US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers.

[Dover]

Wow..."dissident writers" now join this administration's list of enemy combatants and terrorists.
This article should be spread widely to libraries, book clubs, book stores, etc. so that everyone knows.

_________________________


Bush's war on brains: US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers
Date: Saturday, December 11 @ 08:43:10 EST
Topic: Laws, the Courts and the Legal System

By Scott Martelle, Seattle Times

In the summer of 1956, Russian poet Boris Pasternak -- a favorite of the recently deceased Joseph Stalin -- delivered his epic "Doctor Zhivago" manuscript to a Soviet publishing house, hoping for a warm reception and a fast track to readers who had shared Russia's torturous half-century of revolution and war, oppression and terror.

Instead, Pasternak received one of the all-time classic rejection letters: A 10,000-word missive that stopped just short of accusing him of treason. It was left to foreign publishers to give his smuggled manuscript life, offering the West a peek into the soul of the Cold War enemy, winning Pasternak the 1958 Nobel in literature and providing Hollywood with an epic film.

These days, Pasternak might not have fared so well.

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.

Legal challenges

"It strikes me as very odd," said Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University and former constitutional legal counsel to former presidents Reagan and Bush. "I think the government has an uphill struggle to justify this constitutionally."

..cont'd >>

Copyright (c) 2004 The Seattle Times Company

Reprinted from The Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002112639_diss08.html

[BurtWorm]

1. This should be an outrage to every American.

The Bushists hate us for our freedoms.

[HuckleB]

4. Exactly.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. As the article notes

This issue is currently in the news because "The Land of Freedom" won't let a FUCKING NOBEL PRIZE WINNER into the country to promote a book that denounces a government thus country considers the "Axis of Evil."

[DemBones DemBones]

3. I'm afraid the Bush** supporters in my book club will support this,

but it's worth bringing up. You can bet I'll tell them about "Dr. Zhivago." All of us remember when the USSR was the bogeyman, but Russian writers weren't.

[proReality]

5. Sadly...

with all the books the extreme right wants banned, I honestly expect book burning next.

[WMliberal]

6. wow, samizdat writers would have had even less a voice

under *.

Shows their lack of a grasp on history and alternative means of undermining regimes besides military force.