In
August, education reporter Claudette Riley of the Springfield
News-Leader, teased her readers with a tweet from X (formerly Twitter)
about some local students who had "reached out" to her.
Met tonight with a group of high school students for an upcoming story. They were articulate, passionate and interesting. So happy they reached out. pic.twitter.com/8LpQLrTCHB
Groups like U-Turn in Education, positively featured by Riley in an October 2022 article, have been active in working to prevent the removal of obscene and pornographic books from school and public libraries. In fact, U-Turn is heavily involved in the student group featured in Riley's article.
According to the article, a group of little Lord and Lady Fauntleroys has been fighting valiantly against devilish parents that are attempting to keep literature out of their hearts and minds. The students are described as "calm" and "reasonable" while adults called the school board "names and made ugly comments leveled at students, other adults and high school librarians."
(As an aside, Nixa School Board President Josh Roberts may want to clarify his comments. He is surely not aware of everything that goes on in the school board meetings, since he sits apart from citizens.)
Nixa student group links to Marxist bookstore
This
type of accusation is a common tactic of the Left, and has been in play
in articles about our local area for months now. In several articles, children are
being put on the front lines of the battle for parental rights. It can't
be about smut in our schools. It can't be about protecting children or
letting parents decide what books their children will be exposed to. It
has to be about mean adults taking away a child's right to read.
See here and here and here. Once you see the tactics, you can't unsee it. The latest article in the News-Leader is ramping up the narrative.
U-Turn in Education linked from Nixa student group
Thankfully, few citizens are buying what they're selling. And if you want to find out what U-Turn in Education thinks about parent rights, go here to see how they subvert them.
In fact, at least one of the four founding members of the student group, Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions, has parents involved in U-Turn. And U-Turn is linked at the top of the SABR Instagram page.
For some intelligent commentary about the article, Nick Reed featured it on his show The Nick Reed Podcast on 104.1 KSGF. And for a little humor:
A local citizen asks the Christian County Library Board of Trustees a question regarding two sexually explicit books that children have access to in the library.
Libby
is a library app that allows public libraries to offer cardholders
digital materials like audiobooks, ebooks, magazines and videos.
Download
the Libby app on your phone or tablet, and voila, a wide world of
literature is at your fingertips.
Any
Christian
County Library cardholder--including
children--can download the Libby app. Libby
is owned
by a
company named OverDrive(Steve
Potashis
the founder
and CEO),one
of the
largest purveyor of ebooks and audiobooks in the business. According
to an archived New
Yorker article, An App Called Libby and the
Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-Books,"It
is the company behind the popular app Libby, which, as the Apple App
Store puts it, “...lets you log in to your local library to access
ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines, all for the reasonable price of
free.”
OverDrive
also offers Sora,
a program geared toward students and available at participating
schools.
One
of Libby’s recent tweets helps promote the app through a Barbie
film meme.
Another
tweet explains that library cardholders can “stop paying for books
and just download Libby.” But is that true for taxpaying citizens,
even if they are cardholders? The axiom ‘There are no free rides’
may apply here, since taxpayers who fund the local public library are
paying for the Libby app. For some public libraries, it can be quite
an expense.
According
to Daniel
A. Gross, author of the
New Yorker
article, “To illustrate the economics of e-book lending, the
N.Y.P.L. sent me its January, 2021, figures for “A
Promised Land,” the memoir by Barack Obama that had been
published a few months earlier by Penguin Random House. At that
point, the library system had purchased three hundred and ten
perpetual audiobook licenses at ninety-five dollars each, for a total
of $29,450, and had bought six hundred and thirty-nine one- and
two-year licenses for the e-book, for a total of $22,512. Taken
together, these digital rights cost about as much as three thousand
copies of the consumer e-book, which sells for about eighteen dollars
per copy. As of August, 2021, the library has spent less than ten
thousand dollars on two hundred and twenty-six copies of the
hardcover edition, which has a list price of forty-five dollars but
sells for $23.23 on Amazon.”
Looking
at the license cost of $95 each, when a physical copy of the book
costs $23 and change, one can see that a significant chunk of the
budget for library collections can be spent on ebooks and audiobooks
that are free to cardholders, but ultimately paid for by taxpayers.
