can you win a blockade fight using gandhian tactics?

well, let's understand what gandhi did. 

there's a lot of ignorance around this, mostly coming from dumb hippies. but, what gandhi did was say "dear british, look at the size of my army! they are not currently armed - for both your sake and mine. but, suppose i were to arm them. would you stand a chance against a force this size?".

and the british, who were rational, which is the key part of the whole thing, said "no. we cannot win.", and moved out.

could a native blockade conceivably make an argument of the sort? it would have to have immense popular support that is willing to mobilize with a credible threat, which is the opposite of the status quo. you would essentially have to have an argument like this: "dear canada, look at the amount of support we have. it is not currently mobilized, but we might mobilize it. and, would you survive if we did?".

if the threat was credible, and our government was rational, which is not an obvious assumption, then a blockade might work on that level.

but, with the reality as it is, what the state is juggling is perception. nobody thinks critical mass is likely, unless you're talking about the potential of counter-demonstrators.

i want to support tactics that can win.

this one might feel good. you might think it's moral, and that might matter to you. but they can't win....

a blockade is in theory an effective action, if you can actually defend it when challenged. what's the logic, though?

the ultimate in effective actions is, of course, the sit-down strike. with a sit-down strike, the company is crippled - it can't even hire scabs. it has to negotiate, or fail. but, what is the key factor in ensuring that a sit down strike is effective? it is that the strikers can actually prevent the police from entering the building. even with a sit-down strike, they're still fucked if the cops can just move in and arrest everybody for trespassing.

a blockade could potentially work for the same reason as a sit-down strike - it can cripple production. it hits them where it hurts. that's what you want, so it's smart in a way.

but, the next question is "can we protect the blockade?", and the answer is that you never can. they can snipe you from the trees if they have to. they can water cannon you from the sky. once you get to the inevitable stage of actual conflict, there is no way to hold a blockade against a military or even a police force. it is a losing tactic, without question.

the protesters would need to build substantive fortifications over the tracks, somehow. they'd need to treat it like trench warfare and have some serious background in how to do it. 

this is moving more quickly here for two reasons:

1) there are no actual indigenous groups involved

2) it's alberta

but, if they wanted, they could have them charged with terrorism under canadian law, because there's a provision in the terrorism act public works protection act for rail infrastructure.

again: i want to stand with any kind of substantive action, and i'll morally stand with these protesters in alberta, even if i basically think they're retarded. but, what did they accomplish here? they just got themselves fined and arrested - it was completely pointless.

and, this is what will happen here, too, eventually.

i want to support meaningful direct action, and if you want to call me a traitor or whatever for pulling back on this, that's fine - i think you're a buffoon for fighting quixotic losing battles, and setting up binary choices around complex concerns. i don't mind if stupid people claim i'm not standing with them; they're stupid, so who cares?

i want to actually stop the pipeline, not join a club or have a circle jerk.

marches and demonstrations are one thing, but there's no way these blockades end well. i won't denounce them, but i do wish they'd stop, for their own good. it makes you wonder if these are even provocateurs, really, that are just trying to kill popular support for the indigenous groups.

but, that's the guy that is beating out bernie for black votes in the deep south, as biden (himself a racist.) collapses in the polls.

don't let them tell you it has nothing to do with his heritage.

umm.

he's running against trump, apparently. and is doing well with blacks. 

you know what the truth is, though? if he had just not mentioned "black and latino", if he had restricted his comments to young people in general, he'd have been expressing more or less a status quo opinion in corporate america, and one that isn't entirely void of evidence.

i'll state this - there are a lot of young people that have no understanding of business normality at all.

i don't see how this goes anywhere.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/18/bloomberg-in-2011-black-and-latino-men-dont-know-how-to-behave-in-the-workplace/

and, let's be clear, here.

i speak for me. strictly. and, i try to speak for objectivity and science and facts as best i can.

but, i am not a spokesperson for anybody except myself.

the premise of the conservatives tabling a non-confidence motion is an intriguing one, as they would no doubt do well with their base, just right now. i'm not convinced it would change the balance of power, though.

