50 Ways to Fight Censorship: And Important Facts to Know about the Censors

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. (June)