In their zeal for control over online speech, House Democrats are getting closer and closer to the constitutional line, if they have not already crossed it.
Google just pulled down a video this morning of an interview with Trump because it discussed election fraud. How many videos did they pull down over the past 4+ years which spread deliberate lies about the phony Russia collusion hoax again?
And where are the Republicans in all of this? Will they do something? No, they're jumping on board, probably wondering why they weren't the first think of such a great way to censor and control. We need a third party candidate. Trump wasn't the answer. He was too brash, too self-interested and too devisive. Bernie sold out immediately. We need an independant candidate that speaks for all Americans not in the elite bubble, with the bite of Trump but the charisma of Obama. The odds of that are almost nil, however. So where to go from here?
Thank you Glenn. Best subscription I have ever purchased. Full disclosure... the only journalist I subscribe to. I can count on you to tell me the truth. I do not have to do a bunch of research to confirm the veracity of what you write. You are sounding the alarm. I only hope others hear it and wake up from their utopian dreams.
I am surprised...that anyone is surprised... in any way about any of this.
The tech platforms rolled over and played dead for the surveillance that the GOP/NSA/Intel instituted. Notice so much of it (if not all of it) by passed legislation.
Neither party did much about it, most GOP and DNC still see Snowden as a traitor instead of the hero that he is.
Most authoritarian regimes instituting government sponsored censorship in the last 100 years have been those espousing ideologies mostly hostile to basic enlightenment ideals. Why anyone would be surprised the DNC would now be doing so would be comical if it wasn’t tragic.
We’ve just been through a stealth coup with both parties complicit, moving at warp speed toward an authoritarian state, with radically reduced civil liberties. They have blown up free exchange, human movement, human gatherings, schools, travel, office environments, inflated the dollar via modern monetary theory put into action. Rather than legislate, most of it was done co opting Governor “orders” and co opting “public health experts”. Through false narratives about danger, they’ve terrified and demoralized the population, demoralized children, driven people to tattle and shame on each other for questioning or defying governor orders. Local governments following federal and state “guidelines” have bullied businesses into enforcing their orders.
UBI framework is in place and coming, socialization of debt is coming as well.
Human tracking is underway with contact tracing, proposed health passports, testing requirements to re-enter ones own homeland.
Anyone who thinks it’s temporary is just an absolute fool. This last step to censor is just the final step, necessary to prevent open inquiry, questioning authorities, and suppressing critical thinking.
We are already well into a post constitutional system.
We can blame it on politicians, but ultimately a fairly large percentage of the population, especially the younger demographics, have widely supported a more authoritarian, centrally planned system. And they are going to get it.
This is not just a US movement. Look at Canada, look at the UK, Western Europe. The “Great Reset” types, all linked through supranational organizations like the UN and WHO are making their visions a reality. Because they genuinely believe we are going to have an existential climate crisis in 10 years, they think they are doing God’s work (figuratively speaking). It’s pretty much complete. We are not “going back.”
When this bites Democrats HARD in 2022, no one will be laughing harder than me. They're not gaining voters with this bullshit and they're just strengthening the resolve of the people who will throw them out (at the very least).
Neoliberals have become exactly what they often accused Trump of being: Fascists. They are using state power to cajol, coerce and collude with Big Tech into censoring information they deem threatening to their power. The terms “disinformation” and “misinformation” have ceased to have any real meaning other than “information that threatens neoliberal authority.”
So for example a video testimony of someone - not even an “anonymous source” so beloved of “papers of record” - who witnessed some shenanigans in the 2020 election - even if it may not have swung the result - can be censored by YouTube, since it has been deemed by the powers-that-be that - for the first time in the history of elections anywhere - zero fraud occurred in the 2020 election and to show, let alone suggest, otherwise is “disinformation”.
Meanwhile questioning the 2016 election is perfectly fine. So was questioning the efficacy of vaccines prior to the election; or of vaccines developed by Russia. But now apparently caution about vaccines - even ones from credentialed scientists of say increased risks of mRNA vaccines on pregnant women vs other populations - will be called “misinformation”.
This is similar to the concept of invoking “national security” as an excuse to to hide a lot of Government malfeasance.
