Anne Speyer

The following broadside was distributed in front of Sturgis Library, during librarian Anne Speyer's lecture there in 2014.  The hypocrisy of Speyer and library director Lucy Loomis is mind-numbing.  Yes, today, those who ban books and people celebrate Banned Books Week!  And those who don't give a damn about banned books in their own neighborhood present lectures on banned books and censorship.  Mind-numbing...

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Librarians Banning Books Celebrate Banned Books Week

(What Anne Speyer’s Lecture Will Fail to Mention)

Of course, free speech is often precisely about pissing off other people—challenging social taboos or political values.

            —Jonathan Turley, left-wing legal scholar, George Washington University

Mostly, we have hypocrites in politics.  No surprise there.  We also have hypocrites in higher education.  No surprise there either.  We have hypocrites in the ranks of those professing to be advocates of freedom, including public librarians.  Now, that ought to be surprising.

     Is it not ironical that some (perhaps many) of the very organizations that promote Banned Books Week are either banners of books or apathetic when books are banned?  Is it not equally ironical that some (perhaps many!) of those who attend “Banned Books Discussions,” like “Bowdlerized, Banned, and Burned: An Investigation of Banned Books” presented at Sturgis Library by Director Anne Speyer of South Dennis Free Public Library, don’t give a damn when book or periodical banning occurs in their own backyards?  How to possibly understand their apathy, if not outright support?  Unsurprisingly, Speyer wouldn’t even respond to that question. 

     On June 19, 2012, Sturgis Library director Lucy Loomis PERMANENTLY BANNED not only The American Dissident and any books I’ve authored, but also me and the ideas of those published in the journal.  On that nefarious day, three cops showed up with the director in the room, where I was quietly working alone on my online college courses, to escort me out of the taxpayer-funded library without warning or even possibility of due process.  Imagine that not one library director in the entire Clams Library System of Cape Cod would respond to my Open Letter regarding that authoritarian decision, let alone express an iota of interest in it. The only response I received was an indirect one from Dan Santos, Sturgis Library Trustee at the time and now husband of Lucy Loomis.  Santos is current director of Barnstable’s Department of Public Works.  His only response regarding my Open Letter was:  “He is no more than an exhibitionist engaging in intellectual masturbation.” 

Banned for life, yet I never made threats, never made disturbances in that library, and I'd been going to it almost every day for several years!  What I did, however, was question and challenge IN WRITING, one week prior to the decree, Loomis’ hypocrisy regarding, especially, the written collection-development statement, borrowed from the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights,” that “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view.”  Well, my point of view is certainly not provided in that library, which proves the point I’d made. 

     Loomis refused to present me with a written document stipulating the reason for her decision.  The library trustees also refused to do that.  It took the Massachusetts State Secretary of Records nine months later to order the library to make its records available to me (i.e., the public), since it determined the library was not only being funded by the public but was clearly serving a public purpose.  In those records, only an indirect comment by Loomis to Ted Lowry, president of the library trustees, indicated the reason for the decision:  “Because of his behavior when the police were here they almost arrested him—he can go from calm to extremely agitated in a matter of seconds.  So l believe this is the correct decision for the safety of the staff and public.”  No other reason or incident is mentioned in the library’s records!  In essence, the only reason was an after-the-fact one (i.e., after the decision to permanently ban). 

Really, I was quite pissed off when I saw three cops enter the room with Loomis!  I hadn't even spoken to anyone in the library for a week.  And yes I was quite pissed off when one of them actually grabbed my arm, twisted it behind my back, and frisked me because I’d said, “I do not have any weapons.”   I’m 66 and not a big guy.  And I was not making threats in any way whatsoever.  Ah, but it turned out that cop was the training officer and showing a new recruit how to frisk a citizen.  I have no record of violence whatsoever.  In essence, Loomis played the he-makes-me-feel-uncomfortable card.  Since that nefarious day over two years ago, if indeed I were such a danger to the staff and public, why have I done nothing at all to harm the staff and public since then?  So, here I am today with an almost-arrested police record for the crime of manifesting a little anger in public… and PERMANENTLY punished for it.  Bravo America, or rather Barnstable! 

Doggedly since that nefarious day in June, I’ve contacted scores of organizations and town officials.  To date, not one of them proved sufficiently concerned to offer to help or even write a simple letter to the director, requesting she rescind the authoritarian decree or at least provide due process.  Not even the ACLUM or State Attorney General Martha Coakley would lift a finger!  To date, not one of the official sponsors of Banned Books Week has been willing to do that either!  So, why the hell not American Library Association, PEN America, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, American Book Sellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of American Publishers, Freedom to Read Foundation, National Association of College Stores, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Project Censored, and Center for the Book at the Library of Congress?   And why did not one town counselor or commissioner of the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission give a damn either? 

