The Banned Books Week Farce

Why Banned Books Week Ought NOT to Be Celebrated

If one were to take the celebration of Banned Books Week literally, then it would perhaps make sense.  In other words, the librarians, publishers et al would be celebrating the books, periodicals, and patrons they’ve successfully banned or shunned over the years.  The rampant hypocrisy in the very heart of the American Library Association, which seems to be the chief sponsor of the event,  as well as that of the multitude of library directors spread across the nation like the proverbial layer of stale peanut butter, clearly needs to be exposed.  The celebration seems to have become nothing more than a self-congratulatory act of backslapping.  If there were an iota of integrity in it, a place, no matter how small, would be devoted to criticism of it and of the many librarians, as well as approving poets and writers, who do in fact ban books, periodicals, and even patrons. 

Politically-correct journalist Bill Moyers and wife were named Honorary Co-Chairs of this year’s celebration, which immediately politicizes the celebration.  One must wonder how many books and periodicals published by right-wingers critical of Islam, Obama, and/or PC have been shunned by the likes of Moyers and wife.  And why appoint such a buffered and wealthy couple to be honorary co-chairs?  Why not appoint instead someone who has indeed tested librarians over the years to determine just how open, or rather closed, they really are to new books and periodicals, not to mention criticism of them? 

With that regard, Charles Willett, founding editor of Counterpoise and retired librarian, comes to mind.  At the Fifth National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries, he stated:  “In almost all the 45 libraries studied here, and probably hundreds and hundreds more across the country, we have failed our professional duty to seek out diverse political views. [...] These books are not expensive. Their absence from our libraries makes a mockery of ALA’s vaunted ‘freedom to read.’ But we do not even notice that we are censoring our collections. Complacently, we watch our new automated systems stuff the shelves with Henry Kissinger’s memoirs.” 

               So, why celebrate such a despicably deplorable record?  Why not instead satirize the intellectually corrupt bibliotards, philes, and snubs, as I've done regarding the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom
(see http://www.theamericandissident.org/orgs/american_library_association.html )?  The OIF, by the way, remains utterly indifferent to my complaint of being permanently trespassed without warning or due process by Sturgis Library, which celebrates Banned Books Week, though not this year, according to its fascistic director Lucy Loomis?  The only response from the ALA to my complaint was from Valerie Hawkins, though not of the Office of Intellectual Freedom: 

At any rate, the policies of any local public library are set by its board of trustees. Any and all complaints as to your treatment by its employees should be taken up with the library’s trustees, as they would be the ones who would decide if there was library staff misconduct and then could take steps accordingly.

We’re in Chicago. We have no jurisdiction whatsoever over your local public library and your problems with them.

You’ll need to work this out on your own, with your own local resources and legal authorities.

Now, does Hawkins seem at all interested or concerned?  And what happens, as in my case, when the board of trustees refuses to even respond  and when one of the trustees, boyfriend of the director, Dan Santos, dismisses my criticism as “intellectual masturbation” without even examining it, if in fact he's even capable of doing so?  And how might one explain the total refusal of PEN New England (“defending freedom of expression”)  to respond to my complaints of having my freedom of expression truncated here and there in New England at several libraries, including Watertown Free Public Library, which trespassed me for three months for simply trying to get the ref librarian Ardis Francoeur to understand why she should at least consider subscribing to The American Dissident?  Calling director Karen Wulf, calling director Karen Wulf!  Sorry, nobody home.  PEN is of course a Banned Books Week sponsor.  And how might one explain Suffolk University Poetry Center’s refusal to consider subscribing to The American Dissident, a journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence?  In fact, it too would not respond, that is until the student editor I’d contacted confronted Fred Marchant, its director and former PEN New England director.  And why does the National Coalition Against Censorship refuse to respond regarding my complaint against PEN’s blatant hypocrisy?  Well, it too is listed as a main sponsor.  How does one explain the refusal of famous City Lights Bookstore to carry The American Dissident?  Perhaps because it’s been critical of Beatniks?  City Lights is of course a big promoter of Banned Books Week. 

                Could I possibly be the only one in America who’s been banned from a publicly-funded library for written criticism?  Could the periodical I publish be the only one that’s ever been banned from an entire library system like the Clams Library System of Cape Cod?  Could the flyers I attempted to distribute be the only ones ever banned from a publicly-funded library?  Now that’s highly unlikely.  But dissidents like me, who actually question and challenge celebrity dissidents like Moyers, tend to be fully ostracized by the established-order system, be it the biblio or cultural sectors. 

