20/21-06-2016: thoughts on inri000, and other things (markets, keystone)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

a new way forward for the koala central command is coming

the koala central command would like to announce that it is partnering with the free market to bring our fugitive, deathtokoalas, to justice. we are frustrated that she remains at large, still. we believe that the "market forces" that the free market offers is the ideal set of tools that we require and have been lacking. our collaboration will begin once a trained economist from the free market arrives and teaches us how to summon the invisible hand to control our enemies through targeted incentives. all hail koalas!

so, what are the polls *actually* at in the us election right now?

we all know it's a two-party system, so that's how the pollsters work. but, this is what they're *actually* picking up.

1) clinton - 40%
2) neither - 30%
3) trump - 30%

trump is actually running in third right now, behind "they're both unelectable".

if you needle them a little further, and even the staunchest big tenter *must* with those numbers, you get:

1) democrats (clinton) - 40%
2) republicans (trump) - 30%
3) none of the above - 15%
4) libertarians (johnson) - 10%
5) greens (stein) - 5%

so, this election is very live and currently very much defined by voter dissatisfaction. obviously, the smart money right now is on clinton. but, the actual public mood right now is that people are looking for a way out of that inevitability.

the numbers are volatile. anything could happen. the libertarians will probably not catch the republicans - the religious right is too powerful, and they're more likely to stay home than swing to the libertarians. but, they might, if trump can't keep his leg out of his mouth. i think the greens have a better chance of splitting on the left, as sanders supporters get collectively less and less interested in clinton as she moves further and further to the right.

by the end of it, the spectrum could shift in such a way that pulls the republicans right off of it and allows the democrats to emerge victorious as the new moderate right; that would be the creation of a new "party system", which is something that happens in american politics.

but, the headlines are warped. they're telling you clinton is headed for an easy win, by ignoring the full spectrum. in the end, it might work out. don't count on it.

the truth is that they're both running in the 30s, and trump is running on the low end of that - very close to 30.

j reacts to polling for the greens and the possibility of positive feedback cycles

greens at 7? libertarians at 9? da fuck?

well, it's probably an underestimate, actually - "fuck the two party system" is actually running close to thirty percent right now - and arguably ahead of trump.

i've pointed out previously that i don't think the libertarians can hold that - presuming trump aligns with his party. on the other hand, the more that clinton aligns with her party, the more she alienates green supporters. that's a very different dynamic: trump gets stronger as he moderates for the general, whereas clinton gets weaker.

if jill stein can hold those numbers, they could very well double overnight once the word gets out. if that happens, she's going to hit a bit of a brick wall around 15%, in the short run. but, if she can get there, that support may be permanent.

like i say: tipping points. half of 50 is 25. that's too much. 15-20 isn't. then, we've got a three-way race and the debates over what people actually want can begin.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/06/21/rel7b.-.2016.general.pdf

^lots of ifs, there, of course. hypotheticals on hypotheticals.

just, don't be shocked. it's plausible.

the reason we have a cbs is that the red cross screwed up the blood supply. we nationalized it in response to market failure. if something happens, and it's tied to a shift in policy...

i expect the government will eventually lift the ban, but it's going to need to protect *itself* first. this is more about the history of blood services in canada than it is about homophobia. you have to understand *that* history to realize why there's push back against anything that modifies a system that has worked well up to this point.

when the changes happen, they're going to be broader than this, too - because, as mentioned, this is symptomatic of broader, underlying systemic issues.

they should be applauded for not kneejerking, really, and holding to the script rather than being affected by political pressure.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gay-men-blood-donations-1.3643761

19-06-2016: information overload

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the smoke and mirrors around warren as "anti-establishment" pick for vp

see, like it or not, this is what i would expect hillary's logic to be something like: she wants an insider to help her get an agenda through, and warren is consequently not just useless but a potential liability.

i think the article is playing up the liability aspect, but that's probably to send a message.

i've been pushing back against the idea that warren is in any way left-wing: i think she's a republican from a past era, and kind of a fish out of water. there's a pretty big swath of space to the left of ted cruz before you get to be called left wing. she's a good way to the right of center, still. rumour has it that she is even the author of clinton's bizarrely calvinist "debt-free tuition" plan that would convert students into slave labour for corporate interests - but would keep them out of debt. and, truthfully, probably out of graduation, too - it's hard to study when you're making shoes for nike. it's the next logical step of the school-to-prison pipeline system, really.

but, that's not why she won't get the pick; if anything, it's a reason she would. the reason she won't is that she just doesn't have those backroom channels.

i haven't seen bill's name thrown around. but, he might honestly be her ideal choice. that's what she really wants:

1) somebody who can make backroom deals of questionable legality.
2) somebody who is a foreign policy hawk.

i still think franken is the only pick i've seen that i'd actually support. but, i've been clear that i don't expect her to pick somebody i'd support.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/elizabeth-warren-wall-street-vice-president-224489

i was eating when i started thinking of something and a quite natural thought entered into my head: why would i care what people half my age think?

i think that this is something very different than what most of us have grown up around, but i don't think it's a fleeting thought. rather, i think that the boomer obsession with youth may turn out to be the anomaly.

i've never been in a world where there are more young people than old people; there have always been more old people, they have always had the power, they have always had the money and they have always made the decisions. i have not been conditioned to look to young people to make decisions - and that is progress. the premise is absurd. we're lucky we survived that bottleneck.

i didn't sing my generation.

i think that gen x is going to actually look forward to being old. that's a big change. no anti-aging creams, no fountains of youth - we're too cynical. or do we know better? we're going to be cranky. we're going to look down on the millenials until the day that we die. and we're going to enjoy it.

i don't care what people half my age think, i don't feel bad about it and i don't expect it to ever change.

19-06-2016: j reacts to silence about taxation as a distributive tool during gentrification debates

if chinese investors want to come in and drive up property taxes, the truth is that that benefits everybody in the long run. you just need to get those property taxes spent on transit options and real estate developers looking towards more modest developments. i've never understood the arguments against gentrification; the focus should be on pushing governments to help people adapt to gentrification by ensuring that the money gets (re)distributed fairly.

that said, there's no excuse for idle property and i would support laws against idling property.

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouvers-housing-affordability-crisis-making-neighbourhoods-inhospitable-for-middle-class-trudeau

i've run into some anti-gentrification activists in detroit, and they just end up spinning themselves around in circles.

you realize that the source of the problem in detroit is that the city has no tax base, right?

"yes"

so, you must realize that the city should be doing everything it possibly can to bring back it's tax base, then?

"it's destroying the character of the city."

well, the "character of the city" is literal urban decay. the city is falling apart.

"we need to spend more on infrastructure, and our schools are falling apart and .... "

but, you're bankrupt because you don't have a tax base.

"absolutely true."

so, shouldn't you be trying to attract wealthier people to the city?

"no, because it will change the city."

but, the city is falling apart. shouldn't it change?

"absolutely. we should be spending millions on ..."

but you're bankrupt.

"yup."

so, shouldn't you be trying to attract wealthier property owners?

"no. because ..."

eventually, i provide an answer.

ok. i understand that gentrification destroys neighbourhoods. but, then why don't we take that tax money and build new social housing?

"that's....that's...that's communism!"

i thought you were an anarchist?

"sure. but, you'll never get city council to agree."

so, you've deduced that you're better off barricading out the wealthy and trying to be happy in poverty, then.

"we need to spend more money on schools. that will help us out of poverty."

i see.

see, in canada we actually do this: we tax the rich to build low income housing projects. we build neighbourhoods with both types of housing. it's not weird to us. you'll hear the odd grumble about communism, but most of us don't mind. so, we don't really have the debate about gentrification. it does seep it's way up here, but it's usually badly applied by the clueless and generally doesn't actually make any sense because you're usually actually talking about city owned property. and, in the rare circumstance when you actually are talking about market rents, the real issue is that the city has a really long wait to get into subsidized housing - and that what the city needs is not a stop on development but a boost in it.