PS: As an aside, in a subculture called mukbang - where videos are made of people consuming large amounts of food for people to watch - there exists channels on YouTube which depict killing and torturing of live squid and octopuses by slicing them up and/or eating them whole, wriggling and writhing. A YouTuber with over 5 *million* subscribers cuts off squid parts leaving their live heads to watch as she consumes them. These violent videos broadcast unhindered - despite appeals by animal activists and violations of YouTube’s own TOS against animal cruelty.
Apparently these videos which feed the mindless voyeuristic appetite in their audience are better than those who discuss topics that question neoliberal power.
The delusion is deep Grasshopper. I get the their consuming lust for power, but how do they not see that after they destroy all the safeguards against totalitarianism — freedom of speech, a free (and honest) press, freedom of assembly, to name a few — they will have nothing with which to protect themselves against a totalitarian regime with whose ideas they disagree. How dumb can you be? They occupy adult bodies, but they are infants, spoiled brats really, that can’t think their way out of the paper bag they are constructing that is closing in around them. Somehow reminds me of the part of the Christmas story of Scrooge where Scrooge encounters the ghost of Jacob or Marley (can’t recall which) and asks about the chains that he is wrapped in. “I forged this chain in life, link by link.” Chilling. Lord, please save me from myself.
For years I have been saying that once you allow ANY entity to decide what speech is "allowable", dissent is banned soon after. We're witnessing the formation of the Ministry of Truth and the Democrats don't care about what's legal or not legal. They have the power and they are going to use it. Hell, they demanded banning of "hate speech" WHILE DONALD TRUMP COULD DECIDE WHAT SPEECH THAT WAS! They can't win the debate on merit so they have to ban the opposition.
When's the last time the correct side had to ban debate?
Mr. Greenwald, great work, as usual. My monthly subscription fee continues to be the best $5 I've ever spent. Thank you!
You wrote, "That is clearly what happened after Democrats spent four years petulantly insisting that they lost the 2016 election not because they chose a deeply disliked nominee or because their neoliberal ideology wrought so much misery and destruction, but instead, they said, because Facebook and Twitter allowed the unfettered circulation of incriminating documents hacked by Russia."
Truer words have never been spoken, Sir. Although, the nihilist in me watched with great delight as Clinton lost to the braying, orange jackass, followed by the DNC's (and its Establishment lackeys) four-year temper tantrum.
The battle for Free Speech in the USA was lost when we allowed the term "hate speech" to be not only a permanent part of our lexicon, but used a cudgel to beat down, censor, and ban anything and anyone that the "Establishment" deemed dangerous; i.e. not in complete and total ideological lockstep. A great example can be found during the 2016 election with the labeling/smearing of ANYONE bringing up Hillary Clinton's documented record as "misogynists".
It will be interesting to see if the "republicans" (assuming they have the will) can successfully use the "democrats" current use of state power to censor their political opponents (and let's call this what it is) as a cudgel to win back seats in the midterms.
Everybody is afraid...it's obvious. They get their orders. The silk shirts, the private jets, the conceited smirks are hiding it; but free people don't agree so completely as these do. They're scared shitl*ss of putting a foot wrong.
All Democrats cheering this increasing censorship in the name of "good" should remember that any new power grabs can be just as abused by the Republicans when they control the government someday (and which will likely happen sooner than later).
Ye reap what ye sow.
Interestingly enough, if memory serves me correct, a few years back there was some congressional Republican interest in trying to reform social media to counter what they thought was an increasing anti-conservative bias being promoted by social media and Google search functions, but Josh Hawley (I believe) warned them off by pointing out any regulatory/censorship powers they might obtain could be abused by the Democrats should they gain control of the government. But we're seeing that happen anyway.
A few years ago, when a group of UC San Diego students - under the provocation of some off-campus personality whose name eludes me - held a "Compton Cookout," the university immediately launched an "investigation." The San Diego chapter of the ACLU wrote a letter to the chancellor, and submitted a copy to the local newspaper as well, arguing that as a state institution, UCSD could and should do nothing to punish those students. That the university leadership was free to condemn the students, but could not punish them.
Further, the ACLU argued, that even the mere act of investigating the students could and likely was a violation of the First Amendment; that the government has no business investigating citizens engaged in constitutionally protected speech, and that simply being the subject of an investigation can have a chilling effect on the practice of one's civil rights.