really, it demonstrates why scheer should have been replaced with an interim leader when he stepped down.

and, as much as i insist that the prime minister should be roundly condemned for excluding the opposition leader, it is itself a good reason for scheer to step down, immediately - we can't go into an election with a lame duck opposition leader, it turns the process into a farce.

the opposition is supposed to be a government in waiting, and if it's going to be triggering elections then it had really better be. that's the premise underlying the way the system is designed. right now, they are anything but, and should not be thinking about this until they are.

are there grounds for it? well, the conservatives have clearly lost confidence, and are clearly presenting an alternate course of action. i don't agree with them; i rarely do. but, they have a reasonable ballot question to put before the people, and governments have fallen over more trivial issues than this.

they need to get their house in order first. scheer should step down immediately. 

i'll admit i'd like to see a gay president on some level, but i'm not supporting buttigieg, he's far too right-wing for me. there's no way.

remember: since i've pulled back from sanders, for me, this is just a math problem.

an eight point bump in south carolina, though, and the possibility of viability, is something to think about. this is an online poll, so there's reasons to be skeptical, but i would expect to see more movement than i have, and am sort of curious as to why i haven't.

if 80% of the south carolina democratic party vote is black, that means 20% isn't. the flip side of sanders salvaging the state by splitting the black vote is that somebody could in theory be competitive by doing overwhelmingly well with the white vote. could buttigieg potentially appeal to a john edwards type constituency in the south? it might have been a dead end with the black vote consolidated, but with it split, it opens up a path.

at the least, it seems like nobody is going to run away with the south this cycle, which is good, as it will prevent it from distorting the results. that was a problem the last cycle, as these states are not likely to be very competitive in the general.

note the specific role of tom steyer, who has no serious chance of winning, but is effectively siphoning out enough black voters to prevent them from deciding who the nominee is. reparations are an enticing promise, aren't they?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/483577-biden-sanders-tied-for-first-place-in-south-carolina-poll

i mean, if it was all about name recognition, if that actually worked, then biden would have won the first two contests, right?

clearly, that hypothesis fails somewhere.

i'm not saying that the support won't stay there, it very well might, i'm just saying that the bump is probably more about which name people recognize on the survey than anything else, and it may not represent an actual voter preference.

let us see how the numbers stabilize; right now, they're in flux, and that's the read.

i do have a question, though.

i've been suggesting warren has a chip on her shoulder and that's why she won't drop.

but, is she running for 2024, really?

so, how do you read this?

i think this might be the first bump for sanders that i've yet to see that is legitimately ahead of the margins. this is a real bump. 

but, it's in a situation of extreme flux.

the way to read the poll is essentially that a lot of people are saying something like this: 

"well, we thought biden was the guy, right? but, now, the tv is saying he's actually losing. so, the other guy we know is sanders."

the other guy we know is sanders might actually be closer to how elections actually work in the united states than nerds like me want to actually admit. but, it's extremely weak in terms of building support, especially considering that the guy we know is biden appears to be how his numbers got so high in the first place.

so, the way to read this is that biden is done, and people don't know what to do about it, and are defaulting to sanders in response - which is an opportunity, but one he needs to approach carefully.

maybe it's that easy. maybe it's all name recognition. maybe people just vote for the name they've seen somewhere before; maybe information is truly that low. just maybe...

....but, i suspect that sanders' numbers will come down a little, as people settle on who they're actually supporting, now that biden is cooked.

that, however, is a projection.

the read is that the meters are currently going haywire, as the mighty joe biden falls down, and you should take any precise measurements with a grain of salt - the message is that we're in a moment of mayhem, in which order will follow.

this might be the last fluctuation, though. where the scales fall, this time, might be the end of the race.

https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1211a12020Politics.pdf

i still can't wake up...

the reality is that what the six nations are doing would not actually qualify as "free expression" in much of any legal context, and suggestions that it would should be qualified very carefully.

the case law around freedom of expression requires you to demonstrate a rational connection to your behaviour.

