yes.

hey guys, read 1984 and maybe you will know what the point of these commercials is. is it leftish scare paranoia, maybe, but definately not right wing propaganda.

I wrote about this commercial a month ago on ExecutiveSummary.com (here's the link: http://www.executivesummary.com/blarchive/...hive.shtml#85230947 ) pointing out the NPR "On The Media" piece on this where host Brooke Gladstone fiestily challenged the creative director of this ad spot for the blatant hipocracy that the post-Sept.-11 Patriot Act allows for the FBI to obtain library reading habits of citizens, and the librarians are not allowed to tell patrons about it!

Interesting how some here think the ads are right-wing propaganda and others think they're left-wing paranoia.

The ads come across to me as jingoistic to say the least; less about patriotism and more about propping up the frequently questionable agenda of a president whose strings are being pulled by a bunch of cold-war leftovers from his father's administration.

1. Scare stories. Exactly. Boy scouts around a campfire masturbating to gay porn. (The future of scouting?) Everybody in a small town brandishing guns. (Support gun control now.) The President on a chair in the Oval Office listening to demands from an Arab seated at his desk. (Stop foreign oil.) Two nine-year-old girls playing make-up in a motel bathroom, while in the next room a film crew preps the bed. (Clean up the internet.) Projections of a disturbing future are an old, effective tool (when someone smart does 'em.) But they create an alarmist mindset that is, to me, often dangerous in the present.

2. There's no lack of free support or financial help from First Amendment legal groups. That's what all the donations are for.

If you are really paranoid, pay in cash. Simple.

Of course, I don't quite get what these ads are for. Am I supposed to feel inspired to fight this War on (Some) Terrorists or something? Almost plays like a Nazi propaganda film, we must destroy our enemys before they destroy us etc etc.

Precedent already set in a couple of cases where the booksellers caved to pressure and fear of legal costs. Tattered Cover was one of the ones who managed to stand up.

And there's the voluntary handover of frequent shopper data last year. Suggestion: don't buy falafel when you buy books.

Yes, Chico, I do think the Tattered Cover case is a good example of the goverment wanting to know what books people read.

We got lucky this time. If the store's owner, Joyce Meskis, didn't have the fortitude and financial resources to fight this for over two years, the cops would have gotten their way, setting a scary precedent.

Hi: This would be a perfect quote as a lead-in to an interview with Bruce Perens. I'd like to see someone prepare an interview with him, and then, when he is no longer with HP, publish it. Should be a lasting testament to where we are, as opposed to where others think we are. Just a thought.
Tom

Of course this isn't a police state. The role of these scare stories is to show what it might be like if it were, and thus help keep the worst case scenarios from occurring.

Gee, Mark, do really think the methamphetamine case is relevant to fears of government control of books? The bookseller refused access, it went to court, the police backed off and it's all working the way it's supposed to. The country's uptight but it ain't a police state. Not like the one run by that f-wad Robert Mugabe.

>No one cares what books a young person is reading.

Tell that to to customers of the Tattered Cover, the largest idependent bookstore in Colorado:

http://www.abffe.com/update12-01.html

On my first reading of the ad's storyline, it rang decidedly anti-left. I interpreted the tagline about protecting freedom as an attempt at a justification of the war against a 'freedom hating' enemy. In fact, this line of reasoning would be the closest I could think of to one that might actually move me to fight. I'm surprised that this would be interpreted by anyone as 'leftist scare paranoia.' I only recently saw an overblown piece along this line thrown around by conservative opponents of campaign finance reform. I guess you see what you look for.

Paul, it's generally accepted that the communist scare of the 50s was a giant load. I'm not sure that's the parallel you want to draw to support your case, however apropos it actually is.

What nonsense. This is just more leftist scare paranoia. Somthing like this would have made sense in Russia or Nazi Germany, but is just complete drool here. It's just more of the "they came and took them away, and I said nothing because I was not a <fill in the blank>" honk.

No one cares what books a young person is reading. Folks care what terrorists and pedophiles are reading. And, people who go off on a leftist rant are just as responsible for protecting terrorists and pedophiles today as they were for protecting communists during the '50's.

Edited by author 08-06-2002 06:41 PM
I wonder if, thirty or forty years or so from now, there will be a bunch of vaguely revisionist Oliver Stonish films about the Ashcroft Era, When We Almost Lost It All, showing civil liberatarians struggling against administration figures, neocon cronies, and various CEOs depicted as leering, corrupt rat-bastards. The President, played by a popular comedian of the day, would be shown as an utterly clueless figurehead kept in line by two increasingly frantic Young Republican handlers.

Man, I hope so. That would be so sweet.