Q

Death of Truth, Right-wing Extremism, The Sleep of Reason, Trump

 

The next incident at the Pizza restaurant in the bizzarro world of right-wing radio and radical right-wing extremism was even crazier than all the others. This was the rise of Q who claimed that everything Alex Jones said was true, that Hillary Clinton was a murderer, that a Deep State runs America, and that a ring of pedophiles who worshipped Satan were kidnapping children and keeping them against their will in the basement of a pizza restaurant. Led by mythical and mysterious Q a new movement was formed to defend president Trump from perceived left-wing attacks by the Deep State. That movement was called QAnon, in honour of their leader—Q.

As Justin Ling said, “A whole new class of do-it-yourself broadcasters emerges online to introduce the masses to their new hero.”

 Jerome Corsi became a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy. He said QAnon was actually military intelligence. He said it came from Trump. He claimed to know the identity of Q. QAnon was a group in the Pentagon that was close to Donald Trump he said. Trump of course did not care what QAnon did, or how divisive they were, or destructive of society, so long as they treated him kindly. As always with Trump, no one mattered but Trump. He lived in a universe where only Trump matters.

Trump said, “I don’t know very much about the movement except I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate, but I don’t know very much about the movement.”

And that, of course, was good enough for Trump. No matter how wild the conspiracy theories were promulgated under the name of Trump, it did not matter to Trump, because Q supported Trump. That was all that mattered.

 

Nonsense on Steroids: Hillary Clinton Child Trafficker

American Fascism, Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Hate, Right-wing Extremism, The Sleep of Reason, Trump

 

In the fall of 2016 Right-wing talk radio was consumed by a bizarre conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and an evil cabal of liberal elites like Tom Hanks were supposedly involved in trafficking young children for sex while worshipping Satan in the basement of a Washington Pizzeria. It was nonsense on steroids but that did not stop conspiracy purveyors like Alex Jones from spreading these vicious lies in the service of his leader Donald Trump. And right-wing radio was abuzz with this rubbish.

Less than a week before the presidential election of 2016, Jones interviewed a private investigator and conspiracy theorist about this crazy conspiracy theory. Supposedly, also involved were disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Clintons and a private aircraft called the Lolita Express.  This was the craft that took many young girls to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. The island was often referred to as the island acquired local nicknames such as “Island of Sin” and “Pedophile Island” not entirely without reason. The mere mention of this island or Epstein was enough to send American conservatives into rapturous hate.  This was a vast and constantly metastasizing conspiracy theory, fertilized by insinuations from Rush Limbaugh that the Clintons, while Bill was governor of Arkansas had Vince Foster, a party worker, murdered. There are many constantly evolving and growing versions of the nastiness that went on there.

Alex Jones calls these claims from the investigator “seismic, historical, wow.” Breitbart Radio devoted a whole segment to this conspiracy theory. Right-wing radio was energized like never before, and, of course, this also energized Trump’s supporters just before the election and there was nothing Hillary Clinton could do about it. Breitbart Radio alleged that Hillary Clinton went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. They said Bill Clinton went there at least 20 times, and Hillary Clinton at least 6 times.

As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers,

“New elements are getting bolted on to this conspiracy theory. Suddenly Clinton is part of a Satanic Cult. Children are being sacrificed and they are begin kept in a secret location.”

 

It did not matter that the conspiracy theory was wildly false.  It sent nasty dust into the air to cover Hillary Clinton with outrageous allegations that were impossible to counter and ushered in nasty rumours that spread through Right-wing radio and the Internet like wildfire.

Yet this bogus claim, had serious real-life consequences. One rabid listener to all the crap on Jones’s show and right-wing radio, Edgar Welsch, from South Carolina, took it all seriously and after leaving his wife with a voice mail message that he was likely going to die, drove from his home with loaded guns to Washington D.C. to rescue the children from the basement of the pizza restaurant. He was unable to find a basement in the restaurant since there was none. He found no victims just young families enjoying pizza and playing games. Sadly, Welsch, was arrested and criminally charged with assault with a deadly weapon for his reckless actions that had been fueled by Alex Jones and his colleagues on right-wing radio. Jones actually pointed the gun at someone he saw in the restaurant, but fortunately, no one else was hurt as a result of the reckless actions of Jones and the other right-wing radio hosts.

We should also remember how Donald Trump shortly after being elected President in 2016 told Alex Jones how much Jones was respected.

All of this was part of the right-wing American assault on truth that has, by no means, diminished since 2016

Grab her by the Pussy

Right-wing Extremism, True Believer, Trump, Trumpism

 

By and large all conservative right-wing radio broadcasters jumped on the Trump bandwagon. One of the few exceptions was Wisconsin broadcaster Charley Sykes. Sykes soon realized that he was no longer welcome in the Republican party or among Trumpsters and resigned his position as a radio host and wrote a book called, How the Right Lost its Mind.

By then Trump’s dominance of the Republican party and the right-wing was complete. As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers, “Trump owned the Republican party. He owned right-wing radio. He owned the narrative. And it seemed like nothing could change that.”

