It's About Local Control

By Gretchen Garrity 

 

“So Chicago wants to retain control of Nixa.” -- Dan Kleinman

 

Sign their petition - https://t.co/3qdC6c3Aae https://t.co/g2LZq0H95b

— EveryLibrary (@EveryLibrary) August 29, 2024

The Christian County Library Board of Trustees has made a first move to restore trust and repair relations with the public. After nearly two years of refusal to engage the issue of sexually explicit and vulgar books being placed in the children and teen sections of the library, the board has voted to replace President Allyson Tuckness and to expand citizens’ ability to publicly comment.

You can see the motion, discussion and vote here beginning at the 50:40 minute mark:

 The board action to replace Tuckness caused an immediate reaction from not only opponents in the audience, but with a local progressive group, U-Turn in Education, and national groups like Every Library, a group associated with the American Library Association (which is based in Chicago), as well as the organization Book Riot.

 

This is the nightmare that was unleashed last evening. We are actively working today onward to develop a plan to address this insanity in a productive and meaningful way. https://t.co/fLXxGNRNvC

— UTurninEducation (@UTurninEdu) August 28, 2024

A reporter was also present at the library, Susan Wade, who wrote a story for the Springfield Daily Citizen HERE. The board did NOT vote “to implement a system of placing stickers on books...” as the article states. 

The board voted to have Executive Director Renee Brumett provide a list of LGBTQ+ subject headings from the Library of Congress catalog system, and potential book spine labels used by library vendors. The approved motion also requested that books already challenged be included with subject headings on the list Brumett will provide.

The board is researching the feasibility of a labeling system, it has not implemented one. Though the library does currently already use ratings for patron awareness of subject matters including genres and categorizations, this would not be a net new system change for them. More detail below.

LOCAL CONTROL IS THE KEY

There is a small but vocal and active group of locals who have opposed any changes within the county library system. They are composed of mostly progressives who are invested in a political ideology that is contrary to Christian County’s community values. Some of them have connections with larger organizations whose ultimate goal is to overturn the existing cultural and political order.

 

Reaction from: Book Riot

Here is how they work. The large and well-funded national organizations find and fund small local groups, who are activated when their political and social hegemony in schools and libraries are threatened. These small groups (like U-Turn in Education, headed by local professor and activist Elizabeth Dudash-Buskirk) call on the larger organizations for help when needed. Name-calling commences. The press is activated. Petitions are drawn up. Lies are spread. Lawsuits are commenced. 

It's how they operate. But once you see it, you can't unsee it. This is exactly what happened almost immediately after the August 27, 2024 board of trustee meeting.

Here is the petition from Fight For the First.

Here are the lies: "Not only were the actions on August 7th in violation of the bylaws, the illegal move also irresponsibly leaves the library without proper signing authorities on the bank account."

EXAMINING THE BY-LAWS

Did the board of trustees violate their by-laws by voting in a new slate of officers? The by-laws state that board officers are elected in December. But there is nothing to exclude electing officers at other times of the year, as appropriate. Hence, at the July 2023 board of trustee meeting, a president, vice-president, and treasurer were all elected. In December of 2023, when the regular election happened, the same slate was merely re-affirmed.

Since board appointments happen in July, there is often an officer shuffle. So, elections happen at other times of the year as needed and appropriate. No one seemed concerned about check signing when a new board member was appointed last July as treasurer.

 At the end of the Tuesday slate election on August 27, the executive director was (~ minute 56:40) asked to confirm if there would be a negative impact on the ability to have checks promptly signed as was implied (~ minute 51:15).  She was not immediately aware of any concerns but would research to be sure. 

The following Friday, August 30, the check signing process continued as normal (weekly signing had been occurring weekly on that day) without interruption. So instead of a question being asked of whether there might be an impact to financial operations to ensure they were not disrupted, false statements were made and have been found to be untrue.

MORE ON THE STICKERS

Horrors: A sticker

At the board meeting, one individual, Amy Hoogstraet, professed horror at the thought of labeling books with identifying stickers. You can see her speak during the public comment of the meeting video above.

This is an interesting angle, since the library itself advertises LGBTQ+ books with stickers as demonstrated below, and other identifying information. In fact, the library proudly displays books with such themes.

Another sticker

 Libraries have often identified Christian-themed books with dove stickers. There were stickers that identified mystery books, too. And books that have been honored by one organization or another. This is not new, and it is not discriminatory.

Pronoun buttons to wear seen at the CCL

 The issue is not stickers. The issue is the push to impose an agenda on children beginning as young as 0-2 years of age. The library has hundreds of books with age-inappropriate themes of sexuality, gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion indoctrination, and so on.

Hyped up reaction

This indoctrination is harming children, whose parents often have no idea of what is happening in their schools or what books are being laced into the libraries. Even large book publishers are getting in the local fight because it affects their bottom line. Without a pipeline from publisher to schools and libraries, it is likely many of these books would not be published and pushed on children.

Using arguments like "book banning," privacy rights, access, uncertain case law, and "free speech" these activists work in concert with local libraries and others to keep control over the content of library collections. And they are bent on selling an agenda that most people do not want their children exposed to before they are emotionally and physically capable of handling such content.

As an aside, many libraries are engaged in weeding out classic books that build character, have immense literary quality, and reinforce timeless values. You can count on one hand the number of complete Christian Scriptures in the Christian County Library's four branches. This is not a mistake.