If the San Diego chapter of the ACLU was correct in their argument, and I think they were, then isn't Congress holding hearings on "disinformation" also a violation of the First Amendment?
Glenn: A little off point, but I think this is an idea whose time has come:
Big Tech has amassed historically unprecedented levels of wealth and power by selling Americans' personal information in return for “free” access to their respective sites. In short, instead of Americans paying for product, Americans ARE the product, to the point where they are being tracked and data-mined 24/7/365--at levels of intrusion that make George Orwell’s Big Brother seem benign by comparison.
In Australia, the government is considering legislation that would require Facebook to pay to link to Australian news stories. Facebook’s response? The company has banned users from posting Australian news content. It insists the proposal “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” and that news sites already benefit from Facebook referrals.
Facebook and the press can hash out their own problems. What I’m proposing applies to ordinary Americans who don’t have the kind of clout either entity possesses. And if Congress has an ounce of courage, the following could revolutionize, not just Big Tech, but the entire corporate landscape:
If I write a song and copyright it, anyone who uses it must pay me a royalty.
Congress should pass a law extending such copyright protections to all of one's personal information. Thus, when corporations sell that info, one should get a royalty payment based on some percentage of that sale.
Toward that end, Congress should also void all preexisting agreements that one is forced to sign in order to access Facebook, Twitter, etc. and require that royalty clause to be included in all such user-provider agreements going forward.
At the point one of two things will happen: Americans will make a lot more money—or get a lot more privacy.
Bravo for writing this, Glenn. I don't have anything to add except about the era of 1960's book publishing censorship you mention. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia about Barney Rosset, the great anti-censorship battler and Grove Press and Evergreen Magazine publisher about his 1960s fight over Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn. He was a true liberal, the opposite of what the technocracy and the Dems are now doing. And guess what? He had a more revolutionary impact on American culture and thinking than the current “lib left progressive” Dems ever will by censoring and suppressing. I cherish the chance I had to call and thank him by phone at the end of his life. Here's the excerpt about Barney Rosset. “In an interview with the Brooklyn Rail, Rosset spoke about the Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn being taken to court for obscenity charges:
We had a case in New York and, of course, he [Miller] wouldn't go to the court. I had lunch with him at a restaurant on sixth Avenue right near here called Alfred's with our lawyer and three or four other people, and then we had to go to court. But he wouldn't go. He'd been summonsed so he was breaking the law by not going. So we went into court, and the District Attorney questioned me and said, "You see that we have a jury here of men and women with children who go to school right near where that book is on sale, near the subway stop. What'd you think they feel to have their children reading this book?" So I took out the book and started reading and the jury started laughing and they thought it was wonderful. I said to them, "If your children got this book and read the whole book you ought to congratulate them." And they loved it, and they refused to convict me of anything. That was a great pleasure. Miller couldn't leave this country until the decision was in, verified and so forth. For at least a year or two years, he couldn't go. It was so funny because they accused me of soliciting him to write the book—write Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn—in Brooklyn, and at that point I was only 8 years old! Miller was a little older than me. It was a specific charge against me that was absurd. I was a pimp supposedly. They didn't even bother to see how ridiculous their charge would look.[7]
Launched in 1957, Evergreen Review pushed the limits of censorship, inspiring hundreds of thousands of younger Americans[citation needed] to embrace the counterculture. Grove Press published Beat Generation writers, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Rechy, Hubert Selby, Jr. and Jack Kerouac. Rosset also purchased the American distribution rights to the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow).
The online Evergreen Review features Beat classics as well as debuts of contemporary writers.[8] In 2007, Rosset married Astrid Myers, then-managing editor of the online Evergreen Review. In 2008, Rosset completed writing his autobiography (now published as Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship. He died in 2012 after a double heart valve replacement.”
It bothered me a great deal when a we as conservatives wanted to ban “The Dixie Chicks” or even Robert Maplethorp way back in the day, having read all the dystopian novels and thinking we were the party of bans and book burning. Now I’m beyond bothered and frankly scared for our country. Thanks for being a lonely voice in the wilderness Glenn.
