http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-error-of-using-regression.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-social-value-of-yoga-as.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-mississippi-floods-and.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-importance-of-historic.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-looming-canada-post-strike.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-dream-about-genetic-factors.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-trumps-obvious-turn-on.html

regardless of their own education levels, it is in fact true that communists generally tend to side with exploited workers, who generally have low levels of education themselves, against an academic elite in the bourgeois institutions, like the universities. the lie is that the academy is liberal. the academy has always been very conservative.

that was the basis of so many leftists siding with uneducated, exploited black workers during the civil rights era, against the educated elite at the time, who were southern whites.

i need to make the point as clear as i can. i don't want to support the party of christianity, for obvious reasons - the exploitation there is immense. but, i'm going to go wherever it is that the workers are organizing against the elite, and if that ends up being the republican party then so be it. i guess that the next step is pushing out the christians and conservatives.

and, i'm not going to accept any shaming around being lower-class, or standing up for the rights of the lower class, as that has always been where my politics are, in the first place.

i will stand with the deplorables against the pharisees, as is required. that is where the need is for social activism, in our society, today.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-cult-of-success.html

it's not just about forcing me to do things with people that i don't like.

it's about forcing people that don't like me to do things with me, too.

i'm an openly transgendered, vocally anarchistic, largely straight-edged nerd that doesn't have sex, doesn't watch tv, doesn't like socializing, doesn't have or want a family, etc.

i wasn't always as disinterested in society as i am now. but, at this stage, i can fully understand why nobody wants to hang out with me - i'm not a part of the dominant culture, and don't want to be. they're going to think that i'm as boring as i think that they are.

and, i don't want to lower myself to the level of the culture in order to fit in, either.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-canadas-anachronistic-but.html

and, i will tell you this: if you put me in jail, like seriously in jail, with a term, so that i lose my things, then i'm probably not going to want to leave.

at the end of the day, i would probably be happier in a padded cell with a book than i would be with a "middle class job".

i just ultimately don't know what the point of trying to force me to get a job is.

i don't want to spend my time doing that. i'm just going to end up in a situation where i'm forced to deal with people that i don't like (and that don't like me). and, i'm ultimately taking a job away from somebody that wants it.

i don't want to be a teacher. i don't want to be a lawyer. i don't want to be a programmer. i don't want to work for the government. broadly speaking, i don't want to work in an office. and, i'm not physically capable of doing manual labour. so, if you're going to force me to get a job, i'm going to be looking for something like a job as a cashier, and in the process i'm going to be taking money away from somebody that wants to save money to go to school, or that needs the extra cash to raise a family.

and, i don't want to raise a family.

i've been through this. i'm going to design my schedule so that i sleep at work, basically, because it's the least important part of the day - i want to be fresh and alert for when i go home, and am able to work on things i actually care about. i'm not going to distinguish myself as a very good employee, because i don't remotely care about doing so. i'm not going to climb ladders. i'm not going to make friends. i'm not going to meet a partner - and i'm going to forcefully reject anybody that demonstrates any interest in me, sexually. i'm probably going to get into political arguments with the people i work with.

i neither want to be there, nor are they going to want me there.

what the government is consequently doing is forcing people into an unwanted relationship, which is the opposite of any kind of market system. somebody is going to be forced to suffer me, and i'm going to be forced to suffer them. why make everybody suffer?

it's just stupid...

when people tell you that they don't want to participate in society, that should be taken seriously. it's not a ploy. and, there's not a "cure". there are only two solutions: you need to let us exist outside of society, where we want to be, or you need to put us in jail. and, putting us in jail is the far more expensive option.

i'm willing to be as frustrating as i need to be, for as long as i need to do it. if you're going to force me to waste my time for some capitalist structure, i will happily waste as much of yours as i possibly can, in joyful retaliation.

sounds like make work projects, to me.

they will literally have to come to my door and drag me out of here screaming, and then beat me when i refuse to co-operate.

https://news.ontario.ca/mcys/en/2018/11/statement-by-minister-macleod-on-social-assistance-plan.html

so, i lost a day, but i slept well and i'm awake now and want to get through august asap.

so, are the democrats going to merely waste everybody's time unearthing trump's tax records, and continuing this neo-birchite conspiracy theory about russian hacking?

i was kind of hoping that a democratic congress might be good for trade policy, healthcare, immigration and infrastructure - that this might help the democrats call trump's bluffs in a sandersesque kind of way.

whatever happened to that trillion dollar infrastructure plan? with holding the drug companies accountable? with single payer healthcare?

i just stated myself the other day that most of the democrats in the house will be indistinguishable from republicans, or vice versa if you see the world from the other direction. i'm not naive about this.

but, if they're not able to muster up something of social worth, they're going to end up back in opposition pretty quickly.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/07/midterms-democrats-house-trump-mueller-investigation

