regarding the question about when you end the lesser evilism...

the interviewer seemed kind of frustrated by paul's insistence on the binary nature of the choice, which he seemed to write off as defeatism, but is in truth a realistic assessment of the political system in the united states, at the presidential level. the interviewer's frustration is as a result of seeing the decision through the prism of his own voting choices in germany, which is a multiparty parliamentary system with proportional representation, where the parliament elects the head of state without a popular plebiscite. one can indeed vote for smaller parties in germany, because the system allows for it. however, the election for the presidency is nothing like the bundestag elections, at all.

nor is it imaginable how it could be. how do you elect a president by proportional representation? can the president be 13% green? it's a run-off vote. these are your candidates...

see, i'm not actually convinced that the premise that trump is worse than biden is actually true. i line them up and i can't tell the difference between them. i actually worry that biden's hawks may end up more efficient than trump's hawks; that is, the difference in hawkishness may ultimately boil down to the greater competence of the democrats, to potentially disastrous consequences. trump has actually been quite reluctant to use force, and i appreciate that. i worry that we all may regret seeing biden as a more stable applicant.

there is a body in the united states that is a little bit like the bundestag, and it is the house of representatives, which does not assign seating via proportional representation, but does offer some possibility for third party resistance, perhaps more like you see in canada or britain. i don't think the rules currently call for it, but i would support a rule change to bring up a run-off vote in a scenario where there are initially three strong challengers; a president is an executive, and the nature of the position is such that a binary choice, in the end, seems proper. but, the dearth of third parties in the united states at the parliamentary level is an anomaly, and focus on third-party organizing should be directed at that level.

so, that's the answer to the question - the focus on third party organizing is overdue but it does not make sense at the presidential level, where a lesser evil choice is always inevitable, and should be rather directed at the parliamentary level, where third parties could conceivably pass laws. sanders lost. deal with it. further, recognizing that focusing third party energy at the appropriate parliamentary level is more efficient doesn't negate the necessity to make a sober contribution to determining the nature of the figurehead commander-in-chief. you still have to vote for one of the shitty choices, dammit.

so, it seems like paul quietly relaunched on vimeo when i wasn't paying attention.

it seems like you have to go to his site to watch the video, which is not a surprising development, as he often complained about people watching therealnews on youtube. but, it's catch-grabby web design. i just want a simple list of videos to click on, in order, to make sure i didn't miss one.

so, this may be the more ordered way to go at this.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheAnalysisnews-111882350255869/posts/?ref=page_internal

i'm going to finish that classical mechanics lecture series first, and i'll have a few things to say about it when i do. introduction to classical mechanics? ha! that's a trick, this is a meta grad course.

so, it sounds like one thing that could be done to increase the power of migrant workers without granting them permanent status would be to make deportation orders subject to judicial review - that is to put the issue before an immigration judge. if a worker feels like he's being deported due to standing up for his rights, he should have access to due process to determine if that is true or not, and be awarded damages if it is found out to be true.

ultimately, these issues are going to end up in the courts, anyways. so, granting permanent residence is really the same thing as providing for due process, in the end, in context. why not just give them due process, instead?

the hope of course is that the farmers address the issue in good faith, in the presence of a formal rights framework, in either way.

it's just that if we respond to every refugee & worker issue by granting permanent status, we'll be undoing a lot of our targeted immigration policy, which exists as it does for good reasons. my concern is really in ensuring that employers, in general, aren't able to use these programs as a way to avoid implementing labour codes, which appears to be exactly what the reality is. that should be the focus at hand...

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-sees-jump-in-migrant-farm-workers-with-covid-19/

this is still the first wave, though.

i don't think it was preventable, and we're just going to see a time lag before it happens in ontario, although montreal may have already experienced the brunt of it. this is just the rest of the united states going through the phase of the process that europe and new york went through a few months ago.

it's an open question as to whether the steps taken to reduce the spread of the virus did so, temporarily, or if it just took a little longer for the virus to take hold in these areas. i'd lean towards the dominant factor being the latter, even if you can manage to barely measure a signal from the former.

i don't think we've seen a first wave crest yet in toronto. at least not according to the numbers. but i've been clear that i don't think the numbers released in ontario are very useful in understanding reality.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/only-two-u-s-states-are-reporting-a-decline-in-new-coronavirus-cases-1.5003399