05-06-2016: detox/recovery weekend, pt 3 (more reading on this day than ranting)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

"sandernistas."

see, this is another interesting example of head-scratching media from the clinton side.

what, exactly, does the clinton campaign wish to accomplish by reminding young people that the united states supported the contras? what is their concept of history, here? are they proud of this?

if i were hillary clinton, about the absolute last topic i'd want to bring up is american support for the contras. that's an argument that sanders is going to win. every time.

it's literally taking the wrong side of history.

i just want to address the "closing stations is bad for both of them" argument.

there's a strong consistency in just about every state: clinton performs curiously well with early ballots (well enough that it should be suspicious), while sanders wins day-of voting - and sometimes by dramatic margins. according to exit polls, he actually won day-of voting in arizona.

so, it might seem reasonable to suggest that closing down polling stations hurts them equally. but, the numbers we have suggest that this is not the case.

personally, i'm extremely interested in what the discrepancy is in puerto rico. we might not get exit polls. but, if we can find a way to learn that sanders won day-of voting, it...

....it's desperate. that's the most honest and most altruistic way to state it. nobody expected puerto rico to be competitive. but, the results are ultimately of little consequence. this is just desperate authoritarianism - transparent image projection.

j reacts to a media trick to hide the undecideds and exaggerate the front-runner

ah. this is a familiar trick...

scroll down a little.

actual numbers:
clinton - 40
trump - 32
other - 29

but, that's not the headline they want. the headline they want is that clinton is running away with it.

now, we saw this happen recently in canada. the dynamic in canada was an unpopular incumbent (stephen harper) and two other guys that were seen as interchangeable. so, you'd get polls that said something like this:

conservatives - 33
ndp - 29
liberals - 25
undecided - 13

the media would report this as:

conservatives - 38
ndp - 33
liberals - 29
undecided - 0

unfortunately, most statisticians will tell you that this is not wrong. the undecided should distribute.

the thing is that when they asked undecideds who they were willing to consider, something like 90% of them said they'd never consider the conservatives. so, the votes didn't distribute. in the end, that 13% (plus a little more) went entirely to the liberals.

i got into a lot of arguments about this. the crux of my argument was that the data tells us where undecideds are leaning, and they are almost entirely sitting between the ndp and the liberals. in the end, i was right. but, i didn't ever really get the clarity from my opponents that i wanted; it's still not clear to me if they understand what they were doing wrong.

so, now we have a nice big chunk of 30% undecided. that's a giant number. we're not sure, yet, whether there will be two or three or four major candidates. but, we can state two things clearly:

1) the large number of undecideds is not a consequence of voters seeing two options as interchangeably acceptable (implying the need for the candidates to define themselves better), but the result of voters disliking both candidates equally. so, you're looking at upwards of 30% of voters that are saying they want another option. that's unheard of in the united states.

2) while it seems like both of the major candidates are being affected by this, it seems like trump is being more affected.

so, is clinton leading by double digits? maybe. but, she should call gary up and buy him a beer - she's not winning so much as he's losing.

that's not something for her to celebrate or get complacent about, as it could (and probably will) change very quickly as trump aligns himself with the republican consensus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN0YP2EX

j reacts to the error of projecting american experiences on race to the outside world

one of the difficulties canadians have in communicating with other activists - and sometimes have in understanding the world outside of canada - is that poverty is not racialized, here.

we have poverty, sure.

we also have areas that happen to be quasi-segregated, by some combination of choice and market realities.

however, they're not at all correlated with each other.

one of the reasons for this is that canada actually has a pretty strict immigration policy that is focused very strongly around education. the result is that our immigrants are actually the most educated members of our society.

brampton is not a wealthy town in spite of it's high immigrant population, but because of it. it has very high education levels - not in spite of it's immigrant population, but because of it.

and, in fact, it's attracting a lot of investment because of it. if you drive through brampton, you'll see a lot of corporate offices. engineering. technology. fortune 500.

in a sense, it's almost a gated community. but, the gate isn’t about skin colour.

so, ghetto? absurd. canada doesn't have ghettos because we plan our cities to ensure that rich and poor neighbourhoods are intertwined. we have an effective tax system that distributes wealth properly. more importantly, we understand that the issue is not race but class. i grew up in a welfare project that was sandwiched between wealthy developments. there were gates at the top of the hill, but the geography prevented slumification of the area. the projects were only a few rows of houses at a time.

for a while, my mom lived in the welfare strip while my dad lived in a four bedroom standalone. the only thing that separated the two properties was a public park. i remember forming teams to play soccer in the park: it was the rich kids vs the poor kids. we were starkly aware of the class divide, yes. but, we used the same facilities. we kicked the same balls. we did it together.

