i'm a revolutionary socialist.

i don't support any of the capitalist parties, and the fence-sitting position the democrats are taking on hamas is one of the symptoms of why i could never support them, as a socialist. 

any actual socialist would have no patience for a barbaric, fascist, right-wing group like hamas and be far more brutal with them than the israelis are being.

as a socialist, my critique for the bourgeois left is that they are not being aggressive enough against right-wing islamic extremism, not that they are being too aggressive against it.

what's going on is that people are confused about language, and that isn't new. what people want to call left-wing in the united states (people like bernie sanders) are actually conservatives, not socialists. they are better on some issues than other other capitalists (conservatives have historically had support for social systems), and arguably worse on others (their foreign policy is at times awful), but they are not leftist and not socialists. progressivism has always been a branch of conservatism, and the democrats have always been the conservative party in the american spectrum.

i am not a progressive. at all. i don't claim i am; i am forceful about rejecting that label. i try to stay very far away from what that word represents, nowadays. i am a socialist. i do often call myself a liberal, but carefully, and only in specific contexts.

i have frequently endorsed the green party, and i've at times been critical of democratic party propaganda (i would rank trump as a better president than biden, a better president than reagan and a better president than george w. bush, but not as a better president than obama, and as about the same as clinton. he's in the middle of the pack of the last dozen presidents, not the worst. i argued very clearly that trump was less of a threat to world peace than biden and i think i was right, but that is a reflection of how horrible a candidate biden has been since day one, and not a kind word directed at trump or his policies.), but i've never endorsed the republican party and it's not likely that i will any time soon. i don't usually endorse the democrats, either.

as somebody outside of the current spectrum, the way i tend to explain it is that i have an equal level of disagreement with republicans and democrats, but i disagree with them on different issues. if you did a survey and asked me to rank 100 of their positions, i would disagree with about 70 positions taken independently by each individual party, but they would be different positions. i am strongly opposed to recent democratic party foreign policy, but i disagree strongly with the republicans on climate policy. both are potentially apocalyptic. one is not less dangerous than the other. the difference between how i approach this and and how most other people do is that i'm supposed to layer the disagreement, i'm supposed to consider my disagreement with the republicans as more fundamental or foundational than my disagreement with the democrats, but i don't. i really disagree with them equally.

i'm going to hate whoever wins equally much. 

the data continues to point to a likely trump victory, in my analysis. however, it would probably be better for the country to have generational change, even if it doesn't result in a substantive change in policy. i don't think that's going to happen. kamala harris is less of an old lady, but she's still an old lady; she will carry out her second term past the retirement age, if she wins.

i would hope that the next election is between much younger people in their 40s that have legitimately new perspectives. this could have been better, but biden held on too long, and it's not going to be an actual turnover, one way or the other.

bezos doesn't like wage and price controls, it seems.

i don't think this is a serious political issue, but the fact that harris has gifted it as a talking point to the right is reflective of her low talent as a politician, and why she could have never made it to this point on her own.

this is going to happen; harris is going to say something stupid and it is going to hurt her dramatically, but it's an open question just how badly. not enough people are going to take the bogeyman of a centralized price setting agency seriously (although it would actually be very easy to implement. you'd just need to merge the systems. they're all the same.), but she should really try a little harder to keep her foot out of her mouth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/15/kamala-harris-price-gouging-groceries

i missed this on friday.

this is a step forwards away from biden's messaging about job creation, which is probably what was killing him while he oversees three separate wars (and pretends there aren't any in the debates). the columnist is correct to point out that stimulating specific demand - whether it be in the form of free daycare money, free downpayment money, specific rent subsidies, etc - is just going to raise prices. 

yet, harris wants to win some votes, so she's trying to buy some. i hear voters are on sale. this is good bargain hunting. what's a girl supposed to do?

there's a contradiction here. harris' policies are essentially designed for demographics she's going to win anyways. not only is it not a good economic policy,  but it won't actually swing many voters, either.

she's got the right idea, but the implementation is all wrong, in both ways. this kind of stimulus, which is needed because we are entering a recession from the interest rate hikes, should go not to the middle classes but the working poor and the even poorer than that. further, these are the voters that harris is going to have the most difficulty with; they're the right people to try to bribe.

it's also worth noting that giving money to the poorest people also requires less handed out in total, because they don't need things like $25,000 tax breaks. my gross yearly income is about $17,000, canadian. a $5000 check would allow me to move out of a bad situation brought on by greedy new landlords. of course i don't live in the united states but you get the point.

there's a sweet spot to maximize economically if you're really lazer focused on the economy so you're not paying off debt, but a politician winning votes should be less concerned about that and just seeking to focus on voters with a relatively low floor.

there's a lot of ways to sell that, but the reality is that this recent round of inflation is the last straw in a process that has led to ever higher concentrations of wealth extracted from the poorest people. it's long overdue to reverse it, and it's probably at a breaking point where you have to.

i mean, just look at the other candidate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/16/harris-economy-plan-gimmicks

they legitimately should have impeached biden over afghanistan, he probably should have been impeached over ukraine and negotiating with hamas on a hostage release should also be impeachable, as it is in fact against the law.

but, what they're going to do actually do is political and cynical.

just how psychotic is canada's population growth?

this is eye-opening, and i don't believe it includes temporary migrants. our real population growth was probably closer to 6%, which is unheard of in a civilized country and needs to be severely restricted, or we're going to have the same social problems they have in africa, too.

https://thehub.ca/2024/08/19/deepdive-who-benefits-from-surging-immigration-hint-its-not-canadian-workers/

canada very rarely enforces anti-trust laws.

this deal should be blocked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/19/business/7-11-7-i-couche-tard-circle-k.html