Recently,
OverDrive has been offering
a program called OverDrive Max, which offers bundles and other
perks for libraries, in order to help libraries with the cost of
ebooks. And
in June, OverDrive
presented the American Library Association’s (ALA)
annual
meeting
a preview of the data it
has been assiduously gathering “...to uncover best practices for
lending efficiency. These include the utilization of multiple content
access models and curation practices and their impact on reader
engagement," said Susan Gross Ph.D., OverDrive's lead
researcher.
It
Gets Much Worse
But
the costs associated with the Libby app are not the only issues.
Children who have a library card in the Christian County Library
system have what is termed an “all access” card. Like adults,
minor cardholders have access to all materials in the library. As the
library policy
manual states, “We
support the Library
Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement
in providing free and open access to our materials for all age
groups. Children are not restricted to particular areas of the
Library. Our staff does not monitor the materials that children
choose. The responsibility for the reading or viewing choices of
children rests entirely with parents or legal guardians. For more
information, see Youth
and the Library.”
Further,
the policy
manual states, “The
Library cannot overrule the rights and responsibilities of
individuals by deciding who does or doesn't have access to Library
materials. Decisions about what materials are suitable for particular
children should be made by the people who know them best -- their
parents or guardians. Updated
June 2023”
Under
the Circulation Policy in the manual, “Patrons
17 years old or younger will be issued a Youth All-Access Library
Card. A parent or guardian must agree to accept financial
responsibility for the care and return of Library materials checked
out to the child.” Parents
must accept financial responsibility for library materials, but the
library bears no responsibility of any kind as to what materials a
child may view while in the library.
But
let’s get back to Libby. What does it mean that a child can
download and access the Libby app on their phone? Beautiful card
stock advertisements are available at the check-out of the library
and its branches, and Libby is advertised on the Christian County Library's website.
From the Christian County Library
A
child can download the Libby app on their phone or tablet and then connect with the local library through Missouri Libraries 2 Go. A new
world of digital books, magazines and information is opened to them.
There are audiobooks, ebooks, magazines, even videos.
And
just as sexually explicit and
agenda-driven physical
books are seeded throughout the children’s and teen sections of the
library, so there are audiobook versions, and some ebook versions of
the same books. Also many magazines are online for
young eyes to see, like Cosmopolitan,
a
magazine that is known for its sex-driven articles.
And
It Keeps Getting Worse
But
that’s not all. The Libby app allows users to erase all evidence of
their searches, including accessed books, videos, and magazines. Even
tags can be erased. This is also true for the online COOLcat.org’s
Consortium of Ozarks Libraries Catalog.
As
a company OverDrive is typically Woke,
aligned with the ALA, and
prominently promotes social justice issues on its blog and for book
recommendations. The ALA’s “Right to Read” statement is
promoted here
and here;
while Social Emotional
Learning is promoted here.
It
isn’t only library bookshelves that are presenting a danger to
childhood innocence, it is online and digital apps promoted by
public libraries, and paid for by taxpayers. Using her minor child's library card, a local mom was able to download the Libby app and access books like "Thirteen Reasons Why," "Spin with Me," "Where the Crawdads Sing," and "Queerly Autistic." Over 43,000 titles were immediately available.
Hillary Clinton
popularized the phrase, “It takes a village.” Apparently that is
so, until you get to the library. Then parents are on their own,
trying to navigate through a minefield of materials that seek to
indoctrinate children into gender ideology and early sexualization.
If
children under the age of 18 were given library cards that prevented access to view, read, and check out obscene and pornographic
materials, one could make the argument that the village library is a
safe place for kids. But right now, it’s a jungle out there, both
for children and the parents who seek to protect them.
UPDATE: The State of Mississippi has now banned popular library apps for those under age 18! Read about it here. The article, of course, is slanted hard left, but it is heartening to see that citizens and legislators are not going to put up with the continued sexualization of minor children. Also, here's another article that addresses the issues with ebooks in our libraries.
In an October 19, 2022 article, Springfield News-Leader reporter
Claudette Riley featured the parent groupU-Turn in Education.
