Jay: I love this like double wool, like teacup. Like doesn't hurt my hands because it's got like a gap. Justin: You've air gapped your tea. Jay: Yeah. Justin: All right. So this is our episode before the election. I'm feeling pretty good. Jay: We're going to be huge libs and be like, oh, no, he won. What are we going to do? Justin: No, no, no. The election hasn't happened yet. So I'm looking at the polling Justin: out of Idaho. It looks like it's going to go blue. Justin: Sorry we don't mean to.
Jay: Make fun of people only a little bit. Justin: I think that's kind of been the consensus of like the the most of the podcasts Justin: i listen to is they're like i gaslit myself into thinking she could win and Justin: like the week before and before that i thought no way she'll win then the last Justin: week thought she'll win and then they're like why did i do that to myself.
Jay: Yeah i i like went to bed after they called north carolina and like i was like Jay: all right i think i know where this is going and i woke up unsurprised. Sadie: Yeah wife woke me up at like 3 a.m freaking the fuck out and i was like did Sadie: they call it and they were like not yet and then i rolled over and was on my Sadie: phone for the next two hours being like yep not surprised with Sadie: What it was like when I went to sleep, but being on the West coast is like that. Yeah.
Justin: You're up later. Jay: Yeah. It was like the county by county data. Yeah. Justin: But yeah, I mean, there hasn't been a whole lot of news. I feel like on, Justin: I mean, Emily Javinsky wrote a piece that I think was not helpful in any way. Justin: Like she's, she's beating the drum. She's like, you know, academic libraries Justin: are going to be targeted. Justin: Libraries are going to be targeted. It's like, yeah, I know.
Justin: But I think it was in like a non-library publication. so it was like trying to get. Jay: I think it was an inside higher. Justin: Ed yeah so I think it was an inside higher ed or something I don't think it Justin: was just like the ALA's blog.
Jay: Yeah and you have to remind faculty to care about us because half the time they're Jay: like oh you mean we can either give you a salary or keep the journal that only Jay: I care about well I know what decision I'm going to make, Jay: I'm so glad I'm not in higher ed anymore it's. Sadie: Not great I just wait until the bullshit hits the fan in public libraries Jay just wait. Jay: But it already has. Sadie: It's been hitting the fan for a while, actually.
Jay: Yeah, I'm just going to be a little latte-sipping liberal here in Massachusetts, I guess. Justin: Are you going to be every person who I meet in Boston who I tell them I'm from Justin: Texas and they're like, oh, Texas. Jay: Every time my boyfriend lives in Texas, they're like, ugh. I'm like, Jay: y'all, I know. I've been there. Sadie: I am aware. Jay: I love to say that the very first time I visited you in Texas, Jay: I got off the plane in Dallas, right? Because that's where my labor was.
Jay: And like literally I step off of the plane and I get into the airport. Jay: And immediately a dude walks out of the men's restroom wearing like a transphobic Jay: t-shirt. And I was like, cool. Jay: But I literally had no other issues. Justin: Yeah. Jay: I just can't go to Odessa. That's the thing. I just can't go there. Justin: Yeah. Whereas, you know, you can hang out with me in the valley and you go see Justin: the guys wearing the pink pumps dancing. Jay: Yeah, exactly.
Justin: Getting a little fruity with it. Jay: Yeah, they get a little fruity with it down there. It's fun. Jay: Shit's been bad, people. Like, this doesn't change much. Jay: It's like, shit's, I don't want to be like, oh, everything's fine. Jay: It's not fine. But it's been bad. Jay: So, you know, we have to not get too. Jay: It hasn't been fine. Seriously, we've been, we've been set on this, on this very program.
Jay: We've been saying the exact shit that we are going to tell you tonight for like three years now. Sadie: I feel like every time there's like a democratic president, all of the, Sadie: all of the liberals like gaslight themselves into believing that like no more Sadie: work needs to be done now. Justin: They went to brunch. They said they were going to go to brunch and they went to brunch.
Jay: But then like the worst leftists, you know, are like, oh, well, Jay: then I hope Trump wins so that people start organizing again. Jay: I'm like, that's not what I wanted to either. Yeah. Sadie: Fuck. Justin: But it has been interesting, the sort of lack of resistance among liberals. Justin: At least online, you know, I think during the inauguration, there's probably Justin: going to be protests and stuff. People are going to like. Jay: God, a liberal J6 is going to be so fucking funny.
Justin: I don't think that's going to happen, but I think. Jay: Oh, obviously not. But I've already seen people be like, oh, Jay: he faked the election. I'm like, y'all. Justin: I did like what Devin was saying, which is like, if you have liberals in your Justin: life, it is your duty to say, hey, doesn't something seem strange about the results? Jay: It is is quite funny. Sadie: When i saw people immediately. Jay: Being like oh it was rush again all over again it was like oh not even.
Justin: It was like 2005 all over again it was like we have to get more racist. Jay: That but also people being like oh he cheated we have to do recounts we need Jay: to wait longer before we call yada yada i'm like y'all you can't make fun of Jay: republicans we're doing this and then do it.
Sadie: Well and like and the thing Sadie: that gets me about that is it's so like myopic because like Sadie: they've been they've been spending the past four years Sadie: making sure we don't have another 2020 election result Sadie: right like gerrymandering making sure Sadie: nobody does a vote by mail like they've been spending the Sadie: past four years doing that shit to get this result in otherwise completely legitimate
Sadie: ways so just jumping straight into the conspiracy thinking is just when I first Sadie: saw people I was like oh for the love of God we're not doing this are we okay Sadie: we are hoo boy actually crazies. Jay: Are way better organizers a better solidarity than we are a lot of the time. Justin: They're also just as infighty and it's. Jay: Just they. Sadie: Don't they don't.
Justin: Infight they don't infight over the same types of things so it allows them to Justin: steal cohere politically yeah. Sadie: But they. Justin: Will rat fuck individuals but the program kind of keeps going on in this populist way. Justin: I've seen some really good stuff I've seen some really bad takes.
Justin: The one thing I'm surprised I haven't seen Justin: anybody mentioned i mean literally i haven't read this anywhere and Justin: it just it took like weeks to occur to me vote out vote turnout was so much Justin: higher in 2020 because everyone was allowed to vote by mail because a ton of Justin: states said you can vote by mail and voting was easier the last election and Justin: like that's a good reason why turnout's probably down and a lot more people are disabled and dead we.
Sadie: Should have been spending the last four years trying to get vote by mail in Sadie: so many more states, particularly, you know, the ones that flipped blue last Sadie: time, like Georgia and Arizona. Sadie: Maybe if that had happened, we would have had. Yeah. Justin: It was just so strange, though, that it took so long. Yeah, it's just strange Justin: that it took so long for me to realize, like, no one has written anything about
Justin: how much vote by mail was expanded in 2020. And like, it hasn't come up at all.
Jay: Well, because they had to, like, totally get rid of all of the, like, Jay: they had to, like, completely abandoned covid stuff as Jay: part of the platform because biden whiffed it so bad because Jay: if they focus on the fact that like it was under trump that the covid stuff Jay: was initially put under like they can't take any credit for that initial bit Jay: and then they got rid of everything like almost immediately like the vote by Jay: mail thing was a covid thing you know.
