Dude, Where's My Country - by Michael Moore

I picked this book up at a used book sale a few years ago and it was sitting on my to-be-read shelf (along with so many others) until the pandemic and consequent stay-at-home orders had me finally taking a look at some of these neglected works.

Moore's now 17-year-old book written in the aftermath of 9/11 when Bush (43) was president harkens back to a kinder, gentler sort of evil - a time when we could not have imagined living in a this dystopian landscape headed by a complete incompetent. Moore pulls no punches as he points to specific examples of President Bush's poor leadership, both unintentional and willful, following the terrorist attacks in 2001. 

He begins by describing the problems he had in distributing his previous book Stupid White Men in the wake of the crisis

The first 50,000 copies...came off the printing press the day before 9/11, but when tragedy struck the next morning, the trucks that would carry them to the nation's bookstores never left the loading dock. The publisher then held the books hostage for five long months-not simply out of good taste and respect (which I might have been able to understand), but out of a desire to censor me and the things I wanted to say. They insisted I rewrite up to 50 percent of the book and that I remove sections that they found offensive to our leader, Mr. Bush.

Facing the potential of having the books "pulped" if he did not acquiesce, it was a librarian, Ann Sparanese, who came to the rescue. Without benefit of Facebook (which did not exist at the time) Sparanese learned of the impending censorship and mobilized all the other librarians on her e-mail list to contact Regan books. 

Fearing there would soon be a crazed mob of wild librarians storming down Fifth Avenue and surrounding the HarperCollins building...the News Corp surrendered. They dumped my book in some bookstores with no advertising, no reviews, and the offer of a three-city tour...In other words, the book was sent to the gallows for a quick painless death...within hours after the book's release, it went to number one on Amazon-and within five days it had gone to its ninth printing.

There is, not surprisingly, a lot about the USA PATRIOT Act here, and how it allows the government to access otherwise confidential information, especially where library records are concerned. Likewise Moore makes clear throughout that American citizens like and use their libraries and want the government to support them.

When I start reading a book I am always glad to find the first mention of libraries, and in this case I believed it to be in the Introduction (so early in the work the pages are numbered in lower case roman numerals). However, when I opened the book again to write this post I found that the real first time is actually even earlier than that, on the page before the title page (a place one does not usually find any writing). It contains this bit of satire

 

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

If I had a "Bucket List" the Haskell Free Library and Opera House would be on it. The public library in Derby Line, Vermont, USA straddles the border with Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. A line down the middle of the floor of the building marks where one country ends and the other begins. There is no port of entry inside the library. Library users are free to walk back and forth between the countries any time.

Charles Pierce discusses the history of the library in Idiot America and explains that prior to 9/11 residents of Derby Line and Stanstead could freely pass between the countries even without going into the library

For decades, it was a point of civic pride for the people in both towns that they lived right atop one of the friendliest stretches of the friendliest borders in the world. People wandered down the tiny, shady backstreets of the place, passing back and forth between the two countries without ever really noticing.

After September 11, 2001, however

The border authorities in both countries acted quickly to restrict access along the side streets in Stanstead and Derby Line. As part of the plan, it was proposed that anyone parking a car outside the library on the Canadian side might well have to pass through a port of entry before walking up the front steps, which are on the American side.

In the spirit of full disclosure I must mention this bit of odd news about the Haskell Free Library and Opera House involving a case of gun smuggling that took advantage of the library's unique location. Canadian Alexis Vlachos had a friend purchase guns in the United States and leave them in the bathroom of the library to be picked up by Vlachos, who entered from the Canadian side. This story might cause some to get their xenphobic hackles up, however, as quoted by Canadian Don Browning in the article "if we live in fear we have to close up every little potential loophole, that would probably change our way of life a little bit and I don't think it's worth it".

Pierce goes on to point out that it (the 2000s) had "not been an easy decade for libraries" citing closure of the the library run by the Environmental Protection Agency by the Bush (43) Administration, and the passage of Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to look at library records without a warrant.

He further uses libraries as a metaphor describing their orderliness, and contrasts it with the disorderliness of "Idiot America" where the gut, rather than the head rules. Rather than separating Fiction and Non-Fiction (as real libraries do) in Idiot America

Fiction and nonfiction are defined by how well they sell. The best sellers are on one shelf, cheek by jowl, whether what's contained in them is true or not.

The book was published in 2009, Pierce could not have known how prescient his words were.

My husband and I listened to Pierce's book on audio during a long car drive between Massachusetts and Maryland. When I heard the piece about Derby Line I realized I would need to blog about it, and had to then request a hard copy of the book through Interlibrary loan.

1984 - by George Orwell

The first time I read Orwell's book was at the start of its titular year, as a requirement for a course I was taking that year in college - Literature and Social Change. The class was team taught by a Psychology professor and a Spanish professor who did an excellent job of getting me to think critically about the book and to see how Orwell was not so far off the mark. It was during the Reagan administration and I remember clearly how the media reported that his administration was going to change the way it counted the unemployed so that people who had been out of work longer than six months would no longer be considered, even if they were still looking. Then the country rejoiced when the government was able to report that the unemployment rate went down for the first time in many months. It was stunning. Reading 1984 twenty-nine years later of course I only see more parallels to what Orwell predicted and what is happening.

