I'm afraid I'm more than a little concerned about changes in law and institutions this last week which expand the powers of the Presidency and threaten to destroy the system of checks and balances on which our Constitutional order is based.
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Date sent: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:58:08 +0800
From: Mark Rosenzweig
Subject: [SRRTAC-L:18885] RE: [ALAWORLD:1890] RE: The Laura Bush Book Festival or "READING is fundamental"
To: SRRT Action Council
Copies to: srrtac-l@ala.org
Send reply to: iskra@earthlink.net
I know you just want to have fun at your festivals and conferences and all and pretend like all is well in Bushland.
But the short answer to your question, Nancy, is "no".
Sure, I would like to move on but I'm afraid I'm more than a little concerned about changes in law and institutions this last week which expand the powers of the Presidency and threaten to destroy the system of checks and balances on which our Constitutional order is based.
I would like to move on but unfortunately this week the Congress made a law which nullifies rights which democratic peoples have had since the Magna Carta, has legalized torure and secret tribunals and voted to violate international law.
I would like to move on but Bush's snooping programs are laying the basis for unchecked violations of privacy and protections against illegal search and seizure.
I would like to move on but unfortunately the US is occupying Iraq and presiding over a situation of its making which is destabilizing the entire world. Hundreds of people are dying every week in that war.
I would like to move on but the Bush Administration has clearly made threats to expand their war to Iran.
So, with your permission, Nancy, I won't move on.
Nor will people of conscience in this profession move on while our officialdom is collaborating with the Bush regime and turning libraries into a staging ground for celebrations of the Bush Administration by way of its promotion of Laura Bush as some kind of library idol.
Mark C. Rosenzweig
Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province,
Peoples' Republic of China
----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Bolt
To: iskra@earthlink.net;ALA International Relations Round Table Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Sent: 10/2/2006 12:35:44 PM
Subject: RE: [ALAWORLD:1890] RE: The Laura Bush Book Festival or "READING is fundamental"
And so do I. Can we move on?
Nancy
Nancy Bolt
Nancy Bolt & Associates
From: owner-alaworld@ala.org [mailto:owner-alaworld@ala.org] On Behalf Of Mark Rosenzweig
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 10:32 PM
To: ALA International Relations Round Table
Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Subject: [ALAWORLD:1890] RE: The Laura Bush Book Festival or "READING is fundamental"
I rest my case.
MCR
----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Bolt
To: ALA International Relations Round Table
Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Sent: 10/2/2006 12:28:05 PM
Subject: [ALAWORLD:1889] RE: The Laura Bush Book Festival or "READING is fundamental"
So, have you been to the festival? Go to the festival and decide for yourself. Its loads of fun, brings attention to reading and authors, particularly for children, involves people from all over the country. Go and judge for yourself.
Nancy
Nancy Bolt
Nancy Bolt & Associates
From: owner-alaworld@ala.org [mailto:owner-alaworld@ala.org] On Behalf Of Mark Rosenzweig
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 10:01 PM
To: ALA International Relations Round Table
Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Subject: [ALAWORLD:1888] RE: The Laura Bush Book Festival or "READING is fundamental"
Nancy,
And where did YOU get the idea that I was suggesting that publishers couldn't sell certain things there?
If you read the damned article, the point was that of the 70 or so FEATURED authors , in a year replete with high-quality/high-selling/highly-acclaimed books which were controversial or critical, not ONE honoree was a writer of such a book.
That is to say, a National Book Festival, in keeping with the pattern I have been discussing, has been turned into a SANITIZED PR EVENT for Laura Bush and her politicizing of culture in the interests of using it to advance the narrow interests of her husband's administration.
But of course, I can't presume that you will read even this short note and grasp the point. As they say, you can lead a horse to water...Nonetheless, the article remains attached below... if you can see past your thang for Laura Bush.
Mark Rosenzweig,ALA Councilor at large.
From: Nancy Bolt
To: iskra@earthlink.net;ALA International Relations Round Table
Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Sent: 10/2/2006 9:23:16 AM
Subject: RE: [ALAWORLD:1880] The Laura Bush Book Festival
Where did you get the idea that no publisher could sell a book that criticized George Bush? That was not the case last year. Publishers sold their best sellers, whatever they were.
Nancy
Nancy Bolt
Nancy Bolt & Associates
From: owner-alaworld@ala.org [mailto:owner-alaworld@ala.org] On Behalf Of Mark Rosenzweig
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:22 PM
To: ALA International Relations Round Table
Cc: srrtac-l@ala.org
Subject: [ALAWORLD:1880] The Laura Bush Book Festival
Importance: High
The Library of Congress has now joined the "Let Laura Use Libraries" bandwagon in a big way: it is organizing a fraudulent ,Bush-friendly "National Book Festival" presided over by the President's wife, a festival featuring only books which are uncritical of anything remotely Bush-related.
