exercise of democracy."

The ALA's OIF is Chilling the Free Exercise of Democracy

The ALA's OIF is chilling the free exercise of democracy.  Communities have a right to hear opposing viewpoints or file complaints under existing materials reconsideration policies without those people being labeled as "censors" or otherwise besmirched.  I thank Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen for indirectly helping me to understand what the ALA is doing and why.  How ironic the "Office for Intellectual Freedom" is the offending party.


NOTE ADDED 25 MAY 2012:

This blog post of mine was cited and figures prominently here:

• "Intellectual Freedom and the Politics of Reading:  Libraries as Sites of Conservative Activism, 1900-2010," by Loretta Mary Gaffney, PhD Dissertation, 214pp, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, [circa May] 2012.

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Homeless Children and Banned Books

What do homeless children and banned books have in common? Homeless children are promoted by the National Center on Family Homelessness, "[a] group whose raison d'être is homelessness [and who] has an obvious interest in exaggerating the extent of the problem." See "Double Trouble? The Majority of 'Homeless' Children Live in Homes," by James Taranto, Wall Street Journal—Best of the Web, 10 March 2009.

Similarly, "banned books" are promoted by the American Library Association [ALA] whose "Office for Intellectual Freedom's" [OIF] raison d'être is ensuring children maintain access to inappropriate materials that may be kept from them legally. The OIF has "an obvious interest in exaggerating the extent of the problem." For example, one time the ALA claimed racism when parents attempted to "ban" a book that included bestiality from a public school. Why racism? Because, according to the ALA, the author was black and the parents were using bestiality as an excuse to remove a book by a black author.

It's worse. Sadly, there are actually homeless children in the USA, though vastly fewer than the media reports. Regarding "banned books," that stopped occurring in the USA many decades ago. In other words, books are no longer banned, and there's no further need for National Hogwash Week (a.k.a. Banned Books Week or BBW).

So what homeless children and "banned books" have in common is that they are both used for propaganda purposes by motivated organizations that use fancy language, twisted definitions, and statistics to hide the truth from the public.

Anyway, that's my observation upon reading the James Taranto article. Does anyone else see what I see?

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James Taranto Mocks ALA Ethics And Rightly So; ALA Leadership "Blatantly Violates Ethics"

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal mocks the American Library Association's [ALA] apparent lack of adherence to its own Code of Ethics of the ALA. Despite claims of patron confidentiality, a library must have leaked information about USAir hero pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. Mr. Taranto calls this a "blatant violation of the ALA's ethics."

He then cleverly illustrates the ALA's ridiculous use of "slippery slope" arguments that are used to, for example, justify why librarians should allow children access to sexually inappropriate material or why libraries should allow computers to display p0rn despite local interests:

Now, we know what you're thinking: Surely in this case an exception is in order. Revealing the story didn't do Sullenberger any harm, and it was an inspiration to us all. But this is a slippery slope. Today it's Sullenberger, tomorrow no one's privacy will be safe. Maybe the next victim will be some innocent terrorist checking out books on how to make bombs, or a poor pervert who just wants to look at porn. Once you start cutting ethical corners, you're on the way to total moral breakdown. ("This Looks Like a Job for Patrick Fitzgerald," by James Taranto, Wall Street Journal—Best of the Web, 5 February 2009.)

Bravo, Mr. Taranto!

But, Mr. Taranto, the ALA has already decried the violation of a 9/11 terrorist's privacy when de facto ALA leader Judith Krug said she wished library privacy laws had been respected after a Florida librarian reported the terrorist to the police. See "A Nation Challenged: Questions of Confidentiality; Competing Principles Leave Some Professionals Debating Responsibility to Government," by David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times, 23 November 2001.

And do not forget the library employee fired and the library patron kicked out for reporting child p0rnography on library computers.

How's that for "blatant violation of the ALA's ethics"—or maybe the ALA's leadership had no ethics in the first place.

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