There was an astonishing moment during the 2016 US presidential campaign where it seemed like Trump was done. This was the incident where a recording was released where Trump was bragging that he could sexually assault women and they would do nothing about it.  “You can grab them by the pussy, if you’re a star they let you do it.”

How possibly could a campaign survive that? It seemed impossible. I remember when I heard the story about this incident and I said to myself, with some comfort, at least now his campaign is over. He is dead. But I was wrong. I was dead wrong. Trump was not dead; he was alive and well.

He once claimed that he could stand in Times Square and shoot someone and he would not lose support. His followers were that staunch. And, incredibly, he was right. His fans were deliriously loyal.

 Similar incidents, each seeming to be campaign killers, occurred repeatedly, and yet Trump’s campaign lived on. He mocked handicapped people. He mocked veterans. He mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war, and his supporters stayed by his side. They must have thought he was like Jesus who could do no wrong. It was nothing less than theological devotion by his fans.

 As Justin Ling said,

“Each time something like this would happen, Trump would be counted out by the mainstream media, but each time all of his friends on right-wing radio found ways to rationalize his behavior, and rally the base to his cause and his campaign.”

 

The only thing that made sense, was the presumption on the part of Trump’s supporters that if the mainstream media said something about Trump it must be false! When liberals cried, the Trumpsters were joyful.  That seems to be continuing. For example, his convictions for felony offences have not significantly dimmed his support. Perhaps they have even amplified it.

 Like a god, Trump can do nothing wrong as far as his supporters are concerned.

 

Never Trumpers

Right-wing Extremism, Trump, Trumpism

 

In 2016, during the Republican primaries, many members of the Republican establishment had no use for Donald Trump. Many considered him a liberal!  Others considered him a clown. Few considered him a serious candidate for the Republican nomination. Many of them said they would never support Trump. They were the ‘Never Trumpers.’

Mark Levine was one of these. This is what he said, early in the campaign: “These bully, dirty tricks, Nixonian tactics they are only going to backfire. So, count me as ‘Never Trump.’ At some point you gotta stand up to it. I do not like bullies, and I never have. So, I will not be voting for Donald Trump, and he can thank Roger Stone.” That not only sounded good, but Levine was right. Trump was a bully and did not deserve votes, but soon, like so many others Levine choked on his words and supported Trump.

Too many of the never Trumpers were never brave. This was particularly true of those politicians who believed they needed to show support for Trump because they thought they needed his support to win their primary. They caved at the first opportunity.

To know the future you must know the past

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

Both libraries and archives have an inevitable leaning towards the future. They preserve the past for the benefit of the future. As Richard Ovenden said,

“Every collection, every library is actually about the future. Every archival institution is about the future. How can we know where we are going unless we know where we are from. How can we chart a path to the future without thinking of where we are from?”

 

We need the knowledge of the past in order to look at the past societies with fresh eyes and new ideas and to inspire the future and protect the path to the best future.

As John Stuart Mill so wisely told us, we cannot hold a valid opinion unless we allow it to be challenged. We must permit all ideas to be challenged. Even our most sacred beliefs must be challenged or those beliefs will wither. This is for our benefit and for the benefit of the future. We must consider  and reflect on opposing views. We must not hide them in closets. We do our children no favours if we protect them from contrary views. Their own views will become stunted and weak without challenge. Coddling them from uncomfortable views as so many conservatives, like those in Florida, now want to do, is doing a great disservice to the next generation. Few things help us challenge our own views better than reading the strongest of the challenges to those views.

Where better to go for that than a library?

 

A Champion for Freedom

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

John Stuart Mill was the author of On Liberty and a champion, perhaps the greatest champion, of freedom of thought and expression. Richard Ovenden in his lecture at the Toronto Library took note of one of his famous ideas: namely John Stuart Mill’s insistence in On Liberty, that only through the diversity of opinion is there in the existing state of human intellect the chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”  Often this seems hopelessly optimistic in this day of increasing polarization and decreasing tolerance for a diversity of ideas, but it is still the main hope for lovers of freedom of thought and expression.  Frankly, I have found no better idea.

Societies have a hard time achieving this goal. How can libraries then do it too? Richard Ovenden thought they could be up to that task. He pointed out that it is a fundamental aspect of their role. Libraries work in collaboration with each other and work within networks with each other. They have allies in their momentous task. They can do it! Often if you need to read something they don’t have in their own collection they are quite willing to help you to find it elsewhere and bring it to you.

Libraries take very seriously their job of serving their communities, Ovenden said. And I know this from my own decade of serving on a local library board. The people their love to serve the needs of their reading public. And they are darn good at it.

As Ovenden said,

“What gives us pleasure at the end of the day is thinking that they have helped someone solve a problem or better understanding of some issue. That task is entirely possible and we need to support those institutions and the individuals who work in them and give them the freedom to do that job.”

And they are darn good at it. They can do it if we just give them a chance. And it is one of the most important jobs there is.

