uploading the lost symphony to soundcloud

when finally completed, the trivial group sequence will consist of a 2-cd arranged in four thematically linked "symphonies", of which two are currently complete and one is partly complete. this is a live play through of the second half of the third piece and the entirety of the fourth.

this was written over 2004 and yet has not been recorded in any significant form. i went through a long period from '04 to '07 where i was convinced this piece (and some others i was writing at the time) required a drummer and refused to record until i could find one. i couldn't find one, which put me into a fit of depression and led to writers block & etc. eventually, i just bought an electronic kit with the goal of playing it myself.

however, i then skipped over it because i was bored with the relationship it was a relic of and decided it was time to move on. i'll be recording this (finally) over the upcoming months. for now, here's an unfinished demo of it.

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/the-lost-symphony

i just watched a little report on the national about how the robocall scandal never happened, and it was just blown out of proportion by the media. this was filmed after the government came out with a report indicating that they couldn't find evidence of the claims.

well, that's government investigating government, and i have reason to believe it's being covered up. how much of an effect it actually had is a more complicated question that i can't begin to try and answer.

however, i was working for one of the robocall firms on election day. it was a small office out of a tall building on elgin street in ottawa. i initially started working there doing opinion surveys as a student, but i found myself going back there between jobs because they were happy to have me back. i happen to have been rather good at getting people to answer the surveys (i guess it's a combination of being interesting enough to not hang up on and being a good troll), which is an obscure and sought after talent.

anyways, the nature of the firm changed over the five or so years i was in and out of it. they were initially doing overflow for ekos or doing a lot of government of canada surveys. over time, they started doing more and more surveys for conservative political candidates. for the last several months leading up to the election, they were pretty much campaigning for the conservative party.

some of the polls were pretty straight forward - which candidate in your riding do you support, followed by some demographics about age and income. some of them were a little less straight forward, and i had caught on that something was not right by the end of it.

for example, they were polling in helena guergis' riding, but they weren't refreshing the numbers. so, you'd have people calling the same numbers over and over again, supposedly on behalf of helena guergis. that's a good way to piss people off so that they don't want to vote for helena guergis, which is what the cpc wanted at the time.

i was taken off the phone on election day to do data entry, but i do distinctly recall the *owner* of the firm periodically repeating - and it was of the utmost importance to him - to NOT tell people there was a change in the riding, because the information was false. i didn't put it together at the time, but it seems like he was actually NOT wanting to commit voter fraud, no doubt to try and protect his business' reputation.

holinshed closed it's doors almost immediately after the election and has not resurfaced since.

the people on the phone were not robots, although they may have sounded like robots from time to time.

ontarians are generally pretty no-bullshit when it comes to elections. we're also generally pretty down to earth when it comes to politics. we had a red tory government in place for something like 30 years, and the truth is that the province has never really moved away from those values. sure, it's a good idea to be reasonable with spending, but not at a cost to social services, which are more important in the end.

so, that works against both the turkeys running against her. horwath is just too transparent, and it's nice to see people turn on her for the power grab. and, the kind of conservatism that hudak represents is just not popular here, outside of the rural heartland. the 905ers want some moderate tax cuts, not an unregulated market-based society (or, worse, having the system sold off to the party's wealthy buddies).

so, this was obvious. and, there's not going to be a change of power here unless:

a) the conservatives go back to their red tory roots, and actually try and outspend the liberals. which will revolt that rural base, as it does everywhere.

or

b) the ndp cut out the transparent power politics, which means a drastic change in leadership. the reality is that the ontario ndp can't even rely on union support, so they end up competing with conservatives for low information voters.

but, it also helps that hudak is a cartoon character. a million jobs, tim? by government policy? is that a four year plan or a five year plan?

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/22/ontario-election-2014-wynne-liberal-poll_n_5372594.html

it bothers me that i tend to align with the right on speech issues, and not because i feel a conservative twinge within me but because of the motives i end up forced to align with, due to the left being so authoritarian. i don't want to be supporting people that want the right to publish hate literature, but i can't be supporting this type of authoritarian statism that wants to police people's thoughts, either.

the reason to oppose these laws is that they don't work. rather, they provide fresh fuel for stale hate propaganda. if you shut down the nazi newspaper, don't be surprised when they use it as evidence to prove that the jews control the media - and when people are dumb enough to believe it.

further, when you attach consequences to opinions, what you do is just drive them underground. people learn what they can say in public and can't, but they don't actually change what they think. this fuels the resentment. it leads to groups of people yelling "i can't say what i want because of THEM". one would have to expect a long term policy of this sort to eventually lead to a violent backlash, as it isn't eliminating the hate but bottling it up for eventual explosive release.

there are various approaches to dealing with racism, but they generally have to do with working it out through integration and dialogue, not threatening people to shut up or else.

that doesn't mean i think hate speech should be without consequence, but i think it should be treated as a tort and come with some very heavy burden on the person launching the suit. it's ultimately a type of defamation when you work it out; if i say something disparaging about all people of a certain characteristic, the crux of the problem is ultimately that it simply isn't true. yet, the law doesn't challenge just any false statement, it challenges false statements that are shown to cause harm. if somebody's racist tirade has a demonstrable consequence, the person that wrote it should be held responsible for it and forced to make the situation whole.

otherwise, they're just a moron running their mouth off and should be treated as such - which generally means just ignoring them.