Justin: Yeah it's just strange to me that like even the leftists i follow because i'm Justin: not reading like liberal rags i'm still hoping someone on blue sky figures out Justin: a way to block links from like the new york times just like, Justin: and so i don't have to see people reposting it's like stop posting your garbage Justin: here just because you have a weird fetish for being humiliated that's. Sadie: One way to go about it i guess.
Justin: Yeah speaking of blue sky actually there's i just kind of found out this thing Justin: where there are other people doing moderation lists. Justin: So when you report, so people label accounts, they can't ban them themselves Justin: because they're not like part of the blue sky team, but you can get on a labeling Justin: list. And then when you report a post or an account, Justin: you can report it to the person who maintains that list. So there's like a transphobia list.
Justin: So walk the person, but it will label them transphobic. So then you'll see that Justin: they've like, you know, what kind of transphobia they're peddling and stuff like that. Justin: And so even if the blue sky moderators will be like, well, we can't kick them Justin: for saying something like that. Cause it's like an edge case. Justin: This moderator will still at least tat like label them. So it's kind of like Shinigami eyes.
Jay: I still like to caution people to be careful with that kind of stuff because Jay: like people do weaponize that shit against people. Jay: So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. Justin: But yeah, but I mean, given the current influx of chuds, it's kind of like, Justin: it's helpful because there's just so many of them trying to get established.
Justin: There's a bunch of people who follow me who I think are just liberals, Justin: but because they're liberals, it just sounds like stuff that a right winger Justin: pretending to be a liberal would say to me because like, they're like dog mom resistor. Justin: And I'm like, I don't know. Is this like a right wing person pretending to be Justin: a liberal or is this just how liberal it is? no. Jay: It's just like a 41 year old white lady librarian that's it.
Justin: Is it is you know what if you're listening thank you for coming stop. Jay: Reading harry potter there are other books for adults. Justin: Read another book but i hope i'm hoping i'm radicalizing some of the grandmas Justin: who are following me for some reason it's. Sadie: The best it's the best you can hope for.
Justin: Yeah i just want that photo of the the hamas guy and then the old lady in the Justin: recliner with an ak-47 in her lap and it's like library punk the people following library punk it's. Jay: Not wrong although most of our followers are like library school students like Jay: i think right that's where like our audience is.
Justin: On blue sky right now yeah but it's a lot more like younger librarians yeah Justin: in general people who listen to podcasts but like on on blue sky because we're Justin: on the starter pack that's really popular yeah we're getting a lot of like retired Justin: librarians older people so welcome but you You got to post a little bit so I Justin: can get a feel for you before I'm going to follow you back, Justin: making sure you're not, you know, not being weird.
Jay: You know, free Palestine, the IRA did nothing wrong, et cetera, et cetera. Justin: Yeah. Merry Christmas to my friends in Hezbollah, Hamas and the IRA. Jay: Yeah, exactly. That's our politics. Justin: Okay. Well, I guess we can officially get started. Sadie: I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library, and my pronouns are they, them. Jay: I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. Justin: Behold the atheist's nightmare. Jay: What's that from?
Justin: I think Kent Hovind. Is that his name, or is that the other guy? Justin: He's just some old creationist grifter. He's still around. Justin: Is it Kent Hovind, or is that the Australian guy? Well, they're both Australian. Justin: There's a lot of Australian creationists who come to America to do their grifts. Justin: But yeah, he's holding up a banana. No, Ray Comfort. That's who it is. Justin: Kent Hovind's the other guy. Jay: Rick Conley sounds like a porn name.
Justin: It does. You should remake Boogie Nights. Jay: Boogie Nights is so good. If there's a way I could tie that into this fucking Jay: podcast, I would make watch of. Justin: I've seen it. Jay: I know you have. Sadie, have you seen Boogie Nights? Sadie: I don't think I have, actually. Jay: It's real good. I should find a way to work it in. Sadie: Discord. Boogie Night? Jay: Yeah, it's about the 70s porn industry and the 70s turning into the 80s.
Jay: But it's about utopia and disillusionment. And it's also the only good thing Marky Mark's ever done. Sadie: Okay, that's why I've heard of it. Marky Mark. Jay: Yeah, Phil Cy Hoffman's in it. Yeah, it's real good. Justin: Okay, so I'm trying to do more segments and stuff like that. Justin: So I'm going to try some... I guess this is news. Justin: Leaked documents show what phone's secretive tech gray key can unlock. Justin: So this is from 404 Media.
Justin: I have a subscription if you ever need to get access to it, but I highly recommend Justin: you support them because they Justin: do extremely good research and I want this publication to stick around. Justin: So they have like a podcast, they have stuff. This is not a brand deal. I just like the product. Justin: And they also write really interesting stuff about like how many paywalls do you put up? Justin: How many barriers do you put up in order to like keep your organization running?
Justin: So like, when do we decide to put something behind a pain wall? Like a pain wall. Justin: When they're talking like, Justin: pain points or like frustration points. They're like some, you just need to Justin: create an account to read and then some you have to pay. Justin: And they're like these different layers of things, like create the incentive Justin: to people, for people to value what you put out.
Justin: Interesting stuff probably relates to podcast, but you know, Justin: we don't have a paywall here. Justin: So, so the great key is a phone unlocking and forensics tool used by law enforcement.
Justin: I believe it first became known in like 2018 and it was kind of a big deal where people found out, Justin: I think this was after the san bernardino shooting was when it was first Justin: reported or maybe it was a similar de-encryption thing but Justin: this is the stuff that can just straight up crack iphones and androids Justin: and so there was a leak to Justin: show what phones gray key can unlock and what Justin: operating systems it can unlock so it's
Justin: only able to retrieve partial data from all modern iphones so Justin: again it has to be like a newer phone as well that run Justin: ios 18 or 18.0.1 this Justin: is the first time that there's been a leak of which phones gray key is able Justin: to or unable to access it's also a breakdown of gray keys capabilities against Justin: android devices which varies widely because android is obviously like not just Justin: one thing there's lots of different android operating systems still.
Jay: Mostly google though. Justin: But the thing is, I think the main takeaway here is like the more new and the Justin: more different it is, the longer it takes GrayKey to catch up. Justin: But there was a quote from a guy who worked at Apple to create the thing where Justin: if you haven't unlocked your phone, basically the USB port will only charge. Justin: It will not give data. That guy works for GrayKey now.
Justin: So they're going to hire the people who build the security stuff from Apple Justin: to then break the stuff they build. So they will catch up. Jay: I mean, this is so I think it was Crime Think who put this out. Jay: I need to look it up. But there's like this great little OPSEC blog post that Jay: used the film Mad Max Fury Road to talk about concepts in OPSEC. Jay: And one of the most important things about it was like, it is never about fully Jay: getting away from adversaries.
Jay: You will never beat them forever. It's always just about being one step ahead Jay: of them and then moving on because they will figure it out. Jay: You just have to slow them down. Like in Mad Max Fury Road. Justin: Yeah, a movie I never remember how it ends. I remember like the first half of Justin: that movie and then the rest, nothing, cannot remember how it ends ever. Justin: I've seen it three times. Jay: Oh, I've seen it so many times.
Justin: It's a good movie. I don't know why I can't remember the end. Justin: Anyway, so Great Key has much less capability with iPhones running beta builds. Justin: So go enable your beta builds right now, I guess. Justin: Saying none for the various betas of 18.1 across all modern iPhone iterations. Justin: For Google's Pixel range, Great Key is able only to extract partial data on Justin: the most recent Pixel devices, including Pixel 9 released in August.
