German Publisher Stops All Printing of JD Vance’s Book Hillbilly Elegy
(jonathanturley.org)
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https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/der-spiegel-fordert-canceln-canceln-canceln/
“Der Spiegel demands “Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!” A column was published in Der Spiegel that could easily be mistaken for satire, but it is meant seriously. In it, the author quite openly calls for censorship and the banning of books whose authors do not completely follow the government's line.
May 10, 1933 has gone down as a black day in German history. On this day, the “German Student Union”, together with the Nazis, called for the burning of books which, in their opinion, contradicted the “German spirit”. The pyres burned in 18 German university towns that night.
It must have been a gruesome event when the burning books lit up the night. The organizers of the action probably saw it as “new thinking” lighting up the night, while others looked on in shock as freedom of expression was not buried but burned that night. It was one of the milestones on the road to the Nazi dictatorship, in which the now ruling elites dictated to people what they could and could not think and say.
Unfortunately, history is repeating itself, which is why I have written this long article, but it is very important to me, which is why I ask you to read it carefully and to the end.
Book burning yesterday and today Of course, the propagandists and masters of censorship have learned a thing or two in the 90 years since Goebbels. A public book burning today would be received negatively, after all, the West constantly claims to stand for freedom of expression. But that doesn't change the fact that books are still being “burned” in the West today.
However, these “burnings” take place differently today. They take place online by blocking websites that disseminate dissenting views, by deleting videos and posts or hiding them through shadowbanning, by putting pressure on publishers to remove books with dissenting views from their programs.
The effect is the same: A dissenting opinion is censored and banned, and in this, today's West is no different from the Nazis.
And the joke is that even the reasoning is almost the same as that of the Nazis. The Nazis saw themselves as progressive and modern back then. And so does the West today when it suppresses all opinions that contradict the new (woke) thinking.
Today it doesn't matter whether a book is completely harmless, it is enough if the author of the book has attracted attention with theses that are critical of the government. That is enough for some apostles of censorship in the Western media to demand that publishers remove books by authors critical of the government from their program.
You don't believe that? You think I'm exaggerating?
No, because that's exactly what the head of the Spiegel office in Washington has now demanded of one of Germany's largest publishing houses: Even books that are not objectionable are to be taken out of the program if the author is not politically acceptable or has once criticized the government.
“Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!” René Pfister has been Spiegel's Washington bureau chief since summer 2019 and he recently came to my attention for an absolutely absurd article in which he accused US journalists of failing because they had “not reported on the president's obvious mental decline” in recent years. In his article, Pfister openly said that he had known about Biden's precarious mental state for at least three years. But he himself did not tell Spiegel readers about it for three years. But now, in his opinion, the US journalists have failed. He ignores the fact that he himself concealed this from his readers for years.
...”
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)