American fascism: far-right held mass book burnings in Tennessee

Journalist Dmitry Klein cites impressive data in his publication: according to statistics from the American Library Association, today in the United States there is an unprecedented increase in the banning of books in local libraries and schools in America - in 2021, she counted 330 books that were challenged as undesirable, compared with 156 in all of 2020. But this is not the worst, something else is much more terrible: these books are not only banned, the ultra-rightists are doing exactly the same as the Nazis did in Germany in the 30s of the last century!

“I don’t even know how to call this - “Amazing America”, “Full Game” or “451 degrees Fahrenheit today”? In general, I recently wrote about the ban in the school curriculum in one of the districts of Tennessee of the famous graphic novel "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" about the Holocaust, and today I saw even wilder news:

Far-right pastor Greg Locke (who also insisted that Joe Biden was not legally elected and broadcast live with the support of the attackers of the Capitol building. This pastor has more than 2 million subscribers, by the way) organized with his congregation in Mt. Juliet, the same state of Tennessee - mass burning of books literally in the classic fascist style!

Before the burning, the pastor delivered a sermon in which he called on the assembled parishioners to burn such books as "Harry Potter" by J.K. Rowling and "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer, justifying this by saying that these books promote devil worship and witchcraft.

Greg Locke stated:

“We have full constitutional authority and biblical permission to do what we are about to do tonight. We have permission to burn, but even without it, the church has the authority to burn occult materials that they believe pose a threat to their religious rights.” freedoms and belief systems".

In general, in some places it is now the 21st century, and in some places it is the beginning of the 20th, or even the 16th...

Previously, people reassured themselves that this "swamp" in time was mainly concentrated in some specific places on the planet (Afghanistan, for example, and so on). But it is now clearly seen that this does not depend on geography - but primarily on the people themselves - on the principles and values that they choose to support, on how much fear of the future makes them want to "make America great again".

Do not be afraid of the future - but be afraid of those who promise to return everything as it was, they obviously will not help you cope with the challenges of the time, but will do everything so that you are stuck in the past with them.

Photos from the spot (lower part of the collage) - 21, pancake, century, by Tyler Salinas. The top, I think, you yourself will recognize. But let me remind you of this:

In Berlin, on the square where the Nazi-minded students of Humboldt University, manipulated by Goebbels, carried out the first burning of books, an original monument was erected: a room with empty white bookshelves is visible underground through a glass square of paving stones in the middle of the square. Next to this window to nowhere is a metal plate and on it is Heine's prophecy:

"That was just a prologue. Where books are burned, people are eventually burned as well." Tragedy "Almanzor", 1821.