The war on books escalates, and the public library system is under assault. The Christian Fascist end goal seems to be church control over information, with Christian Fascists curating what we can read.
Libraries are losing funding around the country, with the trend being so popular that Missouri's State Secretary has started issuing administrative rules before his State's lawmakers can even define the policy. Interestingly, this censorship is cast as "Citizen Control" over what can be distributed in libraries. This will certainly not help bridge our regional differences when what we are allowed to learn differs in Red and Blue states. However, Florida seems well on its way to teaching alternate, fictional history.
This is how it happens. Republicans got so good at banning books they're taking out the whole library system.
"Any proposal to defund the library is the nuclear option," says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "It's an attack on education, it's an attack on the public good. And the idea is very much alive and gaining steam."
In Texas, a bill would defund public libraries that allow drag show story times for children.
And while Llano County, Texas, just dodged a bullet that would have defunded libraries there — following a flap over books deemed offensive — others were not so lucky.
In Jamestown Township, Mich., the Patmos Library is facing closure after voters shot down local funding. And in Arkansas, The Craighead County Library System saw its local funding cut in half after complaints about books and an LGBTQ exhibit.
