October 14, 1977, Anita Bryant is pied for her antigay bigotry at a press conference in Des Moines, IA.
It was 40 years ago today…
Never gets old.
40 years on and it still is gratifying
Anita’s still alive and kicking and being anti-gay. Thom Higgins, who threw the pie when he was 27 – and was poetically from Beaver Dam – passed away 17 years later at 44. Info on his life is here. The pie throwing was a big deal. In an age before the internet let gays feel connected, and long before ACT UP, the pie showed small pockets of gays that we could fight back.
Librarians must resist trumpism
Radical librarian Jason Griffey (previously) wants librarians to continue their 21st century leadership in the resistance to surveillance and persecution – a proud record that includes the most effective stands against GW Bush’s Patriot Act – by pledging to make libraries safe havens from trumpism and its evils: electronic surveillance; racial and gender-based discrimination; and the assertion that ideology trumps empirical reality.
Neutrality favors the powerful, and further marginalizes the marginalized. In the face of the current political climate, with the use of opinions as bludgeons and disinformation as the weapon of choice for manipulation and intellectual coercion, it is up to those who value fact and believe in the care of those in need to stand up and positively affirm that to do otherwise is evil.
For libraries and librarians, that means:
1. Making the physical space of the library safe for those that need it by publicly stating your stance on the targeting of marginalized communities and then following up with actions and policies that back up those statements
2. Protecting your patrons from targeting and oppression, even in the face of possible governmental pressures, by resisting calls for information about your patrons at every level
3. Making your digital spaces safe for you patrons by limiting the data you collect, eliminating the data that you store, encrypting your communications at all levels and importantly insisting that your vendors do the same
4. Running programs that actively provide support for your at-risk patrons, whatever that looks like in your community
5. By being the voice of reason and compassion when dealing with your city or county government, and by modeling the same by advocating for those at risk
These things are vital and necessary. Especially now.
https://boingboing.net/2016/12/20/librarians-must-resist-trumpis.html
ok but that sign is SO COOL. It is illegal - fucking fuck - for a library to say it has been approached by the FBI. The workaround is that a library can say they have not been approached until, ya know, that’s a lie and they take down the sign.
That is also actually why a lot of libraries no longer keep records of what a person checks out. Like they take broad stats but a lot of computer programs don’t even have the capacity to log what a person has checked out. You can’t disclose what you don’t have.
tldr, librarians can be awesome when we stop doing this neutrality lie.
Why in the hell is that illegal? That’s sketch af guys. Someone in the law making business is shade. Shaaaaaade.
the FBI used to maintain watch lists of books people took out, and librarians didn’t like it, so they told their patrons to work from a book in the library so they didn’t go on the watch list, or took the books out themselves, so the FBI got really pissed at them and got the lawmakers to make it illegal to warn them
but librarians are smart wily fuckers - the FBI didn’t stand a chance
The signs were originally made by librarian and all around good egg Jessamyn “not the author” West, who writes about it at librarian.net.
this is called a warrant canary (in reference to the canaries kept in coal mines to warn miners of carbon monoxide buildup – the gas would kill a canary well before becoming dangerous to humans)
as far as I know, warrant canaries have not been tested, though it’s quite possible a court would regard taking one down as functionally equivalent to announcing that you have been investigated (since it pretty much is)
however, while the government can stop you from saying things if it’s found to be in the national security interest (First Amendment exemptions, whee), it’s much harder for them to force you to say things when you don’t want to say them – which would be a neat way to challenge your arrest, if your warrant canary dies and you have the money/time/moxie to fight the feds
And what are these?
if y’all can watch this joke and not cringe I don’t know how to help you
You mean this joke?
Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don’t cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race
Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We’ll live together or we’ll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We’ve but one Earth on which to live
And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by life and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above
This is actually my ‘anthem’ on tinder, ha.
“I kept the faith, and I kept voting. Not for the iron fist, but for the helping hand.”
— Billy Bragg - Between The Wars
“All You Fascists” by Billy Bragg and Wilco (written by Woodie Guthrie)
I’m gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised
People all over this world are getting organized
You’re bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
Race hatred cannot stop us, this one thing I know
Poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go
You’re bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
All you fascists are bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
You’re bound to lose, you fascists
Are bound to lose
People of every color marching side by side
Marching across these fields where a million fascists died
You’re bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
*****
I’m going into this battle, take my union gun
Gonna end this world of slavery before this war is won
You’re bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
cassidium
