Must reading for Antifa domestic terrorists and Democrats who want to ban conservative books.
Ray Bradbury’s famous novel reminds me of the current political strife caused by today’s Nazis, Antifa domestic terrorists, who attempt to erase our history by tearing down statues, destroying property, and killing those who oppose their feeble demands.
Although written in 1953, a much different political environment than 2020, the novel reads like a prophecy fulfilled. The similarities between what Bradbury writes and today’s Antifa and Democratic Party are clear.
Bradbury’s novel depicts “firemen” who burn books; today, NPR calls for the “decolonization” (i.e. banning) of our personal and (soon) public libraries. People in Bradbury’s work use televisions spanning entire walls for mindless entertainment; today, ditto, except that the mindlessness of television is found in both entire wall-sized and miniaturized iPhone or iPad screens. Bradbury’s futuristic citizens cannot engage in logical thinking on complex controversial issues, and their “conversations” mention only the briefest of surface details. Similarly, a quick scan in 2020 of idiotic Facebook posts and even more vapid tweets would show that some of us (especially Antifa-minded young persons and college students satisfied being “snowflakes” instead of aiming for success in college to advance their careers in America’s capitalist society) have not progressed beyond ephemeral nonsense.
Unfortunately, many sections of the novel are so needlessly lugubrious that I wonder what the cohesion is between the affected section and the overall narrative. For example, Captain Beatty’s lengthy justification for the firemen who torch books and houses containing banned books (in this imprint, pages 70ff), contains eclectic references, is often rambling, and probably is the result of material which Bradbury needed to add to reach the 25,000 more words which his publisher demanded so that the work could be printed as a lengthier novel.
Despite this content problem, which affects reading comprehension and the mellifluousness of the work, contemporary readers will understand one of the novel’s essential claims: books are merely containers for human ideas. Therefore, even though Antifa, the Democratic Party, and leftists in academia and the media will try their best to purge masterworks from our society, it will be impossible to do so—not because Al Gore invented the Internet (ha ha ha!), but because the ideas are essential to human existence and cannot be eradicated. Any Nazi-like effort by Antifa or useless Democratic politicians to ban ideas contrary to their myopic perspective is doomed to failure accordingly.
Thus, when Antifa domestic terrorists or other wayward young leftists are arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for their destruction of property or murder of their fellow human beings, forcing them to read Bradbury’s novel may help them see that their quasi-political temper tantrums which lead to banning books are futile. If they want political change, then they should do something truly radical—such as become Catholic and vote Republican, like their parents and grandparents.
Maybe the CHAZ looters could devote a day to read the entire book over loudspeakers instead of screaming about defunding the police.
Hurry and read this book or buy the DVD before Antifa or the Democratic Party ban it. Otherwise, it, like some other famous literary works, may be gone with the wind.