Google just pulled down a video this morning of an interview with Trump because it discussed election fraud. How many videos did they pull down over the past 4+ years which spread deliberate lies about the phony Russia collusion hoax again?
And where are the Republicans in all of this? Will they do something? No, they're jumping on board, probably wondering why they weren't the first think of such a great way to censor and control. We need a third party candidate. Trump wasn't the answer. He was too brash, too self-interested and too devisive. Bernie sold out immediately. We need an independant candidate that speaks for all Americans not in the elite bubble, with the bite of Trump but the charisma of Obama. The odds of that are almost nil, however. So where to go from here?
Thank you Glenn. Best subscription I have ever purchased. Full disclosure... the only journalist I subscribe to. I can count on you to tell me the truth. I do not have to do a bunch of research to confirm the veracity of what you write. You are sounding the alarm. I only hope others hear it and wake up from their utopian dreams.
I am surprised...that anyone is surprised... in any way about any of this.
The tech platforms rolled over and played dead for the surveillance that the GOP/NSA/Intel instituted. Notice so much of it (if not all of it) by passed legislation.
Neither party did much about it, most GOP and DNC still see Snowden as a traitor instead of the hero that he is.
Most authoritarian regimes instituting government sponsored censorship in the last 100 years have been those espousing ideologies mostly hostile to basic enlightenment ideals. Why anyone would be surprised the DNC would now be doing so would be comical if it wasn’t tragic.
We’ve just been through a stealth coup with both parties complicit, moving at warp speed toward an authoritarian state, with radically reduced civil liberties. They have blown up free exchange, human movement, human gatherings, schools, travel, office environments, inflated the dollar via modern monetary theory put into action. Rather than legislate, most of it was done co opting Governor “orders” and co opting “public health experts”. Through false narratives about danger, they’ve terrified and demoralized the population, demoralized children, driven people to tattle and shame on each other for questioning or defying governor orders. Local governments following federal and state “guidelines” have bullied businesses into enforcing their orders.
UBI framework is in place and coming, socialization of debt is coming as well.
Human tracking is underway with contact tracing, proposed health passports, testing requirements to re-enter ones own homeland.
Anyone who thinks it’s temporary is just an absolute fool. This last step to censor is just the final step, necessary to prevent open inquiry, questioning authorities, and suppressing critical thinking.
We are already well into a post constitutional system.
We can blame it on politicians, but ultimately a fairly large percentage of the population, especially the younger demographics, have widely supported a more authoritarian, centrally planned system. And they are going to get it.
This is not just a US movement. Look at Canada, look at the UK, Western Europe. The “Great Reset” types, all linked through supranational organizations like the UN and WHO are making their visions a reality. Because they genuinely believe we are going to have an existential climate crisis in 10 years, they think they are doing God’s work (figuratively speaking). It’s pretty much complete. We are not “going back.”
Remember that the Democrats claimed to have been concerned about "fascist Trump". And now we know it was all a projection.
When this bites Democrats HARD in 2022, no one will be laughing harder than me. They're not gaining voters with this bullshit and they're just strengthening the resolve of the people who will throw them out (at the very least).
Neoliberals have become exactly what they often accused Trump of being: Fascists. They are using state power to cajol, coerce and collude with Big Tech into censoring information they deem threatening to their power. The terms “disinformation” and “misinformation” have ceased to have any real meaning other than “information that threatens neoliberal authority.”
So for example a video testimony of someone - not even an “anonymous source” so beloved of “papers of record” - who witnessed some shenanigans in the 2020 election - even if it may not have swung the result - can be censored by YouTube, since it has been deemed by the powers-that-be that - for the first time in the history of elections anywhere - zero fraud occurred in the 2020 election and to show, let alone suggest, otherwise is “disinformation”.
Meanwhile questioning the 2016 election is perfectly fine. So was questioning the efficacy of vaccines prior to the election; or of vaccines developed by Russia. But now apparently caution about vaccines - even ones from credentialed scientists of say increased risks of mRNA vaccines on pregnant women vs other populations - will be called “misinformation”.
This is similar to the concept of invoking “national security” as an excuse to to hide a lot of Government malfeasance.