Justin: According to the document, this is specifically when the phone is in after-first-unlocked Justin: state, which is when somebody has unlocked the device at least once since it was powered on. Justin: So probably if your phone is seized, then it's already in that state. Justin: So I think before-first-unlocked, Justin: It can't get any data. Jay: So have your phone off. And even if they turn it on, don't unlock it. Gotcha.
Sadie: And use a passcode or a pattern or literally anything other than biometrics to unlock your phone. Jay: At least while you're at protests and stuff. Sadie: At least while you're at protests. And make sure you like, I know a lot of phones have that. Sadie: If a certain other device is near, it won't, you won't need to unlock it. Sadie: Like I had that with like an Apple watch or something. Yeah. Sadie: So take that shit off. Take that shit off or turn that shit off. Yeah.
Justin: Probably take it off. I bet Apple watches are easy to crack. Sadie: Yeah. Jay: Yeah. Like, I'm not one of those people that's like, get a burner phone. Jay: Because as Alice McCrena told, at least me, I don't know if she told us on this Jay: podcast before. But, like, I've seen her do this spiel before. Jay: Like, getting a burner phone just like, oh, I'm going to go to a protest.
Jay: I'm going to have a burner phone. Like, there's, oh, you suddenly turned your Jay: phone off at the same exact time as this protest. Jay: And then you turned it back on once you got home. They're still going to know where you were. Jay: It's about changing a pattern of behavior consistently. Jay: That is what is most important. Justin: Turn your phone off all the time. Just at random times. Just turn it on and off all day.
Jay: Use Tor browser randomly. Yeah, it's like don't use Tor just to do illegal shit kind of thing. Jay: Use Tor all the time if you can. Justin: Yeah, there's certain browsers you can turn it on to. If there is an Onion version Justin: of a site, it will always open the Onion version. So I think Brave does that. So you can have it. Jay: Don't use Tor through anything but the Tor browser. Justin: Okay. Well, it'll open the Tor browser.
Jay: But like the point of like, okay, yeah. Because like the point of the Tor browser Jay: is that it's also like the same exact size, the same exact spot on your desktop, Jay: like the same exact settings and everything. So it helps reduce browser fingerprinting as well. Justin: Yeah. I think when you, because I turned this off because it was like annoying
Justin: because it'll do it for like all the news websites. Like New York Times will Justin: bring up its Onion site and it's like, I don't really need that. Justin: But you could turn that on if you are, you know, maybe doing some of this stuff Justin: we'll talk about, like ordering controlled substances on the Internet that you might need. Jay: So how do you do fellow trans masks?
Justin: Yeah. So historically, they have eventually caught up and managed to get partial Justin: information from the phones. Justin: And it was also iOS 18 that caused all those phones to reset, Justin: which pissed off a lot of cops. Justin: And they started having conspiracy brain about it, where they thought the phones Justin: were sending signals in between each other to reboot each other. Justin: And it was shit that the iPhone can't do.
Justin: It was literally just because the code was in there, it was going to always Justin: reboot at some point when they turned it back on. Justin: Even if it was in... The moment they turn it on, it'll be, oh, Justin: I need to activate this code. Justin: And then it reboots the phone. So anyway, keep your iOS up to date. Justin: I know my phone is constantly not updating properly. So go in there manually once in a while.
Justin: Even if you have auto updates on, just make sure it's finishing the updates. Jay: Yeah, because sometimes it'll like download it, but it won't install it because Jay: you haven't been like plugged into power or something. Sometimes it's just fussy. Justin: So, yeah, sometimes it's like, well, is it OK if I update? And I'm like, Justin: auto update is on. It's like, but is it OK? Jay: Like it's.
Sadie: On for a reason we have 23 apps waiting to update and i'm like what the fuck does auto update do then. Jay: Anyway this is also a chance Jay: for me to be high and mighty about everyone who's like android is so much better Jay: i'm like don't want don't have brand loyalty to android is google most of the Jay: time it's not like the thing it once was yeah people think that they know all Jay: the shit because they read a tech blog in like 2012. Sadie: Yeah, not the same.
Jay: Yeah, no, shit's different. It's like people who like go like ride or die for Jay: like Mozilla Firefox. I'm like, no, they're like all the same now. Sadie: Yeah. Jay: Some are more secure. Some are more private. Just, you know, Jay: it's about patterns of behavior. That's what's most important. Justin: I think that was all the news. Justin: Jay, you have a thing. Well, could I explain? the topic of the episode first.
Jay: Before you go into that why i was gonna part my thing was part of the episode right. Justin: But we haven't said what we're doing. Jay: Right you're the one who launched into this not me well.
Justin: Okay so the the what we're doing is we Justin: got a question from someone who works in a public library asking Justin: what is it i can do to support people after this Justin: election during a trump presidency and so we gave them a bunch of answers this Justin: is in the horror vanguard discord and then we thought okay well let's just compile Justin: those answers here and add some stuff and that's what we're going to talk about
Justin: for the main segment of the show and then jay has something from black rose. Jay: Yeah so i saw this come up because like i know that leave me alone text scammy Jay: people they've been getting bold lately has anybody else been getting the like Jay: group facetime calls that are from scammers those shit no only you nope yeah Jay: i guess it's only me you're. Justin: Special jay you get a shit ton of them.
Jay: I do it's really annoying anyway so Jay: black rose has been putting out Jay: these like blog posts about like anarchists in Jay: the labor sector and they've been interviewing various like people doing labor Jay: organizing in various fields and one of the most recent one was from a public Jay: library worker in north carolina where like i don't know if folks know this Jay: or not But like you cannot collectively bargain in North Carolina,
Jay: at least not if you're a public sector employee. Jay: And so like a lot of the people that a lot of the stuff that people are afraid about, Jay: like unions and stuff under a Trump presidency going forward, Jay: it's like our comrades in the South and in a lot of this country actually like Jay: have already been dealing with this since the beginning. Right.
Jay: And so I thought it might like help people just to read like what, Jay: like, even if you're not an anarchist, just like what as like librarians who are leftists. Jay: Whatever flavor of leftist you are, like going like what does it look like to Jay: do labor organizing in a library when draconian labor laws exist?
Jay: Especially like i'm in massachusetts i technically legally Jay: can't strike because i'm a public servant right Jay: the only illegal strike is a failed strike but Jay: still like that's in my collective bargaining agreement right you know whatever Jay: don't listen to that shit but i mean listen to that shit but don't listen to Jay: that shit so like i don't know i the link will be in the notes but i think an Jay: important thing to take from it is that like even if you can't quote unquote
Jay: collectively bargain you can still unionize.
Jay: And there are other ways that you can put pressure on administration, Jay: especially as public librarians, Jay: learning who has what power over your job in a city or state government, Jay: and knowing how to actually put pressure on those people, Jay: whether your union is independent or part of a larger union, Jay: like if you're organizing with other public sector employees, Jay: for example, what does it actually look like to do labor organizing when it
Jay: is way more hostile than it is here? Jay: And like Massachusetts, for example, Jay: where I'm very cushy and have a great little union job now, right? Jay: So I just thought it might be nice. It also like is a great example of like coalition building.
