KINDLING KINDLE PART ONE: EBOOKS, THE NEW CENSORSHIP, AND THE ANCIENT ...
Don't get me wrong...I love e-books, Kindle and Nook. My own books are available in e-book form. And I'd never buy an ebook. And here's why...
..there's a great article on the subject of the latest elitist preoccupation - the control of literature - at the Daily Bell here, and this article so grabbed me for its implications that I have to talk about it:
Power Elite Bans Classic Books in US, Seeks Exclusive Narrative
Yes I can agree with The Daily Bell and its expressions of sympathy for Bill Gates, and his victimization at the hands of the unscrupulous and sociopathological Anglo-American financial elite. And I can even agree with its characterization of Warren Buffet and similar characters (I can think of a few names of people in that class).
But my concern here, and it should be your concern, is with the move to control the classics, even to "ban" then or remove them from the public curriculum. This makes sense, for as I and anyone else who has ever taught literature or history knows, these disciplines, if taught correctly, train people to think for themselves, and to think critically, for they require the active engagement of the mind to decode symbols, images, to follow memes and motifs, and to recognize patterns of human behavior throughout time. It comes as no surprise to me, nor should it to anyone else, that the elites would consider the following:
"Books such as JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by "informational texts" approved by the Common Core State Standards.
"Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.
"The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ...
"Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare"
Presumably, these more "practical" curricular concerns will extend to the prohibition of the movies and plays as well. But now imagine the vast capability for a Soviet style ability to revise whole books at will. A troublesome picture of Stalin with Sergo Orzhonokidze or (insert name of purged individual here)? Just photoshop out the offending figure... A troublesome reference or citation in an ebook? Just push a button and get rid of it, and amend the author's or authoress' words accordingly. Or if it a particularly troublesome book, just erase it from the public record altogether. Hence, I am old fashioned, I still prefer the hard copy...much more difficult to "amend, alter, or suppress" that way.
All that said, however, the really arresting words I found in this article were these, and they're worth pondering coming from a source like The Daily Bell:
"Whether such control existed in previous millennia we are not in a position to say. But it would be our perspective – avoiding a discussion of past civilizations – that the overt control of Money Power has been growing, not diminishing, of late."(Emphasis added)
Noting the reference to "past civilizations", add to that these words:
"Scarcity–based memes are STORIES aimed at the middle class and designed to frighten people into giving up wealth and power to specially designed internationalist institutions. Food, water and energy scarcity along with overpopulation and various military and terrorrist "threats" are the favorite tools of the top elites. None of the disseminated tales are true.
"But it doesn't matter whether they are true or not. The propagation and saturation of these stories – fables – are most important to the narrative that the elites want to establish.
"The chief narrative is that of the "small world." The world is to be seen as inevitably becoming "one." It is an ineluctable ascension to be desired and nurtured. It is, of course, for this reason that all talk of previous high civilizations is squelched. Whether they existed or not is not debatable, as the debate will never be held.
"There is only one civilization. It was launched 5,000 years ago and world government will be its crowning glory.
"This is the story. This is the narrative. There cannot be any other. And it is not enough for the elites to control the CONVERSATION. Now, apparently, they want to control the story line, as well."
And that, indeed, is the rub, and the real reason, perhaps, that researchers such as Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, with their magisterial investigation Forbidden Archeology and its carefully argued thesis that some of intelligence was here, on planet Earth, prior to the rise of modern man, or that any indication of such an advance civilization in ancient times, has to be suppressed. Not only does such a notion confront the neat and tidy dogmas of evolution and paleontology, but the lessons from that civilization, if one is to trust the fairly universal stories in ancient lore of its downfall, are themselves fairly consistent: it fell due to its overreaching technological ambitions and lust for power. The chimeras of Mesopotamian literature, the terrible world-destroying technologies with which the wars of the gods were fought, everything from weather weapons to things even more frightful, are being engineered in laboratories now.
The elites do not want that narrative to become mainstream, for if it were to do so, it would perhaps inform the public of their own hidden interest in those stories and the technologies of emulation being researched as this blog is being written. They also do not wish those stories to be told for another reason, for they tell also of the moral bankruptcy and downfall of similar elites long long ago. The Daily Bell gets this one spot on, in my opinion. There is to be no stories of Atlantis, Lemuria, no entertainment of the actual possibility that there may have been a kernel of truth to the wars of the gods... we are, rather, to be distracted about shows about ancient aliens, and the tongue-in-cheek approach that such shows inevitably engender. And even in the alternative community, the attitude of an ancient "high wisdom" and golden age of jonquils and daisies is still the prevailing view.
See you on the flip side...