Riley described the group as “...created to fight censorship, to
ensure students can access a wide range of books in school libraries...”
See the setup there?
U-Turn is pro First Amendment and pro students having access to
books.
Riley featured a
quote from U-Turn’s Elizabeth Dudash-Buskirk: “We’re standing
up against fascism...And we stand for freedom of education and
experience.”
See that again?
U-Turn is against fascism.
Later in the
article, a subhead says, “Conservative parents, minister voice
support for bans.” And a little later another subhead states,
“Opponents of book bans say choice shouldn’t be taken from
parents, students.” Riley then quotes U-Turn’s Dudash-Buskirk
again, “We believe parents have the right to decide what books and
what movies and what expressions their children are actually
engaging...Unfortunately, what no one has the right to do is to take
away that choice to guide our children from every other parents or
community member.”
And there you go,
parents and Christians support book banning, but U-Turn is for rights
and choice.
Inexplicably,
another U-Turn member is quoted as saying, “It’s a parent’s
right to decide what their children are exposed to...But it’s not
some (other) parent’s right to decide what my child is going to be
exposed to.”
That quote just made the case for every concerned parent in America, but I digress.
Further on, the reader is then told
that “marginalized” kids are being harmed by the culture war and
silenced.
The press amplifies certain voices and suppresses others. Besides the obvious
propaganda that censorship and book banning are a conservative thing,
and U-Turn members are for freedom and education, the article candy coats what U-Turn in Education is truly advocating for.
Let’s take a turn around U-Turn’s website and see if they are for parent's rights and educational freedom for children.
Their front page boldly states they are "Supporting educational opportunities for all." If you click on their Resources and Videos button it is clear to see that nearly all the videos are about "educating" the reader/listener about so-called censorship and book banning.
What is never stated is that censorship and book banning are not happening (unless one happens to be a conservative on social media). What IS happening is parents rising up to tell schools and libraries that there are some books that kids shouldn't be reading without parental permission. The 20-minute video below details some of the books that groups like U-Turn in Education are advocating to be widely accessible to minors.
U-Turn is so committed to giving children access to "educational opportunities" that they advocate starting a Little Library (like the one below) to provide them.
A Little Library disseminating "educational opportunities"
Furthermore, U-Turn provides a Student button with links to the "Brooklyn Public Library that offers unrestricted free library ecards to anybody (not just New York residents) aged 13-21." That means no matter how much parents try to monitor their child's reading materials, U-Turn is there to make sure the kids have access to unrestricted library cards online.
And that's not all, there's a link to a website called the Banned Books Book Club, that features some of the "most important books of our generation." Go here to see the "important" books.
Additionally, U-Turn in Education received the "2023 Intellectual Freedom award by the Missouri Association of School Librarians." To add gravitas to the award we are informed, "Note that MASL was selected as the 2023 chapter of the year by the
American Association of School Librarians, largely for their
Intellectual Freedom work and support of the right to read. MASL also
received the extremely prestigious 2023 Horace Mann Award from the
Missouri NEA (~32,000 members), which is part of the National Educators
Association (~ 3,000,000 members)." These groups do like giving out awards to their comrades.
And lastly, U-Turn has published a letter that the Missouri Library Association (MLA) sent to the Nixa School Board in August of 2022. It's quite eye-opening in its advocacy for the "freedom" of minors to read sexually explicit books. Providing smut to kids is always about protecting "marginalized" communities and freedom and such. Really, it just comes down to corrupting the innocence of minors, which is a feature of Marxist agendas.
Just one last thing. Many people scoff at the idea our libraries and schools are Marxist indoctrination centers. But the president of the American Library Association, an avowed Marxist, wrote a whole paper called "Queering the Catalog." It is shot through with Marxist ideology as advanced through Queer Theory. Here James Lindsay defines Queer Theory:
"Queer Theory: Straight people whose “gender identity”
and sex match (and those who pass as such) claim access to a special
form of property called normalcy (by declaring themselves the normal
ones and defining normalcy to mean like themselves). They create an
ideology called normativity (e.g., heteronormativity and cisnormativity)
to justify this. This allows them to structure society with structural
or systemic homophobia and/or transphobia (or, generally, queer-phobia)
that advantages the “normal” and exploits, estranges, and
disenfranchises “queers” (anyone different, especially gays, lesbians,
bisexuals, the gender non-conforming, transgenders, and the mentally
ill). People can be made aware of the Queer Theory theory of societal
production and become queer-conscious (“proud”) allies operating in
solidarity on their behalf. If they seize the means of normative
cultural production of society and Man, they will usher in gender,
sexual, and sex equity that will eventually ripen into gender, sexual,
and sex justice (a kind of social justice) through the inversion of
praxis."
