Wednesday 10 September 2008

Fw: Is fascism is coming to America?

The following story comes to me via email.
As such I automatically believe it to be a true account, and unbiased. (NOT!)
None-the-less it tells me something very interesting about the US Presidential campaign.
Even if Sarah Palin is not as bad as they say, the Democrats see her as a demonic creature (ironically a Ultra-Right Religious Demon). In other words, the Democrats are panicking.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross".
Sinclair Lewis, 1935

Sarah Palin's list of banned books:


Below is a list of the books Sarah Palin tried to have banned from the Wasilla, Alaska Library. When I was in Anchorage two years ago, residents of Wasilla I met described the place as a growing, more-and-more suburban community north of Anchorage. In her speech, Palin called the area "the valley." Mayor Palin would seem to be a strong force in the suburbanization of the village of Wasilla. When the Wasilla librarian refused to trash these books, Mayor Palin tried to have her fired. This caused a stir in Wasilla which then turned into a drive to protect the librarian. Some of my favorite examples of American literature are on this list.

This is the act of a patriotic American? No, this is the act of a religious fundamentalist trying to squeeze herself into the role of a mythic frontier American. The attempt to ban American literary masterpieces like Catcher In The Rye, Grapes Of Wrath, To Kill A Mockingbird, Death Of A Salesman, Leaves Of Grass, As I Lay Dying, Huckleberry Finn, Catch 22 and Tarzan indicates, flags and Bible citations aside, her ascendance to national power would be downright un-American.

In the realm of Rovian political marketing and the unfolding effort to win the Presidency not with ideas but with a cult of personality, McCain is the humiliated warrior ready to "go to the gates of hell" to preserve American exceptionalism and Sarah Palin is his fascist "bride," a mythic frontier mom able to shoot, gut and cook a moose while nurturing her family who has said publicly our war in Iraq is supported by God and people should pray to God to get the Alaska gas pipeline approved.

This is a pivotal moment in American history, and we all need to expose this cult of personality for what it is, a cynical sham. John Grant

  • *This list is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library
    Board. (I have highlighted some of the more striking selections for banning - in my mind - DJW).

    A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
    A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Eng le
    Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
    As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
    Blubber by Judy Blume
    Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
    Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
    Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
    Carrie by Stephen King
    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
    Christine by Stephen King
    Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Cujo by Stephen King
    Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
    Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
    Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
    Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
    Decameron by Boccaccio
    East of Eden by John Steinbeck
    Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
    Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
    Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
    Forever by Judy Blume
    Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
    Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
    Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. R owling
    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
    Have to Go by Robert Munsch
    Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
    How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
    Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
    Impressions edited by Jack Booth
    In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
    It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
    James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
    Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
    Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
    Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
    Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
    Lysistrata by Aristophanes
    More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
    My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
    My House by Nikki Giovanni
    My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
    Night Chills by Dean Koontz
    Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
    On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
    One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
    One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    Ordinary People by Judith Guest
    Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
    Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
    Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
    Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
    Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
    Separate Peace by John Knowles
    Silas Marner by George Eliot
    Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
    Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
    The Bastard by John Jakes
    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
    The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
    The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
    The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
    The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
    The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
    The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
    The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
    The Living Bible by William C. Bower
    The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
    The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
    The Pigman by Paul Zindel
    The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
    The Shining by Stephen King
    The Witches by Roald Dahl
    The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
    Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
    To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
    Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
    Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth


    VFP31 Annual Banquet Speaker Chris Hedges wrote the book on people
    like Sarah Palin. It's called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On
    America

    When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag
    and carrying a cross.
    Sinclair Lewis, 1935

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Harry Potter books were not even in print when she was mayor of Wasilla. It is another Leftist fraud.

Denis Wilson said...

Dear Anonymous:

Is your response yet another part of a right-wing conspiracy?
Kindly check your facts:
<
"When Palin ran for mayor in the fall of 1996, she was 32 years old and a four-year veteran of the City Council." (Source: Seattle Times 7 Sept 08)
"Since the release of the first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997, which was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States, the books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide."
J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter books published: June 26, 1997–July 21, 2007.
(Source: Wikipedia - "Harry Potter" entry.)
<
So, I left open the possibility that there was an element of left-wing (or "Democrat") panic about the publication of the information. So I was allowing for the possibility that the facts might have been contrived. However, the point you have raised is not correct.
Cheers
Denis
PS: I have given you the benefit of the doubt in publishing your Anonymous quote. You can sign even with just a first name and location, to give yourself some credibility. Better than hiding behind anonymity.
I publish my blog with my full name and location.
Denis

REMEMBER: "IT IS BY BEING QUIET AND POLITE CITIZENS WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE IGNORED"