Jay: Like I feel like this is like as librarians and like Emily Drabinsky, Jay: this was like one of her whole things as being ALA president was about librarians Jay: doing labor organizing because like labor organizing truly is one of those areas Jay: that is like coalition building.
Jay: Like it is kind of like a big tent kind of thing. You might have different ideologies Jay: and different politics, but you are building solidarity with your co-workers Jay: and with your community around specific issues. Jay: And through that organizing, you can also model different methods than electoral politics.
Jay: We'll put it that way. but yeah I just thought it might be nice for people to Jay: read that interview if people are freaking out a bit because like the stuff Jay: that we're kind of afraid of like our comrades in the south have been dealing Jay: with this shit like forever, Jay: like this ain't new people already can't like do the kind of labor organizing Jay: they can do it out of the country and they're still successful like there's
Jay: some really successful like labor organizing happening in North Carolina for Jay: example but in everywhere that's all I really have to say about that. Justin: This is why I know there's a lot of critiques of the IWW and me and Jay have talked about this.
Justin: But the reason I still believe in the IWW as a concept is one thing they've Justin: been very good at in the past couple of decades is unionizing in places where Justin: other unions won't bother to go because they've given up on trying to. Justin: Like Starbucks, a lot of those early Starbucks unions were some wobbly just Justin: got like a fucking bug up their ass and was like, let's just salt this place.
Justin: Why the fuck not? So it's a great organization that creates radical unionists. Justin: So there are a lot of people in unions like Jay's who I'm sure don't understand Justin: the power and political importance of their union. But everyone who joins the IWW does. Justin: And they love to go around. There was a story. Jay: They offer great labor training, like organizing training. Justin: IWW does. And they also give people information to understand.
Justin: The IWW started when labor unions were illegal.
Justin: They've never given up that outlook of the wildcat strike, like if your union Justin: is not going to be on your terms, dual card in the IWW, Justin: organize with us we'll do a wildcat strike that happened in West Virginia with Justin: teachers who were again legally not allowed to strike they went on a wildcat Justin: strike their union couldn't authorize it but they organized themselves and did Justin: it I'm sure there were some wobblies and they're going yeah let's do this.
Jay: Is why rank and file shit is so important. Justin: And the other thing, the reason I was thinking about it Justin: Because Jay mentioned, you know, you can't strike is the IWW's conceptualization Justin: of sabotage, which is not just like destruction of things, but like work to rule. Jay: Sick outs, strategic sick outs. Yeah. Justin: Waste the employer's money. If you work in, say, a restaurant, Justin: pile everyone's plates high.
Justin: You know, you're doing your job. You're doing great. The people you're serving Justin: love you and you are costing a shit ton of money. Justin: If you work in public transit, a fare strike, no longer collecting fares from Justin: people, people who've done fare strikes when everything they ask for, Justin: they didn't take a day off work, they didn't go on strike. Justin: They just said, hey, the fare system's not working today. We've turned it off.
Justin: Three days of free rides around the whole city. They got everything they wanted. Justin: Right. So, Sabotage has, and this is like sort of the same thing where, Justin: I can't remember what her name was, but there was a wobbly who got involved Justin: with environmental stuff.
Justin: It was part of getting people away from spiking trees because those hurt the Justin: workers, because it would injure the workers who were sawing into a tree that Justin: was spiked, and instead getting them on your side. Justin: Because if you do something that you need to get them to actually realize they need to do something. Justin: So sabotage at through that conceptualization is very very powerful and it can Justin: be stuff like work to rule waste money waste time so yeah.
Sadie: And i just want to say don't assume that because Sadie: you're part of a union that your fellow union members know what any of that Sadie: means i brought up work to rule in a union meeting once i had three or four Sadie: people including those who were on the executive board go what what do you mean Sadie: by that so like don't there's still a level of education that needs to happen, Sadie: even if you are unionized for your fellow union members. So don't forget about that either.
Jay: Labor Notes has some, yeah, like IWW has resources, but Labor Notes also has Jay: eBooks as well as like workshops that do like the secrets of a successful union Jay: organizer and like what you do when your union breaks your heart, like that kind of stuff, Jay: like genuinely very helpful information for like organizing your workplace and stuff.
Justin: Yeah. But I was also saying that's why the IWW is good, because you know that Justin: there's someone reliably radical and educated, because a lot of stuff the IWW Justin: does is they advise other unions. Justin: And so they don't get a lot of the credit. And people are like, Justin: well, the IWW only has like 3000 members or whatever.
Justin: Yeah because they they have just one guy who Justin: lives in like bumfuck nowhere who goes Justin: and says hey you guys should do a wildcast strike hey you Justin: guys need to start building up a strike fund hey you should just pass around Justin: an excel spreadsheet and like you know and then they organize under you know Justin: the starbucks union right it's not the iww starbucks union it's just so they
Justin: seed unions all over the place and i think that's why people don't take it seriously Justin: but that's for me it's why I still believe in it. Justin: But again, I don't evangelize it in any way. I don't feel like you have to join. Justin: But I feel like if you want a radical education, you should definitely learn Justin: about what the IWW is and what it stands for, because they're playing by a different rulebook.
Justin: And it's the rulebook that I think we're going to suggest today, Justin: which is building structures outside of what you already have. Justin: Didn't mean to go on a rant, but. So what can libraries actually do within their limitations?
Justin: So that was the question that we got. And I think some of the responses we gave Justin: was, well, I think the takeaway was you're going to be limited in what the library Justin: can directly provide because the library in itself is not a radical organization. Justin: It's even if you were the director of the library and had free reign to run Justin: any programs you wanted, you could do more definitely.
Justin: But you're still going to ultimately be limited by the structure of your city Justin: employee or county employee. Justin: And you've got certain limitations. So there's certain things you can do to Justin: encourage people to take advantage of the library. Justin: But ultimately, you need to be looking outside of the library into your community Justin: where you're going to have more freedom to organize and help more directly. Jay: Like use your skills as a librarian elsewhere.
Justin: Yeah, like volunteering at an info shop, you know, like a radical info shop. Justin: So one of the first things I recommended was providing information because that's Justin: what a library is good at. Justin: No one's really going to give you trouble about it. Justin: You know, you can do this kind of quietly if you're not at the top of the ranks.
Justin: But, you know, there are a bunch of zines out there. You can definitely create Justin: and print out a bunch of them because, you know, you work there. Justin: You have unlimited printer privileges usually. Justin: Print out a bunch of zines and stuff and put them there and say like, Justin: hey, this is, you know, our community members made some of these. Justin: What do I do with this? What do I do with that?
Justin: Get a little display stand, put it somewhere and say like community information. Jay: I think it's zinelibraries.info or something like has good resources for zine Jay: libraries and like supplies and everything. Justin: Yeah, I also have a link to a Radical Zine library that's hosted on GitHub. Justin: Also, the Boston Public Library has this little corner next to the cafe that's Justin: like a big bulletin board.
Justin: And people can just put whatever there, I think. I don't know what the rules are for it. Justin: But creating basically a little table and a bulletin board and just calling Justin: it Community Center, that will allow people from the community to put stuff there.
Justin: And then you, as a member of your community, can also print out local zines Justin: and stuff that might have information that's relevant about immigration services and groups, Justin: people who are doing mutual aid around immigration services or food or trans health care. Justin: And, you know, you can put them out there and say, oh, I guess someone dropped Justin: off a bunch of those. So it depends on how sneaky you have to be about it.