Essentially, a responsible citizen does not keep his or her mouth shut in the face of injustice, which is why I stand protesting here tonight next to library property.  Those attending Speyer’s lecture, who had the curiosity to take a copy of this flyer, should ask themselves after the lecture why they too likely do not give a damn.  BTW, featured in the above aquarelle are local hack hypocrites Brian Mannal, Ann Canedy, and Cleon Turner, as puppets of propriety.  Indeed, for them and so many others, some vague notion of propriety is far more important than freedom of speech and expression. 

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From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: aspeyer@clamsnet.org
CC: sturgislibrary@comcast.net; nsymington@clamsnet.org; ppronovost@capecodonline.com; nhoffenberg@barnstablepatriot.com
Subject: Hypocrites celebrate Banned Books Week... what else is new, eh?
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 13:55:55 -0400

To Director Anne Speyer, South Dennis Free Public Library:
How do people like you and Lucy Loomis get to be such flaming hypocrites?  I’m truly curious!  How can you possibly deliver a lecture on Banned Books at Sturgis Library during Banned Books Week without mentioning that Sturgis Library bans books… and patrons like me?  Loomis not only permanently banned me in June 2012 without warning or due process for having had the audacity to criticize her hypocrisy regarding Clams library policy; in particular, “libraries should provide materials and information presenting ALLpoints of view.”  My point of view and that of those published in The American Dissident have been permanently banned.   The American Dissident and any books I’ve authored, including Transcendental Trinkets, Leaves of Democracy, and Triumvirate of the Monkeys have been permeanently banned at Sturgis Library.  And you will stand in that library in a week as a grotesque hypocrite and NOT mention that fact.  Bravo!  Perhaps you’ll be the next Mary Otis Warren award recipient.  Yes, you’d be perfect, though Loomis would be better.  Of course, you’ll remain silent in the spirit of Banned Books Week.  Bravo! 
Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone, PhD (universite de Nantes, FR) aka P. Maudit,

Founding Editor (1998)

The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence

Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 13:47:06 -0400

Subject: Re: Hypocrites celebrate Banned Books Week... what else is new, eh?

From: aspeyer@clamsnet.org

To: todslone@hotmail.com

Mr.Slone,

Never having met you, I have no idea why you're using my first name, but know this. The night of my talk, one I had prepared a year ago on the history of book banning around the world, I was with my much loved 89 year old husband who was facing major surgery we knew could kill him.

I was fulfilling a commitment I had made to give the talk long before the medical stuff descended, but neither that, nor someone handing out  leaflets nor much of anything else was my priority. As it happens, I read your leaflet  the night of the talk-- one of the attendees brought one in.  

You have a right to express yourself in your blog. You had a right to hand out leaflets at the end of the Sturgis Library drive. But I have the right not to engage in further discussion with you or be harassed.  I had deleted automatically the first e-mail you sent because I had never heard of you, and I never open e-mail from unknown senders. I have since heard of you so I am responding this once. 

Anne Speyer

From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: aspeyer@clamsnet.org
Subject: RE: Hypocrites celebrate Banned Books Week... what else is new, eh?
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 15:05:42 -0400

To Anne Speyer,

Well, that was a great non-response.  Yes, and you have a right to be utterly apathetic to the banning of patrons, books, and periodicals in your neighborhood while giving talks about banning and censorship at a library that bans and censors.   Whatever makes a person like you and Loomis tick?  I shall NEVER know.  Yes,  you and Loomis have a right to behave as autocrat punishers of FREEDOM OF SPEECH and scorners of DUE PROCESS, while collecting taxpayer funding… on Cape Cod.  That is your shame.  And if you never open emails from unknown senders then you should NOT be a public librarian.  

G. Tod

To Anne Speyer,

Well, that was a great non-response.  Yes, and you have a right to be utterly apathetic to the banning of patrons, books, and periodicals in your neighborhood while giving talks about banning and censorship at a library that bans and censors.   Whatever makes a person like you and Loomis tick?  I shall NEVER know.  Yes,  you and Loomis have a right to behave as autocrat punishers of FREEDOM OF SPEECH and scorners of DUE PROCESS, while collecting taxpayer funding… on Cape Cod.  That is your shame.  And if you never open emails from unknown senders then you should NOT be a public librarian.  Christ!

G. Tod

From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: aspeyer@clamsnet.org
CC: ppronovost@capecodonline.com; sturgislibrary@comcast.net; editor@barnstablepatriot.com; editor.camelsaloon@gmail.com
Subject: Anne Speyer lampooned in a new P. Maudit cartoon
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 10:16:14 -0400

To Director Anne Speyer, South Dennis Library,
You've been lampooned in a new P. Maudit cartoon (see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/10/ann-speyer.html).  Thanks to the Internet, my voice WILL be heard.  One day, of course, those like you, Loomis, Pronovost, and Hoffenberg will control the Internet and keep voices like mine out of the arena of debate.  When that day comes, democracy will be no more...
Sincerely,
 

G. Tod Slone

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!
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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,