January’s Call to Action

Oh my goodness, peeps! We have something to celebrate! Hopefully you’ve been tracking the major resignations at newspapers across the United States (Washington Post, LA Times, etc.) that started when these publications decided not to endorse either presidential candidate. These papers opted for silence in the face of facism, despite the fact that they have endorsed presidential candidates for decades. Well, many of those writers – and we’re talking some of America’s best journalists – will be broadcasting under a new publication, The Contrarian, published on Substack and described as an alternative to press owned by “corporate and billionaire media owners” who “have shied away from confrontation, engaged in false equivalence, and sought to curry favor with Donald Trump.”

There are free and paid versions, and I strongly urge you to pay. Pay these writers and pay for our right to a free press and pay to show authoritarian rule that we will not swallow their medicine, we will not eat their pudding, we will not believe their lies … we WILL NOT.

In other news…This month brought a major court victory for booksellers, librarians, children – and anyone invested in First Amendment rights – when a ruling by a U.S. District Court declared Arkansas Act 372 unconstitutional. Among other violations, this Act would have “subjected librarians and booksellers to criminal penalties for making ‘certain’ books available to minors.” Having faced similar battles in my own regional library system, I’m overjoyed by this victory and hope it can set a powerful precedent for other states facing these same violations of First Amendment rights. Are you concerned about book bans and similar actions in your state or local libraries? Here’s a free, easy-to-enact, toolkit for stopping book bans anywhere you live.

Take it a step further: If you use this toolkit, or have fought a similar battle in the past (in your classroom, library, community, etc.), will you please email me or comment below and tell me about it? Inspirational stories help us stay hopeful in the face of facism, which would prefer to keep us isolated and disempowered. I’d like to know more about what you faced, and (with permission) share your story of standing up for authors’ (and readers’) rights in my next newsletter and Call to Action blog post.

 

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