In the end, U-Turn in Education is not about protecting parents' rights to determine what books and materials their children see. They aren't about intellectual freedom. U-Turn is about making sure your kids are exposed to any and all books, regardless of your values or your desires as a parent. There's a popular name for that nowadays...
While the Nixa School Board in Christian County has been working to abide
by state laws that prohibit giving minors access to obscene and
pornographic materials, public libraries are
resisting any such mechanism.
(From the Missouri Public Library Standards handbook)
The ALA's code of ethics says in part, "We
uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts
to censor library resources."
This
is part of the ALA Code of Ethics that the Missouri Public Library Standards handbook lists as an Entry Level
Requirement for public libraries. The ALA, which receives about $230
million of taxpayer funding, has been subverting state and local
libraries for decades. And unfortunately for many county libraries in
Missouri, the state has allowed politically far left organizations like
the ALA to dictate policy. Another requirement from the Missouri handbook is the mandate to "cooperate with other libraries (public, school, academic, special) to offer information, services, and programs for library users, such as interlibrary loan, reciprocal borrowing, and consortium access to collections."
"We support the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement in providing free and open access to our materials for all age groups. Children are not restricted to particular areas of the Library. Our staff does not monitor the materials that children choose. The responsibility for the reading or viewing choices of children rests entirely with parents or legal guardians."
In
other words, the library gives minors, some of whom are without a
parent, free rein in the library, all the while placing sexually
explicit books throughout the children and teen sections. Children
are free to browse and read whatever they come across, without
checking out any materials at all.
Parents have trusted the library to be a safe space for their
children for generations, one of the few public spots where a child
could be safe in both mind and body while a parent ran to
the store or browsed the adult section. However, in spite of laws to
the contrary, public libraries, including the Christian County
Library, are providing obscene materials to children, indeed seeding
them throughout the children and teen sections.
Missouri has passed SB 775, which prohibits schools from "providing explicit sexual material to a student if such person is
affiliated with a public or private elementary or secondary school in an
official capacity and, knowing of its content and character, such
person provides, assigns, supplies, distributes, loans, or coerces
acceptance of or the approval of the providing of explicit sexual
material to a student or possesses with the purpose of providing,
assigning, supplying, distributing, loaning, or coercing acceptance of
or the approval of the providing of explicit sexual material to a
student."
Violating SB 775 is a Class A misdemeanor that could result in a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
THE MILLER TEST
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, in what has
been termed the Miller Test, obscene material can be categorized in
this way:
(1) whether the average person applying contemporary community
standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the
prurient interest;
(2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently
offensive way, sexual conduct specifically
defined by the
applicable state law; and
(3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary,
artistic, political or scientific value.
The books that were
restricted or removed from the Nixa public schools, in compliance
with state law, are currently available to children in our public
library branches. Included:
Blankets, by Craig
Thompson (a graphic novel) is in the Clever branch.
Unpregnant,
by Jeni Hendricks is located in the Ozark branch
TheHandmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood; Illustrator Renee Nault
(graphic novel version) is in the Ozark branch.
Lucky
by Alice Sebold has been located to the Adult Section in Ozark.
Minors have full access to the Adult sections of the library, which
allows children to browse and select all kinds of materials that are
dangerous to the minds of vulnerable youth.
Here is Nixa School Board member Bridget Bidinger, giving the truth behind the memoir Lucky, a book that even the publisher pulled from publication:
That the county library is mandated to partner with local schools is more than problematic. Public
libraries have become change agents, militantly pushing sexually
explicit books on children. Whether they are aware or not, library
staff are contributing to a political agenda that has nothing to do
with providing a quality reading experience for children; instead,
the library promotes smut and LGBTQ propaganda, among other ideologies not in keeping
with community standards.