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I disagree! Saying that printed books are better because “Books such as JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by ‘informational texts’ approved by the Common Core State Standard.” Is not something I buy into, because it is so much easier to censor printed books than it is to censor electronic books. No matter how hard you try to censor electronic books, someone always has a copy, and they can simply make it available on their website. Like a computer, a Kindle is simply a device, and it makes it easier to get what you want to read. Not harder. Publishing companies engage in ruthless censorship, and IMHO, much of what they publish isn’t worth reading. Amazon already engages in far too much censorship as far as I’m concerned, but the more they censor, the more people will just say “screw Amazon,” and get books from someplace else. You can go to sites like project Gutenberg, and get tons of Ebooks. They can be burned to CD, saved on a flash drive, or printed. All of these can be converted to Kindle format with free software like Calibre. I have an absolutely huge electronic library, which I could never maintain, if I kept all these books in hard copy. Don’t have the space to store it, and if I ever had to move, it would be impossible to keep all my books. Websites like have many texts on alchemy, and if not for the great work of the individual who runs this site, and contributing members, many who ordered these texts from the British Library, and then digitize them, these texts would not be available. All can easily be converted and read on a Kindle. Also, anyone can publish a book on Kindle, and you don’t need a publishing company. Amazon might reject it, but it’s still easy for a no name author to publish his book. Little books like “The Saturn Death Cult” would be hard for people like Troy McLachlan, to publish, if not for Kindle Publishing.
Sorry to say, but this looks to me, like more rubbish from this crowed of people who hate the internet and anything digital. I’ll agree to the point of saying that I’m not a big fan of Microsoft or Apple either, but It always amazes me that these people condemn the internet, and all things electronic. What did they do in their day? Stare mindlessly, into a television set for hours, watching Hollywood crap. 3 channels of Network news lies, and for an alternative, lots of bad music on the radio. Funny how their criticism never seems to extend to their favorite electronic device, which is something much more mind numbing than a computer or a Kindle. “Burn the computers cell phones, and Kindles, because the social skills of kids are underdeveloped with all their texting.” How about just change the frequency of a cell phone to one that won’t boil a water molecule and give you cancer, and I’ll keep my electronic library. Nope, I say the elites hate the internet, and they hate Kindles, and they want them gone, so we can be back to the good old days when they controlled everything and force fed us their brain spitting crap. And with all this freedom to publish, there is of course the dreaded fact that someone might read something from someone that doesn’t follow the standard modes and protocols, as established by the learned elders of Zion, and present and improper view of the holocaust. Can’t have that! No sir…No reading sassy Nazi books, and no reading the protocols! Maybe no reading Joseph Farrell too. Why? They say, “he’s a kook.” I say, go ahead and pack your house full of printed books. I’ll keep collecting electronic copies, and when these elite inbred defectives want to go into full censorship mode, I’ll have plenty of great reading material. If need be, I’ll just print it.
The alchemy site I was referring to, accidentally got deleted in my cut and paste. It is http://www.levity.com/alchemy
I’ve been away from the computer and just opened the email leading to this story. This has worried me for a long time, and instinctively I’ve always preferred to buy a book rather than go the ebook route.
I know when I was searching out old books they were simply unavailable new. They weren’t banned or burned. All they had to do was throw away the typesetting.
Also, I see a time when the net may not be able to operate, and the possibility of having to do without electricity. What use would our books be then? This doomsday scenario is on my mind as I’ve just been listening to Clif High’s latest discussion on Time Monk Radio http://timemonkradio.com/threads/clif-high-december-21st-9pm-edt-december-22-2-am-utc.257/.
Books have always been precious to me. I value what I have learned and am learning from them.
To ban the classics (and what else if they go that far?) would be horrific. I realise very few people, particularly children, actually read them now, but that is a tragedy. I have a couple of grandchildren who read a lot but they never touch some of the classics I grew up with and that is sad.
For control over a population nothing is more effective than controlling the narrative.
Is it any wonder why the library of Alexandra was burned down?
It’s interesting that the megalomaniacal dictator of Rome torched ships in a port next to the library only to be described by historians as an ‘accident’.
Seems fitting that the Christians finished off what Ceasar began.
It is also ludicrous to believe that an empire that spent vast resources building temples wouldn’t have had wealthy benefactors and scribes to copy the contents of the library.
I guess ebooks are the modern version of Alexandria.
There are a few errors in the article and in people’s concept of ebooks. There were ebooks before Kindle and Nook and ibook, moslty in form of pdf and some other formats. Not all of those can be digitally erased or changed.
Right now, through ebooks, a larger segment of the population has access to the classics, at least in the West than ever before. These ebooks in non-DRM’d files, can be had for free and saved in non-eraseable formats, even printed.
The Internet is not being completed controlled YET, so wasting time worrying about it instead of using it now to disseminate information is not productive.
Legacy publishers have been gatekeepers for the elite for centuries, and now, for a brief window of opportunity, electronic information sharing is throwing that out the window.
As far a s Bill Gates having his wealth stripped from him, that is a huge joke. He is worth as much now as when he tax-sheltered half his previous net worth, and still controls both. He was born rich, and has always been a card-carrying member of the elite class.
He did not “give away” 35 billion dollars as is often said – he simply moved that money to a tax-sheltered foundation which continues to use part of the interest off that wealth to further his elitist goals. This is exactly what John D. Rockyfailulre did a century ago, supposedly under similar circumstances.