19-06-2016: j reacts to the clinton machine's strategic objective to destroy bernie sanders

he shouldn't back down from this.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-black-caucus-superdelegates-224502

if the black caucus wants to uphold an undemocratic process for their own benefit, let them do that.

i think the focus should be making them articulate that, not buckling to "minority rights".

the reality is that the black caucus is pretty much the most conservative wing of the whole party. they're not allies of anybody but the establishment and the status quo. not only should he not shy away from articulating this, but he should accentuate his articulation of this - with the end goal of black caucus replacement.

what has the black caucus done for blacks recently? not a whole lot. get that out there. get some turnover.

so, if they want to go after him for the purposes of media optics, he should take them on. first, he doesn't really have a choice. second, it's a noble goal, anyways.

and if the party splits? so be it. i'm sick of right-wing democrats, and i realize that the black vote is a big part of the reason that we have such a hard time getting a liberal nominee. that split might be required to get a serious liberal nominee, and if it is i'll take the split over the big tent. the big tent is a dead end...

i think he can get some turnover - or at least be a serious enough of a threat for turnover to get them to back down.

i need to be clear: if he can get some turnover in the black caucus and force it to the left, it could be the single most important thing he accomplishes.

go after them.

https://newrepublic.com/article/130930/congressional-black-caucus-lost-conscience

"We don't argue this to be controversial or because we are on the side of the criminal. We argue this because our sole focus as a charity is to reduce crime and reduce the number of victims of crime. If prison were the answer to high reoffending rates, particularly for acquisitive crime, we would argue for more prisons. But the evidence clearly points us in the opposite direction."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/longer-prison-sentences-civitas

18-06-2016: beginning the process of reconstruction (but vlog does not reflect...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2016/06/blog-post.html

the rebuild begins today.

j reacts (dvd 2)

j reacts to al franken as vice president

this is the first name that i've seen thrown around that i think is better than a terrible choice.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/16/sen-al-franken-as-hillary-vp-would-drive-trump-crazy-ex-bill-clinton-aide.html

sometimes, i think what hillary really needs is a good pep talk.

yeah. i like this.

this is the exact way that you beat donald trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M84Q6yf7mo8

j reacts to the media blackout on the orlando shooter's motives not being accidental

i think i should realize and articulate that the media's misconstruing of the orlando massacre as being a hate crime about sexual orientation (rather than an act of political protest about the continuing war in afghanistan) is not mere incompetence or some kind of accident. they don't want people to hear the message or have that discussion.

it's just another example of media collusion with the state.

17-06-2016: done narrating, and finally getting started on the rebuild (but baby steps...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

for some reason, everywhere i look this month, i see the allegory of the cave.

this is my third try to render the vlog from the 7th. it's coming. it's just...

unfortunately, i forgot to wear pants, and i seem to have forgotten that i forgot to wear pants. i've uploaded accidental crotch shots before, but this is a good solid ten minutes. it's just unworkable.

i honestly am not quite sure how i've found myself in this predicament. but, a complex series of crotch-shot removing procedures are currently carefully underway, for your eventual viewing pleasure.

j reacts to a contrived take down threat from google (and why i don't have a phone...)

well, this is comical.

Dear j,

We've determined that your posts may be in violation of our User Content and Conduct Policy.

Content that transmits viruses or contains malware or other malicious code is not permitted.

Continued violation of our policies can lead to the loss of your ability to use some or all features of Google+.

Yours sincerely,
The Google+ team

--

of course, there's no viruses or malware on this page. it's just an excuse to shut me down.

-

on the obviously contrived take down threat...

it might actually be more than a triviality. i have reason to think that there are organizations that believe i'm attached to some kind of foreign agency, and i think a lot of that has to do with the reality that i don't have a mobile signal. this is consistent with a big collection of coincidences. and, i "get" that i'm not remotely brainwashed. the assumption, from what i can gather, is that i don't have a mobile signal because i'm using some kind of foreign blocking software, through some kind of foreign network. there's a signal underneath, it's just being blocked.

except, it's not actually true. i've actually been really transparent about this. i actually honestly just simply don't have any mobile internet devices. i have an mp3 player without an internet connection that i believe has been hacked through the radio. i have an entry level panasonic camera without one, either. i have a very old flip phone that is technically internet capable, but i've never actually connected with it (and i haven't had service on it in over ten years).

i don't have a phone due to a combination of economics and utility. i was in school from 2008-2011, and didn't have money to spend on mobile phones. i then went through a mental breakdown in mid 2011 and didn't really come out of it until late 2012. i suppose i could have got a phone around then. but, by then, i'd lived so long without a phone (and so long with small incomes) that i didn't really want one. i still just don't want one. i'd consider it a waste of money that i could spend on things i have more interest in, like concerts.

if my monthly income doubled or something, i might think about getting one - but i'd be unlikely to get a provider. i'd probably just use a combination of voip and public wifi, and make sure i'm not doing anything private in public. it's not because i'm afraid of data collection or don't want to be followed. i actually believe it's better to avoid encryption in case of misunderstanding; i believe in open data transmission. i think i've upheld that ideal. it's just because i would consider paying for voice or data to be a waste of money when there's perfectly good free options. i'd hate to call myself a fiscal conservative, but you learn how to maximize resources when you don't have a lot of them.

but, my monthly income is not going to double. i will probably end up buying a used android for public wifi one day, but i couldn't see myself paying more than $30 for it - it's simply not worth more than $30 to me. i'll likely pick up a late 00s model some time around 2020 over kijij or something, and sit on it for most of the rest of my life.

now, you could point out that i don't have any friends, and i don't have a job, so this is a function of that. it's more like a reinforcing truth. part of the reason i lost touch with people is that i didn't see the use in buying a phone, and kind of wrote the whole mobile device thing off as a fad. in the end, i still think the mobile phone is an unstable platform with no real future - it's just hung around a lot longer than i thought it would.

so, there's not some ingenious trickery hanging around. i'm a half credit short of a programming degree, sure - but the right way to look at that is that i dropped out of a programming degree. why? because i really wasn't interested in the topic. if you were to show me the code i'm supposed to be writing, the truth is that i probably wouldn't even actually understand it.

i'm just a poor trans person in my mid 30s from canada that likes to type and happens to be relatively good at articulating myself. i'm entirely wysiwyg. there's nothing under the hood. truly.

(posted to google+)

it took me until just now to finish narrating off all this ranting, and it's left me with a rather large amount of video to edit. i think it's clear that it's going to take me quite a while before i'm able to catch up. but, i'm not going to just sit here and wait - i'm going to get to the bandcamp site and start combining. i should get a chunk into 1.1 before the end of the weekend.

as of now, this page is dead. it will slowly thin out to a bare skeleton as the posts are converted into videos. i suppose it's purpose will have been the primaries. right now, i'm focused on just getting everything together, and really don't plan on ranting about anything at all for the foreseeable future. but, when i get back to that, it will happen at a blogspot page. i've totally lost faith in social media...

i'll post the link when it comes up.

-

i suppose you can expect edits to happen when i'm awake, uploads to run when i'm asleep and videos to publish when i wake up.

j reacts to the quiet end of the festering constitutional crisis in canada

ok, ok - the hurricane in my coffee mug seems to have hit the shore without any casualties.

let's just hope that the real sober, second thought here is the government's senate reform proposals.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/assisted-dying-bill-senate-approval-1.3640195

07. beginning the summer of final reconstructions (dvd 7)

16-06-2016: second day of narration (plus further new rants)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

the conservatives need some acting lessons; their attempts to hyper-politicize everything are far too transparent.

it's obviously not up to the parliament of canada to determine where or when a genocide has occurred, outside the boundaries of it's jurisdiction. nobody's falling for this. it just makes them look petty.

but, it's also an obvious distraction, borne out by the reality that they have nothing of importance to say, at the moment. the opposition does not exist to obstruct the business of the house. if they have nothing constructive to add to the house, they should resign their seats and go home.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/06/16/un-isis-genocide_n_10509594.html

j reacts to the error of defining another's oppression

i'm going to file this discussion under distraction. i don't care if she's native, i don't care if she filled out a form and i don't care if trump cares or what stupid thing trump said about it. but, i want to say something about trivializing her heritage.

