THE FAHRENHEIT 451 SOCIETY

By ABE and BIBLE BELTED

Does anyone remember a science fiction book titled Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? We do. When some of us were growing up we read a lot of Bradbury and we feel that this particular book is especially prophetic.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the plot line, it takes place in a futuristic society in which books have been banned, the written word has virtually been stamped out. So we’re talking about a society in which not only offensive or controversial literature has been eradicated, but a totalitarian regime in which ALL written material has been effectively banned. In this regime, the individuals responsible for “maintaining order” as it were are the firemen, who hunt down and burn surviving books from the past. That’s right. You read us correctly. The firemen in this society, often operating on anonymous tips, are the preservers of repression as they go about burning books to preserve the stability of their insane world.

Well, friends and neighbors, it appears as if America, under Gorge W. Bush, has taken a large and dangerous step towards a Fahrenheit 451 society. In a test program in New York City, Firemen, during the curse of inspections, and EMTs have been charged with the Draconian task of snooping trough people’s houses, searching for books, literature, or audio video materials that might be deemed as unfriendly towards he United States government. The material in question doesn’t even have to pose a serious threat to the United States. It only needs to challenge the United States government. It doesn’t need to be associated with a terrorist organization; it only has to appear suspicious in the eyes of over zealous firemen or EMTs who are prowling through your homes in search of damning information. True, the test program only involves a small number of fire fighters in New York City, but if the program roves “successful” it will be expanded to include other areas of the country. A fact which we are sure will please liberty-hating Republicans, Neocons, and gutless Democrats who are afraid of being smeared as being soft on terrorism during an upcoming election year. Indeed, it might prove useful to see precisely who penned and introduced this insanity.

Naturally there are questions to be asked, the most obvious of which is: “HOW DOES ONE DEFINE DANGEROUS TO THE UNITED STATES UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES SUCH AS THESE?” Would merely owning a Koran be a cause for suspicion or would it have to be accompanied by other materials which openly call for the violent over throw of the United States government? Would this material have to be backed up by technical literature such as THE ANARCHISTS BIBLE, or, again, would merely owning a Koran be enough to land you in front of a McCarthy Era style investigating committee, or worse yet, in an unknown prison where you would be denied the right to a fair and speedy trial? On a more chilling note, could you be interrogated ad infinitum or even tortured based on your reading materials?

And what about unpopular political writings? What if you’re a history buff and you own copies of controversial books such as MEIN KAMPF, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, or DAD KAPITAL? IS that enough to raise a paranoid eye brow? Of course there are other materials which might be construed as demeaning to the United States. Might a given fire fighter or EMT be offended because you own copies of 1984, ANIMAL FARM, or BRAVE NEW WORLD, or even FAHRENHEIT 451 itself? Let’s face it. SO much of what Huxley and Orwell prophesied years ago has come true: Our increasing love for and fear of Big Brother, the willingness of the people to sacrifice freedom and security for comfort and security; our increasing disrespect for books and the written word in general. Might not a paranoid fire fighter or EMT see literature such as that as a potential threat against the United States, as a form of displeasure with the government or with the policies of the pretenders and neofascists who are currently running the right wing asylum? We know several of our blogging partners and personal friends have large personal libraries which are filled with books such as THE NIGHTMARE YEARS, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, ADOLF HITLER, etc. Might not a pecksniffian fireman or EMT see volumes such as those and think: “Oh, someone thinks America is turning fascist, that’s dangerous, I gotta turn this person in.”

And that’s the main problem here. This measure doesn’t define terms such as dangerous or demeaning or offensive. And it can’t because those terms can only be define in the eyes and in the minds of the beholders. Hell, in the eyes of some people, the religious writings of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine might be considered dangerous because they don’t endorse a marriage of church and state. And so it continues. With no way to define the terms we are left with a program that is all at once repressive, chilling, and anti-American, dangerous in and of itself because it could readily be used against patriotic Americans who have the audacity to both read, and to challenge the authority of a sitting Administration. In other words this measure is more likely to squash the concept of nonconformity than it is to capture a single, solitary terrorist.

We can imagine concerned Amercans, afraid of what some eager beaver might think, secretly destroying treasured volumes of perfectly legitimate literature because he or she is terrified of being persecuted by an anti-American regime in Washington. If that sounds a tad silly, please remember that this is the same administration which applauded the death of habeas corpus; which supports extreme forms of interrogation (read torture), and which has undermined the 1stm 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the American Constitution. This is a regime which, only a few days after 911 lied when it promised it would protect the rights of the American people but which has peeked at our emails, and listened to our phone conversations, and ridiculed the Geneva Conventions. Translated into modern English, these people have a very long and ugly record when it comes to trashing our civil liberties and a very short record when it comes to protecting them. And the FAHRENHEIT 451 measure is just another example.

In closing we shall only add the following remarks. This is just an extension of the administration’s fear of the written word and of learning in general. They met resistance from librarians and patrons alike when they tried to insert themselves into the library.patron relationship and now they are trying to crack down on the material in personal libraries in our homes. Now they want to violate the right to privacy and the right to read. And the part that really makes us all sick is that they are using firemen and EMTs to do their duty work for them. After 911 we learned that the right wingers were perfectly content to conceal the health threats to firemen and EMTs which occurred during fire fighting and rescue attempts. Indeed, the right wing cheapskates were perfectly willing to let firemen and EMTs suffer and die for their heroic efforts on those horrible day(s). And now, knowing that firemen and EMTS don’t need search warrants to go through a personal residence, they are AGAIN willing to exploit American heroes for their own selfish ends.

We’ll try not to worry when the Administration and the far right in genera; provide firemen and EMTS with flame throwers to burn remaining volumes of literature.

FINIS

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Let Freedom Ring,

The Coalition for a Democratic America