Finally, the ALA stipulates that “Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community—librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types—in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.”  But does it really?  Readers of all types?  Certainly not my type!  And doesn’t the commercialization of such a serious subject as censorship serve to demean it, though fill the pockets of dubious types like Moyers and ALA executives?   “Help support Banned Books Week by purchasing t-shirts, buttons, and more.  Shop!”  Christ.

Robert Pinsky

For Justice, Equity, and Freedom of Expression in Massachusetts


[Essay sent to Massachusetts Cultural Council, Concord Cultural Council, Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Massachusetts Attorney General, Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Concord Poetry Center, University of Massachusetts, Lesley University, Salem State College, and Others (see below for email addresses)]

As a citizen of our purported “democracy,” I write to inform of various grievances, mostly occurring in the State of Massachusetts over the past 15 years. This initiative was sparked by one of those grievances with regards the taxpayer-funded Massachusetts Poetry Festival, sponsored by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, which simply refuses to respond to my queries sent last November, this May, and again on the first of June as to how The American Dissident, a 501 c3 nonprofit journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence, might become a “Poetry Partner” and be listed on its webpage next to, amongst others, Cave Canem, Bagel Bards, Wild Apples, Concord Poetry Center, and Citizen’s Bank, which by the way is my bank. Its Director of the Massachusetts Poetry Outreach Project, Chloe Garcia-Roberts, will not respond. My list of grievances include the following and mostly pertain to the State of Massachusetts:

1. The ACLU of Massachusetts refused to help me and the state press refused to report on my tenure battle at Fitchburg State College in 1996, where corruption included highly whimsical faculty evaluations, nepotism, and my eviction mid-semester from my office w/o due process. Unlike Florida and other states, no Freedom of Information legislation exists in Massachusetts. The transcripts of my arbitration hearing are thus kept secret. Why do journalists and others accept this sad status quo of lack of transparency? For actual documents, including a rather humorous page I managed to grab from the arbitration transcript, consult www.theamericandissident.org/FitchburgStateCollege.htm.

2. The state police arrested and incarcerated me in a Concord jail cell in 1999 for protesting the absence of free speech at Walden Pond State Reservation. The refusal of the local and state media to report on the incident was deplorable. Moreover, the state park continues to refuse to permit me to stock flyers critical of it and other state matters at its kiosks, despite the following:

“Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization (1939), it has been settled in the law that public parks—since they are held in trust for the public and have traditionally been used for assembly, communication, and public discussion—are ‘traditional’ public forums. […] Once a place has been designated a public forum, the government’s power to limit speech there is extremely narrow. Viewpoint discrimination is never permissible. Content discrimination (discrimination based on the subject matter of the speech, whatever the point of view taken on it) is acceptable only if the government can show the following:

1) There is a compelling state interest for the exclusion.
2) The regulation making the exclusion is narrowly drawn to achieve that state interest
3) The regulation leaves open ample alternative channels for the communication.
Speech has been broadly defined as an expression that includes, but is not limited to, what you wear, read, say, paint, perform, believe, protest, or even silently resist. ‘Speech activities’ include leafleting, picketing, symbolic acts, wearing armbands, demonstrations, speeches, forums, concerts, motion pictures, stage performances, remaining silent, and so on." (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education)

For details and documents regarding my arrest and incarceration, consult http://www.theamericandissident.org/WaldenPondStateReservation.htm.

3. The publicly-funded Concord Poetry Center ostracized me as a local dissident poet. Director Joan Houlihan sums up its twisted mentality: “The idea of your teaching a workshop or delivering a lecture on the art of literary protest or poetry protest, or simply protest (Concord is where it all started!) occurred to me even before you mentioned it, so, yes, it’s something I will consider as we progress (this is only our first event). However, I must say I don’t favor having you teach at the center if you protest the reading.” Evidently, I chose to protest and was thus never offered a workshop to teach. For details on my protests at the CPC, consult http://www.theamericandissident.org/ConcordPoetryCenter.htm.

4. The publicly-funded Academy of American Poets censored (i.e., removed) my comments and banned me from participating in its online forums in 2006. The AAP is connected with the publicly-funded Massachusetts Poetry Festival and sponsors National Poetry Month, which is propagated in the nation’s public schools and colleges. For details, censored comments, and AAP chancellor remarks, see http://www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm.

5. The Massachusetts Cultural Council refuses to accord public-grant monies to The American Dissident because the journal has an annual budget inferior to the Council’s arbitrarily imposed $10,000 annual budget minimum for grant applicants. It thus funds journals like Agni, which is connected to Boston University, which has an endowment of over one-billion dollars. For my attempts to breach the proverbial brick wall, consult my correspondence with Council apparatchiks, including Council coordinator Charles Coe, who is also a founding director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, at http://www.theamericandissident.org/CharlesCoe.htm.

