This is ridiculous. Sure, I'm willing to concede that a percentage of protest may be funded by the Kremlin, but to delegitimize an entire movement and segment of society by asserting spurious accusations is doing real damage to our cause of retaining a democracy.
I find the Pelosi comment to be a weird take. Anyone in the US protesting the war in Gaza is well within their right to do so without being labeled a Putin stooge (we know how protestors are treated in Russia).
> (What emoji would Putin use in the “What’s this for?” box for “Russian plant”? Maybe just a plant. He’s probably literal that way.)
Tumbleweeds are Russian thistles, so a tumbleweed emoji would fit a Russian plant that everyone would've sworn was American.
On convergence of opinion & Dr King's supposedly having Hanoi-generated opinions: I'm told that in the '70s, the FBI wanted to get librarians to let the Bureau know whenever anyone with an "Eastern European" sounding name asked for certain types of material. Every librarian they approached refused to participate, so naturally the FBI investigated to try to find their links to the USSR. No luck. The only link common to the librarians was membership in the American Library Association: the librarians were united by a core value of protecting patron privacy.
Librarians also did this in 2005 when the FBI used the Patriot Act to try to obtain citizens library records. The FBI labeled them “radical militant librarians” when they wouldn’t comply.
This is ridiculous. Sure, I'm willing to concede that a percentage of protest may be funded by the Kremlin, but to delegitimize an entire movement and segment of society by asserting spurious accusations is doing real damage to our cause of retaining a democracy.
Yep! I’ve long resented the notion that people should remain silent and suppress dissent as a means of *preserving* democracy.
The people in power tend to take silence as acquiescence unfortunately.
So that she doesn't have to think about the merits of the protest (and there are merits), she labels it so she can ignore them.
I find the Pelosi comment to be a weird take. Anyone in the US protesting the war in Gaza is well within their right to do so without being labeled a Putin stooge (we know how protestors are treated in Russia).
> (What emoji would Putin use in the “What’s this for?” box for “Russian plant”? Maybe just a plant. He’s probably literal that way.)
Tumbleweeds are Russian thistles, so a tumbleweed emoji would fit a Russian plant that everyone would've sworn was American.
On convergence of opinion & Dr King's supposedly having Hanoi-generated opinions: I'm told that in the '70s, the FBI wanted to get librarians to let the Bureau know whenever anyone with an "Eastern European" sounding name asked for certain types of material. Every librarian they approached refused to participate, so naturally the FBI investigated to try to find their links to the USSR. No luck. The only link common to the librarians was membership in the American Library Association: the librarians were united by a core value of protecting patron privacy.
Librarians also did this in 2005 when the FBI used the Patriot Act to try to obtain citizens library records. The FBI labeled them “radical militant librarians” when they wouldn’t comply.
Thanks for the reminder. The phrase "Radical Militant Librarians" was the bell that rang.
You've also reminded me that I need to move *Revolting Librarians Redux* & *Radical Cataloging* closer to the top of my Read Next pile.
I still have my button, lol