Schools have never been the repository of significant literary content. When I was in public school 40 years ago, our libraries were strictly controlled by school boards and our local City Library by the City Council. Contrary to what some might think, there was plenty of politics in play back then – remember the U.S burning Wilhelm Reich’s books – just like the Nazis did?
If you depend on someone else to protect your access to knowledge, you have already given up. We must build our own libraries, share knowledge, and keep avenues of learning and education open between ourselves.
I encourage everyone to learn and practice the dreamwork techniques of Robert Moss. It is possible to learn almost anything through dreaming, and if we were as adept at it as the Senoi, we wold all have our own “remote viewing” black ops unit built-in.
Um, yes I’m sure Bill Gates has a voice at the Gates Foundation, and its corporatist public schools and advocacy for genetically modified foods fit in with a stupid mindset.
However as soon as the Gates Microsoft stock was transferred to the Gates Foundation, the Foundation divested itself of Microsoft stock. So in fact: The Foundation doesn’t have much to do with Gates wealth.
Bill Gates stole all the technology that makes up Windows. Windows sucks; Lonux rocks! The Gates Foundation is vaccinating (who knows with what!) a bunch of people in Africa. The Gates Foundation is following the genocidal footsteps of the wealthiest foundations in America. Look ip the Reese Committee investigation into foundations in the 1960s. See the true face of evil. Stop watching TV.
Incog;
It’s not particularly news that Microsoft didn’t really invent much.
However many really useful piece of software run on Windows, unlike the system you mentioned.
As for every action of big foundations being bad, that’s a very simple minded a wrong idea. And yes some vaccines appear to work well enough without particularly bad side effects. So if you have evidence of the Gates Foundation pushing questionable vaccines share it.
The keystone here is whether the internet can be controlled/regulated. Should that happen then it’s game over and just a matter of time before the masses are marched off to the scaffold. I’m under no illusion that my hope and belief that “they” can’t put the genie back in the bottle is just that, hope and belief.
They’ve already scued the history books, the science books, the archeology books, ect., ect.,
Now, with digital, they can do it on-the-fly.
Harper’s Magazine alreday did a piece were the “didgital” history available on Obama was dramatically changed. Someone; however, notice and wrote the piece. So this is the new future of an “evolving education”, one thaty was already sub-par is now going down the drain f a s t,
v e r y fast.
The Elites wet dream a presto-literate public is here with all the bookstores have closed here in Puerto Rico and paperbacks are the price of hard covers. I too have fears of electronic censorship we no longer are able to put together our own private librarys and they have put a end to the useful used bookstores as well all information will be under their control. And the joke is that the lower upper class and upper lower class have fallen into the Elites well crafted trap ignorance is strengh is their dream here to the world of marching morans. This reminds me of a episode of the television show Max Headroom with the only hope was a women who could still run a old printing press how precent that tv show was and is. Welcome to the the new Dark Ages.
If I am not mistaken I read where that author Salinger was a real recluse.
I think (guessing) he realized how elite-monguls can make ordinary or should I say extra-ordinary minor stuff that wouldn’t sell or take except for the power elites have for pushing or promoting it and wanted no part of that CRAP! (pardon that long sentence?)
Kind of like what Marx hinted at or later Foucault writes about the dominant themes of an era (epsitemes but what is probably called the memes fad around here.) favored by the elites are the dominant Themes of the Masses?
I am speculating part of his reclusiveness is that he wanted no part of the phony media hype for he probably realized his book or he wasn’t as great as it was all made out to be.
Quite frankley, I wouldn’t worry too much if the book Catcher on the Rye doesn’t attract much readers. I conclude the ‘real’ classics aren’t much read by the Masses anyway?
I agree with what the late Howard Zinn said in an interview: American’s on the whole (kids especially, I am guessing?) have little sense of the depth of History and are wrapped in something like a psychic-cacoon when it comes to news of the entire world. (taking only such stations as NBC, CBS and ABC as their source of information.)
I especially like Farrell when he starts on this history stuff and talks of how it may have been in the ancient past. Getting the Ancient Myths and Past partiallly right (how in the world would anyone get it entirely right?) feels more secure to me than knowing everything about the NOW or PRESENT?
Those BRICKS or non-convention mentions of the Ancient Astronaut/Civilizations Theory at least I believe foot me on a more secure or less wobbly foundation even if I am treated like a Pariah if and when I do talk about it with others in our hypereal, simulated World!
Now for a real Classic I would suggest a few French and Russian Authors and late 18 hundreds American Literature.
Have a HO-Ho Merry Christmas Folks!
Very well written, and I agree.
Enjoyed your post,
paul de gagnge
The beauty and irony of it all is that the lust and quest for totalitarian control always leads to their undoing, i.e Holy Roman Empire.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.
Straight out of 1984. Sick as hell.
Too bad this article can’t be bothered to cite the purported law.
Too bad this article can’t recognized the monopoly that Microsoft had and still has.
Didn’t know that Atlantis or Lemuria show up much in the reading lists of US public high schools. They barely mention ancient Iraq, India and Egypt.