6. The Concord Cultural Council adopted a regulation in 2009 prohibiting funding to any project it arbitrarily deemed to be of a “political nature. This regulation was clearly adopted to prevent The American Dissident from receiving public funding. Indeed and in futility, I’ve been applying as a publisher and poet in Concord for such funding over the past decade. The Concord Cultural Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and state Attorney General Martha Coakley refused to address my grievance with this regard. For details, see http://www.theamericandissident.org/CCC.htm.

7. Director Karen Wulf of PEN New England (“defending freedom of expression”) refuses to respond to any of my grievances regarding impediments to my freedom of expression in New England. It is likely that Joan Houlihan (see above) and PEN director Karen Wulf, both comfortably installed at Lesley University, are friends. It is likely that Charles Coe is also a friend.

8. Professor Fred Marchant, director of Suffolk University’s Poetry Center, refuses to respond to my requests that it consider, for the sake of students, including The American Dissident. Marchant is a friend of Houlihan. For a cartoon depicting the rampant cliquishness of the poetry milieu in Massachusetts, see http://www.theamericandissident.org/SuffolkUniversityPoetryCenter.html.

9. The Watertown Free Public Library issued me a no-trespass order without due process for my attempting to interest its reference librarian, Ardis Francoeur, in subscribing to The American Dissident. Again, State Attorney General Coakley and the press refused to respond regarding my grievance.

10. Word censorship is now automatically effected by The Boston Globe on its website. Globe journalists favor that censorship. I was censored by them. For a cartoon I drew regarding that indifference, featuring Jeff Jacoby and Editor David Beard, see http://www.nationalfreepress.org/cartoonists-mainmenu-250/g-tod-slone-mainmenu-406.

11. Some 200 Massachusetts college English professors were contacted regarding my attempts to interest them in radically altering the academic culture of sycophancy, turning a blind eye, careerism, PC, prevarication, and apathy to censorship. Only four responded. Professor Ruth Jennison wrote: "Please remove me from your list." Professor William Nelles briefly argued: “you loser.” Professor J T Skerrett, Jr. was a little more voluble: “Do you really think that insulting and reviling the faculty is the way to persuade us to read your publication?” As for Professor Jack Conway, read his lengthy diatribe (with student support) here: http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2008/11/unspoken-mantra-of-u-mass-english.html. Yes, how dare anyone think, let alone state, that all is not rosy in academe in Massachusetts. University of Massachusetts poet-professor, leftist luminary Martin Espada refuses to respond to any of the criticism I’ve sent his way. After all, silence, not democracy’s cornerstone, vigorous debate, is always the most effective response for those in power positions, no matter how little.

12. As testimony to the ambient ideological requisites for teaching in Massachusetts, cite North Shore Community College, to which I’d applied unsuccessfully for a job as an English instructor: “Appreciation of multiculturalism required.” Well, I brought that to the attention of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which then wrote the college, resulting in the college’s removal of that unconstitutional requisite. Sadly, however, the concept still remains firmly implanted in the brains of the administrators and faculty who enacted it.

As a footnote, the response of Paul Lappin, director of the Parker Lecture Series (University of Massachusetts at Lowell), to my query is quite interesting and revealing in its refreshing honesty. I’d asked whether or not the PLS was closed to dissident voices as lecturers and only open to those who would please the comfy bourgeois mindset. Lappin responded: “comfy bourgeois” [only].

Finally, my staging of various solo protests critical of state-sponsored poets and poetry events at the Concord Poetry Center, Concord Free Public Library, Robert Creeley Prize in Acton, and elsewhere confirm the indifference of poets, teachers and professors to questions of free speech and vigorous debate. My numerous critical letters to the editor of student newspapers at colleges employing me over the years confirm professorial indifference to matters of corruption, free speech, and vigorous debate For examples of these letters, consult http://www.theamericandissident.org/ElmiraCollege.htm and http://www.theamericandissident.org/GramblingStateUniversity.htm. Unfortunately, during my five years at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts, the student newspaper refused to publish anything I submitted of a critical nature. It is truly appalling to observe how little so many well-educated persons really care about censorship and democracy.

Will any of the individuals and organizations contacted stand up to help me open Massachusetts to equality of opportunity and freedom of expression, including and especially regarding dissident points of view? How did it ever get so bad, where literature operates like politics and anything but truth and courage becomes manifest? Money? Is that how? Democracy is in peril in Massachusetts. It is in peril when persons in publicly-funded positions remain unresponsive to citizen grievances, preferring instead to ostracize such citizens.

