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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Censorship of books in libraries
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2024 16:51:03 -0400
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On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 18:27:13 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> Is the left or the right winning the race to the bottom on censorship?
> 
> Once again, I make the distinction between curriculum and books in
> school libraries. The former might be subject to complaints of
> inappropriateness by parents as it's mandatory. But reading books in
> school libraries is optional so leave book selection to profession
> librarians and not parents.
> 
> That's not the law in Missouri. Librarians can be subject to fines and
> imprisonment for sexually explicit material on bookshelves.
> 
> A graphic novel adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale was withdrawn due to
> one panel depicting a rape. The high school library decided it was in
> violation of the law and withdrew it.
> 
> https://apnews.com/article/book-bans-libraries-lawsuits-fines-prison-0914fa6cbb2a99b540cbbd28a38179b4
> 
> Looks like the right is winning. What books are censored on the left?

One book that was long censored in eastern Europe during the Cold War
was 1984. It finally became possible to read it after the various
revolutions of 1989 when eastern Europe finally became free of Soviet
occupation. Time and time and time again, I've seen people comment at
how amazed they are that Orwell so precisely described the situation in
their countries under communism when he'd never been there. 

Those countries also censored the likes of Solzhenitsyn until well into
Gorbachev's perestroika/glasnost campaigns. I remember talking to one
guy on a class, a Soviet emigre (and Jewish refusenik) and finding that
he'd only just read Gulag Archipelago when I had first read it several
years before; prior to that, the book could only be read in "samizdat"
form in the Soviet Union. (Samizdat was when typed copies were
circulated among trusted friends; photocopiers couldn't be used because
every Soviet copier had a watermark that made it very easy to determine
precisely which copier had made the copy, making it much easier to
determine who had done the copying.) 

I understand it is strictly forbidden to refer to - or draw - Winnie the
Pooh in China because too many people see a resemblance to Xi Jinping
and no one wants anything drawn or said that might be construed as a
criticism of him.

I'm sure there are any number of other things forbidden in China and
even "democratic" Russia. I know that Russians faced significant jail
time if they called the current "conflict" in Ukraine a war: the only
acceptable term was "special military operation". There have been some
claims that even Putin is calling it a war now but I'm not sure if
anyone else dares to call it that yet. 

-- 
Rhino