PS: As an aside, in a subculture called mukbang - where videos are made of people consuming large amounts of food for people to watch - there exists channels on YouTube which depict killing and torturing of live squid and octopuses by slicing them up and/or eating them whole, wriggling and writhing. A YouTuber with over 5 *million* subscribers cuts off squid parts leaving their live heads to watch as she consumes them. These violent videos broadcast unhindered - despite appeals by animal activists and violations of YouTube’s own TOS against animal cruelty.
Apparently these videos which feed the mindless voyeuristic appetite in their audience are better than those who discuss topics that question neoliberal power.
The delusion is deep Grasshopper. I get the their consuming lust for power, but how do they not see that after they destroy all the safeguards against totalitarianism — freedom of speech, a free (and honest) press, freedom of assembly, to name a few — they will have nothing with which to protect themselves against a totalitarian regime with whose ideas they disagree. How dumb can you be? They occupy adult bodies, but they are infants, spoiled brats really, that can’t think their way out of the paper bag they are constructing that is closing in around them. Somehow reminds me of the part of the Christmas story of Scrooge where Scrooge encounters the ghost of Jacob or Marley (can’t recall which) and asks about the chains that he is wrapped in. “I forged this chain in life, link by link.” Chilling. Lord, please save me from myself.
Thank you Glenn.
For years I have been saying that once you allow ANY entity to decide what speech is "allowable", dissent is banned soon after. We're witnessing the formation of the Ministry of Truth and the Democrats don't care about what's legal or not legal. They have the power and they are going to use it. Hell, they demanded banning of "hate speech" WHILE DONALD TRUMP COULD DECIDE WHAT SPEECH THAT WAS! They can't win the debate on merit so they have to ban the opposition.
When's the last time the correct side had to ban debate?
Mr. Greenwald, great work, as usual. My monthly subscription fee continues to be the best $5 I've ever spent. Thank you!
You wrote, "That is clearly what happened after Democrats spent four years petulantly insisting that they lost the 2016 election not because they chose a deeply disliked nominee or because their neoliberal ideology wrought so much misery and destruction, but instead, they said, because Facebook and Twitter allowed the unfettered circulation of incriminating documents hacked by Russia."
Truer words have never been spoken, Sir. Although, the nihilist in me watched with great delight as Clinton lost to the braying, orange jackass, followed by the DNC's (and its Establishment lackeys) four-year temper tantrum.
The battle for Free Speech in the USA was lost when we allowed the term "hate speech" to be not only a permanent part of our lexicon, but used a cudgel to beat down, censor, and ban anything and anyone that the "Establishment" deemed dangerous; i.e. not in complete and total ideological lockstep. A great example can be found during the 2016 election with the labeling/smearing of ANYONE bringing up Hillary Clinton's documented record as "misogynists".
It will be interesting to see if the "republicans" (assuming they have the will) can successfully use the "democrats" current use of state power to censor their political opponents (and let's call this what it is) as a cudgel to win back seats in the midterms.
Everybody is afraid...it's obvious. They get their orders. The silk shirts, the private jets, the conceited smirks are hiding it; but free people don't agree so completely as these do. They're scared shitl*ss of putting a foot wrong.
All Democrats cheering this increasing censorship in the name of "good" should remember that any new power grabs can be just as abused by the Republicans when they control the government someday (and which will likely happen sooner than later).
Ye reap what ye sow.
Interestingly enough, if memory serves me correct, a few years back there was some congressional Republican interest in trying to reform social media to counter what they thought was an increasing anti-conservative bias being promoted by social media and Google search functions, but Josh Hawley (I believe) warned them off by pointing out any regulatory/censorship powers they might obtain could be abused by the Democrats should they gain control of the government. But we're seeing that happen anyway.
A few years ago, when a group of UC San Diego students - under the provocation of some off-campus personality whose name eludes me - held a "Compton Cookout," the university immediately launched an "investigation." The San Diego chapter of the ACLU wrote a letter to the chancellor, and submitted a copy to the local newspaper as well, arguing that as a state institution, UCSD could and should do nothing to punish those students. That the university leadership was free to condemn the students, but could not punish them.
Further, the ACLU argued, that even the mere act of investigating the students could and likely was a violation of the First Amendment; that the government has no business investigating citizens engaged in constitutionally protected speech, and that simply being the subject of an investigation can have a chilling effect on the practice of one's civil rights.