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-clinton-and-trump-calling.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-idea-that-ethnic-diversity.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-clintons-apparent-rejection.html

i made this suggestion at the time; it's in here, somewhere.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html

i wanted to go to sleep yesterday afternoon, and finish the month last night, so i could get back to real world things today. instead, i got stuck in the midterms and i'm still awake, and more awake than ever. i guess that's a positive, as it suggests the drugs are out of my system, finally - this is more normal, for me. but i need to stop pretending i'm tired or am going to sleep and just get back to work, instead.

so, it does actually follow that i do actually think that the democrats should be focusing more strongly on winning over lower class white voters in the mid-west, and should care less about winning over right-leaning identity voters, and should especially care little for the particularly right-leaning ones in the south.

sorry.

i don't want the democrats - or the liberals or the ndp - to become a party of muslim and mexicans, if you'll allow me to borrow the phrase, or of hindus and sikhs - i want a party of godless secular humanists that uphold axiomatic liberal values and empirical, scientific based reasoning, on the path to eventual full communism. and, that is probably going to be a mostly white party - not out of ideology, but as a reflection of reality.

it doesn't sound much like a republican or a conservative vision, does it? no, it's clearly a left-wing vision, but it breaks very strongly with the ideas of progressivism, which were always very christian, and in many ways always leaned rather strongly to the right.

but, it's not really a left vs right debate.

it's a science v. religion debate, and a struggle over what the left is.

so, yeah. i'm willing to declare open season on progressives. but, i'm trying to send you back to the right, where you belong - and properly reclaim the left for rational, scientific deduction, and a system of proper secularism in government.

"out of concern that the democrats were pandering to groups with violent, discriminatory views towards queer people, i joined the republican party.".

sure.

right.

rather, my focus is on convincing these bourgeois groups on the pseudo-left to stop pandering to dangerous religious groups for votes.

and, you don't really think that queers and muslims can co-exist in the same movement, do you?

c'mon.

get real.

listen: i'm openly queer. and, i don't like republicans for exactly the same reason that i don't like muslims - or catholics. i've been pretty clear on the point.

i'm also a socialist, so i care about workers. and, trump came through on the trade deal. he did. the tax cuts were nonsense, but the trade deal is substantive, and should create some upward pressure on wages for the first time in decades. i have to acknowledge that, because the democrats have historically been the lesser evil precisely because they've been the party of the working class, and if that is flipping then some reanalysis is necessary.

but, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for me to speak out against the dangers that the normalization of islam poses to the queer movement (and the wider society, in general) and then go and support the republicans. the point i've been making from the start is that they're the ones with the conservative values, so they're the ones that ought to bail to the right-wing party. and, i consequently want to have this fight on the floor of the democratic convention, and not at the ballot box, where i'm voting against my own interests.

i am certainly cognizant that if the republicans do come out of this mess as the workers party, and the democrats do end up as the new conservative party, then the fight is going to be at the republican convention rather than the democratic convention, in the end - rather than have this fight with conservative muslims, i'll have to have it with conservative christians. but, we're not there yet. the democrats are still the queer party, and the queers need to make sure the muslims know it.

so, there's no contradiction, here. what there is is a fight over the nature of the left, and whether it is to be a secular/liberal left or a "progressive"/religious one.

to me, the most interesting thing that happened was in kansas, which now has a democratic governor and a democratic congresswoman. how did that happen?

well, the district is 93% urban. and, the state is apparently rapidly urbanizing.

https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rural-populations-of-the-states.png

i pointed out a few years ago that the reason that colorado is now a blue state is that it's 87% urban - so denver carries the state. kansas was apparently 75% urban in 2016. if that number continues to increase, it's chances of becoming a blue state increase with it - especially if the population is localized strongly around kansas city. at the time, i was just looking at the map and thinking outloud.

it's the same thing that is happening in virginia, as well as nevada. white people don't and never did vote as a bloc, but the urban/rural split is pretty well-established, with almost no exceptions.

the democrats should be taking this as a signal that kansas is in play for the foreseeable future, so long as the trend towards concentrated urbanization in a single centre continues - because winning the city means winning the state. and, there may be signs that oklahoma is following the same path of development, although i initially pointed to nebraska as more likely. if the democrats can kind of split the map there, and separate the south from the northern plains by this kind of blue road from the west via arizona & new mexico, through colorado and kansas and nebraska and up the mississippi and back to chicago, it could break the jesusland culture. and, then, the northern plains get culturally absorbed by western canada, leaving the southeast as an isolate...

that's where this war is going to be fought: on the west of the mississippi delta, in the space between the river and the rockies.

and, that being said, i'm continually disappointed by missouri, but i understand that the state is undergoing such a process of decay. i keep thinking that it's a matter of time before it reverses itself, and st. louis rises from the dead. kansas city is also in missouri, which i've never understood, but if kansas is swinging, it could help. but, if it doesn't get an intervention of some sort, it's going to get swallowed by arkansas...