It is my experience that NONE of the individuals and organizations contacted will respond and stand up apart from the literary herd where the feed is quite plentiful. We’re talking here not about the myth of the proverbial starving poet, but rather about the fattened academic poet. It is astonishing how very bourgeois literature has become today. Take a look at the Lesley University Creative Writing faculty page, where most of the instructors simply link to their publishers. You’d be hard-pressed to find personal email addresses for the instructors, who proudly equate themselves with their published books… and sadly not much else. In America, it’s all about gaining a recognizable name a la Simic, Pinsky, Gluck, or whomever. And once you’ve reached that stage of intellectual sellout, then you’re all set monetarily and with invitations and prizes galore. It is sickening that our students are not being taught to question and challenge that troubling status quo. Can this sad sell, sell, sell of names be stopped? Probably not. It’s become an integral part of America. Our students are being taught to blindly admire the famous and strive to become one of them. Buck that trend and expect severe ostracizing.

What can you, the individuals and organizations contacted, do as citizens? Well, for starters, you could write the freedom-disdaining organizations mentioned in this missive and tell them that you’ve been made aware that some of they censor, treat with inequity, break the law, scorn vigorous debate, do not tolerate criticism, demand ideological adherence, etc., and that you do not favor those things. In fact, you could also request to have your organization removed from the Massachusetts Poetry Festival “Poetry Partner” list. Pipedream? But of course!
..................................

letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com, mfreidson@metro-boston.com, jacoby@globe.com, beard@globe.com, mfeeney@globe.com, jackson@globe.com, ago@state.ma.us, fjmarchant@aol.com, mina.wright@art.state.ma.us, dan.blask@art.state.ma.us, voltairepress@live.com, paullappin@hotmail.com, chloe@masspoetry.org, Paul_Marion@uml.edu, bootstrapproductions@gmail.com, info@bostonbookfest.org, writers@capecodwriterscenter.org, wendycobb@ccpoets.org, alisonmeyers@ccpoets.org, camillerankine@ccpoets.org, editors@wildapples.org, joan@concordpoetry.org, connect@echoditto.com, favpoem@bu.edu, mollywatt@comcast.net, jenise@alum.mit.edu, info@fordhallforum.org, info@frostfound.org, sonya@grubstreet.org, whitney@grubstreet.org, chris@grubstreet.org, doug_holder@post.harvard.edu, m@mwest.com, Admin@PoetryJam.org, Charles.coe@art.state.ma.us, ibbetsonpress@msn.com, pen-ne@lesley.edu, Bertin@ncac.org, mespada@english.umass.edu, rpinsky@bu.edu, joan@concordpoetry.org, cpc@concordpoetry.org, fwright@brandeis.edu, jvanderv@lesley.edu, scramer@lesley.edu, alison@blueflowerarts.com, info@tsellis.com, delliott@conknet.com, sugoodman@aol.com, Michael.lowenthal.90@alum.dartmouth.org, lychack@gmail.com, lorraine.allison@salemstate.edu, dorothy.anderson@salemstate.edu, mary.balestraci@salemstate.edu, Elizabeth.bates@salemstate.edu,
Paul.beauvais@salemstate.edu, marc.bootsebenfield@salemstate.edu, h.branscomb@salemstate.edu, susanna.brougham@salemstate.edu, patricia.buchanan@salemstate.edu, maura.bullock@salemstate.edu, nicole.buscemi@salemstate.edu, susan.butterworth@salemstate.edu,

Local Journalists as Paladins of the Chamber of Commerce

"The wall of sep­aration between American news and the business interests is being systemati­cally dismantled at institutional levels of journalism. The practice of selecting news in order to make advertising more effective is becoming so common that it has achieved the status of scientific precision and publishing wisdom."
—Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the School of Journalism at the University of California in Berkeley
One must wonder how journalism got so corrupted in America today—so fixated on famous airhead personalities and diversionary fait divers. Mass Communications programs in the nation’s universities and colleges likely play an important role. After all, what can one expect from Mass Comm professors who don’t even have the courage to report corruption in their own respective institutions? Spinelessness seems to have become a defining trait of the professorial herd. I’ve witnessed it over and again. If not courageous truth seeking and truth telling, therefore, what might professors be instilling in their journalism students, many of whom end up at the helm of local community newspapers? For one thing, journalism students seem to have been learning that bending over backwards in order to avoid offending the thin skinned is far more important than truth telling. Democracy, however, demands citizens with tough skin.

