Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) pulled no punches on Thursday while giving a floor speech denouncing a GOP-backed measure to give parents greater oversight over public school curricula.
Raskin, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy, dismissed the measure, which is hyped as part of the GOP’s “war on woke,” and proceeded to suggest the real reason behind the bill is to fuel the right’s desire to ban books.
“Well, it’s about book banning, of course,” Raskin declared, adding:
Two years ago more than 1,600 books were banned in the United States of America. Here are three of the key books that the right-wingers have been going after. Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner about the dangerous fanaticism, authoritarianism, and abuse of the Taliban, a right-wing religious fundamentalist movement all about censorship and repressing women’s control over their own bodies and their own fertility.
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s extraordinary dystopian novel about a right-wing, misogynist movement which uses high technology and depraved religious ideology to control not only the minds of their followers, but the private and public lives and the fertility of women. And, of course, George Orwell’s 1984, because they have no sense of irony! They’re always trying to censor this one
“Mr. Chairman, [the] gentleman’s time’s expired,” interjected another member.
“We need more politicians reading books in America and fewer politicians trying to censor books in America. And I tell you, it is amazing to me,” Raskin continued as the chair told him his time had expired.
After receiving more time to finish his speech, Raskin added, “It’s amazing to me to see politicians who oppose a universal, violent criminal background check and who defend assault weapons after the massacres at Columbine, after Parkland, Florida, after Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, after Uvalde, after Santa Fe, Texas, that they are now going to keep America’s children safe by banning The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984. We can do better for the children of America.”
