Public book burnings typically illustrate extreme censorship related to political, cultural and religious materials. They often invoke historic atrocities such as burning of Jewish texts in Nazi Germany or racist bonfires by the Ku Klux Klan.
As it happens, the Nazis’ first book burnings were not of Jewish texts.
Well, the Nazis said they were; because they said everything they hated was “Jewish”.
But they weren’t Jewish religious or cultural books. They were what we’d now call LGBT+ books.
The Nazis’ first book burnings were of the books and materials of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), which advocated for sex education; and for tolerance of intersex, homosexual, and transgender people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings#The_burnings_start
And that’s why, despite there being a hundred years of research on trans people, nazis today still call gender affirming care “experimental”. They burned the research once and they’ll do it again, if we let them.
Well, the Nazis said they were; because they said everything they hated was “
JewishWoke”.FTFY
Yep. In the US today, the fascists’ favorite slur is stolen from Black English where it means “aware of racial prejudice and discrimination”.
Well shit
Yep. When allied troops freed concentration camps victims, they didn’t free the LGBT+ people. Those who survived were still considered criminals by the allies so they remained imprisoned.
Berlin was the height of queer culture in the 20s and before. It took us almost a hundred years to rebuild a modicum of tolerance, let alone acceptance. That’s why these regressive pieces of shit are frothing at the mouth to commit their genocides again.
People are so depressingly reliably shitty
It’s depressing to think how advanced we might have become as a society had Hitler and the Nazis never come into power. (To say nothing of all the people who wouldn’t have been killed.)
I wonder if we ever would have even developed nuclear weapons without the Manhattan Project and the urgency with which it operated. It certainly would have taken us a hell of a lot longer without all the “talent” we scraped up from the Nazis.
Yeah, because the people famous for burning books are always on the right side of history. 🙄
These are the willfully ignorant people that only know history from “Ancient Aliens”.
Edited to remove an insensitive remark about GEDs.
Part of my job is providing education resources, like helping adults who experience homelessness, drug addiction, or prison enroll for GED classes, some of them do need multiple attempts at the tests before passing but they have almost all been kind and good people. I live in Texas and republican propaganda runs deep here, I know relatively well educated people that believe lgbtq+ people are infiltrating school systems and indoctrinating children with the woke agenda.
You’re right, I apologize, I shouldn’t have been glib about the GED and the unique life experiences that make it a useful tool for many. I was too eager to take a shot at Boebert and her fellow wilfully ignorant. Sorry, I’ll edit.
P.s. thanks for the work you’re doing.
What an awesome thing for you to do. I appreciate that, and the gratitude a lot too.
“those who burn books will in the end burn people,”
~ Heinrich Heine
And he wrote that in the Germany of the 1800s…
I was amazed by that too. My partner felt the same and remarked how relevant it is today. I think I will write it on the white board in the group room at work tomorrow.
But they don’t want to be called Nazis. Well, some of them. Yet.
Ngl this fits just as well in c/nottheonion, I think. 😬
Good. Encourage Red states to destroy books and abandon science and tech. This will weaken them for the coming Purge.
There’s nothing lunatic-like in that behavior. A total sane and reasonable person made that promise. Wtf.