 

 

Are Libraries asked to do too much?

civilization, Freedom to Read

 

Around the world libraries are being asked to do things or provide services in many new and interesting ways. In some places they act as shelters for the homeless. In places they act as food banks. In some they dispense health services and professional advice. They act as knowledge resources, community spaces. In Indigenous terms they are like knowledge keepers.  They are expected to reflect the diversity of opinion and to be welcoming of one and all. We also expect them to be, as Nahlah Ayed said, “bastions of free expression.” And then, as if that is not enough, we ask them to uphold democracy for us. All of this leads to the important question: are we asking too much of libraries?

Richard Ovenden had a good answer to this question.  He said, “Society is asking too much of libraries if we don’t resource them adequately to do all of those tasks.”

Libraries that were able to help many a person to make life choices are increasingly under pressure to do less, or even disappear entirely. That is most unfortunate. Particularly when libraries are faced with immense challenges of dealing with an analogue past and digital present such libraries may be unable to do all that is demanded of them. Ovenden said,

“Libraries have become aware of their role as social infrastructure. The have been incredibly adaptive. They’ve been innovative. They have seen how they can make a difference for their communities. We should entrust them to do those things their communities need the most and resource them properly.”

Yet we always ask them to do more. And therefore we must do our part too.

 

Libraries as temples

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

 

Richard Ovenden talked about excavations in ancient communities in Iraq and Syria of which I was not aware. He said that in ancient places, librarians often worked in temples!  5,000 years ago, librarians catalogued books. They had clay tablets of course rather than paper bound books, but they worked  in temples. He said “the librarians and archivists were priests!”

 In the France during the Middle Ages, the French national archives, the Trésor des Chartre,  were located in Sainte Chapelle. Only sacred chapels or cathedrals were good enough for libraries. That is how important they were considered. The archives were considered so precious they had sacred connotations.  We have lost some of that reverence  for libraries, for sure since then. Perhaps this is a sign of the decay of civilization in fact.

In the digital age we are surrounded by facts or false facts but libraries are hardly considered precious or sacred. Those days are largely gone. What a shame.

Nowadays, knowledge is abundant but still, we must never forget, fragile and can be easily disrupted disturbed or even maligned. We see that all around us.

It wasn’t long ago that the idea of librarians spending time on going through long lists of books for potential banning or “correction,” as happened in Florida, would have been considered ludicrous. Today it is rather a sad reality. Sometimes, I think, we live in the age of barbarians, or at best, the age of fools.

We have taken ancient liberties—such as the freedom to read or the freedom to think—for granted. To see them besmirched as they have been is deeply disturbing. Is there any chance that there can be galvanizing forces to buck up our resistance to tyranny? Or are these incidents or premonitions of our civilizational decline?

Libraries are truly treasures whether national, regional or local. We must learn again to understand that.

Librarians as Warriors

Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

It is a sad fact that librarians have become warriors. Soldiers for truth. They do that just by the fact of their job which is to preserve and disseminate knowledge.  But libraries have been under attack for quite some time. That forces librarians into battle and bravely and happily librarians have usually been up to the task. They are frequently courageous  and competent foot soldiers.

 

Some libraries in Florida were recently closed so that staff can go through their entire stock of books and materials to ensure that they are complying with the new laws. They need to make sure that they comply with the censorship laws brought in by Ron DeSantis and his cultural warriors of censorship. The staff have no choice. Often, they don’t want to do that, but by law they must. As a result, instead of working hard to make reading materials available to their members they are working hard to ensure the materials are not available.

Librarians have been forced to go through tens of thousands of books to make sure they are acceptable. That is a travesty of their function. Those who require it are part of a basket of deplorables to enlist a phrase with a checkered past.

As Richard Ovenden said, “The idea that libraries are engaged in serious matters for the good of society needs to be shouted out.” They are not dusty old places overseen by ancient schoolmarms. They are places of battle, The battle for civilization. Nothing less.

And the Lies Became Truth

Death of Truth, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

As Richard Ovenden the Oxford Librarian said in his CBC recorded lecture at the Toronto Public Library:

 

“Libraries and archives provide a diversity of knowledge and ideas. They make it possible to face the present and the future through deepening an understanding of the past. The ideas we encounter, the histories that we understand, and the culture that we engage with help us to make us who we are. But we need this pool of ideas and information to be constantly refreshed if we are to be creative and innovative. This is true not just in the creative fields of art, music, and literature, but more generally. The success of the democracy we enjoy today lies in the free circulation of ideas in order to pour light into the questioning spirit of our democratic processes. This means in part the freedom of the press, but citizens need access to all shades of opinion. Libraries acquire all kinds of content and this resource allows our views to be challenged and for citizens to inform themselves following John Stuart Mill’s insistence in On Liberty, that only through the diversity of opinion is there in the existing state of human intellect the chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”

 

And we must remember that this is what it is all about—the unreserved pursuit of the truth. In no other way, can we do that. We need the liberty of which Mill spoke to pursue the truth in any meaningful manner. Nothing else will do. We must have that liberty or else the truth will forever be enshrouded and us blinded from it. The task of making the conditions necessary to obtain the truth is a noble task. And, I dare say, a holy task. We must not shrink from it and we must not concede any limitations on our ability and capacity to do that task with all of our power. That may sound overheated. So be it. I think it is true.

 

We should always remember the immortal words of George Orwell from his incredible book 1984: “The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten. The lie became truth.”