censorship

Banned Books Week 2022

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CC license from pngall.comNormally I don’t pay much attention to Banned Books Week. In past years it seems the scariest scenarios anyone reported were things like someone claiming a book shouldn’t be on library shelves for fourth-graders. I’ve called it “Bland Books Week.” This year is different, though. A movement has arisen from the sewers of the religious right to intimidate and harass librarians. “Woke” leftists and Muslim fanatics also pose threats. People at my local library have been worried, even though little has happened around here.

Here are some incidents that have made the news.
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The history of blasphemy in writing

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The August 12 assault on Salman Rushdie was almost certainly prompted by his “blasphemy.” In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini took a dislike to Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, called it blasphemy, and put a bounty on Rushdie and his publishers. Rushdie went into hiding for years, the book’s Japanese translator was murdered, and the Italian translator was stabbed. Cover of The Satanic Verses

Writing about controversial subjects has always attracted anger and violence, and religion is one of the most controversial. Many governments with state religions have imposed severe penalties for blasphemy. Leviticus 24:16 says, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.” The most famous blasphemy execution in history was the one of Jesus of Nazareth. For his part, Jesus said that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin.

In modern times, several countries, mostly Muslim, have laws against blasphemy, sometimes carrying the death penalty. In Pakistan, mobs have murdered alleged blasphemers. Even the supposedly civilized country of Austria has a blasphemy law, and several people have been convicted under it. The European Court of “Human Rights” says that such laws are fine. So much for freedom of religion. Germany has a law that can get someone who “through dissemination of written materials (section 11(3)) defames the religion or ideology of others” locked up for three years.

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Russian SF writer placed on wanted list for speaking the truth

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Reuters reports that the Russian government has placed Dmitry Glukhovsky, a Russian science fiction writer, on a “wanted” list. His “crime” was contradicting Russian pravda by saying publicly that Russia is engaging in a war against Ukraine. The Reuters article, dated June 7, doesn’t explain why the Russian government wasn’t immediately able to arrest him. I can’t find any information on his status since then.

Here’s an interview with him, dated 03.06.22. I don’t know if that’s March 6 or June 3.

Update: Metro UK says, in an article dated June 9: “Although his exact whereabouts is unknown, Glukhovsky is not currently believed to be in Russia, but if he is caught and arrested then he faces a substantial prison sentence.”

Amazon employees demand book banning

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Some employees of a huge corporation demanded it should decide which books are acceptable for customers. They engaged in what’s called a “die-in,” which consists of lying on the ground while issuing demands. They demanded that Amazon decide which books it approves of and not make others available to customers.

This is small stuff, but it’s weird that anyone would demand that a mega-corporation which is the world’s largest bookseller should have an Index of Prohibited Books that it won’t sell. The protesters fantasize that they’ll get to call the shots. They imagine that they’ll decide what’s on the Index; probably they all think they’ll be promoted to the new position that compiles the Index.
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SFWA, Mercedes Lackey, and taboo words 3

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Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) named Mercedes Lackey a Grand Master at the Nebula Awards ceremony, then almost immediately turned around and removed her from the Nebula Conference. The stated reason was that she “used a racial slur” while on a panel.

English has long had taboo words. At one time, the strongest ones dealt with religion. Later on, ones relating to bodily functions headed the list. It’s still illegal to tell people on broadcast television what the Supreme Court’s seven dirty words are. How do you avoid breaking the law when you can’t be told what the law forbids?

The Lackey situation is similar. The File 770 article doesn’t tell us what the alleged racial slur was. Readers are likely to imagine the worst words possible (which I won’t mention, since they may lower my search engine visibility). In fact, the word she used was “colored.” If that’s a slur, then the NAACP commits it every time it gives its full name, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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Words banned from Wordle

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When Wordle moved to the New York Times’ website, I stopped playing it. I’m glad the creator got a big chunk of money, but having it under the auspices of a media company which has fallen so far from its best days took something away from it. An article I came across said that the Times made a few changes, including removing some unpleasant words from its vocabulary. The article mentioned “slave” and “lynch.” It’s not a huge deal, but it smacks of the notion that you can make bad things go away by erasing their names.