so, no - brampton is not a ghetto. but, it will not stay how it is forever, either. the city will have to move some poor white people in at some point, and it will be good for everybody when they do.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/brampton-a-story-of-political-importance-power-and-ethnic-enclaves/article30273820/

i have a lot more to say about this, but i stopped reading when she said "white people send their kids to private catholic schools when they can afford it".

in ontario, we have a public catholic school system. this is a historical relic of canada being a francophone/catholic colony with a protestant/english ruling class. the solution was to set up two public school systems: a protestant school system for the english and a catholic school system for the french. over time, the protestant school system became a public school system and the catholic school system became bilingual to accommodate for irish immigrants.

but, the schools are neither separated by class nor by race nor by religion. i went to a catholic school. it was paid for by public funds. there were muslims in some of my classes.

i don't know why this piece was written, but it obviously wasn't fact checked and shouldn't have been published. it's attempting to understand canada through the filter of internalized american racism and ultimately declaring that canada must conform to a set of preconceptions, rather than learning that those preconceptions are actually not supported by any of the facts.

like i say: this is hard. americans think that america is the center of the universe, and that everything is pretty much the same, everywhere else. they have a very hard time understanding that the vast majority of their problems are unique to their own history and failure of governance and simply don't exist elsewhere. it's another example of the fallacy of universalizing the specific.

but, publishing the idea that white people have private catholic schools in ontario is pretty bad, globe & mail. you're in toronto. you should have caught that.

at the end, there's something about how brampton might collapse into a ghetto if the immigrant population loses it's source of low-wage labour.

no! you don't get it!

you can't become an immigrant into canada unless you have an advanced degree, can speak at least one of the languages and are determined to have strong market potential.

canada does not have a low skill, low wage immigrant population because it does not admit immigrants unless they are highly skilled.

i know. let's stop for a second.

has it clicked?

!?!?

if you're coming from india to canada, and we let you stay here, you probably have a phd. honestly. at least a masters. you don't even get the form unless you've graduated from something or other, alright?

they don't work in low skilled, low wage positions. they're at the top of the wage hierarchy. they're doctors. engineers.

and, if you look at the numbers, it comes out: south asians have the highest average income of any ethnic group in canada.

so, it's not a ghetto - it's one of the wealthiest places in canada, actually. because it's one of the most educated. because there's so many brown people.

yeah, i know. let your head explode. and realize that the solution is that government matters.

...and that america is not the center of the universe.

i just want to be clear.

let's say you're a young south indian fellow that wants to come to canada and start a business. you don't speak the language well, but you'll learn. you don't have money, but you'll work as a dishwasher for a while and then get a loan. this is the classic american immigrant experience in the minds of most, as placed there through a combination of 20th century propaganda and modern film work.

no. just no. canada will never let you in.

first, you need to be able to speak the language. beforehand. you get two options: english or french. we'll test you, too. rigorously. not an easy test. no comprende? no cigar, amigo. the americans have lower standards, we'd suggest you try them.

then, you need to have some money before you get in. we're pretty generous and everything, sure. but, you're applying for immigrant status. if you want to apply for refugee status, that's the line over there. we're not going to let you in if you're not bringing anything with you. that wouldn't be so smart, would it?

next, you need to have some education. high school? no. hit a school, and call us back. what, you want to go to school here? well, get through the process, and we'll let you in temporarily - but you're probably going home right afterwards, unless you find a job really fast.

finally, you need to have job prospects. it's not 1900. you can't just come here and think you're going to get a job picking grapes or something. you have to be able to prove you have some kind of communication with somebody on the inside. and, we want documents. we're gonna check up on you, be sure of it.

strict? well, maybe. but, note that we don't have any ghettos.

puerto rico wasn't even supposed to be in play. clinton was supposed to win handily. this wouldn't be happening at the last minute like this if internal polling wasn't suggesting a sanders win.

again: it's a reflection of the depth of corruption, and why sanders never had a real chance.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/puerto-rico-primary-election-fraud-voter-suppression-polling-places-workers-certified-bernie-sanders/

when they put blair in charge, i kind of vomited a little in my mouth. i concluded that the current justice minister is probably not in favour of legalization, or sees it as a career liability or something. it was less of a question of intention and more an issue of mismanagement: what does bill blair know about international law?

landslide annie is a much better choice. this will get done.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/former-chretien-cabinet-minister-anne-mclellan-to-head-panel-on-marijuana-legalization