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Mitch Daniels, President of Purdue University and former governor of the state of Indiana, was busted by a diligent reporter from the Associated Press last year for systematically trying to prevent anything written by popular historian Howard Zinn from being used by any public educational institution in the state. Consequences for Mitch? Minimal.

lyrics

Mitch Daniels was the governor of Indiana Now he is the president of Purdue
But back when he was governor he asked his staff
To look into what they might be able to do
He said now that this old man has kicked the bucket
Can we finally stop taking it on the chin?
Can we find an excuse, whatever one will work
To ban all the books of Howard Zinn

I want to ban them, he said, from the libraries
I want to ban them from each curriculae
Ban them from the grade schools, ban them from the high schools
Ban them from each college syllabae
And quietly the books started disappearing There in the heartland of the free
But, oops, now we know, because his emails are public
And were discovered by a reporter from AP

They're banning books in Indiana The governor wants to censor what you read
Because a patriotic history of half-truths and lies Is all the history you need

The story hit the presses, at least a bit And Mitch Daniels then denied the truth
Which is funny because that's just like the diet of nonsense
Mr. Daniels would feed to the youth
American democracy is the best in the world
And everything is going according to plan
And any pesky historians who want to expose that crap
It's time to burn and censor and ban!

Because students can't handle reality It needs to be bleached and masticated
Red, white and blue are the colors for Mitch
Shades of grey are too complicated
Columbus discovered America, it's the world's best democracy
And America always wins
And if sometimes things don't quite go the way they should
Jesus will forgive our sins

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from All the News That's Fit to Sing, released July 1, 2014

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David Rovics Portland, Oregon

Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), anarchist, dad, lover of life.

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