Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881) was onto more than he knew when he had Mr. Phoebus, in Lothair, say:
I have to agree with Disraeli in that the printing press did not do much to eliminate mankind’s appetite for brutality in the five and a half centuries since Johann Gutenberg (1400? - 1468?) invented movable type.
Admittedly, the percentage of people who knew how to read remained low until “enlightened” governments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries began teaching the children of the illiterate masses how to read and write. It wasn’t long before entire families could read and write. A cynic might say that all of that book-learning produced 20th century government-slaughterhouses never dreamed of in the centuries of illiteracy.
Illiteracy itself was spawned by the written word long before the invention of the printing press. When only two people knew how to read and write everybody else was illiterate. Nobody was illiterate when no one knew how to read.
George Santayana (1863–1952) turned a brush fire into a forest fire when he said:
Remembering the past largely means reading about it, or believing the people who do read about it. The obvious flaw in that institutional trap tells me that no sane person wants to be around when the past is selectively remembered more than it has been in modern times.
An examination of twentieth century butchery is no argument in favor of the printed word. Nevertheless, the Internet has a chance to succeed where the printing press failed; i.e., use the printed word to make a positive change in the way humankind does business.
Before the Internet came along reputable historians, and those who handicap such things, primarily relied on written accounts of past events so they could determine where man went wrong. Empires were repeatedly carved up in print and reassembled to conform to contemporary political designs; conquerors were lauded, or lambasted, depending upon the fashion of the day.
Investigators read the same text; read each other, and come to the same conclusions. The only challenge was in how to say the same thing differently than it had ever been said before. Throw in the vested interests of teachers, authors, and politicians in general, and it is no wonder the human personalty has been changing for the worse.
Incidentally, the professionally written word is rapidly overtaking prostitution, and the legal profession, in providing incomes to a vast number of “contributors” century after century. That is why it always fascinates me when newspapers and magazines call writers contributors. They at least got that one right. The contribution is to the contributor not to society.
The trillions of words written on the Internet by average people offers future historians a chance to look back and accurately determine where a society went wrong.
My contention is that parasites never made it into legend and song down through history; so they never appeared in print. To this day, parasites remain civilization’s deadliest disease —— undiagnosed —— untreated —— and unquestioned. My fervent prayer is that enough meaningful Internet text will survive long enough to show the parasite class for what it has always been in every civilization throughout history.
There is a danger that Internet text will go the way of books in libraries where wisdom is suffocated by trivia. Disraeli’s math was off —— one has to wade through 99.9999999999 percent crap to find one kernel of wisdom in a library.
Having said the above, I must confess that I read books. Nevertheless, whenever I look at the books on the shelves in a library I see centuries of labor, an incalculable number of incomes, and nothing more.
Few writers posting on the Internet, professional or amateur, identify the parasite class by name. When future historians dive into today’s gigabyte capacity trying to identify what brought America down will they find enough material to figure out that the “welfare state” with all of its destructive power is a synonym for parasites?
The printed word
Nothing triggers ire in rank & file liberals more than the mention of Senator Joe McCarthy (1908 - 1957). Mention censorship, and every semi-literate liberal in the land fires up their outrage because it is always fashionable to show that they care about the “really important” things. To liberals, there’s nothing quite as self-satisfying as is defending the printed word.
How do I know all of this since I never palled around with liberals? Answer: All of my adult life, I’ve been inundated by the importance liberals assigned to themselves, their opinions, and their whole damned worldview. I arrived at my conclusions from the things liberals said in newspapers, in magazines, in movies, and on the radio and television. Everything from the “theater” to the Metropolitan Opera, to the fawning over the author of the latest book that nobody except liberals ever reads, or the latest Broadway stage play that less than one percent of Americans will ever see.
One way or another the rest of us hear about the authors, the books, and the plays just to make sure we do not miss something important. I will bet you that two-hundred million Americans know the names of every liberal author who ever lived. I will also bet you that not more than a minute number of Americans ever read books written by liberal authors. Yet talking about liberal authors, living and dead, is standard repartee for liberals. I can understand the reason for the talk when it is a sales pitch. My guess is that they always talk about the same things when they are talking to each other.
