| DATE |
AUTHOR |
SOURCE† |
TITLE OF ARTICLE² |
SUMMARY OF ARTICLE |
| 4/11/05 |
Dan Gerstein |
Wall Street Journal |
Why the Democrats Are Losing the Culture Wars |
"[T]he arrogance and narrow-mindedness that typifies the cultural thinking of our elites... [holds that] freedom in our culture has been "under attack" ever since 9/11 [,] ... led by "new Puritans" who want to "stamp out" all that is "joyously vulgar" in American culture and who are fomenting a "government war against indecency" to get the job done. [T]he implications of this mindset and the battle lines it establishes are clear. On one side are the forces of freedom, tolerance, diversity, modernity; on the other those of repression, intolerance, conformity and zealotry. And if you're not exactly enamored of watching titillating stunts and ads at the Super Bowl with your six-year-old, you're part of the TV Taliban. In this, the cultural elites are guilty of the very sin of silly oversimplification of which they frequently (and rightly) accuse conservatives. Not all parents who are concerned about the avalanche of crud crushing their children every day are obsessed with SpongeBob's sexual orientation. Nor are they seeking to shred the First Amendment. Most are just looking for a little cooperation from the captains of culture to make the hard job of raising children in a fully-wired universe a little easier. [I]t is more than possible to set some voluntary boundaries for protecting children without sacrificing the ability of adults to consume adult-oriented material. .... But there is a more damaging irony at work here. The Democratic elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny. [T]he reality is that it is those who cry "Censorship!" the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others. That may seem counterintuitive, but think about it. What is at issue is not the right to express oneself politically or artistically, or to consume controversial works in one's own home. It's the cultural environment we all share, what gets said and done in the public square for all to hear and see, and whether that common space should be governed by some social (not legal) norms and standards. How could that not be an appropriate subject for public debate in a democracy, particularly one as committed to free speech as ours? .... Sen. Clinton has been strong and steady in her advocacy for overwhelmed parents.... She frames the culture's influence as a public-health issue as much as a moral one, and cites research showing the potentially harmful effects of screen sex and violence." |
| 1/20/05 |
Frank Morriss |
The Wanderer |
Turning Public Libraries Into Public Latrines |
"Nothing reveals America's descent into cultural mediocrity - and heading even lower - more than the availability of pornography at our nation's public libraries. I say we are heading deeper into depravity on the basis of the defense of the New York Public Library's policy of letting adult patrons use its computers for pictorial voyeurism, telling any other library patrons disturbed by noticing what is going on that they should move to a computer at a greater distance. Though the library must have filtering software on its computers or lose federal financing, it will disable the filter at the request of any user older than 17. When a cultural facility such as a library feels compelled to cater to those of pornographic appetites, then it takes on the role of a procurer and provider — that is, the library becomes, in a blunter term — a pimp. .... Libraries were once considered hallowed places of uplift and access to heights of human expression. Pornography makes them nothing better than public latrines. .... It would not be a wild prediction to say that if pornography is recognized as a proper function of public libraries, the providing of it will become a greater and greater role. The next step might be places to watch pornography, and then put into play the perversions and atrocities viewed. If pornography is so valuable as to have a place for library viewing, then what it depicts would be even more valuable if acted out." |
| 12/3/04 |
Devvy Kidd |
WorldNetDaily |
ACLU Fulfilling Communist Agenda |
"Every day, the headlines scream with some new threat from the American Civil Liberties Union. I believe it's important to look behind the curtain and discover the origins of groups and organizations to better understand their activities. The ACLU was founded in the 1920s by Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman, described as a 'progressive' and 'the perfect feminist.' Earl Browder was general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States from 1930 through its dissolution in 1944. When the party was reconstituted as the Communist Political Association later that year, Browder was chosen as its president. Browder proudly proclaimed that the ACLU functioned as 'a transmission belt' for the party. To deny the ACLU's founding was attached at the hip to communist organizations is to deny what can easily be proven as truth. For the past few decades, the ACLU has been on a major crusade to ... promote filth under 'freedom of speech and expression....' On Jan. 10, 1963, Congressman Albert S. Herlong Jr., D-Fla., read a list of 45 communist goals into the Congressional Record. Below are the communist goals being implemented by the ACLU in their quest to destroy America's culture and traditions: * Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights. * Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. .... * Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them 'censorship' and a violation of free speech and free press. * Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and television. * Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture – education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, [P2S: library boards of trustees,] etc. * Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity.... Anyone who has been following the destructive path of the ACLU can easily see how effective these communist goals have been implemented to 'promote democracy' and protect your 'civil rights.' .... Perhaps it's time to recognize the ACLU as the American Communist Lawyers Union instead of their disingenuous 'civil rights' stage name. ...." |