Jay: You are also a patron at your library, like outside of you being an employee. You are also a patron. Justin: Yeah. It depends on the environment you're in. Right. I'm just saying like, Justin: if you have a hostile supervisor, you're, Justin: You know, then maybe you drop it off after work hours and say, Justin: oh, someone wants to come in. You know, whatever you got to do. Justin: Make your own risk assessment.
Justin: I also think it would be good to have like zine making classes and programming Justin: so that you can invite groups in, like groups that might be able to share information Justin: or who are currently, you know, like abortion funds. Justin: I know like there are a lot of abortion funds in Texas who some of them operate Justin: outside of Texas because they can't really operate in Texas as much anymore.
Justin: But if most of their stuff is online maybe saying Justin: hey you should make some physical stuff to circulate in Justin: the community and bringing them in to you know Justin: inviting them to come to this zine workshop you're going to do and teach Justin: them and let them print out zines and then leave some at the library and Justin: then they can go out and put those in the community and you've got some there so
Justin: just encouraging people to come into programming is also going to look Justin: good because it creates this sort of feedback loop Justin: of we had this great programming we had a bunch of people show Justin: up let's make more time more space for for programming Justin: what the person in the horror vanguard said discord said Justin: was you know our budget's limited and Justin: what i was saying is if you create a feedback loop like this you make an
Justin: argument for more budget or a reallocation of the Justin: budget to say look this is popular people like Justin: this and then you'll be able to do more in the future Justin: so it's a long game and it could take months and years Justin: but if you get the metrics and show it off then bringing in people from the Justin: community you know just send an email just say hey i want to help you make zines Justin: i want to help your organization i want to help something why don't you come
Justin: to this program or tell us a Justin: time that would work for you and then you can set the program to that time. Justin: And do something like that creates a cycle that also goes for like providing Justin: space like say you Reaching out to a group and saying, hey, did you know the Justin: library has meeting rooms you can use if you want to meet here?
Justin: And that way that you can also show like, oh, there's community engagement, Justin: there's community groups coming in, there's more booking for the meeting rooms, Justin: the study rooms, stuff like that. Justin: So that's also useful. And a lot of people don't think about it. Justin: Like, I've definitely been at like DSA meetings where they're like, Justin: where can we meet? And I'm like, have we thought about the library? Justin: And they're like, oh, yeah.
Justin: So, you know, just making it obvious that there is space and resources to use Justin: to your community because, you know, people want to get involved. Justin: So we're just trying to give some ideas of like how to do that. Jay: If your library is jonesing to be like, oh, hey, well, we have to let Nazis Jay: use the meeting rooms, then there's nothing to say that you can't use the meeting Jay: rooms. That's what they're there for.
Sadie: And a lot of libraries have the ability to offer spaces after library hours, too. Sadie: So don't look at a library's hours and go, oh, well, we can't meet before six. Sadie: We might not even try. like really look at the community room like policies Sadie: or whatever because a lot of them you can rent it out up until like 8 or 9 p.m. Sadie: Or whatever so like there's there's normally some wiggle room there.
Justin: Yeah and as an employee you can help people navigate that bureaucracy like they Justin: might go oh well your hours don't work for us let them know well let me talk Justin: to the director to see if we can change that policy because if you tell us a time Justin: Then I can go to them and say, hey, we've got this community group that wants Justin: to use it. Can we have after-hours meetings? Justin: So you might even be able to get the policy changed just by demonstrating interest.
Justin: And you can do all this in sort of like a non-partisan way. Justin: Again, because that's the limits of the radicalism of the institution, Justin: sometimes you might have to be careful about how you frame these things. Justin: I have to do that all the time. I have to frame a lot of stuff where I'm like, Justin: well, we should be doing this because we should be doing this.
Justin: But then I have to say well it's in the benefit of the institution for us to Justin: do this so learn how to pitch things I guess is part of it learn how to, Justin: make it sound the way because sometimes the people who are agreeing with you Justin: also agree with you but they don't have the way of framing it in such a way Justin: where they're like oh this is this will fit in the mission whereas the mission Justin: is milk toast and should be better but yeah.
Jay: Like I am a zine selector at my library now and like That means that it is totally Jay: within my ability to be like, we're going to buy these zines that are about like Palestine. Jay: And the other people who are zine selectors are also little radical weirdos Jay: that are like, oh, we should absolutely buy the zines about Palestine.
Jay: And so then we have zines about Palestine that like support that where the money Jay: goes directly to like help funds for like getting people out of Gaza and stuff. Justin: So like you. Jay: Know you gotta just gotta do that shit because it's like oh yeah they can't Jay: censor our collection development and it's a zine the kind of people who read Jay: zines like care about palestine and shit i don't know.
Justin: Sure yeah you can also be like especially Justin: something's local be like look this is local stuff Justin: this is local community so that that has Justin: always been particularly that's the way that a queer collections Justin: have been built is like people going downtown and grabbing Justin: like all the gay magazines and stuff and being like we're building Justin: a special collection they do that every day for you know
Justin: 10 20 years then they turns out they end up with like one of Justin: the best special collections of queer life in their city so like even when homophobia Justin: was like a lot higher relative it's all relative like who fucking knows what's Justin: higher or lower but they could spend public money on this stuff because they Justin: made a justification and the justification was this is our community, Justin: So knowing how to frame things and knowing how to pitch things,
Justin: I think, is invaluable if you're working in a library and you want to support your community. Justin: I also mentioned immigration lawyers and law groups, but government services Justin: support, I feel, is going to be a big thing. Justin: So if you have groups that are doing mutual aid for immigration or you have Justin: law firms who you still have to pay, whatever, but they are doing this kind Justin: of stuff, invite them to come do programming.
Justin: I mean, again, weigh the risk because if you have cops at your library, Justin: are your cops going to do any immigration enforcement for people who show up? Justin: Like, weigh all those risks. Jay: Step one, get the cops out of your library. Step two. Yeah. Justin: You will have lawyers in the room. So it's like, I don't know if the cops are Justin: going to try anything crazy. Justin: You know, definitely bring in lawyers, not just advocates.
Justin: If you're going to do something that's going to bring undocumented people into Justin: your building, make sure lawyers are there. Justin: But also maybe, you know, again, with that community notice board, Justin: putting information to those groups out there in multiple languages, Justin: look up your city government's most, who has low proficiency English and what Justin: languages do they speak? Justin: So the people who can't read English, what are they speaking?
Justin: Because it might be different from the most common second languages.
Justin: So I was looking this up for Boston the other day depending where you are in Justin: Boston you have different, Justin: they only measure people who have low English proficiency so that's like 70% Justin: I think in some places it's as high as 20% people who cannot read or write in Justin: English and then depending on the area the most spoken language is going to Justin: be different so some places it's going to be Spanish,
Justin: most places it's going to be Spanish but other places it ended up being like Chinese or Korean like. Jay: Haitian Creole yeah. Justin: Almost almost always like three or four so you know look if your city has demographic Justin: data on low English speakers which if you live in a big city it probably will Justin: if you're in a small city you're just going to have to guess probably, Justin: odds are it's going to be Spanish. So, you know, make sure that that's available.