now, i don't know anything about her heritage or how close she is to it. but, i can kind of relate to the idea of knowing you're indigenous but not really knowing exactly what that means, because you end up with a good deal of the social consequences of racial exclusion, but without any of the benefits of cultural inclusion. for myself, i know that my father's father was a visibly identifiable member of the cree nation, but i don't know a thing at all about cree culture because it just wasn't passed down. my grandfather died when i was too young to really understand, so i never had those discussions or was even really cognizant of the fact that he was different. i barely remember him, really. but, i've seen pictures and....he looked like the fucking chicago blackhawks logo, you know? you couldn't miss it if you wanted to. but i had no concept, at the time, for the few years i knew him.

my paternal grandmother is jewish/italian, and that's the identity that my father grew up with - mostly italian. when he was young, he looked like pacino; as he aged, he started to look like leonard cohen and he eventually aged into looking like an elder chomsky, with a bit of weight. those glasses. so, i grew up eating pasta and being smothered by exorbitant levels of unnecessary oregano. and basil. you could smell me down the street. no joke. i regress.

oddly, all my dad was ever able to give me is really the same story - that he had no idea, really, until he hit his late teens and, even then, he was never really cognizant of it, or took the time to learn about it. he grew up in a kind of urban reserve outside of ottawa called the ritchie street project. it's become one of those areas that successive waves of immigrants move through, and was largely populated by somalis last time i checked - although that may become syrians over the next few years. rough area. gang violence. in his day, it was all natives. so, when he played hockey out on the streets, they'd combine by tribe. the kids knew he was indigenous, so they'd ask him what tribe he was - and the only answer he ever had was 'italian'.

looking back to when i was a kid, i can point to events that occurred that had to do with other people perceiving me as indigenous, without having the slightest understanding of what was happening at the time - because i had no self-awareness of it. so, i was just left confused. i just didn't understand - so i became an anti-social misanthrope, convinced the world is full of assholes. i perhaps was not wrong, but a little bit of understanding of my own heritage and the perceptions of others regarding it may have assisted me in reacting to what was going on around me.

is this really unusual? i don't know. how many jewish kids go through that? how many finns? how many italians? as far as i could tell, i looked like everybody else - but the people around me didn't seem to see it that way. again, i was just confused by it.

so, i do have a history of racialized exclusion. but, i can't tell you anything about the basis of that exclusion, which is frustrating. i'm not 1/64th cree - it's, i believe, a full eighth, but perhaps a sixteenth.

would i fill out the form? i would now, and i'd feel ok with it. i wouldn't have for most of my life, because i just didn't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRbxvu0SEOQ

Warning from Google+

google+
Dear j,

We've determined that your posts may be in violation of our User Content and Conduct Policy.

Content that transmits viruses or contains malware or other malicious code is not permitted.

Continued violation of our policies can lead to the loss of your ability to use some or all features of Google+.

Yours sincerely,

The Google+ team

j reacts to the house reacting correctly to a meddlesome senate

this is the right choice - our elected parliament makes our laws, not our unelected senate. had they accepted the change, it would have set off a major crisis of democratic legitimacy.

the senate has threatened to push back. my view is that, if they do, the government will need to modify it's senate reform policies.

the last time this happened was abortion, and the senate did the right thing then in blocking an obviously unconstitutional law, but the situation is not comparable - this law is not clearly unconstitutional. i think it is, but not clearly so. the court needs to make that choice, not the senate; the senate is just interfering, overstepping, meddling.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/06/16/liberals-reject-senate-proposal-to-cut-near-death-proviso-in-assisted-dying-bill.html

if the senate has serious concerns about the constitutionality of the legislation, it should request a review from the supreme court rather than take it upon itself to become self-appointed constitutional scholars.

j reacts to the idea of cancelling tax credits to incentivize the disabled to work

it seems like they're going to cancel my tax credits this year, which means i'm not going to have as much spending money. it is not a rational incentive for anything at all, and it will not make any difference in my loan repayment.

my loan is upwards of $60,000 and it's growing, yearly, due to interest. i have not made a payment on the loan since 2008. i will be on disability for the rest of my life; the chances of a single payment on the loan, let alone full repayment of it, are 0%.

i need to reiterate: there is a zero percent chance that i will ever make a payment on the loan. ever.

i have been transparent with the system about this. the system agrees that i am permanently disabled, but disagrees that i am severely permanently disabled.

i made the choice a few months ago that continuing to fill out forms, only to have them rejected and then be asked to fill them out again, was simply not worth my time. i hate doctors. i've had enough of convincing the doctors to fill out the forms, then having the forms rejected and then having another department ask me to send the same forms.

the math here is not debatable; the system is just being incompetent. i receive $13320/year from disability payments, and pay $7920 of that out for rent - leaving me with $5400/year to pay for all other expenses, including food. that's $450/month. i have no further source of income.

the minimum payments on my student loan are $1400/month, most of which is interest. the trillium benefit, which they are going to hold, is around $60/month.

there is obviously no logic in reducing my income by $60/month to pay off a student loan, when the same student loan is charging me $1000/month in interest and i have been transparent that i am medically unable to work.

but, i just don't have the energy to fight the system any further. they can keep their $60/month - to what aim, nobody knows. even the people on the phone agree that this makes no sense.

the thing that would make sense would be for the government to look at the situation and realize that because i am disabled i can never pay back the loan, and because i am poor i should receive the subsidy. and, in fact, they have done that. but, the situation is supposedly not severe enough.

it's not even a question of severity, in my view. it's just a sadistic policy. that $60/month is useless in paying down my loan. it's about 5% of the monthly interest. it's not even close! but, it means quite a bit to me.

how much to me? well, $60/month is a show or two a month. about a show and a half, really, which means three every two months. that's how it's going to hit me.

i need to reiterate that it's just stupid, calvinist bullshit. it makes no sense as a loan recovery tactic. it only makes sense as a way to punish me for being disabled.

i'm convinced that a big part of the problem is that they have a private company on the collections, and they don't get paid unless they recover something. so, this kafkaesque mess is just a consequence of the decision to privatize collections, which atomizes the decision making process. nobody is looking at the situation from a distance. everybody is making isolated decisions, without talking to each other about it.

so, it may be true that it doesn't make sense to recover $60/month on a $1400/month minimum payment, with over $1000/month of it being interest. that's an obvious default situation - every month that goes by is costing taxpayers money, and withholding my tax refund doesn't help the situation (it just makes it worse, really). but, the company doesn't care. it just wants the $720.

again: that $720 is useless to anybody involved here except me. the only measurable outcome of this policy is that i will have less spending money.

should the situation continue as it is, my loan is just going to spiral out of control. but, i've done my due diligence: i've filled out the forms, i've got the doctor's notes. they decided to reject the documents. what else am i going to do but sit back and watch it grow? you can lead a horse to water...

it's mismanagement on their behalf. i accept no responsibility for the consequences.

in a few years it will be $100,000. it will probably reach $500,000. i'm curious if it can get to $1,000,000.

but, i'm a disabled person for life. i'm a ward of the state. it's just a meaningless number to me. whether i have a $50,000 debt i can never pay back or a $50,000,000 debt i can never pay back is a logically equivalent non-issue.

what's more important to me is the $60/month.

in the long run, the money will no doubt find it's way to me. they can't actually take your money. they can only hold it. eventually, they're going to have to figure out that that's not getting them anywhere and i'll get a cheque for the difference. in the mean time, it means less shows, which means less show vlogs.

a check for $3000 or something could be a new pc, at about the time that the one i've got is getting useless.

i mean, nothing is going to be different five years from now - nothing except the size of the number i'll never be able to pay back.

j reacts to sanders' live stream

actually, that's pretty much exactly what he needed to do.

now, y'all need to get to it.

this is a correct analysis.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/16/11959808/bernie-sanders-speech-dropping-out

and, i don't really disagree that democrats need to unite, either.

i'm just definitely not, and never was, a supporter of the democrats.

j reacts to simplistic, binary narratives around gun control

ugh.

i'll make it really simple for you.

yes, i support gun control laws.

no, i don't think that gun control laws will prevent mass shooting sprees.

so, why do i support gun control laws? because i think it's a useful tool for law enforcement. you might want to look around at countries that have gun control laws and see what they're actually used for. it's not to stop crazy people from shooting up public places.

and, what do i think will stop mass shooting sprees? lots and lots of public tax money on social services for integrative purposes.

otherwise? if you want to live in the jungle, you need to get used to fending off the tigers.

that is: if you don't want a government, then you really should buy a gun. you're probably going to need it.

the problem is thinking you can not have a government and not need to protect yourself. you can pick one or the other. you can't have both.

fuck nietzsche. fuck foucault. read hobbes. or, watch game of thrones. this is the world that the reagan revolution has left you with. everybody is out to get everybody else.

eat or be eaten.

or start a revolution...

laws to restrict the supply of guns?

it's a band-aid. a band-aid on a giant, gaping flesh wound.