Wondering what other words the Times might have excluded, I made a list of others to try. By the Wordle rules, they all have to be five letters. My criterion was not just that the words refer to bad things, but that their mention can make you cringe. This is very subjective, of course. I confirmed that “slave” and “lynch” weren’t recognized, and neither was “COVID.” But it recognized “bigot,” “hates,” “kills,” “raped,” “stabs,” and “thief.”
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Chinese writers get it from both sides

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Chinese writers have to reckon not only with their own government but with the US government. This post deals with events from 2020, but they relate to the issues of the upcoming Chengdu Worldcon and its guest of honor.

In 2020, Netflix announced plans for a series based on Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and its sequels. As far as I can tell (my Netflix subscription is currently inactive), it’s still in the works. Earlier, five U.S. senators pressured Netflix to drop it. Their reason was some remarks which the author had made in a New Yorker interview. When asked about the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, he said, “If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty. If you were to loosen up the country a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.”Cover, The Three-Body Problem

The notion of “lifting people out of poverty” by putting them into brutal concentration camps is, of course, outrageous. We have to consider Cixin’s position, though. If he had spoken against the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, his writing career would have promptly ended, and he might have suffered worse consequences. The Chinese government’s recent threats against anyone who criticizes it at the Olympics have reminded us of that. Also, he’s doubtless been fed steady misinformation by the censored Chinese media.
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Writers threatened with $300K fines

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According to an article by Natylie Baldwin on antiwar.com, the United States Treasury Department has threatened writers with fines of more than $300,000 if they write for the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russia-based online journal.

The writers, Daniel Lazare and Michael Averko, reportedly got letters from the Treasury Department, delivered by the FBI, claiming they were in violation of sanctions against SCF and could be subject to a “civil monetary penalty of up to the greater of $311,562 or twice the value of the underlying transaction.” They say that other writers have received similar letters.
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Fighting dairy censorship

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It’s a curious and little-known fact that the dairy industry is a leading advocate of censorship. It demands the suppression of words such as “milk” and “butter” for non-dairy products, even where their meaning is clear and their use is well established. If the dairy lobby had its way, you wouldn’t find “peanut butter” or “soy milk” in stores. Its puppets include several members of Congress, and it’s especially powerful in Wisconsin, where it was long illegal to serve yellow margarine.

More surprisingly, the dairy lobby appears to have bought the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The CDFA sent a demand to Miyoko’s Creamery demanding that it stop using terms such as “cultured vegan butter.” Indeed, the government’s demands went far beyond that, saying that Miyoko’s couldn’t call its products “cruelty-free” or show a picture of a woman hugging a cow. The letter’s thinly disguised purpose was to hamper competition with the dairy industry.
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Dr. Seuss becomes “Doctor Sues” (UPDATED: APPARENT FALSE REPORT)

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Update: It now appears that the alleged legal threat by Dr. Seuss Enterprises was a forgery. A tweet by Seth Dillon claiming receipt of the legal notice is “no longer available.” A Daily Wire post which reported the supposed threat now has the following added at the top:

Seuss Enterprises told The Daily Wire that the legal threat is fake and that Seuss Enterprises never demanded the retraction.

“The purported legal notice is a fake. It did not come from Dr. Seuss Enterprises or anyone associated with the organization,” Seuss Enterprises told The Daily Wire.

This morning (April 20), I can’t find anything on Dillon’s Twitter feed either reaffirming or retracting the statement that they received a notice from the Seuss organization. We can all make mistakes (as the original version of this post shows), but we need to correct them, especially when they make someone look bad.

Sorry about conveying erroneous information. Now I have to go back to all the places where I posted links to this article and post updates.

Original post follows…

In March, I wrote that Dr. Seuss Enterprises faced a difficult situation. It now seems I was wrong. They’re just nuts. They discovered a satirical Babylon Bee article and are now threatening to sue.
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