Posted on 07/29/2024 7:22:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
JD Vance is a marked man. After accepting the nomination for vice president, Vance has been the subject of endless media attacks. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris even questioned his “loyalty” to the country despite his serving as a Marine in the Iraq War. Yet, one of the most chilling attacks came from Germany where the publishing house Ullstein Buchverlage has stopped printing the sold-out German translation of Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 autobiography.
As we have discussed previously in this country, it is the modern left’s equivalent of book burning. After all, why burn books when you can simply prevent their being printed under blacklisting campaigns?
In this country, we have seen the left successfully force book bans for writers and even justices who espouse opposing viewpoints. We have seen actual calls for book burning recently (here and here).
Ullstein is facing a high demand for Vance’s best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, but has refused to print more copies due to his political viewpoints (unrelated to the book).
First published in 2016 and made into a movie in 2020, the book returned to the top position on The New York Times‘ bestseller list after Trump chose Vance as his running mate.
HarperCollins is rushing to print more books to meet the demand.
Some in the United States are already balking at the selling of any book by Vance. Seven Stories Press wrote, “Seven Stories Press is extremely thrilled to have never published JD Vance.”
Ullstein published the German translation of Hillbilly Elegy in 2017 and held the rights to reprints.
The company cited Vance’s allegiance with Trump and his politics as the reason in a statement to German media:
“At the time of its publication, the book made a valuable contribution to understanding the drifting apart of US society…In the meantime, he is officially acting alongside him and advocating an aggressively demagogic, exclusionary policy.”
German author Gerd Buurmann posted a mocking response that we should be happy that Ullstein had just thrown Vance’s book out of its catalogue and not into the fire – a reference to the notorious Nazi book burnings of the 1930s.
Other Germans have raised the same objections and referenced the painful history of book bans and burnings in Germany under the Nazis.
German readers want to read the book, which Ullstein acknowledged is one of the most influential works of this generation. However, because the company disagrees with his political viewpoints, it moved to block others from reading the book.
We have seen similar campaigns leading to the banning or burning of books by figures like JK Rowling because of her opposition to some transgender policies. The left now protests any programs on Rowling’s work and opposes the selling of her enormously popular Harry Potter series or even video games based on the series. When authors have defended her right to be published, they have also been subjected to cancel campaigns.
Yet, Ullstein’s decision is particularly chilling as a publishing house. Again, we have seen editors at publishing houses sign petitions to bar books by conservative figures like Justice Amy Coney Barrett from being published.
In 1933, thousands of books by Jewish and leftist writers were burned throughout Germany. Publishing houses further banned the printing of these books. The books were announced as corrupting the minds of German citizens. Many books were banned or burned on the basis of the authors being Jewish or known socialists or anarchists.
Now the left has developed a taste for censorship and blacklisting. Editors and publishing houses are blacklisting those with conservative or libertarian views as forms of dangerous viewpoints or disinformation.
Ullstein will, of course, not stop people from reading the work of JD Vance. While it may make it more difficult for Germans to find copies, ideas like water have a way of finding their way out. Blacklisting and censorship have not succeeded in killing a single idea. What it does is reveal the true character and values of those who want to prevent others from hearing opposing viewpoints.
I grew up with Slavic grandparents that raised up 14 children is harsh conditions during the depression through WWII. There is little or nothing in that book I don’t know about... poor is poor, and rural folks know what it takes to get by.
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Absolutely right, and skwor is certainly an utter 🫢for not knowing this. It’s like not knowing that the sun rises in the east, or that water can make you wet.
But his ilk is well known all over the Internet😀 The Internet has given everyone a voice to participate in discussions, but not the necessary erudition.
BTW, could it be that the American ambassador to Berlin, a Biden appointee, placed a friendly phone call to Ullstein editing house?
Just saying…
There are many people who view Lobsters as insects, though Jordan Peterson is not one of them!
True, and Germany, with no guaranteed right to free speech, is an easy tipover for them, the Inter-Nazis, as some call them.
Sad, but true. Please could you also see my other answer, where I theorized what might have happened… erm, behind the scenes?
They are indeed arthropods ...
For the record:
I have personally boiled live lobsters and will likely do so again.
I have never baked, broiled, boiled, fried, grilled, barbecued, or otherwise cooked a live chicken ... and will almost certainly never do such a thing.
The former seems normal, the latter unspeakably barbaric.
That’s how life as an apex predator goes, I suppose ...
In America, however, there are better chances for effective resistance.
Thanks be to internet antiquarians in Anglophone countries, who send their books to customers all over the world, and who often even carry new books.
Censorship, epic fail! 😜
That is just terrible to read, that even in 🇺🇸, of all places, where freedom of speech is even enshrined in the Constitution, some firms - so it seems - have jumped on the bandwagon to subvert all opponents of neocommunism.
My comments to Barnes and Noble: that is not Cricket, as the British say, and you really disappoint me🙁
Thank you very much, Sir, for setting the record straight.😀
Ullstein‘s loss, Yes‘s gain.
I wish the book a world of huge success - and its author as well, of course👍🏻😀
Seems entirely too plausible.
Thank you very much as well😀
That‘s indeed what we have here; right under our noses.
How cute... They think they can ban information by hiding it. Only losers play that game. The truth will always find a way around those tactics and it always comes out more powerful because of it.
True, and the quote by George Orwell on your personal page rings as true nowadays as it has in the past.
Mr. Vance‘s book has already found a new German editor, a young editing house in Munich named „Yes“. Their gain, the other editor‘s loss. Tough🤭
And I‘m begging you to read the other comments on this thread; it will put tis entire censorship episode into an international context.
Please🙁
If he had written some crap glorifying the Red Army Faction, they’d probably publish it.
The left...
Yes, they are at it again…our „unloved acquaintances“…
I did nazi this coming.
I would attribute his success to the influence of his grandmother and the USMC.
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I just finished reading Hillbilly Elegy. I would deny any credit to Mamaw and give her all the blame. It was the Marine Corp that changed his life.
How did you reach that conclusion?
So true! I remember a guy telling his girlfriend that if she listened, she could hear the lobster scream as it went into the water. She didn’t believe it until he put it in, but he was making the high pitched sound and she didn’t see his face!
Another time, my wife and I were sailing in the Caribbean with three other couples, and one of the women (who I did like) was a animal rights person. We stopped at a little sandbar island where you could get freshly grilled rock lobster, and all the boats made a beeline for it to anchor offshore.
Heh, the guy just took giant meat cleaver and with one chop, expertly separated the rock lobster into two halves, and would brush them with butter before throwing them, with still wiggling legs, onto the grill!
She was absolutely horrified and aghast at the wiggling legs!
The left are the modern Nazis. You can see it in their eyes and their tactics. That’s why they are so intent on banning guns.
Once they take our guns, off to the camps we will go and I am totally serious. They want us dead.
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