It makes no sense for obscene and pornographic books to be unavailable to minors at school, but easily accessible at the library.
Echo Alexander of Highlandville was appointed to replace Treasurer Paula Bishop for the
South County area, while attorney Diana P. Brazeale of Ozark has been
appointed in place of current President Matthew Suarez for the Ozark area.
Echo Alexander
The Commission took a more direct role over the appointment process after the library's executive director and board of trustees had experienced months of contention with local citizens regarding the placement of sexually explicit books in the children's section of the library.
Many county boards are self-perpetuating in that they find and present board members to the county commission for appointment or reappointment. Such appointments are routinely approved by the commission, however, in the case of the library board of trustees, the commission decided to take a more active role in vetting candidates.
Matthew Suarez
Ultimately, the commission received 24 applications for the two appointments. After narrowing down the field to a handful of candidates, the commissioners interviewed them individually, asking the same questions and using a point system to determine who would be appointed.
The appointments were announced and voted on at the July 3, 2023 Christian County Commission meeting.
Paula Bishop
The library board of trustees is an unpaid position. The next position to be up for appointment or reappointment will be in 2024 for the West County area that includes Clever. Board of Trustee Stephanie Sekscinski (Member-at-Large) is the current appointee.
Many taxpayers believe their local library, funded mainly by local dollars, is under local direction. It makes sense to believe that, since library staff and governing boards are usually local citizens.
But right under our noses libraries are being colonized by ideologies
and agendas that are foreign to the local community. Policies are being
put in place that have more to do with the political goals of leftist
organizations than our Republic.
In fact, local libraries have become community change agents, pushing such things as Critical Race Theory (CRT) , Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the LGBTQ+
agenda. Specifically, sexually explicit books are being actively
displayed and pushed on children in thousands of libraries across the
nation.
Depending on the size of the local library or library association, the cost to join the ALA
can be anywhere from $175 for a very small library to $2,000 for a very
large library. In Christian County, the cost would reflect a medium
library of $500. For Greene County the cost would be $1,300 for a larger
population. As can be seen from the link there are numerous divisions
and round tables that can be joined for a fee, and then there are individual memberships for librarians and library staff.
Assuming these fees are paid out of the local library’s budget,
taxpayers are footing the bill to have their own communities
indoctrinated. Additionally, the ALA has a legion of organizations
either spun off or closely associated, that promote any number of
extreme left agendas. One such organization is a group named EveryLibrary, a 501(c)4 that was founded by John Chrastka, who previously worked for the ALA.
According to Dan Kleinman of Safe Libraries, who has written about EveryLibrary previously, “It
has a history of deceptive training. It guided librarians how to
silence parents who complain about p*rn in the library… Librarians were
trained to use a ‘very common political ploy.’ Another technique is
‘never mention or directly oppose or attack the person making the
original claim. Simply bury their claim in great stories that tell a
counter account of their experience.’ We will see below that’s exactly
what they do when they attack Moms For Liberty without naming it. ‘The
last technique you can use is to simply ignore them.’”
EveryLibrary’s founder, Chrastka, has written a pair of books that
teach librarians how to gain funding during political campaigns.
According to the introductory description of Before the Ballot,
“Let’s be blunt: library
funding is political. And the struggle to secure funding is ongoing;
the work that librarians need to do to influence local politics doesn’t
just pop up in the few months before Election Day. It should span the
years before or between elections. [Bolding added] The authors’
previous book ‘Winning Elections and Influencing Politicians for
Library Funding’ targeted library ballot committees and advocacy
organizations. But their new book speaks directly to librarians, library
staff, and boards. It is designed to help library leaders understand
and navigate the political nature of their work in the years leading up
to a ballot measure or political initiative. Sharing the tools and
tactics developed by their organization EveryLibrary, the nation’s first
and only Political Action Committee for Libraries…”
Why have libraries–historically understood as apolitical and
dedicated to promoting reading in their communities–become political?
Short answer: The American Library Association.
