50 Ways to Fight Censorship: And Important Facts to Know About the Censors - Softcover

Marsh ( Born to Run ) is a rock critic and leader in the fight against censorship and mandatory labeling of rock albums. This volume is "an angry book," he warns, but its tone is surprisingly reasonable. His suggestions are practical and often, at first glance, self-evident, like registering to vote and knowing who your elected representatives are. In some respects, the book is a much-needed basic primer of citizenship. Marsh makes the important connection between "the growing corporate concentration of the publishing, music and film industries" and the concomitant shrinkage in available points of view. He astutely eschews the conventional definition of censorship as state action to cover such phenomena as skewed news judgment that leads to chronic under-coverage of the U.S. labor movement, and the efforts of freelance censors. The book is most useful in the latter area, detailing the ties of such "mainstream" types as Tipper Gore and Susan Baker (wives of Sen. Al Gore and Secretary of State James Baker, respectively) to anti-Semites and right-wing religious loonies. Marsh's "friends" include Allen Ginsberg and John Waters. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this how-to manual, rock music critic Marsh highlights 50 practical steps individuals can follow to fight the growing censorship trend in the United States. Basing his definition of censorship on terms used by the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, he suggests such actions as registering to vote, getting involved with the local library, reading banned books (he includes a list of 50 such titles), writing letters to local newspapers in support of free speech, and joining anticensorship organizations. While Marsh tries to cover censorship on both sides of the political spectrum (he names the National Organization for Women and Women Against Pornography among the censorship groups), he focuses primarily on right-wing groups, and his tone, at times, is self-righteously hysterical. It would have been interesting to have a chapter on the "politically correct" movement that is limiting free speech on college campuses. Still, this is essential for public libraries.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.