15-06-2016: i spent the day narrating typed rants, but here are a few new ones

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the sjws (i think they're best described as burkean conservatives)

i should clarify my view on the "sjws". i've written this essay many times and in many places...

basically, they aren't actually marxists in any meaningful way. the philosopher they actually follow is foucault (sort of.), who may have claimed some affinity with marx but was actually largely seen by most of the left as a dangerous reactionary. i would put myself more in the tradition of chomsky, who famously did not get along well with foucault. most of the criticisms you see of the sjws are foreshadowed in the foucault-chomsky debate, which was itself a small manifestation of a set of bigger epistemological problems about things like the value of empiricism and the value of theory.

the way we get foucault's ideas nowadays are not direct but through a synthesis with the historical progressive movement in the united states, which was always largely a socially conservative movement. this was the movement that brought us prohibition, for example. it spent much of it's time railing against the godlessness of liberalism. while it made some positive contributions, those contributions came in the form of christian goodwill rather than in the form of any kind of legitimate left-wing ideas. it had no meaningful concept of class.

but, that was the value of synthesizing it with foucault. unfortunately, however, when you take foucault's theory of power and you combine it with christian progressivism, what you get is something very similar to burkean conservatism - that is, toryism. you have to remember that foucault was writing from france, where the narrative was still very much rooted in the french revolution and debates between rousseau and burke. what foucault basically did was that he converted burke's idea of proper class hierarchy into a system of control to fight against; foucault was somewhat of a vulgar burkean. but, when the christian progressivists (who were already burkeans at heart) picked that up, they missed the vulgarity of it and largely just picked it up at face value.

so, this idea that sjws are leftists or marxists is completely wrong. what they are is puritans, conservatives, tories, burkeans. my criticisms of them and what they want follow from the left. they are a combination of the criticisms of chomsky against foucault (or against zizek), the criticisms of bakunin against marx and sometimes (unfortunately) are even the criticisms of rousseau (or paine) against burke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_c3cNG5ttk

j reacts to a misperception about the diversity of the canadian cabinet

i'm not going to cite any specific article, but i just want to say something about the diversity in trudeau's cabinet - because i think outside observers are misunderstanding the situation.

the cabinet has gender parity, which has been written about widely. it also features several members of the south and central asian community, including several sikhs. yet, it does not have anybody of african heritage, near or distant, or any east asians. there aren't any arabs, and i didn't get a chance to count the jews, if there are any (there have been previously). did he overlook these groups?

well, see the question only makes sense if you're fundamentally misunderstanding the situation as some kind of affirmative action program, which it most definitely is not. the cabinet is not meant to address power imbalances in the country but actually to reflect them.

there's going to be a long takedown of an article about brampton coming up shortly, and in it i point out that south asians are actually one of the most powerful economic groups in canada, so to suggest their communities reflect some kind of ghettoization of the suburbs is ridiculous on it's face. this is the reason that south asians are over-represented in cabinet: the south asian community is very powerful.

it's not like north america has never seen this before. jewish politicians have been over-represented just about at every level for decades. the reason is that they're disproportionately wealthy. so it is with south asians in canada in the 21st century.

the gender parity is a similar reality. women are no longer the junior partners in society. they are represented at the table, because they must be. it's not some act of charity. it's a reflection of where the power lies in canadian society, and especially in canadian business.

so, where are the east asians? the arab muslims? in canada, these groups lean conservative by large margins, so one would not expect them to show up as prominent voices in the liberal coalition. and, where are the africans? there simply isn't a substantial black community in canada.

i hope that gets the reality of the situation across a little more clearly.
you could look it up if you want. i know this may be another "implosion moment" south of the border, but it does make sense.

1) in canada, east asians are roughly analogous to cubans in the united states, but less explicitly anti-communist and more explicitly pro-business. the conservatives present themselves as the party of freer markets. there's a widespread suspicion about government intervention in the economy.

2) the fact that muslims in canada lean right is actually by design - the conservatives went out of their way to screen muslims to make sure they were religious. this is a reaction, rightly or wrongly, to a feeling that liberal immigration policy in the 20th century was a type of gerrymandering. it's not clear yet whether that's going to be a problem in the long run, but i do believe that most people think our social services can handle it. in the short run, arab muslims in canada lean staunchly conservative on social issues - and tend to swing all the way to the ndp when they don't.

3) we brought in a lot of freed slaves during the 1800s, but there was a mass migration back after the civil war due to a desire to reunite with family (and maybe due to the weather). canada also had some pretty racist immigration policies from about 1900-1965. since then, we've taken in almost all of our black immigrants either directly from africa or from the caribbean. as it is, blacks are less than 2% of the population and don't concentrate much of anywhere, outside of a few neighbourhoods in toronto and a loyalist community in nova scotia.

14-06-2016: getting some fresh air by going to see the joy formidable in detroit

show footage:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/K0kginO2nG4?list=PLrHImg7oLm2YUaphbNKIGWv-52Q06np5Y

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/06/14.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the media's refusal to acknowledge the stated motive in the orlando shooting

this is the closest thing to a motive that i've seen, at this time.

At a news conference at Orlando Regional Medical Center, shooting survivor Patience Carter described praying to die as she lay on a nightclub bathroom floor covered in water and blood. She said Mateen talked about wanting the U.S. to "stop bombing my country," a possible reference to his father's native Afghanistan.

not to trivialize anything, but the us has bombed afghanistan, and killed a lot of people as "collateral". i wouldn't endorse shooting up a nightclub in response. but, some act of protest is warranted.

i see no evidence before me that the sexual orientation of the victims was in any way relevant to the victim's choice of targets, perhaps other than something interpersonal.

see, here's the thing: somebody kills 50 people in orlando and it's the worst mass shooting in the country's history - which is of course not actually true. the first counter-example that comes to mind is wounded knee, but a hallway documenting worse massacres (many in the civil or revolutionary wars) could fill a long trail of tears.

somebody kills 50 people in afghanistan and that's tuesday.

this is a shitty discussion, and i'm having a hard time articulating myself well - even after almost twenty years of trying to.

but, there's a saying: "you have to stand up to a bully".

i dunno how else to say this. nothing else is working.

if that was his motive, it's hard to condemn him without coming off as a hypocrite. sorry.

see, this is another ternary logic problem, though. you can refuse to condemn him without condoning him; pointing out that america is long overdue for a response is not the same thing as supporting the action. and, agreeing that america needs to shift it's policy to prevent future attacks is not the same thing as supporting the attacks. even if this is going to blow up the binary thinker's head.

what exactly would you propose that an afghan national do to stop the bombing?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/14/omar-mateen-told-victims-his-attack-was-retaliation-for-america/

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/346631-orlando-violence-us-isis-mateen/?utm_source

--

i think this is pretty conclusive.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/15/orlando-shooting-survivor-pulse-nightclub-hostage-interview

when will thomas mulcair endorse justin trudeau?

www.cbc.ca/news/world/hillary-wins-dc-primary-1.3635688

j reacts to confusion over how many parties now exist in the american spectrum

ok. yeah, so this is...

canadians. brits. germans, even. we can all understand this because we have multi-party spectrums. and, it's only even an issue as a function of the peculiar nature of america as a two-party system.

in any other country, sanders would not have run for the center-left party. in canada, he would have run for the ndp and not the liberals. in germany, he would have run for the left party and not the sdp. & etc. so, what we would be having after the election would be a discussion about a coalition, rather than a discussion about a blind endorsement.

it remains unclear whether sanders will endorse clinton. but, what is clear is that it will not be a function of partisan loyalty. it will instead be a function of coalition building.

people will howl and scream and tell him to move to sweden. but, this is only necessary in the first place because the system is so restricted.

i have to applaud him for his pragmatism, really. i'm not sure i'd be so willing to co-operate under the umbrella of a party that has no interest in what i have to say.