THE TENTACLES OF THE ALA
For most of its history, the ALA has had a decided leftward slant.
But in recent years, and especially with the election of an openly
Marxist president, Emily Drabinski, the ALA has militantly advocated for
the LGBTQ+ agenda, CRT, and other hard left positions. Through policies
not having the force of law like the “Right to Read” and the “Library Bill of Rights” the ALA is pushing a radical agenda that is having real impact on local communities.
Through advocacy and a quiet colonization of library staff and
boards, local libraries are carrying out a political transformation of
communities on behalf of the ALA. It has come to the point that, in
defiance of state laws, libraries are promoting open access to obscene, sexually explicit and even pornographic materials to children.
James Lindsay, of New Discourses,
has been at the forefront of identifying and opposing the colonization
of our public institutions by Marxists like Emily Drabinski. Below is an
excellent introduction to the Marxist roots of DEI:
She speaks about using her socialist vision to expand out from the local library to the community:
“I’ve been thinking more and more about the public library as,
every square inch that is the public library isn’t a store or a private
equity office building, so if we expand the public library in terms of
both space and the networks that it can take up in a social space, the
more we have for the public. If we think of the public library as the
public square, we want more of that. If we fully fund and expand the
libraries we would reclaim more of the city for the public.
So, can I do that as President of the ALA? Obviously not, all of
these struggles and fights are local, but helping people access the
language of a socialist vision of what the city could be and the role of
the library I think is something I could do.”
SEEING THE CONNECTIONS
Once the connection is made between increasing library funding via
political campaigns to implementing the socialist vision that the new
president of the ALA is envisioning, it is clear that public libraries
have become a focus of infiltration for Socialism/Communism/Marxism.
Later in the interview Drabinski says about campaigning, “I think
the socialist project, along with a range of other movements against
white supremacy, patriarchy, and others, has played a role in the fact
that we can now talk openly about the abolition of the carceral state.
The public conversation about defunding the police, and thinking about
different ways of organizing our relations to one another. To me, that’s
something that’s only possible through deep organizing and is the ethic
that we brought to the campaign.”
And this:
“I tweeted that I was a “Marxist lesbian” when I won, and I
absolutely am a Marxist, and absolutely am a lesbian, but I got a ton of
blowback, which is not great, but I don’t know. We have to be brave, we
have to be willing to fight, and the right has no compunction about
being completely out there with their totally hardcore racist ideals,
and their white replacement theory bullshit. We have to be as brave as
they are and as public as they are, I think…”
SEXUALIZING CHILDREN IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG
It is this political perspective that has overtaken many public
libraries in the United States. A strategy of Socialist goals is the
demoralization of a community, including advocating the early
sexualization of children, the de-funding of police, the dividing into
opposing groups of local populations, and other strategies that will be
addressed later.
In short, citizens are paying for the destruction of their
communities and the sexualization of children through taxpayer-funded
local libraries.
The ALA also provides a deep well of resources, training, consulting, and legal aid to assist librarians and boards. There are extensive ALA resources provided to libraries to keep sexually explicit books in the children’s sections.
“The real question is do you trust librarians to decide what your
family is allowed to read. Librarians have a “Library Bill of Rights”
that contains the Marxist idea that all ages can access all materials.
That’s why they allow kids to read pervasively vulgar materials. So kids
would get anything at all from a librarian, and indeed that’s what we
are seeing again and again in the news. That “Bill of Rights” sham is in
almost every library. That’s the every library in EveryLibrary. To them
EveryLibrary means every library will allow kids access to
inappropriate material because some Marxists added the word “age” to the
“Library Bill of Rights” over fifty years ago, no one’s yet realized,
and we’re going to damn well keep ramming it down people’s throats,
especially the easy targets: school kids away from their parents. So
actually yes, parents ultimately decide what goes on in schools and
libraries—that’s why they elect board members to carry out their wishes,
not the wishes of some Marxists from Chicago, IL, called American
Library Association.”
ACTION ITEM:
Contact your local library and request via the Sunshine law whether your library is a member of the ALA (sample request here). Read here about a Wyoming community that voted to have their library sever ties with the ALA. It can be done!