Justin: I would say Spanish and French are the most useful because a lot of Creoles Justin: are based on Spanish and French. Justin: If you go to school in Haiti, you will learn French in school. Justin: So even if you can't get it translated into Haitian Creole, a lot of Haitians can speak French. Justin: Not always very good. Depends on how long they lived in Haiti.
Justin: So it depends, but just keep it in mind. And then And of course, Justin: like Korean, Chinese, different types of Chinese. Justin: I think a lot of people write Mandarin versus Cantonese. Jay: Yeah. Justin: Yeah. And in Boston, yeah. And in Boston, it was, they usually do distinguish Justin: them, but in some cases, the data they have isn't good enough. Justin: So they just have to say Chinese because they don't know, like the breakdown.
Jay: Well, and also, isn't it like if you are from Hong Kong and know Cantonese, Jay: then you probably also know Mandarin, right? Justin: No. Jay: No? Justin: Mandarin's only been recent in Hong Kong. from Chinese immigrants. Justin: And Hong Kong Cantonese is different from other Cantonese.
Jay: Oh, I didn't know that. See, learn something new every day. I used to have a Jay: student worker who was from Hong Kong, Jay: and her English was better than some of my other student workers where English Jay: was an acquired language because she had already learned Mandarin and Cantonese, Jay: so learning English was easier for her than if she had only just learned English. Justin: Yeah. Hong Kong also uses a lot more English because it was an English colony.
Justin: And there are a lot of English words in Hong Kong Cantonese because it got creolized a little bit. Jay: That makes sense. Justin: Yeah. That's why it's different is because of all the English influence. Justin: And then guides on benefits. Justin: So one thing I've been talking about on Blue Sky is during the 2016 residency, Justin: like 2017, a lot of stuff that was government information disappeared, Justin: particularly around the Affordable Care Act.
Justin: So it became a lot harder to learn about getting an Affordable Care Act plan. Justin: The websites broke. The websites took down helpful information. Justin: I was watching it happen in real time. It was very, very bad. Justin: So if those sites break down again, you might have to make external guides to Justin: show people, okay, I know the site's intentionally confusing now, Justin: so here's how you get through it.
Justin: So you might have to start creating guides to get through government services Justin: like immigration, passport, making, and hopefully people will like collectivize Justin: these guides and share them among each other because that kind of stuff exists. Jay: Do that instead of those like cringy lib syllabus lib guides that went around Jay: in 2020. Like do this instead than those.
Justin: Yeah, yeah. When the sites start changing over, I think we should look at making Justin: like a GitHub project to share just guides for navigating these websites so Justin: that we can update them as those sites change.
Justin: Maybe we'll find some comrades. What I'm thinking of as a model for that, Justin: there used to be these really cheap open source classes for Justin: older people to learn computers and they Justin: were very very very basic and they Justin: were kind of like slideshows basically but they Justin: were open source and they were very good so making something like Justin: that that is just like clear step by step posted on
Justin: git so we can change it i think would be a really good project and Justin: so hopefully maybe we can get some people together to to Justin: work on that or at least get a group of people who steal this Justin: idea steal this idea there's no copyright no copyright copyright Justin: is dead and we have killed it no copyright Justin: law in the universe is going to stop me so Justin: yeah go go do that or reach out i mean i would
Justin: be happy to help if i have time i think especially if you have people coming Justin: to you multiple times a day asking how to use these websites it's in your best Justin: interest to just put the work in to make a better guide because and then share Justin: it that's like the open education thing is don't make everyone reinvent the Justin: wheel so let's get these guys out there that's also the good thing about libguides.
Jay: Is that people can use your guide as a template if it's in the community, Jay: whatever that's the good thing about libguides is that there's that model, Jay: so make sure if you make a libguide like this that it's searchable and findable Jay: in that so that people can just copy that data over yeah. Justin: But that functionality is a little wonky, so we need to also push them up through Justin: social media so people can find them too steal this book,
Justin: No, you're right. But we need visibility in a different way. Justin: Harden your policies. I don't remember exactly what I meant when I wrote this. Sadie: You didn't. I did. I threw those in there right before we started recording. Sadie: I mean, if you have a community room policy, if you have a collection management Sadie: policy, if you have a favorable board now, don't rely on it being favorable in a year or two's time.
Sadie: And it's a lot harder to change policies once they're in place than it is when Sadie: they need to be made up whole cloth or whatever. Sadie: Boards should be updating policies as they go, but if it has been updated very Sadie: recently, there's less of a reason to go back and revisit it and waste the board's time.
Sadie: So figure out what policies need to be hardened now and see what you can do Sadie: to get those in front of a favorable board, Sadie: make any necessary, if you need to make any necessary changes to put in words Sadie: that you're not going to get rid of shit just for being queer, that kind of thing. Sadie: Start trying to be proactive about that within the bounds of your own professional duty.
Sadie: So like Justin's saying, figure out how to phrase things instead of going, Sadie: well, I don't want this bullshit to happen on my time. Sadie: You can phrase it in a way that aligns with your mission of your organization's mission. Justin: Yeah, like with challenge policies being like, this is to save the time of the Justin: staff because we can't have one person, even if this hasn't happened to you yet.
Justin: You can point to real examples of one person putting in a thousand challenges Justin: and say, okay, our challenge form needs to be difficult. Justin: It needs to be intentionally difficult because we don't want people spamming Justin: us because it's going to waste public money, right? Justin: Just put all these bullshit terms in there that don't matter and say, Justin: well, it is a good point, actually. Justin: I mean, you don't want to waste worker time doing this bullshit.
Justin: But so you're not lying. You're just saying like, look, this is the way we should do this. Jay: Make it so that you have to have a library card to actually put in challenges. Sadie: You have to have a library card in the area that you are placing the challenge. Sadie: You have to have read the material in full before you can put in a challenge. Sadie: You know, that sort of thing. Try to make it. Justin: I feel like so much of- We must lift passages.
Sadie: Yeah. Jay: If we say, sorry, we're not going to ban the book, you can't just challenge it again. Sadie: Yeah. There's a certain amount of time before you have to do it again. Yeah. Sadie: Well, and I just feel like so much of what's going to happen is going to come Sadie: down to very local politics. Sadie: So that's really like what Justin's saying, what really we should be focusing Sadie: on is figure out what is going on locally and harden it to that.
Sadie: And also, I know several libraries in Washington are having this push of the Sadie: First Amendment audits, Sadie: where somebody shows up with a camera and asks employees in public places lots Sadie: of questions trying to get them to trip up or tell them they need to leave or whatever, Sadie: which like, yes, you should know what's legal where, Sadie: but also harden your policies when it comes to public record requests,
Sadie: because there are a lot of these sorts of groups that are right wing that are using public, Sadie: basically using public records requests to try to trip up these institutions, Sadie: causing lots and lots of tied up staff time if you don't already have a decent Sadie: process for this so that's another avenue that might start ramping up if it Sadie: hasn't already in your area so that's what i meant by hiring your policies.