14-06-2016: the joy formidable (detroit/ferndale)

their music:
https://www.thejoyformidable.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/06/14.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0OiC893c8k

this is the version that came as a ltd edition with mail orders of musick to play in the dark.

unfortunately, i lost my certificate of provenance. yet, i remain provenant!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_Presents_Time_Machines

j reacts to california's perpetual electoral irrelevance being perpetual

stop.

california always votes last and never matters. this is, of course, by design. i believe that the general understanding is that the last time california mattered in the democratic primaries was in 1968, when they shot bobby kennedy.

so, it hasn't mattered in decades - and the last time it mattered, the candidate they were going to pick got shot to prevent it from mattering.

that 's america for you: texas matters. california doesn't. by design.

so, this idea that turnout was down because they called it the day before is incoherent. the race was already over in 2008, and she got almost twice as many votes.

it's nonsensical enough for a conspiracy theory, really.

j reacts to the fascism inherent in the reduction of democracy to career advancement

this "qualified" thing that the media is pushing is an attempt to uphold their narrative and gloss over the problems with the process. i mean, he won a series of states afterwards - and he lost the week previously. there is no discernible turning point in the campaign around new york. it was a closed primary, and there was mass deregistration.

but, it bugs me anyways. not because it was actually a set-up: she claimed he was unqualified, and he just responded in turn. i don't even think he said anything really contentious. if this were a job interview, the fuck up over iraq would be pretty catastrophic.

but, it's not a job interview - and the fact that she's being considered at all is evidence of this. government is not the private sector. it should not be run like the private sector. it's not a meritocracy. elections are not a process of gaining experience and working your way up a ladder; the premise is starkly undemocratic. so, the language of glass ceilings doesn't even actually make any sense. democracy is a question of reflecting the popular will, not a question of being "qualified to get promoted".

but, it's the clintons - they distort things. they've been doing this for decades. this is a small irritant. granted. but, it's grating. and these small, grating things add up.

j reacts to the likely purpose of the clinton/sanders meeting

so, what is this meeting tonight?

my guess is that it's something like this.

look. you said one thing. but, you have a history of doing something else. so, what are your actual positions. do you support the tpp? what will you actually do about health care?

no, i heard what you said. but i want to know what you'll actually do before i decide what to do.

two things.

1) he has to believe what she says. that's hard. so, she can't just tell him what he wants to hear. he'll know if she tries.
2) there has to be some kind of real upside. that's hard, too.

don't assume the outcome of this is predetermined. she doesn't see him as an insider. she's not likely to really open up - she's more like to see him, and everything about him, as a liability. and, if he can't get a straight answer, he won't endorse her.

13-06-2016: final archiving steps are done (still ranting...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

"there are no forces and they have no control"

j reacts to the proper comparison to 2016 being 2000, not 2008

history is not destiny, but right now what it seems like we're re-living is gore v. bush. the similarities are actually really startling.

- while bush had the party behind him, he was widely seen as unfit to run. his intelligence was widely mocked.
- gore's opinion of bush was so clearly abysmal that he could barely be bothered to debate with him. he didn't see him as a serious opponent.
- the incumbent is popular in the center, but loathed by both the left and the right.
- the left signaled clearly that it was not going to elect gore unless he swung left. he didn't.

a lot of people will argue that the lesson is that you don't run a third party candidate. but, gore has given us no reason to think he would have been any different than bush. remember: gore was instrumental in the sanctions against iraq that killed millions of children. and, he is on the record - repeatedly - as not just supporting the invasion, but supporting the surge before the invasion even happened.

the real lesson here is not for voters but for democrats. hillary is hurtling down exactly the same path that gore was. and, if that's not corrected, you're going to see the same outcome - if not a worse one, as sanders is much stronger than nader ever was.

atonement.

j reacts to hillary's insta-cave to the right on islamophobic language

it depends on what the definition of radical islamic terrorism is.

it's like an episode of seinfeld, except without the irony.

she can't let him define the narrative like this, or the election becomes a joke - and he wins, by default.

i've been over this. the moment he's taken seriously, it's over.

her natural instinct is going to be to cave because the truth is that she actually agrees with him. but, then she's just folding to the narrative. it's her entire strategy - to control the centre. but, when he pulls her in like this, she loses in both directions. the right doesn't interpret her as moderate, they interpret her as weak. and, the left sees her for what she really is - and recoils.

the thing is that it doesn't make sense for her to push back, because she can't do it credibly. this is of course why the left can't go along with this. we expect her to push back against this, even if we realize it's kind of trivial. it's just a matter of principle to avoid linking the two things to avoid falling into the trap of xenophobia. but, she is at heart no less xenophobic than him.

if they set this up as "belligerent asshole" v. "belligerent asshole light", which is what she cluelessly actually wants, then it's no contest - you pick the real thing.

and, look at it from the other side - it's day one and she's already caving on islamophobic language. they haven't even voted in dc yet. you think she's going to hold her base?

this is going to be a disaster. by october, she'll be supporting the wall. by the end, she'll be standing meekly beside him and applauding his every racist statement. let's be real - isn't that what she's actually always done? stood beside clinton? stood beside bush? stood beside obama? why wouldn't you expect her to ultimately stand beside trump? to adopt his ideas, if she thinks they're popular?

america needs to get behind a strong third party candidate immediately.

give me the right headline.

clinton caves on islamophobic language

i'm no advocate of strong leader rhetoric. but, hillary clinton is a follower. and, if trump leads, she'll get in line behind him.

j reacts to "conscience rights" as an orwellian construction to restrict rights

i don't agree with this. health care shouldn't be seen of as a market transaction (which is the basis of this decision) but as a right. denying access to services would fall under the denial of a right.

that's not to say that doctors should be forced to carry out the procedure, exactly - they have every right to quit in protest. but, they should not have the right to deny access to the service.

that said, i realize that my opinions are not entirely in line with canadian jurisprudence. canadian law would interpret my argument as basically correct, but nonetheless rather unreasonable. the law would suggest that you don't need to force people to make the choice to administer or quit (although i would hold to this, out of principle) so long as there's somebody around that is willing to perform the procedure. i'll plead guilty to being hard-headed; the law will not follow me in my rigidity to patient rights and my rejection of "conscience rights".

but, the law may argue that allowing hospitals to opt-out altogether is not the proper balance.

i think the way the dust settles on this is that the hospitals have to have a department. the law will argue that it's needlessly belligerent to force individual doctors to administer, but that the hospitals must nonetheless provide access - that they can't opt-out like this.

the province should realize this and avoid the imminent legal battles that they should know they will lose.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-hospitals-allowed-to-opt-out-of-assisted-dying-raising-conscientious-accommodation-concerns

htttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/saudi-arabian-scholar-issues-fatwa-against-naughty-neighbours-who-steal-wifi-without-permission

i agree.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ndp-marijuana-decriminalization-1.3632525

“Hillary has a hidden agenda. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t trust her.”

hrmmn.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/06/stephen-harper-hidden-agenda-poll_n_2251234.html

j reacts to clinton's strength over sanders being her greater appeal to independents

"There is no guarantee Mrs. Clinton would go along and embrace certain liberal ideas that she opposed during the campaign and that could make it tougher for her to win over independents in November."

thanks for the heads up, wsj.

this is the next round of absurdity: in order to win independents, clinton needs to reject sanders' proposals.

they don't even care if it makes sense.

j reacts to accusations that sanders is working for the party to suppress the left

this article is describing the situation properly, but it is overestimating where america stands in it's social advancement. if america were europe, or canada, this argument would be reasonable. but, the levels of inequality in america - along with it's culture of glorified militarism and it's widespread working class support for the most brutal types of social darwinism imaginable - make it more comparable to dickensian britain and the necessary tactics more aligned to those used there, or elsewhere when the social advancement was so low. american leftists need to stop thinking of america as an advanced country and reject the kind of tactics we have been using in the modern world in favour of the kind of tactics that the modern world utilized a century prior - when it was at the level of social development that america is at today.

