In 1945, when Bennett Cerf of Random House was preparing to send to the printer An Anthology of Famous English and American Poetry, edited by William Rose Benét
and Conrad Aiken for the Modern Library series, he omitted twelve early
poems by Ezra Pound that Aiken had included in a 1927 anthology on
which the new book had been based. In place of the poems, a note explained
that, over Aiken’s protest, the publishers “flatly refused at this time
to include a single line of Mr. Ezra Pound. This is a statement that
the publishers are not only willing but delighted to print.”
Person over work: the old problem with persons who beame outlaws or who are considered of the enemy's side or marked as traitors, heretics etc.
In the eyes of many writers at the time, Cerf’s refusal to reprint Pound’s poems adopted the same logic that the Nazis had used when burning books by Jews and leftists.
One of Auden's arguments in a letter to Cerf:
Secondly, the issue is far more serious than it appears at first sight;
the relation of an author to his work only one out of many, and once you
accept the idea that one thing to which a man stands related shares in
his guilt, you will presently extend it to others; begin by banning his
poems not because you object to them but because you object to him, and
you will end, as the nazis did, by slaughtering his wife and children.
Today we have a similar ideological warfarc: there are calls to remove books from certain authors from the libraries, to ban their work simply because this or that author was a communist or a fascist or a sexual monster or a plain criminal or whatever. The witch-hunting has become modern again...
Several months ago I had a conversation about art with an
American friend of mine. I consider him to be fairly left leaning, but I
was puzzled when he told me he was seriously having to reconsider his “appreciation and enjoyment of certain artists” now that he knows of their “sexual abuse and sexist misogyny.” When
I asked what he was referring to he mentioned Picasso and Gauguin as a
couple examples. At the moment I was left nonplussed. In that short
conversation I was taken aback by the swiftly moving and insidious
undercurrent of puritanism still strong in American life.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Wednesday
ordered Phoenix New Media’s news portal Ifeng.com to carry out a
“thorough and in-depth rectification”.
[…] NYSE-listed Phoenix New Media is the second major Chinese news portal to fall victim to a new wave of tightened internet control under Zhuang, who took over the helm of the powerful watchdog in August.
A briefing from TechNode explains why the suspension of the popular news portal is noteworthy:
[…] Online content providers, including news services and
entertainment platforms, have faced increasing scrutiny from government
departments. Short video platforms have been targeted for hosting
“inappropriate” content in an effort to increase government controls
over cultural content. ifeng.com’s suspension comes a week after CAC
chief Zhuang Rongwen
promised to further extend control over online spaces, saying “positive
energy” should be promoted, while “negative elements” should be
suppressed.
_______________________________________________
It obviously could be that in near future the present Austrian government in its onslaught of the Austrian mass media will undertake similar measures to ensure the correctness of mass media reporting and to prevent any negative slandering and cheap propaganda against the true measures of the freely and democratioc elected government of Austria. Be prepeared to read:
The Cyberspace Administration of Austria (CAA) on Wednesday
ordered Telekurier Online Medien GmbH & Co KG (FBN: 216605m; HG Wien), Internetdienste, 1190 Wien, Leopold-Ungar-Platz 1; Inhaber (Alleingesellschafter) der Futurezone GmbH (Internetdienste, Wien) news portal kurier.at to carry out a
“thorough and in-depth rectification”. The goal of the government is to further extend control over online spaces, saying “positive
energy” should be promoted, while “negative elements” should be
suppressed. Other media as "Der Standard" or, especially, "Falter", are already banned from operation.
[…] NYSE-listed Telekurier Online Medien GmbH & Co KG is the second major Austrian news portal to fall victim to a new wave of tightened internet control under Herbert Kickl (* 19. Oktober 1968 in Villach, Kärnten) an Austrian politician (FPÖ, now FAPÖ *)), since December 18, 2017 secretary of the interior of the Republic of Austria.
*) The extremist FPÖ - Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs - has acknowledged her fascistic heritage by changing the name to FAPÖ - Faschistische Partei Österreichs). As such, the new old party has strengthened the co-operation with Israel and China.
byBrett Wilkins, Counterpunch, 2.8.2018 And again, in the so called "only democracy in the Near East", the Jewish State Israel, an Arab Israeli has bin convicted of incitement because she recited a poem (in social media) which calls for resistance against the occupying power. What will be the next step? Book burnings, like the Nazis did?
Authoritarians, in China and elsewhere, normally have preferred to dress
their authoritarianism up in pretty clothes. Lenin called the version
of dictatorship he invented in 1921 “democratic centralism,” but it
became clear, especially after Stalin and Mao inherited the system, that
centralism, not democracy, was the point. More recent examples of
prettifying include “The Republic of Zimbabwe,” “The Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea,” and several others. What would be wrong with
plainer labels? The Authoritarian State of Zimbabwe? The Shining
Dictatorship of Korea? That dictators avoid candidly describing their
regimes shows that, at least in their use of words, they acknowledge the
superiority of freedom and democracy.