The threat of lawsuits begins

 As the furor grows regarding the audacity of a board to reassert local control of its library, it is helpful to take with a grain of salt what activists, the media and national organizations are saying about the situation. Come to the library meetings and see for yourself what is actually happening. You might be surprised to see it is quite different than its portrayal by progressive activists.

Meetings happen on the fourth Tuesday of each month, but note November and December meeting dates are different, so always check the website here to confirm. Next month's meeting is September 24, 2024, at 6 p.m. in Nixa.

Note: In the interests of full disclosure, I am related to John Garrity, the newest board member of the library board of trustees.

It's All Connected

From: EveryLibrary

By Gretchen Garrity

 The intrepid Dan Kleinman, founder of the World Library Association and author of the blog Safe Libraries, has exposed yet another aspect of how the American Library Association (ALA) and its sister organizations like EveryLibrary reach into local communities to undermine their values and indoctrinate children.

Their latest effort is called "Fight for the First!" which is designed to get activists, students, and citizens behind an effort to "protect" the First Amendment. To the ALA, the First Amendment means that children have the right to read smut. They have the right to find it all over the shelves of the children's section. They have a right to have it hanging it out in the teen section like little mental bombs to confuse children and deprive parents of their rights to curate what their children see, and when they see it.

According to Kleinman:

"You know, if ALA is bribing local acolytes with money to affect local political issues, shouldn't the public be able to obtain Freedom of Information Act requests from ALA, FTRF, EveryLibrary even if they aren't government bodies?  It's Sunshine Week, so I'm asking.  Anyone know?  All this money is being spent to sway public law.  Isn't the public entitled to see this?

Nowadays the method of bribery (but not the bribes themselves) is out in the open, and its detailed.  Money.  Consulting.  Online fundraising tools.  Media attention.  Training and resources "that you need to win."  And by "win," ALA means the community loses.  All free.  

 

It's all a fake facade, all astroturf.  'Nearly 100 communities have launched campaigns against book bans.'  Click on the links in the ALA/EveryLibrary tweets to see if your own community has been corrupted with ALA bribery.  Mine has."

 

Go here to read it all and see what kind of support is given to local activists to usurp our community institutions: ALA Details Bribes to Convince Governments to Sell Out Children

 

IT'S HERE, TOO 

And what do you know, Christian County has its own start up group, The Nixa First Amendment Defense Group, aka U-turn in Education:

 

From: Fight for the First

U-turn in Education has been very active in opposing the relocating of materials unsuitable for children out of both the public library and local school libraries. In fact, the name of the individual who has signed on to "Fight for the First!" is a local parent affiliated with U-Turn in Education. She was quoted in 2022 in a News-leader article: "Jeanne Coburn, a parent and part of the U-Turn group, said she supports parents being actively involved in schools and the education of the their children. But, she resents parents pushing to restrict or remove books from an entire library.

"It's a parent's right to decide what their children are exposed to," Coburn said. "But it's not some (other) parent's right to decide what my child is going to be exposed to."

https://x.com/EveryLibrary/status/1767536291946639380?s=Apparently, Coburn doesn't understand that placing explicit, vulgar, and other such books in a school or public library IS giving others the right to expose your child to them. None of these books are banned. They are widely available elsewhere. Parents have a reasonable expectation that a taxpayer institution will follow community standards and leave such books to parental guidance on their own time and their own dime.

BACK TO THE ALA AND EVERYLIBRARY

The ALA has thrown everything into the "Free Speech" bucket. Granted, it gets traction with unaware citizens. However, there are enough activated community members in many areas who understand the lies inherent in the ALA agenda.

It has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with the Marxist fist you see in the tweets linked in Kleinman's article. If the ALA and its allies in libraries cannot get their agendas into the hands of children, they won't get the revolution they are seeking.

Demoralizing children and youth is a feature, not a bug. If it wasn't a huge deal to the Marxists, they wouldn't be pushing so hard to make sure Critical Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion brainwashing is in the schools and public libraries.

The dots all connect. This is a top-down operation that citizens in Christian County are experiencing. Why did RTWO receive a mountain of gibberish data when requesting public information about communication between the ALA and its subsidiaries and the Christian County Library last year?

 

@right2winozarks Its funny because its true. Wake up people. #christianitytiktok #christiancountymo #librarytiktok #freedomofinformationact #sunshinelaw #freedomofinformationrequest #transparency #willscharf #localpoliticsmatter #grassroots #ToGodbetheglory #library #twitter #thematrix #redpilltiktok #redpilledamerica #patriots ♬ Wake Up (From "The Matrix" - Soundtrack Wonder Band

Using Kids to Sell a Narrative

 

By Gretchen Garrity

Nixa student group pushes "banned" books

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

— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) August 15, 2023

Back in June 2023, after months of citizen interface with the Nixa School Board about sexually explicit and pornographic books available to students, the school board voted to remove four books from the school library. Later, another book was retained.

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.

The teaser tweet finally came to fruition Sept. 27 in an article titled 'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight book ban attempts.'

'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight future book ban attempts from parents, community members. https://t.co/AK0Dfb2LfY via @springfieldNL @nixaschools @PENamerica #BannedBooksWeek

— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) September 27, 2023

 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:

@right2winozarks

♬ Funny - Gold-Tiger

U-Turn in Education

 

From U-Turn in Education's website

By Gretchen Garrity

In an October 19, 2022 article, Springfield News-Leader reporter Claudette Riley featured the parent group U-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...