the social revolution must come first. but, in america they need a social awakening before they can have a social revolution.

the struggle in america should consequently be focused on winning the kinds of basic reforms that have been won elsewhere in the developed world. america cannot begin to talk about socialism until it has a functioning public education system. it cannot begin to organize until it has a functioning health care system. & etc. we don't even have to worry about maoism when the most impoverished are told by their religious leaders - and believe - that they need to work harder to get ahead, that they are being restricted by government policies designed to strangle the "free market"....

so, yes: sanders is a front. but, it's less that he's conspiring to give legitimacy to a party that deserves none and more that he's being played like a fool - and perhaps that he actually is a fool. he is arguing for nothing more than the realization of the promises of eleanor roosevelt more than a half century ago - minor concessions to deliver the reward of basic human rights. and, they are minor concessions. but, the kinds of minor concessions that this article is rejecting as insufficient have to, rather, be seen as starting points. they are certainly insufficient. but, there is no deeper revolutionary potential in a country reared on institutional violence. they are simply too deeply brainwashed; bernie is exactly what they needed, whether he gets crucified in the end or not.

to see him as an end point is an error. but, everything has to start somewhere - and this is where it must start, in america: education  & health care.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/13/bernie-sanders-orchestrated-demise/

12-06-2016: combining large word documents (still ranting, too)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

this is a record of startling continued relevance in 2016 - 30 years later.

yeah.

j reacts to orlando (trigger warning?) pt 2

see, this is what i'm talking about.

your choice is to support a candidate that wants to restrict minority rights (what would de tocqueville say?) or a candidate that wants to repeal the second amendment, while acting as a sales agent for overseas arms purchases.

they're equally wrong. there's no good choice here. it's one form of right-wing extremism vs another form of it. neither approach remotely addresses any kind of remotely relevant issue - it just aimlessly pits one demographic against another.

it's divide and conquer.

then, you wonder why we have conspiracy theorists?

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-13/orlando-massacre-throws-twist-into-clinton-trump-battle

--

i have very little love for guns. if i know there's a gun in a house, i won't go in it. but, we don't have a constitutional protection on arms up here, so we have different legal mechanisms. the point is just that i'm not opposed to gun control (even while recognizing the legal realities of the second amendment, and kind of insisting on the rule of law, as it applies to whatever country we're talking about). what i am opposed to is conflating the issues. not because i love guns - i really hate them - but because i know that's a dead-end to inaction (it's not just the gun lobby, it's the constitution) and a dead-end to effective policy (it's not going to work, anyways).

canada is a bad comparison, because we neither have a gun rights culture nor do we have as strict of a class hierarchy. so, you can say we have harsher gun control laws and be correct - but we also have more integrative social engineering policies. i'd suggest the latter is more important. although, note that we had an isis-inspired attack on parliament hill a few years ago, and have had less frequent mass shootings (there was one of historical importance in montreal in the 80s). we've also had massacres that use other weapons, like knives and explosives. but, you can twist the data around every which way and not real get anywhere with it.

i think france is a better example. france has some of the strongest gun control laws in the world, but it also has an incredibly poorly integrated migrant underclass as a consequence of it's history of colonialism in northern africa. so, you get these muslim ghettos full of algerians that face all kinds of barriers to full participation in society. the result is riots, gang violence - and, yes, mass shootings. if they had weaker gun control laws would it be worse? i dunno. but, i think it's pretty clear that the strict gun control laws haven't resolved anything. and, you wouldn't expect it to, because it's not the root cause of the issue.

again: i'm not opposed to gun control on it's face. background checks are a good idea. i don't see any value in buying an assault rifle. and etc. but, it's just disingenuous to think this is going to solve anything.

i'll predict the future. one day, the gun control advocates will get their way and launch a warn on guns. i don't want to say that nothing will change, because something did change with the war on drugs - black people ended up in jail on drug charges and white people didn't. that's what you're going to see with stricter gun laws: minorities will get arrested and whites won't. and twenty-thirty years later, you'll get a movement to stop the war on guns. meanwhile, another generation will pass that is just that much more damaged by a culture of gun violence.

a lot of people are pointing fingers at religion and patriarchy and the media and the political class and i have no argument against it, it's just that i'd like to see more attention pushed towards the war economy. that's primarily what i was getting at when i blamed the culture. we're constantly being drummed up for war. we glorify violence. not just at the military level, either, but at the police level, too. when you live in a society that glorifies violence, one should not be surprised when it manifests itself in daily life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4MC0vZgwfM

--

i don't have the background required to fact check any of this, but it makes a lot of sense to me. so, when you hear a barely reformed dixiecrat like clinton make this the center of her platform, just a few decades after her husband used criminal justice reform for the same purposes.....

the choices are terrible. i have to tune out. i'm going to drive myself mad. or potentially get shot, myself.

https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

--

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/gun_controls_racist_reality_the_liberal_argument_against_giving_police_more_power/

this is a canadian site, so i can speak in more plain terms that will be better understood.

obama v clinton was like ignatieff v rae. they had different hair. they were otherwise identical candidates that represented identical interests. they were clearly of the same party.

trying to get sanders and clinton to work together is more like trying to build a coalition between the liberals and the ndp. they may both hate trump. but, there's major hurdles to overcome. and, at the end of the day, it's something that ultimately simply just doesn't make sense.

there ought to be a lot of haggling between now and july, but i frankly don't think that clinton is even going to grant him an audience beyond some initial pleasantries. he's not going to get a thing from her. so, i'm hoping that sanders marches his supporters to stein - because it's now too late for him to get on the ballot in most states.

i mean, if you want to argue that you should vote liberal to stop harper, you're going to get quite a bit of sympathy. but, you're going to get quite a bit of push back, too. worse, the reality is that the american spectrum has become so skewed that clinton is really running well to the right of harper - she's so far to the right that she wouldn't even get nominated in this country. she's got kagan and kristol and kissinger endorsing her. so, there *has* to be some pull back to a more sane place on the spectrum.

in the end, trump might win. but, it's blatantly obvious to many, now, that there's no use in continuing to support the democrats in their current incarnation. if they can't be steered in a different direction, the party needs to collapse.

ipolitics.ca/2016/06/11/clinton-owes-sanders-a-dignified-exit/

Tallacus
so are they still going to bash Christianity even though now a MUSLIM is the biggest mass murderer of gay people here in America?

jessica
yes. i'll have great fun bashing both of them. i'll bash the jews, too.

truth
Christians rule. Our LORD is returning and will destroy all of his enemies.

jessica
will he bring his 12 boyfriends with him?

truth
you will find out one day when you stand before him on Judgment Day trembling in fear for your blasphemy.

jessica
actually, i'm counting on somebody going back in time and killing mary before jesus is born.

or. wait. is that a naturalistic explanation for a virgin birth?

truth
Yep, Islam was last. Muhamad added a whole bunch of his own stuff.

jessica
i see. and the other two books are totally legit. just like the book of mormon, i suppose.

Bad Company Gaming
Believe it or not, Christianity actually condemns violence against non-Christians, not that it means they don't view homosexuality as sin, but they do encourage kindness and love for the individual. Of course this won't stop the libtards from doing what they do best, I have a theory on how they are still going bash them after events like this. Either by actually or pretending to acknowledge that islam has violence and tolerance problem, but not without putting christians in the same boat(which is stupid, because there's a HUGE difference between christians protesting gay events and muslims massacring gay events), blaming christian fundamentalist for encouraging anti-gay hate from radical islam, or maybe come up with some bs excuse or logic to defend islam and bash christianity by attempting to "prove" that it has an even worse violence and tolerance problems(again, very stupid).

no
when has a Christian in this day in age committed a massacre killing 50 homosexuals

Bad Company Gaming
Spolier Alert None

jessica
hitler was a christian.