| 8/17/04 |
Lee Kaplan |
Front Page Magazine |
Librarians For Terror |
"Starting in the 1980's, hard-core leftists ... have steadily been working to take control of the ALA.... These people decide what will you and your children will read and see at the local library. Dr. Stephen Karetzky, a noted librarian, wrote more than 20 years ago about the ALA's embracing, Soviet-style totalitarianism in the American library system.... He contends that the ALA has always advanced radical socialist doctrine as being positive.... .... Despite ALA policy that says library materials should show all sides of an issue, Karetzky explained how the actual game plan is to admit only "progressive" [Marxist] points of view to the exclusion of conservative ideas. .... The ALA "Bill of Rights" has been twisted to the point that "anything goes" in Library Science as long as it is deemed progressive. The ALA proved its adherence to this philosophy when it spent 1.5 million dollars in lawsuits that reached the Supreme Court to oppose the Child Online Protection Act, H.R. 3783, passed by Congress; an ALA victory would have allowed pornography for children in public libraries. When extremist positions like that thrive within the ALA, it creates an atmosphere conducive to promoting any one-sided propaganda exported from totalitarian regimes abroad as part of the "progressive agenda." .... There are ALA members opposed to what is happening but who are afraid to speak out for fear they will lose their jobs. .... But the fact remains: Those who support the actions and goals of terrorists and oppose ... America's War on Terror have infiltrated America's knowledge distribution centers—our libraries." |
| 5/5/04 |
S. Renee Mitchell |
OregonLive.com |
Once Again, Policy Did Not Involve Public |
"[T]he advisory board of the Multnomah County Library unanimously endorsed a public policy that defies the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court and the opinion of most parents who care about their children's mental health. .... As a result, ... young, impressionable minds can continue to get free access to hard-core pornography at any one of the system's 17 branches. .... The county -- arguing that it doesn't want its librarians to be gatekeepers of information -- was the lead agency challenging the Children's Internet Protection Act all the way to the Supreme Court. .... [O]ur library board thumbed its nose at popular opinion. .... In Multnomah County ... it seems as if we prefer to make public policy decisions in secret. .... The library claims to stand up for intellectual freedom, but there was no process that embraced a change of mind on this issue. No polling of library users on whether children should be allowed to access sexually explicit materials. And no adequate warning that this issue was even going to be discussed by the 13-member advisory board. .... [O]ur children are the ones who get to decide whether to activate an optional filter each time they log on. .... [W]e're not even supposed to complain when we see young kids checking out online hotties. .... [T]here are just some rights that should not be inalienable under the age of 17. Access to porn at the library is one of them." |
| 5/4/04 |
Arlene Sawicki |
MichNews.com |
Library Filters |
"[M]any library Boards refuse to even consider filters, claiming that doing so violates the First Amendment free access to all information or that filtering software has not yet reached perfection. Our communities should find this apparent reluctance unacceptable." [P]arents in some communities are not even allowed to ask questions about filtering safeguards from their Library Boards." [J]ust how "family friendly" are our area public libraries? Whether we are aware of it or not, the ALA ... has systematically taken control of how our community libraries are run. They set the agenda, they dictate the policies. A visit to their web site will inform you that the ALA, which is strongly influenced by the ACLU, is very much concerned about First Amendment rights, Civil Liberties, Freedom to Read and Privacy policies—as THEY interpret them." The ALA's web site once contained a link to a sexually-explicit educational resource aimed at children entitled "Go Ask Alice," which came under public scrutiny and fire by talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger. The ALA had also offered children advice on how to work around or undo filtering devices that their parents have installed on home computers. These actions speak volumes regarding this organization's liberal social agenda, which clearly undermines parental authority." In October, 2003, President Bush increased federal efforts to promote online safety against the exploitation of children using the Internet. He expressed his commitment by stating, "Anyone who targets a child for harm will be a primary target of law enforcement. Anyone who takes the life or innocence of a child, will be punished to the full extent of the law." Should the ALA and our libraries hold themselves above the law?" The Board of Directors has a fiduciary duty to be open to community involvement and input. Filtering is not "censorship," it is the application of common sense and decency—despite what the [ALA] would compel their members to do." |