The mighty China seems to be so fragile and vulnerable that it not only censures academics at home, teachers, students, advocates, journalists, to gain and keep total control (as a kind of total war), it also haunts persons who dare to express themselves freele or criticise the paradise China. An example is the graduation address by a Chinese student. Here a short report by THE GUARDIAN as well as the video of her address.
Chinese student abused for praising 'fresh air of free speech' in US
Nationalists in China seize on remarks by Yang Shuping, accusing her of ‘demonising’ it in backlash fuelled by state-run media.
A Chinese student has faced abuse from nationalists in China after she used her graduation address at a US university to celebrate “the fresh air of free speech”.
Yang Shuping, a psychology and theatre graduate from Yunnan province,
came to study at the University of Maryland five years ago, as a
dramatic clampdown on civil society and academia began back home under Xi Jinping.
China is very inventive and open in areas which are considered as positiv and helpful for her and her economy. But China is afraid – because of its closed structure. It is not open, even not to the market. All is under state control and tight observance. Even the internet is a closed circuit, the hunting of violaters is effective; the number of imprisoned and tortured journalists, scientist, advocates and all who dared to express criticism is very high. China's tough policy has been proven again with the passing of Liu Xiaobo and the unkown fate of his widow Liu Xia. China really is a nation with a totally corrupt and criminal government, nationally as well as regionally, whis is fed by collaborateurs of the USA and Europe and some underdog-Nations who rely on China's help. They all pay a high price, as does the Chinese society.
Arab rulers across the Middle East detest free speech. The demand
that Al- Jazeera close its operations is no surprise. Al-Jazeera (which
means the island) offers talk shows, documentaries, and news in
Arabic, the language of the region that reaches more than 350 million
Arabic-speaking people from Mauritania to Yemen. Headquartered in Doha,
Qatar, a native Arab land, Al-Jazeera has adopted an iconoclastic motto
“opinion and the other opinion.”
For most Arab rulers, there is always only one opinion, the opinion
of the government, and for them all other opinions are false, alien, and
subversive. This commentary analyzes why Arab rulers are hostile to
free speech, particularly the home-grown free speech, emanating from
within the region, in Arabic dialects and metaphors, by Arab
intellectuals, analysts, and critics.
Google Censors Block Access to CounterPunch and Other Progressive Sites
Now Google, at the behest of its friends in Washington, is actively
censoring – essentially blocking access to – any websites which seek to
warn American workers of the ongoing effort to further attack their
incomes, social services, and life conditions by the U.S. central
government, and which seek to warn against the impending warfare between
U.S.-led Nato and other forces against countries like Iran, Russia, and
China, which have in no way threatened the U.S. state or its people
Under its new so-called anti-fake-news program, Google algorithms
have in the past few months moved socialist, anti-war, and progressive
websites from previously prominent positions in Google searches to
positions up to 50 search result pages from the first page, essentially
removing them from the search results any searcher will see.
Counterpunch, World Socialsit Website, Democracy Now, American Civil
liberties Union, Wikileaks are just a few of the websites which have
experienced severe reductions in their returns from Google searches.
Polish minister tries to ban Nobel winner's ‘pornographic’ play Piotr Glinski’s move seen by civil liberties groups as a sign country is poised for a return to draconian state censorship Alex Duval Smith, Warsaw, for The Guardian, 23 Nov. 2015
Polish defence minister condemned over Jewish conspiracy theory Newly appointed Antoni Macierewicz criticised for saying hoax document about plan for world domination could be real Rajeev Syal, The Guardian, 10 Nov. 2015
Coming up:
Next moves concerning tougher censorship, people's hunt and demonstrations against former enemy Germany and the EU
Helen Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was a much revered White House journalist She worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager. She was a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. She covered the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the final years of the Eisenhower administration to the second year of the Obama administration.
Wikipedia
Phtoograph from Wikipedia (rachaelvoorhees)
The Last Fearless Reporter There Will Never Be Another Helen Thomas
by RALPH NADER COUNTERPUNCH, Weekend Edition July 19-21, 2013
There will never be another Helen Thomas. She shattered forever one anti-woman journalistic barrier after another in the Washington press corps and rose to the top of her profession’s organizations.
Helen Thomas asked the toughest questions of Presidents and White House press secretaries and over her sixty-two year career took on sexism, racism and ageism. She endured prejudice against her ethnicity — Arab-American — and her breaking the taboo regarding the rights of dispossessed Palestinians.
The affair "Helen Thomas" which led to her immediate end of her long lasting career.
(In 2010, that tendency finally ended a career which had started in 1943
and made her one of the best known journalists in Washington. On a
videotape circulated on the Internet, she said Israelis should "get out
of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland or the United States. The
remark brought down widespread condemnation and she ended her career. - Yahoo news)
This event marked – once more – that the First Amendment in the US is not really functioning, that free thought and free speech find the border as soon as Jews and Israelis are the subjetct matter. Thomas has gone too far for the politically correct Americans, at least for the majority, and she was punished and ostracized. The US showed, once again, their true ugly core and face.