Bad Company Gaming
no he's a fake christian, just as fake as a darwinist who believes in a god.

jessica
well, by that logic, you very well can't claim these people are real muslims.

if these people are muslims, and representative of muslims, then hitler was a christian, and representative of christians; if you reject that hitler is representative of christianity, you must also reject that terrorism is representative of islam.

fwiw, i would be more likely to argue that hitler is a representative christian and isis is also representative of islam, then argue we should tear down all religion. it's not that most christians aren't like hitler so much as it is that most christians don't understand their religion - if they did, they'd act and sound more like hitler. likewise, islam is vile to the core - but most "muslims" don't really practice their faith.

the problem here is the divide and conquer. they want to pit us all against each other. the solution is to reject the division, which also means rejecting religion.

Bad Company Gaming
I would say your right, but you're not, because christianity condemns murder and other unjustified acts of killing or violence. Hitler was using christianity to get to power and keep the Germans from turning on him, he basically made them think that he was a christian, when really he was agnostic (or an insane person who tried to merge two word-views that contradict each other). The reason why the Orlando shooter and ISIS is more likely to be follow the islamic faith than Hitler following the christian faith, is because unlike christainity, islam promotes violence against infidels(non-muslims), there's not one thing in the quran that condemns actions like these, despite muslim leaders saying otherwise, which further supports islam having a violence and tolerance issue in modern world, thus rationalizing the term "radical islam", and while I do agree, this doesn't mean they represent every muslim or that every muslim is at fault, it does mean they represent muslims who share the same or similar views. BTW even if Hitler was religious, he was beaten(in kill count) by atheistic dictator Joseph Stalin, not saying that this proves religion is bad or good, but it does prove that atheists can be just as evil.

Also, did you know Hitler had an muslim friend? Don't believe me? Look it up.              

jessica
listen, i didn't bring up hitler to get into a genocidal pissing match. but, do you realize how many deaths fdr is responsible for, too?

the bible, like the koran, tells you to never kill - and then tells you when it's ok to kill. like, for example, if you're an adulterer. or gay.

what you're not really realizing is that christianity and islam are not just sort of the same thing but are actually literally the same thing. think of it like a trilogy. judaism is vol. 1. christianity is vol 2. islam is vol 3.

Tallacus
so I am calling for the Termination of @Zack Ford the author for Think Progress LGBT issues who blamed Christian America for the Massacre in Orlando, I ask anyone who is for truth to join in in the #FireFord  campaign for this PoS to issue an apology or resign

jessica
actually, i think it's probably tactical to stand back and watch the christian right and the neo-liberal right tear each other down. i'd recommend that the left should sit this fight out.

Tallacus
the left is perpetuating it with their hatred of Christianity, I am not religious myself but I really see this as wrong so fuck @Zack Ford Think Progress needs to kick his ass out, a journalist has a responsibility to tell the truth, Mr. Ford's hatred of the values that built this country makes him an ally to the enemies that are destroying it

jessica
a debate between christians and neo-liberals over "the values that built this country". hrmmn. well, you both supported slavery.

i'm more interested in discussing the values that can tear down your country, myself.

Tallacus
you had to be living under the rock to be unaware of all these values destroying our nation, from SJW Fascism, to Socialism to anti male, anti constitutional sentiments just to name a few

jessica
i'm not debating your premise, i'm encouraging your projected outcome.

like i say: this is more of a source of entertainment than a political battle that i want to pick a side on. i'd rather just make some popcorn and watch.

i'm going to give you a little bit of a pro-tip about the anti-sjw thing, though.

i'm pretty critical of them, and that might suggest that we're on the same side. but, we're not. see, you think they're evil communists. i think they're confused conservatives. you fear them as tyrants. i just make fun of them, and think they're harmless idiots.

the actual truth, the way i see it, is that if you could sit down with them and have a reasonable discussion, you'd determine that you actually have a lot of common ground. i, on the other hand, am never going to agree with either of you.

from my perspective, you're two sides of the same coin.

Tallacus
oh yeah its all fun to watch and make fun off, until it comes for you

jessica
well, i've taken steps to protect myself, too: i have a rain coat to protect me from their tears.

Tallacus
a rain coat isn't going to protect you, this isn't something you poke fun off at, I am talking about real protection, arming yourself, knowing what is dangerous and to avoid it, and informing others of the great evil we all are facing

jessica
yeah. you know, i'm not really afraid of kids with thin skin. they're just annoying. but, people that want to react with guns are legitimately a little bit unsettling.

Bad Company Gaming
this could be the lgbt's time to get the NRA's good side, arm themselves, and fight back against radical islam.

Tallacus
some are at least the non a feminine ones are taking a stance to protect themselves

jessica
if i was going to pick something to fight here, it would be the continued occupation and bombing of afghanistan. it's time to end america's involvement in overseas wars.

bring the troops home, NOW. i don't want to escalate. i never wanted to fight in the first place.

i'd rather tear the state down to end the war than escalate it. america offers me nothing of value, nothing worth fighting for. see the russian revolution for historical precedent.

Bad Company Gaming
Of all the things I disagree with, I do agree with you on one thing. We need to bring are guys back.

MrAranton
Hitler had the members of the SS swear that they believe in a (singular) god-creator  and that atheists are arrogant, delusional and unsuited for their cause. That clearly shows that he was not an atheist and believed in a monotheistic relgion, and there aren't that many around. If Hitler wasn't a christian, do you think he was a muslim, a sikh, a zoroastrian, a Yazidi or dare I even say it: a jew?

jessica
it was actually well understood at the time that the catholic church was a part of the alliance of axis powers. that is, the pope was close to both hitler and mussolini. they helped in rounding up groups for the concentration camps. and, remember: the anti-semitism in nazism was built on top of the anti-semitism in catholicism.

Bad Company Gaming
Well his actions completely contradict his "faith", he even killed christians who opposed him, not only that but he also believed that the ayran (or german) race was, not only superior, but an evolving race while other races are destined to die out (sounds a lot like "survival of the fitness" from darwinism). So my answer is this proves that he's not a christian or an atheist, but an insane person who tried to merge two contradicting world views, it's like as if he's trying to make the wrong puzzle piece fit. Besides if you think  christianity is bad just because one of the most evil person claims to be one, then that should mean that atheism and  is bad thanks to other murderous leaders like Joseph Stalin(again, killed more than Hitler), Fidel Castro, and Mao Zedong.

BTW, just someone criticizes atheists doesn't mean they're religious(not even me), take liberal atheists and feminazis vs conservative and neutral atheists for example.   

jessica
you're right about the crazy person part, and it applies equally well to the orlando shooter.

but, i just want to point out that the ideas you're attributing to darwin are not his. true darwinism is better articulated by the mutualism of peter kropotkin; it's not a fundamentally violent worldview. what is a fundamentally violent worldview is capitalism, and what you're (incorrectly) assigning to darwin is actually rooted in the economic writings of nineteenth century liberal capitalists like malthus and spencer. you should be focusing your ire on the right, not on the left.

the protestants were basically right about the catholic church: it was an organization devoted to secular power. and, marx was right to point out that it merely used religion as a tool of control, without bothering to care what it was actually about. that's where your contradiction collapses - the church itself only ever paid lip service to it's beliefs. so, when hitler said he was christian, it meant that he wished to utilize the control mechanisms of the christian social order for his own gains.

but, the reformation was also a failed and co-opted social revolution that produced even more violent institutions than the catholic church. much of nazism can in fact be traced to christian writing, sometimes through the intermediary of nietzsche (who was himself a christian).

further, the real christians were always on the far left of the social spectrum, and it remains that way today. marx basically articulated the line that is attributed to gandhi: i like your christ, but i hate your christians - or, perhaps, i like your christians, but i hate your christianity. an educated christian would see their system reflected in the writings of kropotkin, of russell, of chomsky...

MrAranton
Hitler was not a christian because ... reasons is a "no true scotsman"-argument. You're redifining christianity to somehow not include Hitler. What gives you the authority to do so? But even if I let you off the hook on this one: Hitler had christian accomplices and loads of them. The first international treaty Hitler signed, was with the catholic church. The catholic church also shipped Nazis to South America to help them escape the trials set up by the Allies.

