Drew Barker
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drewnblue.bsky.social
Drew Barker
@drewnblue.bsky.social
Librarian, concerned citizen, & music listener/watcher.
Reposted by Drew Barker
December 8, 2025 at 6:40 PM
In lieu of seeing Flock of Dimes in DC yesterday (I had to teach), I bought the album THE LIFE YOU SAVE b/c it's phenomenal. I keep returning to it.
Phrases of music & lyrics float through my mind constantly.
It's a beautiful record.

@flockofdimes.bsky.social #indierock www.flockofdimes.com#Tour
Flock of Dimes
www.flockofdimes.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
"Walker’s horse and rider fuse from two beasts into one. Her centaur is tall, midstride but weary. It rattles its metal parts through American purgatory."

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/a...
Fallen Confederate Statues Take Center Stage in the Year’s Boldest Show
www.nytimes.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
"Walker’s horse and rider fuse from two beasts into one. Her centaur is tall, midstride but weary. It rattles its metal parts through American purgatory."

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/a...
Fallen Confederate Statues Take Center Stage in the Year’s Boldest Show
www.nytimes.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
“.. They are the asylum seekers, the rule followers. They go into the federal building holding papers .. hoping for a measure of due process. Some leave the courthouse with a hearing date set months or years from now. Others disappear into ICE’s prison system.”

@nymag.com
nymag.com/intelligence...
October 20, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly. 1/
September 26, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Drew Barker
"Hundreds of Jewish Health Professionals Say 'End the Genocide' in Gaza"
EXCLUSIVE: Hundreds of Jewish Health Professionals Say 'End the Genocide' in Gaza
"To be silent is to be complicit," the healthcare workers write in an open letter.
zeteo.com
September 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
The moment when it becomes most difficult, perhaps even impossible, to tell the truth, is the moment when it is most critically important to tell it.

open.substack.com/pub/charlies...
Now Is Not the Moment to Fall Silent
Call Fascism, "fascism". And hate, "hate".
open.substack.com
September 15, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
New podcast about radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay, featuring Loretta Fox, Mark Povinelli, and me. If you donate, you get a free mug with Lay’s picture that says, “Smash this mug,” as he did to china cups in 1742 to protest the exploitation of tea and sugar workers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufMJ...
Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Abolitionist That History Forgot
YouTube video by Quaker Videos
www.youtube.com
August 27, 2025 at 11:18 AM
The Confederacy fought for slavery. Hegseth says he doesn't think we should "erase history," but statues aren't history. They're endorsements of a way to see history. Why would he want to endorse preserving slavery? Arlington deserves better sanctimonious racism.

www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...
Restoration of torn-down Confederate monument will cost $10 million over 2 years, military says
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday on social media that the statue in Virginia "never should have been taken down by woke lemmings."
www.nbcnews.com
August 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
“Pedocon theory does not involve secret networks of underground tunnels where adrenochrome is harvested for reptilian overlords. Pedocon theory is not hiding beneath twelve layers of misdirection. Pedocon theory is rooted in the basic politics of the reactionary right.”
We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory
The connection been Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein is no accident, but reveals a deep logic at the heart of reactionary politics.
www.liberalcurrents.com
July 22, 2025 at 10:05 AM
On May 2, 2025, the Trump Administration released its FY2026 federal budget proposal.

On page 39 he calls for the complete elimination of the only federal agency dedicated solely to supporting America’s libraries and museums.

bit.ly/4cXcPFj via @everylibrary.bsky.social
SIGN THE PETITION: Stand Against Trump's Budget Proposal to Defund IMLS.
Trump is more emboldened than ever to destroy library funding. We need you to take action today!
bit.ly
June 24, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
In case you missed it: My sit-down with the former chief of DOJ’s Capitol Siege Section about the largest investigation in FBI history:

youtu.be/q86mdq0kLZI?...
Prosecutor says Trump's Jan. 6 pardons signal approval of political violence
YouTube video by NBC News
youtu.be
June 4, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
May 31, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Reposted by Drew Barker
Oh, look, I wrote this two months ago.
The purpose of the deportations we have been seeing has not been to fight antisemitism, but rather to use antisemitism as a beachhead to eventually do away with foreign students altogether, using Jews as a pretext for a non-Jewish political agenda.
axios.com Axios @axios.com · Mar 27
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are "pro-Hamas," senior Justice and State Department officials tell Axios.
May 30, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Drew Barker
Here’s an interview Naomi Wallace and I did, discussing the creative process in writing *The Return of Benjamin Lay* — how to write a play that is also a “history from below.” Thanks to Marie Rodet for conducting the interview.

journals.openedition.org/slaveries/12...
May 28, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
Destroying science, obviously, but also destroying the blue island college towns in seas of red: your Bloomingtons, Austins, Lawrences, Chapel Hills, etc
May 27, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
Remember when Republicans fought central planning?
Now they’re applauding a president who tells Apple where to produce and Harvard who to hire.
They've trading in limited government for micromanagement, freedom for fealty, and market forces for Mar-A-Lago favors.
May 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
“We’ve not lived in this America before.”

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones talks with Al Letson about the Trump administration’s radical transformation of the federal government and the dismantling of DEI across the country.
Nikole Hannah-Jones: Trump Is Erasing Black History - Reveal
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of “The 1619 Project” argues that Trump’s civil rights rollback is returning the US to the 19th century.
revealnews.org
May 8, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Okay, well played. The University of Maryland chooses the Constitution of the United States as the First Year Book for the next academic year. @univofmaryland
May 7, 2025 at 7:37 PM
When they attempt to disappear history, disappear data, & disappear people that means they're fascists.
In recent weeks, the DOD removed a story about Robinson from its website (restored after protest), and his biography from military libraries. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/infantiliz...
April 15, 2025 at 3:50 PM
"Unlike [previous generations], these politicians continue to ask the general public to pretend their use of these symbols is not connected with the broader cultural meaning today."

baptistnews.com/article/a-vi...
A visual guide to the elected officials who fly Christian nationalist flags at the Capitol – Baptist News Global
I walked by every single elected official’s office to document exactly which of them fly Christian nationalist flags.
baptistnews.com
April 9, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
How does copyright shape the music we love? 📚🎶 JENNIFER JENKINS unpacks its history & impact in the #booktalk MUSIC COPYRIGHT, CREATIVITY, AND CULTURE.
📅 Apr. 10
🕚 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET
📍 ONLINE
🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1286594180...

#music #copyright #copyright_law #InternetArchive
April 4, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Drew Barker
We are speedrunning the Declaration of Independence, folks.
April 4, 2025 at 11:11 PM