Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Book Burner

While I seriously doubt Bloomberg consciously told his top goons to make sure their whole library was destroyed, he's still responsible for, as of this moment and according to the librarians of OWS, 2000 to 4000 missing books. The intent is not the same as the short clip at the end of this post, but seems rather ironic in a few ways nonetheless. And Bloomberg's book destruction seems more from overweening political arrogance, power, and negligence. Still: he's the one who must answer for this, and I hope he does.

But even if he does, for the OG at least, and possibly the Reader, Bloomberg will never be able to completely wash the smell of burned books out of his own name. There's no evidence that I have seen that he ordered the destruction of books, but as of this moment or until we hear he's apologized and made restitution, I see him as on the moral level of book burners. If you think that's too harsh, feel free to say so in the comments. "Mistakes were made?" "A breakdown in communication?" What?

He should have no trouble making amends. He's worth $19,500,000,000, according to Forbes. Jeez, talk about the 1%!

Here: have a look at the catalog prior-Bloomberg's default-biblioclasm, or libricide. Luxuriate in the list of texts; note the catalog dates for each item.

CAUTION: DIZZYING LEVEL OF IRONY AHEAD (in links):
Eight days before the confiscation and ruin of a library - including the destruction of at least one copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 - Bloomberg attended a gala event for the NY Public Library.

Two days after the destruction of the library, Common Cause rallied to the defense of the OWS library and its librarians and called for billionaire Bloomberg to open his wallet and buy back those books.

Until Rich Uncle Pennybags Bloomberg makes restitution for what he's responsible for destroying, he's in the set of people which include the burners of the Library at Alexandria, the ReverendTerry Jones, Anthony Comstock, the Nazis, the US government/FDA/AMA who succeeded in having Wilhelm Reich's books burned only 11 years after the Nazis were defeated, because supposedly Americans believed in Free Speech and that book burning was anathema to a Free World.

Some other links to articles about this heinous incident are here, here (note there how many library accessories are also broken, trashed, or missing), here, and here (NB the quote from the artist who told a reporter, "I watched the stuff thrown into sanitation trucks and just crushed.")
General Wiki on burning books.
Nazis and book burning Wiki.
Some good links there...

Enjoy your books! Have you read Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, by Herman Melville? Life, Inc by Rushkoff? Thomas Paine? How about Haig Bosmajian?

I wrote on the topic of book destruction and Baez's book on the history of that here. Skip ahead to the part after the pic of the stack of unburnt books...

The absurdity of this all! Dig this 27-second clip of Nazis burning books, etc. The person who put the clip up decided to include the tune, "Fly Me To The Moon." When I watched this clip earlier today, a pop-up ad appeared for investing in gold. Satire has been outpaced by "real life"?