| 3/24/04 |
Robert W. Peters |
Morality in Media |
The Link Between Pornography and Violent Sex Crimes |
The author, President of Morality in Media, provides very detailed, very well documented information and sources showing that pornography is directly linked to violent sexual crimes. "I wrote this article because defenders of pornography are misleading the public by saying either that pornography is harmless or by saying that we lack the necessary 'conclusive scientific data' that pornography causes sex crimes to justify suppressing pornography." He explodes the excuses of the politically correct such as Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU, who thinks pornography is not harmful to women and is even helpful and cathartic. While public libraries are not directly mentioned, this article shows the porn-crime link. The location of the criminal activity could be anywhere, like in public libraries where pornographic web sites are freely available as shown below. |
| 2/10/04 |
Natalie Pompilio |
Philadelphia Inquirer |
Homeless Man's Pastor Told Police of Assault |
"[An] 8-year-old victim, accompanied by her grandmother and two other children, ages 3 and 4, visited the [public library where she] went alone into the women's restroom. There, police said, [the attacker] ripped off the child's clothing, sexually assaulted and choked her, then jammed her body between the toilet and the wall. Another child found her a short time later." "She will be scarred for the rest of her life." "It was not the first time [he] appeared in court [for a] similar case involving a 9-year-old girl. And it was not the first time [he] had caused trouble at a city library. Last year, he was banned from the library's Central Branch ... because he used the computers to look at pornography. A library employee who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions said [he] was often disruptive in the library, yelling and using foul language when librarians told him he had used his 30-minute allotted time on the public computers. He looked mostly at pornography, she said, and officials banned him from the library only after he exposed himself to a 16-year-old library assistant. In the earlier assault, [he] found his victim in the women's bathroom of the Venice Island Recreation Center...." |
| 10/13/03 |
Carl Campanile |
NY Post |
City's Ed. Boobs |
"Embarrassed [New York City] Department of Education officials yanked an eye-popping book from 371 middle and high schools because it contains sexually graphic material - including crude street language - that somehow landed on the recommended reading list for students." "[T]he sexual primer was mistakenly put on the list of suggested classroom library books and was delivered to schools." "Parents were outraged." How could this have happened? Could the ALA have recommended the pornographic book to the school in a "Top 10" list? You be the judge: ALA | Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Why are librarians pushing pornography on children? That we don't know. Is it a crime in and of itself? |
| 10/3/03 |
Mark Lasswell |
Wall Street Journal |
Lost in the Stacks |
"[T]he [ALA] ... these days is ... in such thrall to left-wing politics that it has an ACLU-like ability to identify an absurd position on almost any topic and instantly adopt it." "[A] press release from the 64,000-member organization headlined 'ALA denounces Supreme Court ruling on [CIPA]' ... was a bitter admission of defeat in the ALA's battle against efforts to shield children from Internet pornography in public libraries that receive federal support." "[S]omehow librarians, seemingly mesmerized by the vastness of the Internet, have convinced themselves that they are the guardians of all it contains." "[A] dozen [librarians] in Minneapolis ... grew so weary of the peep-show conditions at the downtown library that they filed a federal lawsuit last spring claiming the place constitutes a hostile work environment, thus raising the delicious prospect of the [ALA] filing an amicus brief against the very sort of folks it supposedly represents." |
| 10/1/03 |
Will Manley |
Booklist |
Intellectual Freedom Begins at Home |
"[I]n the case of keeping children away from Internet pornography, it is the library profession, not the Supreme Court, which has distanced itself from the mainstream. Our profession's 'anything goes' view of intellectual freedom simply does not square with the values of the communities we serve. While librarians were blasting the Supreme Court as a band of censors, parents from Maine to California were thanking the justices for protecting their children from the excesses of sex on the Web." One of the CIPA drafters said, "libraries can continue to fulfill their mission because parents won't need to be reluctant about dropping off their kids for an afternoon at the library." "[H]ow could we have allowed ourselves to be put in such a publicly disadvantageous position as defending the right of children to access pornography?" "[E]xtremists always dominate, and we end up with an 'anything goes' official policy that distances the library profession from mainstream America." |
| 9/24/03 |
Chris Nuttall |
Financial Times |
Microsoft to Curb Chat Room Abuses |
Microsoft is closing Internet chat rooms because of misuse by pedophiles. Unmoderated chat is not safe. Child abuse results from online chats with pedophiles. "This announcement is a very positive step forward and will help close a major supply line for sex abusers who go to great lengths to gain access to innocent children by grooming them on the internet."