i'm not as excited about texas as others, and the reason is that those mexicans are catholics. i understand that they don't like trump, but this is not a particularly rational reaction to that - they didn't like obama, either. and, they don't like abortion. or gays. they're on the wrong side of the culture war, and that's going to eventually assert itself. texas is a melting pot; it's the south, and if it becomes more hispanic, we will end up with more hispanic conservatives, who in the end will stay to the right. i think the same thing is true of georgia. they need more than demographic changes, they need a cultural shift; texas is the counter-example, as it is already largely urbanized. rather than being on the brink of a shift, texas may be the last major state to swing, as these hispanics are slowly converted into republicans, as they are slowly americanized. and, georgia may end up as the epi-centre of a black conservative movement, in the end.

it's what happened in kansas that is more substantive, and the opening of a serious battle that will have longer term implications in shifting the map - so long as these trends of centralization and urbanization continue in the deep mid-west.

personally, i think it's a matter of time before the idea of marijuana as a medicine is essentially laughed out of court. it's kind of astounding that it ever ended up viewed that way in the first place, really. we may have to wait for rigorous studies that tie habitual marijuana use, specifically, to things like lung cancer and heart disease.

the problem is that you have to smoke the stuff, and that people are so used to the onset of instant effects. if your neighbour is a drunk, they might be loud sometimes, but the habit doesn't directly affect you. if your neighbour is a pothead, that is going to have a direct impact on you, and it's not in any way reasonable to suggest that they should be able to avoid liability for it.

it is true that i like to smoke pot at live music events a couple of times a year, away from the house, and with long periods of time in between. but, i learned first-hand just how psychologically, mentally and intellectually damaging that living downwind from a pothead can actually be, and i came out of the experience starkly convinced that serious regulations are required to protect the health and mental well-being of people dealing with chronic, unwanted exposure.

it's not ok to just smoke up and tell your neighbours to fuck off if they don't like it. you should be liable for the consequences of that, via some kind of tort process or broader negligence claim.

https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/opinion/2018/09/28/clearing-the-smoke-on-condo-no-smoking-rules.html

"she doesn't even smoke drugs. pfft. what a loser."

right.

i repeat: i have not bought any legal marijuana in canada, and currently don't plan to at any time in the future.

i will probably buy legal pot in michigan before i buy it in canada, if i ever buy it in canada at all.

and, yes - i am far more excited about legalizing marijuana in michigan than i am about legalizing it in canada, because i only smoke pot at concerts, and windsor does not have a music scene worth engaging with.

being able to buy a pre-roll before the show is going to make things a lot easier for me.

fwiw, i currently have every intention of remaining fully straight-edge until the spring. i'm never going to lift my opposition to marijuana use in residential areas - it's a health issue, and a quality of life issue.

the right to sobriety and a smoke-free, healthy living arrangement is an actual, real right that legalization should help to better enforce, by placing reasonable regulations around areas where people are permitted to smoke drugs and areas where they are not.

it's like these people that go on about how gore wouldn't have invaded iraq, ignoring the fact that gore wrote op-eds in major papers supporting the war in iraq, was the architect of the policies under clinton in the 90s that devastated the country, loudly supported the first gulf war in 1991 and even advocated bombing saddam hussein in the fucking 80s. the facts actually suggest that gore would have probably bombed iraq without even needing 9/11 as an excuse.

but, we live in this collective fantasy reality where, wherever we are on the spectrum, we buy into this right-wing media narrative and all imagine that the democrats are these idealistic leftists. and, the facts don't matter.

it doesn't matter how much death and destruction the democrats cause, they're still seen as pacifists that are weak on national security.

it doesn't matter how many austerity budgets they push, they're still seen as tax & spend.

it doesn't matter how many people they deport, they're still seen as being on the side of migrants.

it doesn't matter how many schools they defund or how many social programs they slash, they're still seen as less racist.

& etc.

the frames are constant, and it's a fact-free world in the media.

i've been over this repeatedly - the idea that hillary clinton is a pro-choice warrior or a crusader for women's rights is actually just right-wing propaganda. really. and, it forms a part of a canon of myths about the democratic party.

another is that the democrats are less violent on immigration; of course, they aren't. obama deported more people than any other president in history. he set up a quota system, for fuck's sake.

a third is that they're pacifists, or anti-war.

so, it makes sense to send people that think she would have been better on abortion to the same debunking web sites that you send people that think she eats babies, because it's actually the same source of misinformation:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boycott36-clinton-sanders-late-term-abortion/

she actually mentioned her support for a ban on late-term abortions (with the usual republican list of exceptions for rape and health) several times during the last campaign, including as answers in several televised debates. this is very well-known.

now, it's easy to say something like "this is reasonable. it's moderate. nobody likes abortions. safe, accessible and rare is just being a decent person, who opposes that?".

...except that when you really take a look at what she says, you realize that there's very little daylight between where she stands and where the mainstream of the republican party is.

most republicans don't support a full ban, and because roe v wade is settled english common law, you need to be extremely cynical to suggest a court can just overturn it outright. that is scare-mongering. if the republicans get their way on this, it's going to be some kind of partial personhood amendment with the list of exceptions - pretty much exactly what clinton proposes.

i support abortion rights. fully. abortion is a choice, and it is the choice that needs to be upheld. and that was one of the reasons i opposed clinton - she doesn't agree with that.