Things sure are happening.
Oct. 27th, 2023 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiki_engThe Saskatchewan government invoked the notwithstanding clause to pass their Parents' Bill of Rights a week ago. There were nation-wide anti-LGBTQ2SIA+ rallies that Saturday, and also No Space For Hate rallies. OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) put out a pretty good events round-up during the organisational period, so they may be a space to watch if you're in Ontario and not linked up to your local group yet. The way things are going I'm sure we'll be out again with our rainbow kit before long.
Speaking of unions: NUPGE (National Union of Public and General Employees) had a statement out this past weekend on the Escalation of Violence in Israel and Palestine. They're against it, which is apparently a really radical position in this country right now. (Early days CBC News online made some very pro-Israeli editorial choices and the provincial political parties have also been going that way.) It's a weird political landscape right now.
Smart Bitches Trashy Books have had a couple pro-Library posts recently, including a guest post by Crystal Anne: Library Board Adventuring One Year In, where she talks about her volunteer work on her library board, including reviewing a book challenge, and what you can do for your library. (Be on the board is a big one if you can swing it, because it can keep people who are in favour of book bans, among other things, off of the board. Helping to keep the library properly funded is another one.)
I think that what I am trying to say with the post is this: this is happening. Get ready.
The far right is rising. Anti-LGBTQ2SIA+ sentiment, rhetoric, and action is growing. Attacks on freedom to read are coming to a library near you, probably, if they're not already there. I feel like as a culture we're losing any sense of nuance, or truth, or history.
Wired had an article a couple years ago on One Woman's Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia, which is a reasonably awful click-baity title for a piece about a woman fighting against historical negationism. (I am increasingly worried about what happens as we get farther away from the Holocaust, and we lose the last people who remember it.)
I am just -that panel in Fraction/Aja's Hawkeye with the newspaper that reads "Every Awful: Oh God Somebody Do Something".
Speaking of unions: NUPGE (National Union of Public and General Employees) had a statement out this past weekend on the Escalation of Violence in Israel and Palestine. They're against it, which is apparently a really radical position in this country right now. (Early days CBC News online made some very pro-Israeli editorial choices and the provincial political parties have also been going that way.) It's a weird political landscape right now.
Smart Bitches Trashy Books have had a couple pro-Library posts recently, including a guest post by Crystal Anne: Library Board Adventuring One Year In, where she talks about her volunteer work on her library board, including reviewing a book challenge, and what you can do for your library. (Be on the board is a big one if you can swing it, because it can keep people who are in favour of book bans, among other things, off of the board. Helping to keep the library properly funded is another one.)
I think that what I am trying to say with the post is this: this is happening. Get ready.
The far right is rising. Anti-LGBTQ2SIA+ sentiment, rhetoric, and action is growing. Attacks on freedom to read are coming to a library near you, probably, if they're not already there. I feel like as a culture we're losing any sense of nuance, or truth, or history.
Wired had an article a couple years ago on One Woman's Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia, which is a reasonably awful click-baity title for a piece about a woman fighting against historical negationism. (I am increasingly worried about what happens as we get farther away from the Holocaust, and we lose the last people who remember it.)
I am just -that panel in Fraction/Aja's Hawkeye with the newspaper that reads "Every Awful: Oh God Somebody Do Something".