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| 9/22/03 |
Rich Lowry |
Townhall.com |
The Ideological Librarians |
"Librarians now constitute one of the country's main centers of thoughtless and unreconstructed leftism." "That this is so is mostly the work of the American Library Association, which is doing for librarians what teachers unions have done for teachers: making an otherwise worthy profession seem a blight on the republic." "Librarians in some communities, reflecting the ideological spirit of the ALA, have managed to maintain oases of ... disorder and licentiousness -- ... pornography is available on the computers; and law enforcement is a bugaboo." "[M]any librarians [are] defending 'the right' of patrons to download Internet porn in libraries, effectively making their computer terminals the 'Larry Flynt Section.'"
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| 9/15/03 |
Gary Young and Staff Reporter |
The National Law Journal |
No Smut At Work, Please |
"On First Amendment grounds, library officials refused to intervene when patrons used library Internet stations to display sexually explicit material." "[T]he administration's laissez-faire attitude led to overt acts of harassment, such as catcalls, masturbation, physical threats and stalking by patrons." "[T]he issue of whether a library can put restrictions on its patrons' choice of Internet material has largely been rendered moot by the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in U.S. v. [ALA:] A library's need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material; it is no less entitled to play that role when it collects material from the Internet than when it collects material from any other source." "[T]he administration was so loath to interfere with the viewing choices of its patrons that it chastised a security guard for telling a 6-year-old boy that he shouldn't be looking at pornography." "[T]he library fell under occupation by about 25 'sex addicts' who came in every day to use the terminals, deliberately tried to embarrass and intimidate the staff, lured children into viewing pornography and made violent threats." "[Librarians were] chastise[d] by the administration 'for daring to think that they had rights in this area.'" "The pornography that came into the librarians' workplace via the internet created a hostile environment for their work because they were women. This is sex-based abuse, not protected freedom."
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| 8/16/03 |
Steve Brandt |
Star-Tribune |
Librarians Settle Porn Case - The Minneapolis Library Agrees to Pay 12 Employees $435,000, and it Promises to Revamp Internet Policies |
A dozen librarians settle a case about Internet porn for $435,000. "[T]he financial settlement in this case sends a strong message to libraries around the country that they must take the concerns of their employees seriously" "The library didn't admit wrongdoing, but ... apologized ... that it was so difficult for them...." "[C]omputer terminals became a magnet for users hungry for explicit images 'displaying virtually every kind of human sexual conduct.'" "Concern grew as patrons, including children, also were exposed to the graphic material, both from screens and from printouts. "[A] group of librarians filed complaints ... charging that they were exposed to a barrage of explicit material and that they endured hostility and threats from some Internet users when they tried to discourage such use." "The federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in 2001 found probable cause that federal law had been violated because of a sexually hostile work environment." "47 downtown library workers signed a letter ... saying that library trustees ... hadn't responded to their concerns."
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| 3/27/03 |
Marc Morano |
CNSNews |
Library Porn Subject of Federal Lawsuit |
A dozen female employees of the Minneapolis Public Library filed a federal lawsuit accusing the library of creating a hostile work environment because of its policy of allowing unrestricted access to Internet pornography. The freely available smut in the library's personal computers is attracting hard-core male pornography users who act in a threatening and abusive manner toward the library's female staff. "This is a good example of how hard it is to protect not just kids, but even the general public, and how pervasive the porn problem is even in libraries.... Even the best intended librarians can't control the problem, and even the ones that want to try are not being permitted by their own public trade union," |
| 7/4/02 |
Family Friendly Libraries |
Family Friendly Libraries |
ALA is Big Contributor to Public Library Internet Porn Problem |
The ALA is a part of the Internet pornography and child endangerment problem. The ALA threatens libraries that choose to use Internet filters. Current Internet usage policies are failing to protect even accompanied children. Libraries have become sexually hostile workplaces, but the librarians are afraid to complain due to threats from the ALA agenda promoters. The ALA receives hefty contributions from the pornography industry. A young mind is a terrible thing to molest. |
| 6/1/01 |
Center for Reclaiming America |
The Inside Track |
Minneapolis Public Library a "Hostile Work Environment," Says Federal Agency |
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found that a Minneapolis, Minnesota, public library had subjected twelve of its employees to a sexually hostile work environment, violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when they were exposed to graphic, hard-core Internet pornography. Due to pressure from the ALA, most libraries do not carry Internet filtering systems to keep out the hard-core pornography.
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