There were, as one can read in the Wikipedia site on Helen Thomas, some defenders, notably Ralph Nader, Gary Leupp, Paul Jay, Michael Freedman, Katrina vanden Heuvel, medea Benjamin and others.
In October 2010 Helen Thomas stated in an interview "I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive."
In 2011 the SPJ - Society of Professional Journalists retired the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement due to the broad controversy.
In COUNTERPUNCH, the radical journal, Gary Leupp took sides and criticized harshly the stablishment:
White House journalist Helen Thomas, covering a Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at the White House May 27, is accosted on the sidewalk by someone who asks: “Any comments about Israel? We’re asking everybody today—any comments about Israel?”
Smiling in grandmotherly fashion—-the way an 89 year-old woman might do when suddenly approached by an 17 year old boy who seems sincerely interested in her thoughts—she replies: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.”
“Oooh…” responds the questioner. “Any better comments?” (A voice in the background: “Helen is fun!”)
“Hah hah hah,” laughs Helen. “ Remember these people are occupied, and it’s their land, not German, and not Poland.”
“So where should they go? What should they do?”
“They could go home. Poland. Germany.”
“Where’s home? You’re saying Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?”
“And America and everywhere else.”
A week later this video of the impromptu interview appears on “RabbiLIVE.com,” website of Rabbi David Nesenoff. (Who by the way is this “live rabbi”? Who is this rabbi character who’s terminated the career of a Washington press icon? How many journalists are even asking?)
Homage to Catalonia is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952. The American edition had a preface written by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. [The German translation appeared only in 1964!]
A French translation made by Yvonne Davet – with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes – in 1938-39, was not published until five years after Orwell's death.
The book was finally published in April 1938 but "made virtually no impact whatsoever and by the outbreak of war with Germany had sold only 900 copies." According to John Newsinger, "the Communist vendetta against the book" was maintained as recently as 1984, when Lawrence and Wishart published Inside the Myth, a collection of essays "bringing together a variety of standpoints hostile to Orwell in an obvious attempt to do as much damage to his reputation as possible."
(Quote from the Wikipedia article) Wikipedia
[Image from Wikipedia]
Addendum:
Revisiting George Orwell’s classic account of the Spanish Civil War, 75 years on. by Mick Hume , SPIKED
* * *
Censorship is censorship, whether from the right or the left. Or should we consider the crimes of the left, the communists, as less weighting, less important, less damaging? Obviously so - since so many still uphold Stalin, his terror, as legitimate measures against fascism.
With leftwingers like those one only can become desperate. Today it is no accident or coincidence that there are no journalists, writers or activists like George Orwell was. The scene is clear: here the good boys, the politically correct ones, there the bad boys, the enemies. The old manichaean view reigns for the comfort of the One Dimensional Man.
The situation is as
ridiculous as many of the ironies in his celebrated books. But alas, it is not
magic realism, but quite the reality, the furore over Salman Rushdie’s proposed
visit to India
to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival. To some extent, it’s one of those
contrived controversies in a season where no other story is competing for
eyeballs.
The mullah brigade has made its usual statements about the writer not being
allowed to set foot on Indian soil. The TV channels have a great talking point:
there are some themes that can always be debated. For 24 years, ever since Satanic
Verses invited the wrath of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, and was
subsequently banned in many countries, including India, Salman Rushdie is always
ready material for controversy.
# # #
What the Moslems or Islamists undertake in India equals protests in the West against their own enemies: in Germany against Sarrazin, in Austria against Right wingers who assemble for a dancing ball, in other EU-countries against this or that person who is outside of the main stream.
EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundaltion weist in einem Beitrag auf die Bedrohung des Internets hin durch neue Bemühungen von Publishing Companies, vor allem im Musik- und Filmbereich, das Copyright so streng zu fassen, dass der Industrie Verfolgungen so leicht möglich werden, dass ein Teil der freien Kommunikation damit im Netz verhindert wäre. Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass es dabei nicht bliebe, sondern dieses Instrument über die Marktkontrolle hinaus benutzt wird, ist hoch.
Besonders die Möglichkeit, anonym kommunizieren zu können, in den USA seit den Federalist Papers eine gehütete Tradition, wäre in Gefahr, weil Provider leicht gezwungen werden könnten, ihre Logfiles zu öffnen und den Verfolgungsbehörden zu übergeben. Doch ohne gesicherte Anonymität geht ein wichtiger Aspekt möglicher Kritik und Warnung, whistle blowing, verloren und wird verhindert.
Die Marktüberlegungen der Unternehmer werden vorgeschoben, um den freien Kommunikationsfluss abzuwürgen.
Lesen Sie den Beitrag den Beitrag von Trevor Timm in EFF:
In the past week, the larger Internet community
has joined EFF in sounding the alarm about the new copyright bill, now
known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), as it makes its way through
the U.S. House. The bill threatens to transform copyright law, pushing
Internet intermediaries—from Facebook to your ISP—to censor whole swaths
of the Internet. SOPA could forever alter social networks, stifle innovation and creativity, and destroy jobs, which is why Rep. Zoe Lofgren wasn’t exaggerating when she said SOPA “would mean the end of the Internet as we know it."
