Burning Books, Hoboken Style

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"Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."

-Henirich Heine
German-Jewish poet
1797-1856


This post is dedicated to the political operatives from Jersey City and Weehawken, their friends and employers in Hoboken, who have banned the speech of critics at nj.com and attacked the free speech of a political opponent on her blog, attacked her art work, trying to silence her under threat of retaliation.

That's me, and I got a 'warning' yesterday. For using 'fascist imagery'.

Was asked to take something down.

So, in honor of those who attack the speech they can't control, make war on images they don't like, I dedicate this poem:

THE BURNING Of THE BOOKS

When the Regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge

Should be publicly burned and on all sides

Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books

To the bonfires, a banished

Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the
Burned, was shocked to find that his

Books had been passed over.
He rushed to his desk

On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power ,
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me!
Haven’t my books

Always reported the truth ?
And here you are

Treating me like a liar! I command you!

Burn me!

-Bertoldt Brecht
1898-1956

Of course this brings back that hideous period in 20th Century world history, one which ended 6 million Jewish lives and another 6 million more- gays, physically and mentally challenged, other 'undesirable races', and political enemies.

Hear this.

I am a Jew, whose family was murdered by Nazis in the ghettos of Warsaw and Lodz, Poland.

Burning books, burning words and images on a blog, burning bloggers. All the same.

Watch where YOU tread.

Silencing Speech, Nazi Germany 1933

Comments

  1. "Beatty continues his attack, saying to Montag '[Fire's] real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you're a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick and sure; nothing to rot left'".

    Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely, rudydawg. The ironies keep piling up.

    No fire today. Just resistance.

    ReplyDelete
  3. .......and next, on our reaaaaally big show, put your hands together for our musical guest, 'The Clash', asking the musical question......hummm......oh, you'll see........

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiQoq-wqZxg

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the Clash. Fave song, "Rock the Casbah".

    R.I.P., Joe Strummer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey P1y, you stole that from back to the future

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey McFly, maybe Joe Strummer did!

    ReplyDelete

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