Banning books
Banning books from public libraries will hurt book sales in general. Hard-eyed realists in the publishing industry will not stand still for that turn of events. Indignant liberal-bumpkins who hate every other corporation in the world have no difficulty stooging for publishing empires.
The truth: There is nothing wrong with banning specific books from public libraries in a free society. PUBLIC is the operative word. Those of us who oppose liberal garbage should not be forced to support such books in public libraries. Works of fiction should be removed from every library that gets tax dollars from any source in any amount. Failure to remove fiction from a library should result in the loss of all public funding including the tax deduction for donations. The publishing industry should pay to house its literary artifacts in their museums.
Banning the sale of books is another matter. I would not ban the sale of any book no matter how offensive it might be to me. Buy all of the books you want, just don’t force me to share the cost of placing and maintaining your choices on library shelves.
Incidentally, if ever there was a canker on this country’s libraries it is this: Many pubic libraries now provide free movie-CDs. I, and many others, sure as hell don’t want public libraries used to promote Hollywood’s garbage.
Now, let’s take a look at the ways Socialists posing as Democrats ban books.
Just what the hell do liberals think The Fairness Doctrine is? The only reason the Left wants to bring back The Fairness Doctrine is to banish conservative voices from talk radio. Nothing is stopping liberals from getting out their message on talk radio. That did not work; so now they want to go back to banning conservative talk.
You can take this to the bank: The Fairness Doctrine will ban all conservative talk radio more effectively than legions of book burners. If that ain’t banning books I don’t know what else qualifies.
Socialist control of pubic education is also a way of banning books. The socialist message is the only message you’ll find in public schools. Socialists invoke academic freedom so they can force students from kindergarten through college to listen to the socialist message. Everything else is banned.
Finally, in all of the years that elapsed since the first public library opened its doors there never was a more appropriate use for libraries than this:
I have to agree with Disraeli in that the printing press did not do much to eliminate mankind’s appetite for brutality in the five and a half centuries since Johann Gutenberg (1400? - 1468?) invented movable type.
Admittedly, the percentage of people who knew how to read remained low until “enlightened” governments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries began teaching the children of the illiterate masses how to read and write. It wasn’t long before entire families could read and write. A cynic might say that all of that book-learning produced 20th century government-slaughterhouses never dreamed of in the centuries of illiteracy.
Illiteracy itself was spawned by the written word long before the invention of the printing press. When only two people knew how to read and write everybody else was illiterate. Nobody was illiterate when no one knew how to read.
George Santayana (1863–1952) turned a brush fire into a forest fire when he said:
Remembering the past largely means reading about it, or believing the people who do read about it. The obvious flaw in that institutional trap tells me that no sane person wants to be around when the past is selectively remembered more than it has been in modern times.
An examination of twentieth century butchery is no argument in favor of the printed word. Nevertheless, the Internet has a chance to succeed where the printing press failed; i.e., use the printed word to make a positive change in the way humankind does business.
Before the Internet came along reputable historians, and those who handicap such things, primarily relied on written accounts of past events so they could determine where man went wrong. Empires were repeatedly carved up in print and reassembled to conform to contemporary political designs; conquerors were lauded, or lambasted, depending upon the fashion of the day.
Investigators read the same text; read each other, and come to the same conclusions. The only challenge was in how to say the same thing differently than it had ever been said before. Throw in the vested interests of teachers, authors, and politicians in general, and it is no wonder the human personalty has been changing for the worse.
Incidentally, the professionally written word is rapidly overtaking prostitution, and the legal profession, in providing incomes to a vast number of “contributors” century after century. That is why it always fascinates me when newspapers and magazines call writers contributors. They at least got that one right. The contribution is to the contributor not to society.
The trillions of words written on the Internet by average people offers future historians a chance to look back and accurately determine where a society went wrong.
