One of the earliest and ugliest images of the rise of fascism in Germany was the drooling mobs glorying in the burning of books on May 10, 1933.
https://www.visitberlin.de/en/book-burning-memorial-bebelplatz
Not to be outdone, MAGA darling Ron DeSantis has passed a law in Florida that will keep unsuitable books out of school libraries. So far more than ONE MILLION books have been blocked as unsuitable. This is just one of them because it describes the discrimination that Roberto Clemente encountered and fought against. We can’t have our kids learning about that!
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
They want to ban children from reading books, ban women from choosing their own healthcare, ban gay people from getting married, ban schools from teaching history they don’t like, all while screaming about how their freedumbs are being taken away. Hypocrisy is dead. MAGA killed it.
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What a ludicrous comparison.
Keeping books out of the hands of children is not burning them. Children are not adults.
If parents don’t want their 12 year olds reading books with instructions on how to have anal sex, I think the law should support that choice in school libraries.
A good rule of thumb would be that any book that cannot be read aloud at a school board meeting because of obscenity should not be available to young children without their parent obtaining it for them.
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You can pretend this new law is about obscenity until you turn blue. It isn’t. Florida teachers and libraries do not need a new law to keep obscene books off the shelves. They do not put them there and they already get plenty of oversight from parents, administrators and school boards.
If the blocked books were limited to obscenity the comparison would be ludicrous. I agree. But they are not limited to obscenity.
The forbidden topic for this book is discrimination. You can tie yourself into knots. You will not find a valid reason for libraries to block books where discrimination is a topic.
Ron DeSantis is a joke. People thought Adolph Hitler was a joke in 1933. Turns out they were wrong.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – W. Churchill
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As is often the case, you found an article grossly misrepresents the situation.
One county, Duval, has temporarily removed the book from K-3 classrooms, along with 174 other books, to be reviewed to determine if it meets the new law’s criteria.
Duval, with includes Jacksonville, is a Democrat controlled county, and likely pulled books that it knows are not covered for the purpose of casting the new law in a bad light.
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“… likely pulled books that it knows are not covered for the purpose of casting the new law in a bad light.”
QAnon, where art thou?
Is everything some grand conspiracy. Illuminati?
Freemasonry? Hugo Chavez?
Reality is much more interesting. If I were pulling books as if my job depended upon avoiding the long arm of DeSantis or MAGA mobs sending death threats, I might not take any chances. Send friggin’ coloring books for review. Never know, there might be a picture of a rainbow in the sky.
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Ok, it’s coincidence that it is one of FL’s few Democrat controlled counties
Sure
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Thank you, you are correct.
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“Ok, it’s coincidence that it is one of FL’s few Democrat controlled counties
Sure”
Or, not a coincidence . . .
One way to discredit a stupid law is to comply with it to the letter chapter and verse.
Or, maybe it is just the fact that unlike the rural red counties of Florida, Democrat controlled cities have well-stocked libraries with some challenging books?
Or, maybe that the Democrats rightly fear a politically motivated prosecution. There is precedent – all the failed prosecutions that DeSantis launched against ex-felons for voting in error when they had not paid their poll tax?
Or, maybe that you and your conspiracy theories are completely bonkers.
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Since teachers and librarians are threatened with a serious felony prosecution for providing a book that fails to meet the state’s new “standards” people will always err on the side of caution. It is the concept and fact of such poorly thought out “standards” that is behind this nonsense. Not Democrats.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/librarian-frontline-view-florida-vetting-222558905.html
With all your blather about liberty, freedom, tyranny, and government overreach you still manage to defend a totally unnecessary censorship law based on nothing but dishonest pandering to the mob. And you do this to support the latest MAGA jackass to attack African-Americans so he can out-Trump Trump in the 2024 GOP primary process. The College Board’s Advance Placement African-American history course as written has been forbidden in Florida high schools. What ever happened to community control?
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/college-board-rips-florida-over-202701166.html
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The book was held from review for K-3 libraries, not high schools, and likely by DeSantis’ opponents.
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RE: “You will not find a valid reason for libraries to block books where discrimination is a topic.”
I can think of plenty, most of them variations on the theme that people, place and time are all valid factors in determining the relevance of any given topic to be addressed in an instructional setting. Also, if the people of Florida determine that the approval process for public school library books is not working as they wish it would, they can change it. The last thing we need in this country is loudmouth idiots screaming, “Fascism!” because they can’t control other people’s choices.
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“. . . loudmouth idiots ”
The last thing fascists want is someone pointing out their fascism. Book burning is a fascist thing.
You SAY you can justify blocking a book that mentions “discrimination” but you failed to do so. We are not talking about “instructional settings.” We are talking about libraries.
You need to look in a mirror. It is you people who want to control other people’s choices. Such as their choice to read a book on the life of Roberto Clemente. Or to research the history of discrimination in the South. Or to read a book like “Black Like Me.”