Over the past couple of decades, on a number of occasions, in vain, I brought First Amendment issues to the attention of local journalists. Their response has more often than not been simple indifference and silence. Nearly 15 years ago, for example, I was evicted from my office without due process at Fitchburg State College, a public institution. Eventually, the college paid me a settlement. However, neither local nor the student newspapers would publish a story about the incident. For the college, it was as if it hadn’t happen. Just the same, I founded The American Dissident as direct result of the intrinsic corruption witnessed first hand at Fitchburg State College.

A decade ago, I was accosted by police on three different occasions over the period of a year at Walden Pond State Reservation, each relative to the exercise of free-speech rights on public property (for details, examine www.theamericandissident.org/WaldenPondStateReservation.htm). Not one newspaper contacted proved interested in the stories. On one of those occasions the police incarcerated me for a day. The judge, of course, threw that case out three months later.

More recently, I brought to the deaf ears of local journalists anomalies also pertinent to the First Amendment regarding the Concord Cultural Council and Watertown Free Public Library. As for the latter, it issued a no-trespass order (see previous blog), though no crimes had been committed, that is, with the exception of lack of display of deference and curtsy. Although I informed the local editor of the Watertown Tab & Press that the librarian had lied in the text of the order stating I’d made threats and had caused a general disturbance, he was not sufficiently interested to investigate. But where and who were the witnesses and what threats had been made? Also, no hearing whatsoever was offered by the library for me to attempt to defend myself. My right to exercise free speech at that public library had simply been terminated on the whim and prevarication of an uptight reference librarian. But the journalist was not at all interested in investigating the breach of a citizen’s right to free speech in a public space. Why not? Didn’t attacks on citizen rights constitute a good enough subject for journalists nowadays? Well, he did publish a brief letter to the editor of mine, though corrupted its title to “Man, forbidden to enter the Watertown Free Public library, has his say.” Yes, I had my say, but I didn’t have my hearing!

As for the Concord Cultural Council, it decided this year to disregard any project proposals that might be of a “political nature,” a policy likely provoked by my overt questioning and challenging of the Council over the past several years. But what is “political nature”? It remains conveniently undefined, of course. My proposal was rejected this year for that reason. Why, a thinking citizen ought to wonder, didn’t the Council enact instead a policy to disregard projects of an “entertainment nature”? After all, entertainment is generally a superfluous form of culture, one that when too pervasive can indeed be detrimental to the health of democracy for it diverts citizen attention away from important issues, including war and corrupt politicians and other local leaders. Political engagement is, however, necessary for democracy’s very survival. Nothing at all in the minutes of the Council, which I examined, indicated that a discussion on the issue had even been engaged. I brought the matter to the deaf ears of The Concord Journal.

Finally, a thinking citizen, would have to wonder why there has not been a continued journalistic effort at revealing the extent of the damage effected by the millions of dollars used by the American Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s number one lobby in Washington, to purchase politicians in a very successful effort to stifle business regulation, which ended up wreaking havoc on the nation’s financial system and in the lives of everyday citizens regarding their retirement accounts.

Below are two letters I wrote this past week. Chris Helms (Watertown Tab & Press) did not respond to my questions, though did permit me to post a very short account of the event in question. Patrick Ball (The Concord Journal) has yet to respond, though it’s been about three weeks now.

Chris Helms: Please do let me know if you decide to run that letter of mine. Actually, I was really hoping, however, you'd investigate and write a story on the incident. After all, the First Amendment is clearly in question. My right to exercise free speech has been denied in a public space. As a journalist, why don't you care about that?

Were there witnesses besides the two librarians? If in fact I upset patrons, did any patrons complain? Why is there no recourse to contest the no-trespass order? Why doesn't Leone Cole respond to my emails with that regard? Why is she uninterested in my side of the event? Why did Francoeur lie? Why did she say I made threats and upset patrons, when nothing of the kind occurred?
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone

Patrick Ball: No response at all from you regarding my cultural-council complaint! Perhaps you ought to investigate. I’ve been investigating. The issues are clear. This year the Council enacted a new provision for excluding culture: “political nature.” Why? Or why didn’t it enact a new provision excluding culture of an “entertainment nature”? Why has it been according grants year after year to the very same organizations? Why does it reject my requests year after year? Well, at least now we know why: “political nature.” Why are the Council’s minutes devoid of debate on that issue? I examined them yesterday in Town Hall. Why should politicians (selectmen) select Council members… in order to exclude those like me who challenge politicians and their masters, the business leaders of the Chamber of Commerce?

Here’s another interesting story you could do. It would be a fascinating one: “Local Journalists, Paladins of the Local Chamber of Commerce?” Think about that!

Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone