Requesting Help from Librarian ALA Members (Vanity)

As a graduate student in library science, I am constantly encouraged to join the America Library Association (ALA). Although the ALA is SUPPOSEDLY designed to help librarians network and to provide new sources of information, it is in actuality anything but.

At the ALA's conference in Toronto this past week, guest speakers included Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem, and Naomi Klein. While I disagree with everything these speakers stand for, I support their right to free speech. However, I do not support their right to speak at a convention designed for librarians.

The current governing body of ALA consists of nothing more than socialists, communists, and diversity obsessed misfits. I am not familiar with how ALA conducts their elections (I have yet to join, considering I don't want my membership dues going to support people like those at the last convention), but there has to be some flaw in the system. One of the current governing board members is a registered member of the communist party, and denies that Cuba is a dictatorship (there have been several articles printed in mainstream papers and on FreeRepublic recently in response to the ALA's decision to invite representatives from Cuba's government owned library system, while the ALA continues to refuse to support independent librarians that have been jailed under Castro's regime).

Friday, in an email from a law librarian listserv I belong to, a message arrived denouncing the current radical regime in charge of the ALA. Since it appears others are finally getting tired of the ALA's nonsense, I am trying to locate other librarians that have information on the ALA election process, and to see if anyone has any information on organized efforts to install new leadership at the next election.

Just as I wouldn't expect liberal ALA members to sit and pay to listen to conference speakers such as Rush Limbaugh, Thomas Sowell, and Michael Savage, I don't expect to have to listen to anti-globalization nuts, eco-weenies, and femi-nazis. Hopefully, I will find some people on the law librarian listserv who wish to install better leadership at the next ALA election as well. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone who has information on this subject would contact me. Thank you.

ALA does not suppress conservative ideology. I am a serials librarian and we probably have more conserative magazines than left or liberal ones. Sure, we got the Nation, but we have the Moonie Insight On The News too. As well as the Weekly Standard and The National Review. You do not know what you are talking about.

Eldar in Topeka

Nothing is wrong with equity of access. But why is this the main point of her administration? It wasn't enough for her to just talk about the importance of access. Oh, no. She had to be sure to talk about the importance of including minorities, the disabled, and everyone else that leftists claim republicans and evil conservatives want to leave behind.

Look at the list of discussion groups the ALA offers. They're obsessed with race and "diversity", but they don't REALLY want diversity at all. The ALA's idea of diversity is to take every chance possible to slam the white oppressors. If they cared so much about diversity, they would support the only diversity that really matters - the diversity of ideas.

Hey, I grew up poor and white in the inner city and I have relatives that grew up poor and white in rural areas of this great country. Don't give me no bs about how serfs like you did this and that...that is a cop-out. My dad worked hard all his life and came from poverty and many tragedies in his life. He was awarded the Bronze Star for fighting in the Battle of The Bulge against Fascism. Before he died he was happy to see me take my serf like life and work hard to go back to school and get an advanced degree while working full-time and managing to have a family life. God rest his soul. Go to the library and expand your mind a little. Thank god, rich and powerful self-made men like Andrew Carneige knew better than you the power of public libraries.

Eldar in Topeka

They don't suppress conservative idealogy? How can you say that? They take every opportunity available to slam the Patriot Act (a policy of the Bush administration), they went on non-stop for weeks about the "tragedy" of what occurred at the Iraqi museum (which turned out to be non-existent), they promote porn at every turn and resist even the slightest attempt to restrict children being exposed to it, and they constantly promote their unique form of racism by insisting they need special counsels to talk about everything from Native America access to information to access of information to lefthanded bisexual transgendered lesbians trapped in men's bodies.

The fact that your individual library gets some conservative magazines isn't really a reflection on the ALA.

I get the feeling that you have just been misled as to how far out of sync with America the ALA has pulled. Not to worry, these things happen. I assure you, if you do some research on the friends of Cuban librarians website, as well as some research here, you'll find some great examples of their socialist agenda.

"...the point of the ALA is to promote intellectual freedom"

Their idea of "intellectual freedom." From my years watching the list, "intellectuals" are anybody who wants to promote any ideology which makes man his own standard of measure, however, as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater than the value measured. Therefore, Conservatives and people of the faith community are marginalized and derided as "backward" and regressive. That being so, "Progressive" in the lexicon of the left is just another weasel word for a different brand of leftist. Or "RINO" in Conservative speak.

"www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org"

Thanks! I'll check that out. Hey, yer' all right for a filthy Stalinist commie!

The Patriot Act is wrong-period. The First Amendment, dummy. We do not promote porn--that is bs. If you want to have dialogue about what really is going on in Iraq, I'm game. Or if you want to discuss Islam, we can do that too. And yes, I do not like the way ALA is handling this Cuban thing either, but I am active and I voice my concerns when needed.

Eldar

I hate to point this out to you, but you are clearly not a constitutional law scholar. Normally, I would charge for legal matters, but I'll give you this short synopsis for free. Citizens have no right to unfettered access to everything in a library. Why? Because a library is not a private place. It's a public domain, funded with taxpayer/public funds. As such, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public libraries. You're using public computers paid for by public funds. Therefore, you can be monitored.

Second, just this week the ALA issued a statement condemning the Supreme Court ruling which upheld the law stating libraries wishing to receive federal funds had to provide filters. The ALA (proving why people not trained in law should know their limitations) issued the bold statement based on a concurring opinion that patrons can still ask for the filters to be turned off, and thereby avoid "unconstitutional embarrassment." I was not aware the constitution guaranteed I would never be embarrassed, but reglardless, the ALA is still wrong. The concurring opinion means nothing.

The ALA has at every turn attempted to support free access to pornography in libraries.

I feel a discussion of Iraq would probably be useless and unwarranted, as would a discussion of Islaam. Needless to say, I agree with Dinesh D'Souza's view on the radically Islaamic countries - they will never be satisfied until the whole world is either Muslim or dead. Fortunatley, most American Muslims act as if their religion has undergone a reformation, and don't interpret the Koran literally.

Your're wrong about my Constitutional law knowledge. This will always be played out in the courts and in the long run freedom will always win out. You sir, continue to show your biogtry in your outrageous comments. And yes, access to everything a library collects is a given, however, if a patron accesses materials on the Internet that violate state or local obscenity laws, then it is time to go to court again to determine what is and what is not obscene. We evict our customers who view blatant pornography on our public computers. Repeat offenders are suspended and not admitted back in. Cripes, you couldn't charge diddly for your knowledge of law.

Eldar

Most Muslims do not interpret the Koran literally, especially the crazed Saudis who follow Wahabiism. I was once a Sufi until I was saved by Agnosticism, so I have more than a passing fancy with the Koran. And with regards to porn, it is Republicans and Catholics (and Clarence) who repeatedly keep getting caught molesting little boys and girls. The news stories do not lie.

yours

Eldar

Hey, I grew up poor and white in the inner city and I have relatives that grew up poor and white in rural areas of this great country.

To quote your hero, "I feel your pain." I grew up poor too. So what?

My dad worked hard all his life and came from poverty and many tragedies in his life. He was awarded the Bronze Star for fighting in the Battle of The Bulge against Fascism.

And so you cheapen your father's heroism by supporting socialism, after he fought the German National Socialists in WWII.

Thank god, rich and powerful self-made men like Andrew Carneige knew better than you the power of public libraries.

Andrew Carnegie wasn't a "public servant" in today's liberal context. He was a real public servant, working and providing jobs for other Americans. He wasn't a leech living off of a tax-payer supplied salary like Carla Hayden.

After accumulating wealth, he voluntarily gave a great deal of it to endow libraries. He didn't advocate that tax money be used for them.

Carnegie would spin in his grave if he knew how far the communists had infiltrated into the American education system.

I refuse to give your idiotic rants any more attention. Nazi Germany was not Socialism. And no, I ain't scared of your paranoiac ramblings. You better stop reading the wrong stuff or your're going to give yourself a stroke, or something.

Eldar

PS: You know squat about social theory and trying to have a dialogue with you is worse than listening to Dennis Miller bomb on Monday Night Football awhile back.

I refuse to give your idiotic rants any more attention.

Then why do you keep posting to me? Masochism?

Nazi Germany was not Socialism.

Wrong.

And no, I ain't scared of your paranoiac ramblings.

Another liberal tactic, accusing your opponent of mental illness when your logic falls apart.

You better stop reading the wrong stuff or your're going to give yourself a stroke, or something.

I suppose you think I'd feel better if I read Mein Kamph or Das Kapital, eh?

PS: You know squat about social theory and trying to have a dialogue with you is worse than listening to Dennis Miller bomb on Monday Night Football awhile back.

And what, precisely, does a comic, doing sports commentary six months ago, have to do with anything on this thread? I mean, other than your lame attempt to recover from your socialist, muddle-headed, meandering rants?

<Some nonsense about "equality" of access to information, because as we all know, the white devil has spent years attempting to keep oppressed minorities from having equal access to information and technology.

ok. i've been reading this thread and you forced me out of the woodwork. this is precisely the kind of crap that i've been speaking out against at school. i'm getting a phd in info science, have a jd, and worked as a technology policy wonk in a think tank in dc before going back to school.

as soon as i came to school, people started approaching me w/digital divide materials, as if being black meant i had to be interested in, much less believe that there is, a digital divide. imagine their suprise when i go off on a dennis miller-type rant about blacks being early adopters of tech such as beepers and cell phones, the free market & the falling price of computers, etc.

also, and here's what they don't get - some people DON'T WANT info tech. how 'bout that, folks? you don't need some tax-funded program to give every po' chile a computer. hear that, jesse??

there are issues re access to information, but it has very little to do w/whitey keeping the black man down.

g...d... i hate liberals...

hey radiohead, i never once said anything about white devils doing this and that, it is your fellow neo-cons who did. and no, i have not made any presumptions here about minorities and what they do or don't do. so keep hating, pal, like many men who are so frigging stressed out, you are heading for a stroke real soon if you do not chill out.

Cordially,

Eldar

Don't worry, buddy. Just because radiohead, Thomas Sowell, and Larry Elder have managed to escape the liberal's plantation of dependency doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of other minorities out there liberals can look down upon and pander to.

Nothing is more condescending than the liberal attitude that members of some ethic classes can't make it on their own without special handouts. It's an all around winning situation for the libs. They get to bash whitey, ensure future generations of voters (on the taxpayer's dime, of course), and feel morally superior to all the evil conservatives that have the nerve to think everyone should be judged on their individual merit, rather than their ethnicity.

Pal, once again you are not reading my posts. radiohead is so laughable as a person that he cannot think straight. You have pegged me as something I have never defined here and my success at exposing your misguided anger has never been so easy.

All my African-American friends are hard-working folks who pay taxes and have raised families. Any assistance a few of them received, has been paid back in spades and then some. Take Justice Thomas for example, affirmative action took him to the top.

Cordially

Eldar

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