so, when i was blaring merzbow to get my neighbours to smoke somewhere else, i had a rational argument underlying my claim to freedom of expression. i was breaking noise bylaws, but i was doing so with a clear purpose of expressing myself. and, i was kind of daring the cops to move in. we ended up with a different constitutional battle, in the end.

what is the rational connection between blocking a rail line in ontario and stopping a pipeline in bc? there isn't one, and no court will erect one. 

if there was any connection at all, i'd probably support it, but this is really kind of just wanton hooliganism, it really is. it's still important to be careful in deescalating, regardless of how lopsided the court battles end up, in the end.

have i actually produced an opinion on this, yet? i think i've produced vague statements of solidarity for the blockades.

the thing about this is that the law really isn't ambiguous, when it comes to these blockades in ontario and quebec. it's a different issue in the actual area around the actual pipeline, and i've tried to clarify these points. so, are you asking me if i support the decision of indigenous groups in ontario to brazenly break the law in protest at something on the other side of the country, then? i don't understand the question, really. what does that mean?

it's kind of indefensible.

so, you don't really support or oppose the actions, so much as you take positions on what the right way to undo the problem is. i would take the side of deescalation here, for the reason that they aren't actively harming anybody. if they were acting more aggressively, i'd take a different stance. but, going in there with tanks is just going to make the situation worse. if i thought otherwise, i might support a stronger crackdown.

but, i would reject the accusation that my kind of disinterest in what the six nations are doing (it's pointless and counterproductive - they will most likely just end up in jail, in the end. they have no valid protest purpose, here. they will lose the most basic arguments in court, and have to rely on the mercy of the judge, which they might get.) extends to what the groups in bc, who have a clear and valid protest purpose, are doing.  

do i support them, yes or no? morally, but not functionally. i won't condemn them, but i think they should stop. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/6567463/wetsuweten-rail-port-blockades-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-poll-canada/

google is just so hopelessly fucking useless nowadays without a good search filter to block out the capitalists and religionists and i can't install anything from this guest account.

so, i can't do anything at all on this chromebook. i keep saying that. but, i'm operating on distractions anyways - i should be focusing on inri023, not looking up proper histories of the christian recolonization of britain, that undo the mythologized official church narrative (which is complete and utter bullshit).

essentially everything at the top of the google results for essentially every topic is just nonsense. and, it's making me understand these arguments that technology is making people ignorant...

if i was forced to rely on the results at the top of the google results, then, yeah, that would be about right. i know better, at least. but, i need the right tools to undo the ignorance of market stupidity, and i don't have them in front of me.

the (re)christianization of britain was a horribly brutal, bloody mess that undid an indigenous revolution, brought on by the tribal invasions that overturned the roman occupation. it should really be thought of as a clash of civilizations. it was a thousand year long civil war with multiple phases, the last of which was the viking phase, when the nobility realized the value of christianity as a tool over their conquered peasants. the vikings initially moved south as a response to charlemagne's genocide of the saxons.

britain itself is actually a little bit frustrating, because it kept getting reconquered by pagan forces, and the fact that this happened so frequently should be indicative of what side the people were really on. when your cities fall to pagan forces over and over and over again....

but, you don't get as brutal of a history there as you do elsewhere, for that reason - the christians really had a hard time holding the island at all. the mythology suggests that the reconversion happened in the 7th century. the reality is that the purpose of this mythology is to gloss over the centuries of civil war that followed, and the fact that the clergy was still struggling with very widespread pagan "reversions" (what a bullshit term.) past the invasion of william the conqueror, into the period of peasant revolts that followed the plague and all the way to the renaissance. we can condemn the inquisition for killing witches, but doing so means recognizing the continued, lingering importance of indigenous european belief systems.

in britain, specifically, it was a slow process of gradual assimilation and passive resistance. like the indigenous people of canada, the indigenous people of britain seemed to give the church a questionable amount of actual authority. they seemed to prefer to avoid and ignore them than fight them. and, in the long run, that was probably a successful strategy - religion is not very prevalent in britain, these days. the pagans have, largely, won the fight.

