i understand that trudeau is a symptom and not a cause.

and, it is a sad thing that he's probably still the best option we have.

but, if he wants to graduate from dauphin to philosopher king, he needs a better set of tutors.

and, to answer a stupid question: anarchists place a massive focus on public education.

the actual idealization is that anarchists would be intelligent and educated enough to realize that you need to defer to expertise on a topic like this. you don't volunteer to be a surgeon; that's an abuse of the concept of voluntaryism. likewise, this is an engineering problem, and consequently requires engineers to solve. the idea is that the abolition of the state would actually remove the barriers that are preventing the society from carrying through with the rational action of electing an engineer to solve an engineering problem.

put another way, the athenians would have known better - they would have decided by popular decree to put a mathematician in charge. and, they would have. why isn't that obvious? why isn't that happening? because the state imposes cost restraints that a real democracy would have no concern about at all.

i mean, why do we pay taxes in the first place?

there may be other situations where a division of labour is unjust, sure. but, what anarchism means, in context, is getting the state out of the way so that actually rational decisions can be made, and an educated populace would clearly and quickly understand it's need to defer to expertise and it's need to place itself under a command.

anarchism is not the collapse of state institutions, or the abdication of state responsibilities to faith-based organizations - or, in ghastlier scenarios, to the market. it is abdication to the market that is when the affair becomes truly sordid. the abdication of state responsibilities to the church is also an abdication of democracy, as the church is less democratic than the state. and, the market is even less democratic than the church. but, democracy aside, the basic point of failure here is that a church is not an engineering firm; if the dark ages were defined by the slow dominance of the church over affairs that ought to be purely secular and ought to be defined in scientific terms, then thatcherism is in fact a road back to serfdom.

in order for a state to approximate this, it would have to begin with the good sense of an educated mob. but, it doesn't appear to have it.

we are living through the collapse of our civilization at the hands of thatcherism.

we have unqualified citizens out on the street trying to stop their homes from flooding, while stem graduates sit in their parents' basements because there aren't any job opportunities.

and, so few of us are cognizant of it.

well, at least the system hasn't completely collapsed - we're not entirely lost in a dark age, even if the prime minister seems to think we are.

what the prime minister should do in this situation is to tell citizens to remain calm and to request that people steer clear of the area in order to ensure that they are not interfering with the work of professionals, that is soldiers and engineers, who have the situation under control.

what the prime minister should not do is take his fucking kids down to play on the beach, in an airheaded attempt to teach them about the social values underlying thatcherism, namely that the state is abdicating it's responsibilities to the church.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-forces-to-focus-on-constance-bay-britannia-and-morin-road-areas-military-working-at-sandbagging

this should be the responsibility of professionals in the army, not of volunteers in the community.

trudeau's example is consequently wrongheaded, regardless of the sincerity of his intent - it's the wrong thing for him to do, in the position of authority that he's in; what he's trying to present as a responsible gesture is in truth an irresponsible abdication of his own responsibilities, and he's no doubt completely clueless about it. but, it's wrong-headed in exactly the way that neo-liberalism always is - it cuts out the functions of government, it discards the reasons we need some approximation for the state, while leaving the systems of dominance and control and tyranny and corruption in place.

if he wants to lead by example, he should restore funding to disaster management in order to kickstart a rebuilding of our collapsing civilization, not help carry forward the disastrous legacy of neo-liberalism to the next generation.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/04/27/flood-weary-communities-in-ontario-quebec-brace-for-more-rain/

biden might actually be the most self-centered, conceited, in-it-for-himself candidate in american history.

he has zero policy agenda.

he just wants to be president.

i warned you about biden.

but, listen. biden has been clear enough that he's operating solely out of careerism. joe isn't even running for wall street; joe is running solely for joe, for his resume, for his legacy.

i guess you can't fault him, if he wants it.

but, you should frankly be ashamed of yourself for sending him money - or for casting a ballot for him. he represents nobody and nothing. he has no policy vision. so, why are you sending him money? and, why are you supporting his candidacy?

he doesn't care about you. why do you care about him?

he waited until the last minute and then raised a lot of money on the first day. that suggests he's not going to fade, that he does have a substantive base - or at least substantive enough of one to compete in a crowded field.

now that he's in, bernie's tactic needs to be to try to prevent as many people from dropping as possible. when booker gives up, joe gets a bump. when harris realizes that the rest of the country isn't actually very much like california after all, it's joe that gets the bump. even warren supporters are saying something by supporting her, namely that they won't back a leftist candidate.

so, joe has a process here: he's the center of gravity. he's got to try and build up as much jomentum as possible, as he runs through the space-time of the primary field. history may not be on his side, but time is.

there's a point where the field narrows, the situation flips and you get a stop biden movement in the same way that you had a stop clinton movement. but, that's a reaction - a reaction to a biden victory.

biden is a huge problem for bernie.