My contention is that parasites never made it into legend and song down through history; so they never appeared in print. To this day, parasites remain civilization’s deadliest disease —— undiagnosed —— untreated —— and unquestioned. My fervent prayer is that enough meaningful Internet text will survive long enough to show the parasite class for what it has always been in every civilization throughout history.
There is a danger that Internet text will go the way of books in libraries where wisdom is suffocated by trivia. Disraeli’s math was off —— one has to wade through 99.9999999999 percent crap to find one kernel of wisdom in a library.
Having said the above, I must confess that I read books. Nevertheless, whenever I look at the books on the shelves in a library I see centuries of labor, an incalculable number of incomes, and nothing more.
Few writers posting on the Internet, professional or amateur, identify the parasite class by name. When future historians dive into today’s gigabyte capacity trying to identify what brought America down will they find enough material to figure out that the “welfare state” with all of its destructive power is a synonym for parasites?
The printed word
Nothing triggers ire in rank & file liberals more than the mention of Senator Joe McCarthy (1908 - 1957). Mention censorship, and every semi-literate liberal in the land fires up their outrage because it is always fashionable to show that they care about the “really important” things. To liberals, there’s nothing quite as self-satisfying as is defending the printed word.
How do I know all of this since I never palled around with liberals? Answer: All of my adult life, I’ve been inundated by the importance liberals assigned to themselves, their opinions, and their whole damned worldview. I arrived at my conclusions from the things liberals said in newspapers, in magazines, in movies, and on the radio and television. Everything from the “theater” to the Metropolitan Opera, to the fawning over the author of the latest book that nobody except liberals ever reads, or the latest Broadway stage play that less than one percent of Americans will ever see.
One way or another the rest of us hear about the authors, the books, and the plays just to make sure we do not miss something important. I will bet you that two-hundred million Americans know the names of every liberal author who ever lived. I will also bet you that not more than a minute number of Americans ever read books written by liberal authors. Yet talking about liberal authors, living and dead, is standard repartee for liberals. I can understand the reason for the talk when it is a sales pitch. My guess is that they always talk about the same things when they are talking to each other.
Banning books
Banning books from public libraries will hurt book sales in general. Hard-eyed realists in the publishing industry will not stand still for that turn of events. Indignant liberal-bumpkins who hate every other corporation in the world have no difficulty stooging for publishing empires.
The truth: There is nothing wrong with banning specific books from public libraries in a free society. PUBLIC is the operative word. Those of us who oppose liberal garbage should not be forced to support such books in public libraries. Works of fiction should be removed from every library that gets tax dollars from any source in any amount. Failure to remove fiction from a library should result in the loss of all public funding including the tax deduction for donations. The publishing industry should pay to house its literary artifacts in their museums.
Banning the sale of books is another matter. I would not ban the sale of any book no matter how offensive it might be to me. Buy all of the books you want, just don’t force me to share the cost of placing and maintaining your choices on library shelves.
Incidentally, if ever there was a canker on this country’s libraries it is this: Many pubic libraries now provide free movie-CDs. I, and many others, sure as hell don’t want public libraries used to promote Hollywood’s garbage.
Now, let’s take a look at the ways Socialists posing as Democrats ban books.
Just what the hell do liberals think The Fairness Doctrine is? The only reason the Left wants to bring back The Fairness Doctrine is to banish conservative voices from talk radio. Nothing is stopping liberals from getting out their message on talk radio. That did not work; so now they want to go back to banning conservative talk.
You can take this to the bank: The Fairness Doctrine will ban all conservative talk radio more effectively than legions of book burners. If that ain’t banning books I don’t know what else qualifies.
Socialist control of pubic education is also a way of banning books. The socialist message is the only message you’ll find in public schools. Socialists invoke academic freedom so they can force students from kindergarten through college to listen to the socialist message. Everything else is banned.
Finally, in all of the years that elapsed since the first public library opened its doors there never was a more appropriate use for libraries than this:
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