Justin: Yeah especially with like a bunch of records requests Justin: a lot of the laws have like openings for Justin: saying like this is an undue burden on staff time sort of Justin: stuff like that so you could definitely have a policy that Justin: says like if the same person is requesting the same information again Justin: and again because like records requests are good like this Justin: is all like foyer stuff is good but like there
Justin: is a certain point where there was i remember there was someone like one person Justin: specifically was harassing this library through foyer requests and just kept Justin: putting more and more and more in and i feel like at a certain point you just Justin: have to have a policy that says like they're not asking for new information Justin: they're asking for the same stuff again and again you know Justin: Make them get a lawyer, like make them get a FOIA lawyer and get them to come
Justin: and tell you why you have to give this information over. Justin: Because if it's like a clear, like bad faith attempt, you don't have to feel bad about denying it. Sadie: Yeah. Justin: You know, if they're not like an investigative reporter, like why, Justin: why does, why does someone who's not even writing anything up need all this information for?
Justin: I know that's not how the law works, but you can say this is a clear waste of Justin: our resources because no one's even using this information. Sadie: Yeah. I don't know if it's possible, but being like, we have this many requests Sadie: from this person, we're going to prioritize requests by time period. Jay: You can only do so many requests per month. Sadie: Or just being like, you've put in 30 requests this month.
Sadie: These other three people have put in two requests this month we're gonna do Sadie: you know six requests for you and then focus on these other six requests before Sadie: we come back to your you know torrential downpour of requests or whatever so like.
Justin: You're deprioritized and stuff you know yeah and i think all that stuff exists Justin: within the law so again over complying with laws especially when they're being Justin: abused yeah it's it reminds me there's this thing going around on blue sky someone Justin: said like Like all these terms have been searched in like UT Austin's website.
Justin: And because of SB 17, which I've been railing about, because that's the one Justin: that says like you can't have any kind of gay or trans or affinity group, Justin: ethnic group, racialized group stuff. Justin: And this is like the anti-DEI bill. And they were saying like, Justin: oh, they were searching this on their websites to remove it.
Justin: And the thing is, there wasn't quite enough context. And I imagine what that Justin: list was, was someone in the IT department was asked to look for these terms. Justin: And then they were passing that along to say, make sure that if you have any Justin: leftover stuff on your website that is not in compliance with SB 17, Justin: that you go and check these things.
Justin: It's not, wasn't saying like ban these terms. It was saying, Justin: go look at them and make sure they're still in compliance, which again, Justin: is still repressive, but it's not the same as like these terms are banned from the website.
Justin: Although at my work we had Justin: a collection called like dei posters and then one Justin: of our liberal like someone i know is a liberal said Justin: why do we have dei we gotta change the name of it and i'm like one Justin: it's a research collection the law says research collections are not covered Justin: and i don't know what she was worried about like you're not gonna lose your Justin: job dude like one i maintain like i'm ultimately responsible for that collection
Justin: it was directly you could like the buck stopped with me so I was like this isn't your problem. Justin: But it was like, you know, just leave it. And like, why are you freaking out? Justin: And then we also had the whole thing with the pride display. Justin: We weren't allowed to do a pride display this year. Justin: Again, because of SB-17, I said, no one's compelled to go to the pride display. Justin: So it's not a DEI training. Justin: So it's not forced. There is no force.
Justin: So SB-17 is not covered. Justin: That didn't work on the Dean. And the third incident was we got rid of our DEI Justin: budget allocation for purchasing DEIA. Justin: So we also can't collect for accessibility. Justin: So I said, hey, accessibility is legally protected still. Can we at least get Justin: the funding back for that? Justin: And then I got an email back that said, actually, we're just going to go back Justin: to area studies instead of DEI.
Justin: So we're still going to collect all that stuff, but we're going to do it under Justin: area studies. It's like, okay, so yeah, like I'm glad that one, like I had, you know, Justin: an ally in the building, but it was very much like, you know, Justin: when you see your own supervisor, like rolling over and not going to do a pride Justin: display, it's like, what happens when the real shit happens? Justin: Like, what, like, are you going to stand up for me? No, you're not.
Sadie: Do not comply in advance. Jay: Yeah. And it also reminded me, so because you are also of a public library, Jay: at least, but I guess you could do this at an academic institution, too. Jay: If you are a patron of the library that you also work at, you're allowed to Jay: do purchase suggestions. Sadie: Right? Jay: So even if you aren't in control of collection development or any, Jay: if you're not a selector or anything, you can still do purchase suggestions.
Jay: And I know the public library I work at, those are almost always approved. Jay: I mean, granted, I, my library has money, not every public library has money, Jay: but like patron suggestions are like weighted so heavily because that shows Jay: that there is direct interest in something. Jay: And so I literally went to – I am on the inventory working group at the Lucy Jay: Parsons Center, and I was like, hey, what if all of us put library cards?
Jay: We get 20 purchase suggestions every fucking month, each of us. Jay: All of the shit that we buy for the Lucy Parsons Center, why don't we also do Jay: purchase suggestions of those things at the BPL and the CPL, Jay: and then just start seeding the libraries with also the shit that we're selling Jay: here so that there's more copies.
Jay: Of it and it's also changing the collection yep so like that's just like a thing Jay: that you could do by the way it's just like hey why don't you buy all this new Jay: shit that ak press put out it's super cool i'll read it me i will well. Sadie: And and like let them turn you down. Jay: Or you. Sadie: Know if they go we can't get this we have to ill it you can go oh no never mind Sadie: like you don't have to you're not strictly committed. Sadie: So yeah, use that privilege.
Justin: Well, ILL stats are also used for future purchases because they demonstrate interest. Sadie: Yeah. Jay: Yeah. Sadie: So... Sadie: The other thing that I added in here is try your best to weaponize your patrons against bullshit. Sadie: And what I mean by this isn't necessarily like being like, yeah, Sadie: radicalized or whatever. Sadie: Just if you have a pride display and somebody mentions how nice it was to see Sadie: it, go, hey, can you put that in writing? Here's our comment form.
Jay: Yes. Sadie: Like, oh, hey. Jay: Save those emails. Sadie: Yeah. Would you mind sending that as an email to our director or to whoever?
Sadie: Like when you get the things that Sadie: make the library a good place when you see those Sadie: things happening i know nobody likes to be bugged with a million links Sadie: for feedback forms and shit but when they come up please Sadie: just hey can you put in put in a comment about that hey can you can you email Sadie: that to me hey if you don't want to put in a comment or email somebody can i Sadie: email about it and not mention you by name because that shows interest.
Sadie: So you have people talking about DEI as bullshit when it comes up. Sadie: Weaponize your patrons against the shit that's going to come down the pike against Sadie: your library in particular. Sadie: I know this episode is about what we can do outside of that, Sadie: but you can also protect your own. So you can go.
Sadie: I had three patrons talk about how great it was to see the pride display this Sadie: month you know kind of thing that's three more than you would have otherwise so this. Jay: Might dox my workplace a little bit but whatever who fucking cares they're not listening, Jay: So, like, every single week, the library where I work has a little, Jay: like, weekly bulletin it sends out to all the employees, right?
Jay: And in that is included, like, kudos and special thanks and everything from, Jay: like, patrons being, like, this specific librarian with a name helped me or et cetera. Jay: And one time was a picture because one of the branch libraries had a Margaret Killjoy event. Jay: And that library, like, an hour before that event was scheduled to go on, had an HVAC issue.
Jay: And so had to close. And one of the librarians working there who was like, Jay: it's like a floater person who wasn't even like scheduled to work at that event Jay: or anything like helped move that entire event to a brand down the road in the same neighborhood. Jay: And it's still in the event, like still went off and out hitch.