This is a sad day for library ethics. The Library of Congress under the appallingly political James Billington has once again politicized our professional public persona. And ALA set the sails in this direction. Shame on us!
Can't you see. my colleagues, how the Laura Bush Show is being consciously and cynically used by Karl Rove et al. to affect people's attitudes towards the Repuiblican Party and the Administration in the immediate run-up to the elections? And we are complicit in it. Billington, Kniffel and AL with fulsome praise of LB, Fialkoff with her "First Librarian" nonsense, ALA's Washington Office, the PR flacks of the Association.
Now you have it, a "National Book Festival" , described below , which is blatabtly biased and censorious. How much more evidence do you want that LB is no real friend of librarianship or of literacy or of books?
Read this please:
Scenes from Laura's Book Festival
Elmo Will Not Save You
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
and ROBERT WEISSMAN
Just returned from a run around the National Mall.
Party tents are going up.
Getting ready for the National Book Festival on Saturday.
Hosted by the Library of Congress.
Sponsored by Target and AT&T.
And starring Laura Bush.
You will be seeing a lot of Laura Bush in the next couple of days.
Talking with authors.
Reading.
Hanging out with kids.
It's just a nice cover for the killing.
We wanted to know more about the National Book Festival.
So, we went to the Library of Congress web site.
And we registered in the press area.
And we got a call back from --
Susie Schoenberger.
She's not with the Library of Congress.
She's with the public relations firm -- Fleishman Hillard.
Since when is the Library of Congress outsourcing press duties?
Anyway, we want to know -- whose paying for this?
How much is Target putting up?
How much is AT&T?
Can't answer that, Schoenberger says.
You'll have to speak with Sheryl Cannady.
She's with the Library of Congress.
So, we call Cannady.
And she sends us an e-mail saying that the one-day National Book Festival costs $1.5 million.
But we can't tell you who pays for it.
Great.
In any event, you get the message.
The web site is the Library of Congress.
But the book festival itself is a corporate/Laura Bush affair.
And no doubt the 70 authors who will appear at the book festival are wonderful people -- people like Kai Bird, Douglas Brinkley and Andrew Carroll -- and on the whole a book festival is a much better deal for the country than a military festival.
But we also have little doubt that the corporate funding -- and Laura Bush's presence -- helped define the types of authors who appear at the Festival.
Please don't tell us that it's just about getting kids to read.
The question is not only reading -- but reading what?
So, this year there has been a slew of books written about the war in Iraq and corporate power and the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against.
But the authors of these books will not appear at the National Book Festival on the Mall sponsored by Target and AT&T -- and hosted by Mrs. Laura Bush.
Will Cindy Sheehan appear to read from her new book -- Peace Mom?
No.
Will Elizabeth Holtzman appear to read from her new book -- The Impeachment of George W. Bush?
No.
Will Thom Hartmann appear to read from Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class?
No.
Will Diane Wilson appear to read from her new book -- An Unreasonable Woman?
No. (She'd probably be unreasonable enough to confront our First Lady of Bloodshed.)
Will Edwin Black appear to read from his new book -- Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed The Alternatives?
No.
Will Dr. Helen Caldicott appear to read from her new book -- Nuclear Power is Not the Answer?
No.
Will Noam Chomsky appear to read from his bestseller -- Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination?
No.
Will Amy and David Goodman appear to read from their new book -- Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back?
No.
Will Jeff Goodell appear to read from his new book Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future?
No.
Will David Callahan appear to read from The Moral Center: How We Can Reclaim Our Country from Die-Hard Extremists, Rogue Corporations, Hollywood Hacks and Pretend Patriots?
No.
Will Gore Vidal appear to read from Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia?
No.
Will Stephen Kinzer appear to read from his most recent book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, or from his previous classic -- All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror?
No.
Will David Cortright appear to read from his masterful Gandhi And Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism?
No.
You get the idea.
The National Book Festival is a public/private partnership -- read -- corporate controlled.
And therefore, none of these authors will appear.
Laura Bush will appear with kids and NBA players and community relations representatives from Target.
She'll spend time with the Kevin Clash, an African-American man who is the voice of Elmo, and who has written a book titled My Life As a Furry Red Monster.
Meanwhile, open today's Washington Post and go to pages A16 to A19.
See the faces of the fallen.
2,693 Americans dead in Iraq.
So far.
Hanging out with Elmo will not absolve you, Mrs. Laura Bush.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and co-director of Essential Action, a corporate accountability group. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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