it's hard to google this, though. i'm just going to get the official line of absolute bullshit from the depository of bullshit that is the anglican church, as backed up by mainstream "scholarship". i need to be able to get around that in order to get to substantive research, and it's very time consuming without these filters i've built up over the years that remove religious sites from the search results. i'm not going to waste my time with it.

i was hoping that the link i posted would be helpful, but it's not.

yeah.

that text is a good example of the kind of whitewashed, colonial, christian-mythologized history that you want to avoid.

i apologize for posting the link.

don't read it. it's a lot of nonsense, and a waste of time.

that link i posted starts off scholarly, but picks up a disappointingly pro-christian tone halfway through and ultimately isn't what i expected it to be, which was an exploration of the violent methods used to spread christianity in britain. rather, it simply repeats the standard christian mythology of terrorizing german tribes, and then attempts to whitewash the violence of the church by blaming it on the germans, themselves - the spread of christianity wasn't violent because of the colonizers, but because of the colonized. this is a kind of victim-blaming and should be properly denounced.

i did not endorse the text, i pointed out what i had searched for and explained that i was going to spend some time sorting through it. i appear to have made a poor assumption about it's contents.

the basic analogy between the indigenous peoples of europe and america is apparent if you read between the lines, though, even if i strongly disagree with the pro-christian, anti-german slant of the text.

no. passed out again. fuck.

there are jungle people, there are desert people, there are mountain people, there are arctic people....

we are the people of the forests.

we should recognize our shared responsibility to protect it. and, we should stick together.

as i've said many times now,

decolonization means dechristianization, deislamification, etc.

and, if we all do this together, we we will see how similar we are, together, up here, in our northern arboreal lands - because we are products of such similar climates.

and, yes, other people are welcome in my proposed indigenous-european coalition, asians would be a rational third partner, and anybody else, but there are obvious historical reasons why pointing to cultural overlap between these specific groups is a particularly fertile proposition for a lasting synthesis.

i'm not saying anything outside of history, either.

in canada, we actually have an entire category of people called metis that intend to be a synthesis of european and amerindian indigenous groups. in america, there is this constant theme through your history of defecting to the indians - because it happened. all of the time. and, the dna that's left is kind of startling, with some indigenous groups being majority r1*, at this point.

but, i'm not the first person to propose an alliance of indigenous and european commoners against the power of the church and the state.

people like me have existed since contact....

i'm not suggesting that we all ought to go back to the dark ages...

....but, i've said this before: the similarities between indigenous europe and indigenous america are actually pretty startling, and there's actually kind of a powerful potential for a hybrid culture if our own tendency towards this kind of post-reductionist scientific atheism hybridizes with their own emancipation of the superstitious into the ecological.

the truth is that we used to be just like them, actually, and that they can teach us how to get back to what we were, as much as we can teach them to evolve out of their shells.

we got off to a bad start. but, a few centuries is a short period, in the broader scheme of things.

i'm going to flip through this tonight while i wait for my neck to heal. it doesn't seem to be bruised, just very stiff.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1292&context=theses

this wasn't a thought i entertained for very long, you have to understand. i got through about 15 credits, but i gave up on it pretty fast.

but, for a few months, i was contemplating the idea of being the kind of lawyer that goes after big mining firms, for example. or, perhaps, the kind of lawyer that tries to use the judicial system to strengthen civil rights protections around free speech, which is the closest thing that ended up actually happening.

i got very cynical very fast. i don't think there's much of a path, here, for substantive change, after all.

when i was studying law, i was interested in constitutional law, in tort law, in indigenous law and in other types of administrative and legislative law.

the requirements to complete a sociology of law degree include a single half credit course in criminal law, which i took and disliked, and that is the depth of criminal law that i studied.

i think it's partly how they presented the material, which was as a police foundations course. if they had presented criminal law from the perspective of a defence attorney, i may have had more interest in it.

but, i've never been the kind of person that wants to align with the state. my interest from the start was in tearing down the state, and never in aligning with it to eliminate subversive elements from society. i'm an anarchist, i'm not a conservative, or a progressive, for that matter.

so, you might notice that i don't post much about criminal defense issues.

the reason is that i'm not remotely interested in them.