BOOK BURNING 2017: BARBARIANS AT THE SCHOOL HOUSE DOOR~JUST PRESS “DELETE” TO ERASE THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The barbarians have finally broken down the school doors and are now
plundering knowledge. Books are their target. Banning them is the goal.

In New York City, administrators at the Life Sciences Secondary
School have ordered all textbooks rounded up and removed. Books, they
say, are antiquated. Instead, technology is to be the new god of
learning.

Of course the excuse is that books are expensive. The schools
complain that the kids lose the books or that they wear out and there is
no budget to replace them. And more importantly, using iPads means they
can be automatically updated with the latest information, scientific
discovery and technology. So the schools need to keep up with all the
latest developments to keep the kids on top, they say. It’s a wide,
wonderful brave new world! Aren’t our children lucky to live in these
times? Everything in today’s school house is apparently designed for the
comfort and ease of the children. No stress. No demands. No
expectations.

And so the books were piled up in the hallway of the school. Next
stop – the trash bin. Most were in good condition, including hundreds of
math, algebra, geometry and various English literature text books. Also
strewn around the floor were copies of Romeo and Juliet and A Street Car named Desire.

The technocrats will argue that the World Wide Web contains vast
knowledge for the taking with the right tools. They argue that printed
books are limited. That printed text books soon become antiquated. And
so the future of learning is achieved by opening up this super highway
of knowledge in the class rooms so every child has access. Thus, throw
away the books and unchain their minds.

The incident at the middle school in New York is not isolated. It’s a
growing trend. Cushing Academy, a private prep school in Massachusetts,
just dumped its 20,000 library books. Instead, the library has been
revamped into pseudo Internet café. Here the students can watch the
three television flat screens or just sit and talk.

Say schools officials, “The library is trading its 20,000-volume
collection for a database of millions of digital books. All of the
students can read any of the books, either through the 68 Amazon Kindles
cycling around the campus or in the laptop that each of the school’s
450 students is provided.”

Said Headmaster James Tracy, “If I look outside my window and I see
my student reading Chaucer under a tree, it is utterly immaterial to me
whether they’re doing so by way of a Kindle or by way of a paperback.”

Actually it does matter. First, traditional libraries were always
ordered to be quiet areas because students were absorbing information,
researching or writing papers. The atmosphere now is loud with lots of
talking taking place. That doesn’t provide a learning atmosphere.
Second, printed books cannot be changed. The content in iPads can be
changed and controlled by outside forces. In short, one can’t trust the
content to be accurate. Third, those same outside forces can actually
control what information is available. They can control knowledge.

Today we are a divided society. Freedom verses control. Can anyone
deny that there are powerful forces that seek to change how we think in
order to fulfill a revolution to literally change our entire society? We
have observed massive changes in our culture over the past ten years.
Free enterprise is racist and evil. Private property ownership is a
social injustice. Individual thought is dangerous. Marriage and sexual
orientation are in great turmoil. Free speech is a threat. The mere
mention of a certain presidential candidate can send college students
into turmoil requiring therapy and major thumb sucking.

Do you think these changes are just happenstance? No, they are the
result of a carefully orchestrated takeover of the public education
system with the specific purpose of creating a new kind of citizen for
the future. One that doesn’t challenge authority and official dictates.
How do you create such a product? Keep them ignorant of history,
philosophy and contrary ideas. If you don’t know there is even a
question then you will never ask it.

Printed books can be dangerous as they can’t be changed. If allowed
to remain they can be discovered by future generations. In printed
version, their message remains intact, ready to spark questions to a
hungry mind.

The Founding Fathers studied all kinds of government styles and
philosophies before deciding on our Republican form. They wanted one
that would protect the freedom of thought, movement and our ability to
benefit from the fruits of our own labor. Individuality, private
property and free enterprise were the roots of the government they
chose. To keep the freedom which these policies created, the Founders
fully understood that knowledge was key. Thomas Jefferson said, “If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.”

Today, the revolution in our classrooms has robbed the children of
the philosophy behind our founder’s actions. They have never been taught
that private property ownership is the only true way to eradicate
poverty. They have no idea that free enterprise is the true system that
gives then freedom of choice and control over the quality and quantity
of products and services we purchase. And as they color their hair
purple, dress in outrageous fashions, and take on the usual youthful
defiance to claim their individuality, they slavishly cling to their
public school teachings that individuality is selfish and must be
controlled. They do so automatically because their ability to think and
reason has been removed through lack of knowledge.

Behavior modification, social justice and an all out assault on
attitudes, values and beliefs have replaced academics in the public
education system as it churns out the perfect global village idiots.
Leaving old books and their anti-revolutionary ideas lying around is a
danger to their revolution. Soon, books with contrary ideas will not be
available in your favorite E-book. Google will not provide the answers
in a search. Facebook will censure contrary postings. Oh, wait, all of
that is already happening.

I read the report on this trashing of books with great interest because such action was a major part of the plot of my recent political thriller ERASE.
In my fictionalized world an evil force called LEAP was systematically
taking over the publishing industry, slowly eliminating outlets for
printed books and replacing them with their own E-book version. LEAP
even made a massive gift to the schools across the nation by giving
every school kid a LEAP iPad to replace their school books. The only
problem was that now LEAP controlled the content and could change it at
will.

I wrote ERASE to be fiction. I didn’t intend to provide the forces of
evil with a “How To” manual! Yet, now my fiction has certainly become
reality and it’s growing in schools across the country.

In one scene of ERASE a teacher asks the question, “How do they think
they can stop knowledge, it’s there, no matter what? The answer came
back to him, “They stop knowledge by banning it.” In our modern age,
controlled by technology, book burning is no longer a necessary tool for
tyrants. All they need to do is press a button and knowledge, history,
indeed entire societies disappear in an instant.