Jay: And in the library staff weekly that went out was a picture of Margaret Killjoy, Jay: famous anarchist author, Margaret Killjoy, with some of my coworkers and someone Jay: from the Lucy Parsons Center being like, thank you, librarian with a name. It wasn't me, I promise. Jay: I was a person who attended this event because I was hype and I met Margaret Killjoy.
Jay: It was very cool. but like margaret killjoy was Jay: in my staff newsletter with a picture of Jay: one of my lpc comrades being like thank Jay: you to this librarian who helped move this cool author Jay: talk that so many people attended that we had to keep getting more and more Jay: and more chairs for because like way too many people showed up to it like that Jay: was in my staff weekly like people pay attention to that shit and then like
Jay: cool shit like cool anarchist authors show up in your staff email. Sadie: Yeah so so like use that shit to the best of your ability you know. Jay: You don't. Sadie: Have to you don't have to be you know pushing politics you could you can do it non-partisan like. Jay: Just you. Sadie: Know don't do it about the person who asks why you don't have you know Sadie: Dr. Oz's latest, whatever, you know, you can, you can still decide who you suggest Sadie: to do what to just say it cough.
Justin: Yeah. You can play favorites. Jay: And remember you're a patron at your library. Sadie: Yes. Jay: Where you work probably. Justin: Yeah. I don't have any limits on how many books I can recommend. Justin: So I think anything I recommend gets purchased. Jay: Yeah. The only time something I've recommended to get purchased was because Jay: it was a pre-order from like a weirdo.
Jay: It was one of Eletron Frass's books that only like 150 are ever going to be Jay: printed ever and it was still in pre-order and the library was like we can't get this.
Justin: I also want to talk about like digital privacy you're probably as the next administration Justin: comes in going to hear a lot of people talking about different ways to stay safe, Justin: about 50 to 60% of it will be wrong information I think which is not a bad ratio Justin: honestly it's not all going to be bullshit, Justin: but people are going to tell you things to stay safe that like don't really Justin: matter and so you know listen to I'm not going to say listen to true crime but
Justin: listen to like scam podcasts listen to like Lie, Justin: Cheat and Steel listen to some podcasts about like what happened with Mayor Adams like, Justin: Call people on the phone if you don't put stuff in writing, ever. Justin: Don't write it down. Call people on the phone. Justin: Easiest way to get around most surveillance is just to call someone on the phone. Jay: There's still metadata, so they can, yeah. Sadie: Don't use WhatsApp or FaceTime or any of that bullshit either.
Sadie: Use a fucking actual honest-to-God phone call. Sadie: Because if you're going through some Sadie: sort of app, that might be subject to disclosure for somebody else, too. Jay: So just yeah i know on i know on iphone you can route your regular phone calls Jay: through signal i think you could do that with most with. Sadie: Android too you can change the default. Jay: Yeah yeah. Justin: But doesn't doesn't signal have a backdoor for intelligence agencies.
Jay: No no i thought they were like. Sadie: Fuck y'all we're moving to europe and we will pull we will pull our app if if. Jay: That's something that's legally required of. Sadie: Us i don't know if. Jay: They can't later. Sadie: But that was the last thing i heard.
Jay: And this is a rumor what's that go yeah yeah it's Jay: what it was probably also telegram it was telegram is Jay: what oh yeah it was telegram but this is also something that goes Jay: around about signal all the time and where they try to discourage people Jay: from using it because like well the cia got in that one time it's like because Jay: they were able to break into the person's phone and then they could get into
Jay: like if people can get into your phone then get into your signal yeah that's Jay: why you should also like yeah but like end-to-end encryption is end-to-end encryption, Jay: and oh there's not a backdoor signal is open source you can see for yourself Jay: it does not have a backdoor okay.
Justin: So there is an eff site that came out called digital rights bytes and it's very Justin: like straightforward tech stuff i think i feel it's like very entry level so Justin: maybe that's a good place to start if you really don't know what's going on Justin: in the world but again you know when When it comes to. Jay: Digital security, self-defense that they put out.
Justin: Yeah, there's lots of stuff out there. And I'm sure in the future, Justin: we might do more information on this kind of stuff. Justin: There's another episode kind of in planning about how to find information. Justin: I think we'll talk about privacy more then.
Justin: But when it comes to like very, very basic privacy stuff, the kind of stuff Justin: that you can provide to your patrons, you know, just make sure it's coming from Justin: organizations that really actually care about privacy. Justin: Try not to spread things you just hear on social media because a lot of social Justin: media privacy advice is wrong.
Justin: So just be careful with it. So I'll put the link to the digital rights bytes, Justin: which might be something that would be useful to share with patrons, Justin: or hopefully they have like a printable version of it, which would be nice. Justin: If not, I don't know, they did videos, but they got a little graphics. Justin: So maybe you could probably turn this into a zine. Justin: Hopefully it's openly licensed and people can recreate this.
Justin: Anyway, and then the last thing I was saying, has been saying all through this Justin: is organize outside the library. Justin: You can bring outside groups into the library, make sure they know about the Justin: services that are available. Justin: But when it comes to the limitations of being in the library, Justin: The library can't necessarily become a solution for your community. Justin: It can't directly help people with their immigration problems.
Justin: It can't shield people from the police. It can't shield. Jay: People from- You are an agent of the state. You work for the state. Justin: Yes. So you need to work outside the library. Justin: You need to get involved in your community. You need to find groups that, Justin: if nothing else, support them with your money. If you can't support them with Justin: your time, if you can't support them with either of those things, Justin: support them in some other way.
Justin: Just find something you can do. again use your Justin: employer's resources you know you've got rooms you've Justin: got printers you've got stuff steal pencils and give it to the people like i Justin: you know do do whatever whatever you can do but ultimately i think the organizing Justin: has to happen outside of the library organizing within the library and the library Justin: profession is just simply not going to rise to the task of what we need right now for.
Jay: The love of get into printmaking i did it's real fun you can make propaganda real easy. Sadie: There you go. For the love of God, even if nothing else, get involved with your Sadie: union if you're part of one. Sadie: You do not believe how many people don't even think to show up to a single meeting Sadie: or respond to a single email survey. Jay: Remember, you are your union. Sadie: You are your union. Jay: They are not a nebulous third party. That is propaganda. You are your union.
Justin: And if you don't feel represented by your union, make a change. Jay: Do a rank and file caucus. Justin: Okay, so I just updated to the beta iOS, and it's now like goth mode. It's kind of cool. Jay: Oh, yeah, where it automatically changes all of the icons. Justin: To like dark mode? Jay: Yeah. Justin: Yeah, that's sick. Yeah, so remember, update your phones to keep them harder to crack. Jay: Update your phones to enter goth mode.
Justin: It's pretty sick. All right, Discord link is in the notes, so come hang out with us.
Justin: I've been doing YouTube slot parties. they're very fun but we need more people Justin: to show up because it's it's only fun in a group so if you want to see rednecks Justin: doing tractor pulls or backyard wrestling between 12 year olds or, Justin: or juggalos or i don't know what else i found training videos training videos Justin: how not to get your wallet stolen in the 1950s all kinds of good stuff so chugging
Justin: videos gross stuff the dude who smokes way too much weed at a type and then starts melting. Justin: I love him. He's so dumb. Justin: Yeah, so come have fun with us. Good night!