listen.

here's the hard truth.

when somebody tells you they oppose "cultural appropriation", what they actually mean is that they're opposed to racial mixing.

that's really what they're saying - that they think cultures should stay apart from each other, that we should segregate ourselves by race and religion. separate but equal? i wouldn't even give most of them the benefit of the doubt.

it's one of a multitude of examples of the neo-liberal orwellianism underlying the current backwards understanding of race on the contemporary fake left, where egalitarianism has been turned on it's head, and open, crude displays of racism prevail as the status quo, while it's proponents frame it in contrasting language.

i'm a post-culturalist, an alter-globalist, an anarcho-communist, an advocate of defining a new global culture based on universal secular values and leaving the old, conservative ones behind. atheism for all.

so, appropriation is a tool that the left should be taking greater advantage of, as a means of co-option. we shouldn't let the reactionaries continue to slow us down...

another way to look at it is that i could say that i'm in favour of co-opting religious iconography and redeploying it for use in a secular context, as a clear attempt to defang the religious ideology. taking things away from religion and assigning them to atheism instead is a good idea, not a bad one.

and, i don't understand why you'd think i'd stand with you as you stand up for the sanctity of the religion, in the face of expanding secularist co-option. that would essentially make you a reactionary, in my opinion.

i'm in favour of cultural appropriation, actually - i strongly support the idea of appropriating religious imagery into secular contexts, in order to strip of it of the religious meaning and reframe it without it. that is a powerful tool that atheists should utilize to purposeful effect.

if that upsets you, we're operating at clear cross purposes.

it has to be interesting to listen to, though. if it's just appropriated for the sake of appropriating it, it will probably be as boring as it would be in the initial context.

but, if you can take religious or ethnic music and update it in a way that separates it from the religious or ethnic context and presents it in an interesting, modern, technological and/or secular context instead then i actually think you're doing something positive, and progressive and forward-thinking and will stand in solidarity with you as you do it.

just try to avoid mocking the legacy cultural or religious ideas too deeply, as you upgrade them for the future. there are some things that deserve a good verbal drubbing, granted. but, there's a line you shouldn't cross that is both difficult to abstractly define and easy to identify when you see it.

i've been open and consistent on this point for years - this not only doesn't bother or offend me, i'm in support of it as a way to drag certain conservative worldviews into the present, and also as a way to break down tribalism and insularism.

the criticisms of appropriation have always been very conservative in scope, and have always belonged on the right of the spectrum.

gvt2.com.

that's where the fuckers trying to take control of my machine are at.

supposedly, the domain is owned by google.

but, they kind of give away their actual function, don't they?

i've been pointing out for years that the five eyes countries ought to be more concerned about the cia than they are about vladimir putin.

but, i've got a signal, now. i know who is doing this. there's no longer any hypothesis or guesswork.

i'm under cyberattack by the cia and/or nsa and/or some other yankee acronym, who is using google as an attack vector.

and, i'm going to beat the fuckers, in the end.

listen.

you don't have to like me. but, you do have to realize that i have upwards of 60 university credits (in canada, a three year degree is 15 credits), which makes me an unusually educated person.

so, suggestions that i'm an uneducated ignoramus should really reflect the speaker; when somebody with 60 credits writes you a well researched screed, and your response is "but you're stupid", it kind of asterisks your own ignorance, doesn't it?

as mentioned repeatedly, this isn't a new thing for me. we live in a society where the media creates reality out of nothing. i'd rather cite chomsky than use facile terms like "fake news", but you need to realize that this is merely a recent iteration of a longstanding realization that even precedes orwell, who is the actual bottleneck here. the media doesn't describe reality, it creates it, and very few people walking around out there seem to spend much energy trying to counter this, or much time thinking for themselves. i am going to blame them; i'm not going to let them argue that they don't have time, because they're too busy working. but, the amount of time that capitalism steals from us all doesn't help anybody learn how to think more clearly.

all i can do is what i've always done, which is try to correct the propaganda as best i can. in the end, you still have to decide what you believe and what you don't, and all i can do is ask you to be rigorous about it.

so, i ran a gmer scan and it didn't find anything, despite the obvious fact that there's something there.

i'm posting, now. and listening to stuff happening in town this week...