A friend of the blog sent me a link to a new children's book titled "There are Liberals Under My Bed!" Apparently, this is a serious effort by a conservative cerebellum-scrubber to wash even the tinest of brains.
What to do? One hesitates to respond in kind. Countering propaganda with counter-propaganda may be necessary, but do we really want to carry such battles over to the playground?
And we can't parody this effort, since the title already goes beyond parody. Conservatives used to despise the "...under your bed" formulation. Now they've embraced it.
Are any counter-moves advisable? This question is of some importance to me, since I've done some children's book illustration.
The books I've worked on had no political implications -- and frankly, I would rather continue to work on books meant for fun. I grew up on Dr. Suess and, later, the Oz books; the next generation deserves similar appeals to imagination. The sludge of politics can invade their noggins at a later age.
5 comments:
Speaking of the Dr.'s books, they all pale in comparison to "On Beyond Zebra." (Although I have a known affinity for "Gerald McBoing Boing!"--which was made into a short animated film in the early Fifties and won an Oscar.)
The finer things human beings have accomplished--let's not forget them!
Continue in the Dr. Seuss tradition. Write books ridiculing pompous twits, That'll get 'em.
You gotta pick your battles.
The book, "Help, Mom! There's a Liberal Under My Bed" was written for the 4-8-year-old group.
How many parents are going to buy the book? How many kids will understand what the word liberal is supposed to mean? How many of the kids will be influenced by the book? How many will give a hoot?
There are starving kids in the world. This book is unimportant in the real world. Does it teach hatred and prejudice? Probably. But so does Rick Santorum.
Getting Rick Santorum out of the political arena is a worthy battle. A book like the above is just a distraction.
Joy Tomme
(http://ratbangdiary.blogspot.com)
The net effect may be slight or unobservable, but I don't think this phenomemon is as insignificant as some of the posters above seem to think.
This dastardly alliance between big money interests and fanatical religionists (aka, the Republican party) not only wants to defeat the opposition, but to destroy it.
Clearly, the object is to banish from discourse all ideas which don't conform to the right-wing agenda.
The fact that they're willing to stoop to corrupting children's books with the ideas of Tom Delay is one more measure of their depravity and determination.
Milquetoast democrats are not going to defeat these people.
G.W. Carver's "no-no place" suggestion made me laugh out loud, especially since there have been so many recent stories of conservative child-abusers.
What really amuses me is the idea of framing that book as a plea for tolerance. I can just see myself maintaining a deadpan expression as I explained my intentions: "You see, what we're trying to do here is teach children that not ALL Republicans are child molesters. Some are sexually normal..."
For a while, I was toying with the idea of putting together a book called "How the Krove stole the election." But now I want to do THIS...
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