I wasn't surprised when news broke over the summer that the NSA was spying on citizens through the collection of metadata on cell phones. I didn't even understand how anyone could be. That the government was keeping these kind of tabs on us was all made perfectly clear when the USA PATRIOT Act was first passed in 2001. I cannot tell you how many times I heard people say things like 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about' or 'as long as we are all safer, what does it matter.' I wonder what those folks are saying now?

While cleaning up my e-mail recently I found a link to this video  which I had sent to myself over the summer and forgot about. It was just chance that I ended up watching it while I was reading Orwell's book. The connections between what the video shows us about the level of surveillance on citizens and what Orwell wrote about are uncanny. There isn't really anything subtle about the spying of citizens in London, or the U.S. The video is about 32 minutes long. At about 16:30 we see a U.S. official being asked questions about NSA collecting data on citizens: each one he answers with an uncatergoric "No". Early on in the video we also find out how smart cameras are used to track "unusual movement" and "mark" people. One of the developers of these cameras is the aptly named James ORWELL of Kingston University. I had to listen twice to the name to be sure, and then I Googled him. Yep. Orwell.

George Orwell also predicted the kind of scrutiny James Orwell conducts:

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected. Nothing that he does is  indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations, his behavior toward his wife and children, the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinized. Not only any actual misdemeanor, but any eccentricity, however small, any change in habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle is certain to be detected. 

In one passage our protagonist, Winston, gets his hopes up that the proles are creating an uprising against the Party, only to discover it is instead women fighting over cooking pots at the market

a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls...with faces as tragic as though they had been doomed passengers on a sinking ship...It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking pots of any kind are always difficult to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamored round the stall, accusing the stallkeeper of favoritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off.

I can almost believe that Orwell had some sort of supernatural power to see into the future when I compare this passage with the infamous Walmart Waffle Iron Riot of 2011.

It is not just the parallel of the riot over cheap kitchen gadgets that strikes me here, but that the people in the video are indeed falling in line with expectations. Lining up to get in to a store in Black Friday is just what the "Party" wants from its proletariat. Very shortly, as the holiday season cranks up, we will start hearing stories (from our "liberal" media) about how consumers (a.k.a. U.S. citizens) are disappointing the "Party" (a.k.a retailers) by not spending enough money. After all, it is our duty to consume for the good of the economy.

There really aren't libraries or librarians in this work, per se, as it is a work about information loss. What we do see is a lot of irony in naming of the various Party ministries and departments. For instance "reference clerks" were those who were tasked with "draw[ing] up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall. There were the vast respositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed."

The Records Department, a branch of the Ministry of Truth, provided all information, and entertainment everyone on every level. There was no free press, the government controlled all information. This is eerily familiar for those of us who, in past weeks, tried to get onto government websites. Virtually all federal government websites were inaccessible during the recent government shut down. I found this aspect of the shut down particularly egregious as the websites were already up, someone had to go to the trouble of taking them down.

Books are produced by the Party for the "proles." Winston's girlfriend Julia, who works for the Fiction Department, explains how they are produced - her particular specialty is pornography

It (Pornosec) was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls' School to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal...'ghastly rubbish. They're boring really. They only have six plots, but they swap them around a bit'.

Julia also is a (phony) member of the Junior Anti-Sex League. The description of the sash tied around the waist of her overalls that identifies her as such caused me to wonder if the "True Love Waits" chastity program (with its telltale "purity rings") used 1984 as a "How To" book.

I close my post with this thought from Winston's illicit diary:

"If there is hope it lies in the proles"

Come and get me Big Brother.

Choose Privacy Week Starts Today

There has been a lot of controversy here at Bridgewater State University during the past week over an article that was published in the student newspaper The Comment after a young woman spoke at a "Take Back the Night" rally and the newspaper printed more information about her than she wanted released. The editor of the paper has been asked by University administration to remove the article from the website, and large quantities of print copies of the paper disappeared from the stands (FYI - censorship will only bring more attention to whatever issue the censors wish to suppress). Some news reports indicated that the faculty adviser resigned, or that he had been fired, neither of which were true. There has been quite a bit of discussion on campus about what the roles of the paper, and also the young woman (who wanted to remain anonymous) were in this incident. I am afraid that as a society we have become desensitized to privacy issues. I am not sure that people understand that in many settings, both online, and in person, they are giving up some privacy. In passing the USA PATRIOT ACT the government told us that in order to protect us, we had to submit to Orwellian surveillance. In addition, personal information that once required court orders and subpoenas, in the digital age, is easily discovered through bread crumbs that we ourselves leave in the form of text messages, Facebook, and blogs!. The American Library Association is sponsoring Choose Privacy Week as a way to begin a conversation about privacy rights in the digital age. What information do you want people to know about you?

Watch this video to find out the wide variety of ways people think about privacy.

 

Patriot Act Renewed - Library Records Remain Unprotected

President Obama signed the extention the Patriot Act into law on May 26. The Act continues to allow

federal authorities conducting a counterterrorism investigation to seize a patron's library records without their knowledge, and without a court order, although freedom-to-read groups including the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression had been seeking these protections. One might ask why we should even have to fight for a protection that is already guaranteed under the fourth amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.