I NSIG H T S u
Wikimedia
class nuclear missile-firing submarines (SSBN) with their Trident missiles. (Trident – gotta hand it to the Navy.) Just one submarine can carry 20 Trident II missiles, each with up to eight warheads, each warhead being roughly equivalent to six Hiroshima bombs. Each of these submarines carries an arsenal roughly equivalent to a thousand Hiroshima bombs. And the US has fourteen of them. Instead of the Ohio-class of submarines, shouldn’t they be called the Armageddon-class? Or the Apocalypse-class? The Genocide-class? With a bit more honesty, perhaps it wouldn’t be so easy to sell these horrific weapons to Congress and the American people. Then again, when the bottom line is higher budgets for the Pentagon and more jobs for Congressional districts, I guess America will buy almost
ARMAGEDDON CLASS? Trident missile. anything. Even Holocaust missiles and Armageddon submarines. And for upwards of $20-trillion over the next 30 years as well. If they don’t bust the budget, perhaps they’ll destroy the world. CT William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views. He can be reached at wastore@pct.edu.
J ulia C onley
US library books ban hits record high
L
ibrarians from across the United States have released a report showing that procensorship groups’ efforts to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes and stories about people of colour have driven an unprecedented rise in the number of book challenges, with right-wing organisers pushing library workers to remove works ranging from the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale to children’s books about foods enjoyed in differ-
u ent cultures. According to the American Library Association (ALA), a record-breaking 2,571 unique titles were challenged in 2022, a 38 percent increase from the previous year. The organisation recorded 1,269 demands to censor books from various groups and individuals, compared to 729 challenges counted in 2021. “Each attempt to ban a book
by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every person’s constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore”, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to selfappointed book police.” The Office for Intellectual Freedom said that starting in 2021, a rising number of challenges began targeting large numbers of titles, suggesting they were coordinated efforts from national groups like Moms for Liberty. Previously, the vast majority of book challenges were focused on a single book to which a parent or group of parents objected. In 2022, 90 percent of the books challenged were part of attempts to censor multiple titles, the ALA reported. “A book challenge is a demand to remove a book from a library’s collection so that no one else can read it. Overwhelmingly, we’re seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media”, said Caldwell-Stone. “Their aim is to suppress the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nation’s conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of colour.” In Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has led a nationwide effort by conservatives to keep public school students from learning accurate American history and discussing issues regarding the LGBTQ+ community, one county removed from school library ColdType | April 2023 | www.coldtype.net
11