Given the amount of christians killed by christians in conflicts between protetstants and catholics (in my country those fights left a larger percentage of the population dead than both world wars combined), the claim that Hitler wasn't a christian because he killed christians, too is just ridicoulous.

The Nazis did not invent anti-semitism. There was religiously based anti-semitism for centuries before anyone ever heard of Nazis. "The jews killed our saviour, any hatred they face, they brought upon themselves" That's something I was taught when I still was a Christian - and one of the reasons why I didn't want to be one anymore.

The doctrine gulags were established to enforce was communism. That's not the same as atheism.

State Communism as developed in the USSR and their Satellite states is often referred to as a political religion because it functioned a lot like a religion. Actually it's almost a carbon copy of christianity; just replace any reference to god and jesus with a reference to the writings of Karl Marx and Lenin, replace "heaven" and "the kingdom of god" with "The classless society", "hell" with "gulag" and "sin" with "counter-revolutionary thought and/or action" and you're done. The dead of the gulag do not prove the dangers of atheism. They prove the dangers of doctrine-based thinking. And no, even though atheism can be incorporated into larger doctrines, it is not complex and encompassing enough to be considered one itself.

jessica
the state actually literally pushed for the worship of stalin; the cult of personality had an apex of literal emperor worship that looked like something from the roman period. stalin was a tsar, a caesar - a god. the soviets tried to erase this from history under khrushchev and largely succeeded; it's so disturbing that western scholars have even avoided it. but, you can find pictures of icons of stalin on the internet, along with modified christian prayers that replace jesus with stalin in verse. the state distributed these icons and prayers to orthodox christians and expected them to use them to replace their jesus worship with stalin worship.

Bad Company Gaming
Stalinism, in a way, is a parody of christianity, where the worship of god is replaced by worship of man.

First off I'm not redefining christianity, If I was then there wouldn't be anything in the bible that contradicts Hitler's ideas or actions(and before you say something like for example "but Hitler hated gays", let me explain to you the difference between him, westbro baptist chuch, and other christians who disagree with homosexuality. Hitler and westbro hates homosexuals to the core and like islam think they should be put to death, while the other christians believe homosexuality is a sin(religious crime) that can be forgiven, this doesn't mean that they hate gays like Hitler or westbro, they just disagree with them, they dislike the "homo" not the person who is gay, its kinda confusing, but hey at least they view and treat them like humans compared to muslims), the one redefining christianity was, guess who, Hitler himself, to better fit the nazi regime by excusing his racist ideas(something that is contradicted by "all men are created equal" in the bible), liking all humans to animals or sacs of meat, and rejecting the vision of heaven and hell, creation, and suggestive opposition to tyranny(something that was controversial in the roman empire). Hitler used christianity, and faked his faith in order to rise to power and began to use "the no-true-scotsman" fallacy to exclude christians that were against him and turn the "positive christians" against them, according to Goebbels Diaries(one of the leading member of the Nazis) "He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity". Not to forget he was influenced by the occult a big no no for christians. Besides the way you guys use the "no true scotsman" arguement is as bad as the way the left use it to whitewash the attack in orlando and excuse islam, if you think it's rational to hate christianity because Hitler claimed to be one, then it should rational for me to hate atheism because Stalin claimed to be an atheist. Also, I just wanted to clarify something the point about my previous post was that it didn't matter what you're religious view is, you can commit the most awful crime and become the most evil man, regardless of your morals contradicting it or your religion condemning it as "sin" or promoting it as a "righteous act". 

jessica
i didn't realize that the declaration of independence was now canonical.

MrAranton
You keep treating christianity as if it were a monolithic block. But there are hundreds if not thousands of denominations, there some communalities that make them christian, but beyond that there are a lot of differences. Because of that almost any statement along the lines "christianity stands for x" or "y is un-christian" is a sweeping and inaccurate generalization.

To understand the religous undertones of Nazi ideology you have to be aware of some peculiarities of language used in German political discourse at the time. Most of them have to do with the somewhat unusual religous landscape of Germany. It is not dominated by a single denomination - like in France or Sweden - but it is nowhere near as fragmented as it is in the U.S. Additionally there has been a lot of bad blood between the denominations - after all the religously fueled conflicts of the 17th century had - in relation to the total population - been more destructive than both World Wars combined. Because of that bad blood - and the "Kulturkampf" of Bismarck era - religious affiliations were downplayed in politics. In the 1920s and 1930s a vast majority of people just would not vote for candidates who openly affiliated himself with another denomination.

Nazi-ideology contains a lot of ideas that have their origin in christianity, but in order to avoid the denominational minefield that Germany was at the time, these ideas were re-phrased in a denominationally neutral fashion and unless you're aware of that, a lot of them sound downright secular. I guess this gets even more prounounced if you're not looking at the original German but any translation of it.

Another thing you've missed: Hitler's mind was quite erratic to begin with, and it got worse over time. You can't pin his position down on anything because for most of them you'll find at some point in his life he held an opposite view. Because of that individual quote don't prove anything about Hitler. Up to 1919 for example there is correnspondance in which he speaks very favourably of Jews. He did develop a fascination with the occult, but then at the time a lot of christians did; that was fad of the time and does turn him into a non-christian. And yes there are statements in which he blames christianity for "dulling" the superior germanic mind; but on the other hand, as soon as his power within the NSDAP was great enough to do so, he kicked out all Neo-Pagans. So apparantly returning to the old germanic beliefs wasn't his goal either...

After the first successes during WW2 the propaganda presented Hitler as a vessel of god's will and the Nazi-ideology as a supplement or clarification on Christianity. The general spin was that Hitler was to lead god's new chosen people into the conquest additional "Lebensraum im Osten" just as Joshua led the Isrealites to conquer the promised land of Kanaan. Go read the book of Joshua, compared to the atrocities that book boasts were commited in the name of god, Hitler was an innocent choir boy. The bible is an awful book that sets a lot of bad examples and can be cherry-picked to justify absolutely every single atrocity Hitler comitted. And because of that as long as christians call the bible holy, they cannot distance themselves from Hitler. And no, Jesus' "love thy neighbour" does not negate that, because filty heathen scum are not neighbours.

Bad Company Gaming
BTW, Friedrich Nietzsche was an agnostic. He may have christian in his early years, but he rejected his religion and became a skeptic of christianity, take his work "death of god" for example. I seem to notice you guys have a problem all acts of violence(including self-defense), makes me ask a question, are you a pacifist? Reason why I'm asking is cause it seems like your logic associates, for example, a guy who kills a creep to defend his daughter's life (and virginity), with a murderous serial-killer like the one in the shooting.    

jessica
i don't think nietzsche was ever truly an agnostic or an atheist, i think he was what you call a christian that was struggling with his faith. he framed certain discourses in certain ways that challenged traditional western thiinking, but he never transcended christian thought. you could never understand his writing without a rigorous study in christian philosophy, and in the end his writings don't even make sense outside of a christian discourse. you could think of him as a christian equivalent to job.

i'm not a pacifist. i'm an anarchist. i believe in self-defense. but, i reject state violence. so, i'm in solidarity with somebody stepping in to prevent a crime, but i reject state violence (including "punishment") as an act of criminality, itself. liberals refer to this as the rule of law. i don't want to speak for the other poster.

real atheists don't have much to say about nietzsche that is very nice. it's a collection of false dilemmas and non-debates that only make sense in the context of christianity, itself.

just briefly: i don't think that the collapse of religion necessitates either the collapse of society or the collapse of morality, because (as an atheist) i don't think that society was built on religion, or that morality has anything to do with religion in the first place. this would only be a serious debate to me if i was a christian to begin with. as a non-christian, this is just not a relevant discourse to me.

you consequently have no choice but to place him in the christian discourse, if you want to place him in a discourse at all.

he makes no sense in an atheistic discourse. in fact, he's decidedly ahistorical in an atheistic discourse - about 1000 years out of date.

he kind of makes the classic error of conservatism, in glorifying a past that never existed.

----

Kevin Solway
"Racist religious hate is a problem with any religion", says CNN.

What gives CNN the right to insult Buddhism? They have no idea what they are talking about.

jessica
google search term: rohingya.