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RE: “You SAY you can justify blocking a book that mentions ‘discrimination’ but you failed to do so. We are not talking about ‘instructional settings.’ We are talking about libraries.”
I said that people, place and time are all valid factors in determining the relevance of any given topic to be addressed in an instructional setting. The Florida officials who reviewed the book about Roberto Clemente apparently felt that it was inappropriate to be included in a library for K-3 students because it examines systemic racism in American society. I have no difficulty agreeing with their decision because K-3 students are too immature to be able to process topics like systemic racism.
You are the one who should look in the mirror. I’ll bet you haven’t read the book in question, or even researched any reviews that discuss it. Yet you confidently cry, “Fascism!” and pretend to know that the book deserves to be included in a school library collection, to the exclusion of other books that might be better for the children in light of the curricula the schools choose to offer them.
Yet again, you literally don’t know what you are talking about.
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“…K-3 students are too immature to be able to process topics like systemic racism.”
When I was in those tender years at PS 104 in Brooklyn, we regularly parroted what parents joked about. Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Irish, Jews and Italians were the butt of slurs and myths among students. If children can learn racism at the hearth, there is no risk that minority history as taught in school will “infect” anyone.
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“You have to be carefully taught to hate”…
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The book is salaciously titled, so I see the confusion.
“ Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates”
There is that word, “pride”. Must have set off the fear button on censor lists.
Honestly, what the heck could be in the biography of one of the finest ball players and humanitarian that tender minds should not be troubled with?
What is next, Jackie Robinson’s story.
Why some Americans are so afraid of reconciling our racial history with todays problems is puzzling. It is almost as if there were a groupthink that says: “ok, ok, you got your damn Civil Rights laws, now go home and be quiet already”.
We have racial problems today. They are not going away through ignoring them. Or blaming this, that and the other. Instead, understanding that if a group of people have been vilified, segregated and brutalized for centuries, laws a few decades ago are not a panacea of and by itself. It takes effort to study, learn and comprehend what happened, what changed and what hasn’t. Banning books that might shed light on the subject by or about people who lived through apartheid can illuminate the issues if we are open to letting them do so.
DeSantis is trolling for votes, like most politicians.
Still, we expect leadership from our elected officials. Not pandering to the lowest common denominator.
IMO
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No one is banning the book.
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“ Of the books removed from Duval County, more than 30 were by Latino authors and illustrators or centered Latino characters and narratives. Among these were “Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa” by Veronica Chambers and Julie Maren, “Sonia Sotomayor (Women Who Broke the Rules Series)” by Kathleen Krull and Angela Dominguez, and Winter’s Clemente book.”
Who would have imagined we would be considering restricting access to folks that are inspirational to many.
I give leeway to restricting graphic sex from young children. But these books about minorities who over came adversity. Almost Horatio Alger in 21 century terms.
Really, what are people afraid of?
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RE: “Who would have imagined we would be considering restricting access to folks that are inspirational to many.”
We’re not doing that.
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You should look deeper
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Ok, illuminate us? What are we looking for?
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The book was not banned, it is held for review for K-3 libraries only. It is one of 175 books the county is reviewing.
It is not DeSantis’ decision, it is one Democrat county in FL which has an interest in making DeSantis look bad.
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What does that have to do with biographies of successful Latinos? Can’t read those aloud either?
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You should ask the Democrats who asked for the review.
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Democrats? You know them?
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Duval County is Jacksonville, and is Democrat controlled.
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Good for Florida but a little reading of the article is fundamental. It clearly states that all of the books are temporarily paused to go through a review process. If graphic sex. homosexuality, pornography, CRT, self mutilation or any other darling of the “mainstream” liberal perversion, they will go back on the school shelf. If a parent feels that compelled to read abt a male student pining over having graphic anal sex with his teacher to their child, they can go to Barnes and Noble.
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You are obsessed over anal sex.
This article is about restricting/ reviewing biographies of minorities who over came societal pressures. Inspirational stories that should be a positive.
I suppose for a political subset, “replacement theory” is a threat strong enough to require censorship.
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Paul goes far beyond the article but even the article indeed strays from what you claim by combining it with “millions” of books Florida dare put under review. What I described is what you people desire to infect the minds of children with. That scenario is in fact in one of your precious books you want young children to read in school. Truth hurts?
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Thanks for telling me that I desire to “infect” little children’s minds with a biography of a great ball player and an inspiration to many.
What else you are thinking escapes me, but I am sure you think it is important.
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You know exactly what I was referring to concerning infecting young minds. Why act like a lost idiot?
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Lost? I have Google Maps. You might consider it also.
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RE: “This article is about restricting/ reviewing biographies of minorities who over came societal pressures.”
No, it isn’t. It is about the decision of Florida officials to not include a few books in school libraries used by K-3 public school students.
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