If the San Diego chapter of the ACLU was correct in their argument, and I think they were, then isn't Congress holding hearings on "disinformation" also a violation of the First Amendment?
Glenn: A little off point, but I think this is an idea whose time has come:
Big Tech has amassed historically unprecedented levels of wealth and power by selling Americans' personal information in return for “free” access to their respective sites. In short, instead of Americans paying for product, Americans ARE the product, to the point where they are being tracked and data-mined 24/7/365--at levels of intrusion that make George Orwell’s Big Brother seem benign by comparison.
In Australia, the government is considering legislation that would require Facebook to pay to link to Australian news stories. Facebook’s response? The company has banned users from posting Australian news content. It insists the proposal “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” and that news sites already benefit from Facebook referrals.
Facebook and the press can hash out their own problems. What I’m proposing applies to ordinary Americans who don’t have the kind of clout either entity possesses. And if Congress has an ounce of courage, the following could revolutionize, not just Big Tech, but the entire corporate landscape:
If I write a song and copyright it, anyone who uses it must pay me a royalty.
Congress should pass a law extending such copyright protections to all of one's personal information. Thus, when corporations sell that info, one should get a royalty payment based on some percentage of that sale.
Toward that end, Congress should also void all preexisting agreements that one is forced to sign in order to access Facebook, Twitter, etc. and require that royalty clause to be included in all such user-provider agreements going forward.
At the point one of two things will happen: Americans will make a lot more money—or get a lot more privacy.
It doesn’t get more win-win than that.
Bravo for writing this, Glenn. I don't have anything to add except about the era of 1960's book publishing censorship you mention. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia about Barney Rosset, the great anti-censorship battler and Grove Press and Evergreen Magazine publisher about his 1960s fight over Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn. He was a true liberal, the opposite of what the technocracy and the Dems are now doing. And guess what? He had a more revolutionary impact on American culture and thinking than the current “lib left progressive” Dems ever will by censoring and suppressing. I cherish the chance I had to call and thank him by phone at the end of his life. Here's the excerpt about Barney Rosset. “In an interview with the Brooklyn Rail, Rosset spoke about the Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn being taken to court for obscenity charges:
We had a case in New York and, of course, he [Miller] wouldn't go to the court. I had lunch with him at a restaurant on sixth Avenue right near here called Alfred's with our lawyer and three or four other people, and then we had to go to court. But he wouldn't go. He'd been summonsed so he was breaking the law by not going. So we went into court, and the District Attorney questioned me and said, "You see that we have a jury here of men and women with children who go to school right near where that book is on sale, near the subway stop. What'd you think they feel to have their children reading this book?" So I took out the book and started reading and the jury started laughing and they thought it was wonderful. I said to them, "If your children got this book and read the whole book you ought to congratulate them." And they loved it, and they refused to convict me of anything. That was a great pleasure. Miller couldn't leave this country until the decision was in, verified and so forth. For at least a year or two years, he couldn't go. It was so funny because they accused me of soliciting him to write the book—write Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn—in Brooklyn, and at that point I was only 8 years old! Miller was a little older than me. It was a specific charge against me that was absurd. I was a pimp supposedly. They didn't even bother to see how ridiculous their charge would look.[7]
Launched in 1957, Evergreen Review pushed the limits of censorship, inspiring hundreds of thousands of younger Americans[citation needed] to embrace the counterculture. Grove Press published Beat Generation writers, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Rechy, Hubert Selby, Jr. and Jack Kerouac. Rosset also purchased the American distribution rights to the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow).
The online Evergreen Review features Beat classics as well as debuts of contemporary writers.[8] In 2007, Rosset married Astrid Myers, then-managing editor of the online Evergreen Review. In 2008, Rosset completed writing his autobiography (now published as Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship. He died in 2012 after a double heart valve replacement.”
It bothered me a great deal when a we as conservatives wanted to ban “The Dixie Chicks” or even Robert Maplethorp way back in the day, having read all the dystopian novels and thinking we were the party of bans and book burning. Now I’m beyond bothered and frankly scared for our country. Thanks for being a lonely voice in the wilderness Glenn.