CT Blue

Just before he died, John Lennon did an interview with Playboy, and he observed that “everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?”. It may not be universally true, but it’s mostly true about anything Republicans or their fascist allies say or claim to do. Case in point is the aptly (for Republicans) named Moms for Liberty in that the group exists solely for the purpose of imposing their “values” on the rest of us. Of course that is completely consistent with the right wing conception of the word “liberty” in that they fervently believe that liberty consists of the right of the powerful to oppress those with little or no power. You know, like corporations should be allowed to smash unions, cheat consumers, or poison the environment because that’s liberty or like people who call themselves Christians, despite their scorn for just about everything Christ advocated, should be allowed to impose their “religion” on everyone else, even forbidding women with life threatening pregnancy complications to get the treatment they need to save their lives. So you see, liberty is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?

What brings this to mind is this post at Crooks and Liars, where we learn that the Wisconsin GOP gerrymandered legislature is preparing to ban books at the instigation of the aforementioned Moms for Fascism Liberty.

All over the country these fascists are trying to make sure that our children don’t have access to any book that fails to reinforce their political viewpoint, including, of course, any book that fails to relate a fictional history of this country in which all slaves were happy and really a bit disappointed to be freed, and, among other things, in which “in every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards”. The latter statement is true if you don’t count the countless wars against Native Americans, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the theft of the Panama Canal Zone, and several other instances noted at the link.

The one hopeful note in all this is that Moms for Fascism Liberty (oops, screwed up again) took a drubbing at the polls this November. We can only hope that the Democrats will make an issue out of book burning, which, when I was a kid, had a bad reputation, and, I think, still does.