https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1
Friday, July 15, 2016
i've used this analogy before. back in the 30s, the spanish anarchists had a choice between stalin and hitler. as the war unfolded, this unfortunate choice was also before the various peoples of eastern europe, most notably the ukrainians. now, this is an interesting analogy for both scenarios for different reasons.
for the spanish, they picked stalin as the lesser evil. well, the other option was hitler, so what were they supposed to do? the authoritarian marxists certainly seemed better than the fascists, right? but, they quickly took over and in the end carried out the massacre that broke the movement and brought in franco. conclusion: a lesser evil calculation can and will backfire when the choice has it's own prerogatives. might clinton ultimately tear down what calls itself the left? so, might the alliance be self-defeating?
the ukrainians on the other hand picked hitler as the lesser evil over stalin. well, consider the holodomar. it's hard to criticize the choice. conclusion: lesser evil calculations are also subjective and often less obvious than some think.
for the spanish, they picked stalin as the lesser evil. well, the other option was hitler, so what were they supposed to do? the authoritarian marxists certainly seemed better than the fascists, right? but, they quickly took over and in the end carried out the massacre that broke the movement and brought in franco. conclusion: a lesser evil calculation can and will backfire when the choice has it's own prerogatives. might clinton ultimately tear down what calls itself the left? so, might the alliance be self-defeating?
the ukrainians on the other hand picked hitler as the lesser evil over stalin. well, consider the holodomar. it's hard to criticize the choice. conclusion: lesser evil calculations are also subjective and often less obvious than some think.
at
05:44
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
j reacts to mike pence as the republican vp choice
mike pence is a dumb choice - he needs to win libertarians to have any chance at all, and he picks a conservative.
donald trump just proved that you do not need conservative support to win the republican party nomination. that is, donald trump's nomination process victory signals the death of "movement conservatism". he then picks a movement conservative as a running mate, demonstrating that he doesn't understand the significance of his own victory.
what pence does is negate any appeal that trump had to anybody at all. he's been marketing himself as an outsider/maverick type. what pence does is reduce him to a loudmouth, establishment talking piece. it reduces him to rush limbaugh.
mike pence completely destroys the donald trump brand.
or, you can look at it as it probably actually is - trump just sold his startup company to the republican party.
let's hope that some people are taking notice of the real consequence of this process: the reagan revolution is dead. the conservative movement is over. if trump wants to run as reagan, he will lose in a landslide. the party just rejected reagan!
the polling i've seen does not indicate that trump is having trouble holding evangelicals. it indicates he is having trouble holding libertarians, and isn't getting anywhere in the rust belt. if trump's supposed appeal to rust belt voters is his position on trade, pence actually undermines that. i mean, if they wanted the christian right, they'd have voted for it at some point in the last fifty years, right? they haven't. now, in the twilight of the conservative movement, they think they're going to win ohio on abortion? it's stupidity. pence will not reverse the numbers that exist, he will cement them in place.
the only way that trump is going to challenge clinton is if he can find somebody that matches his celebrity appeal, and can bring in libertarians at the same time. don't get me wrong: that's a tough sell. i've suggested jesse ventura would be a good pick. ron paul is in the right neighbourhood.
by picking mike pence, he's making exactly the same mistake that everybody that he beat made. and, i suspect that if somebody were to sort through the situation carefully, they'd see this is not a coincidence. i can almost guarantee you that this decision was made by a republican party insider cruz staffer that moved over after he dropped out.
....meaning that the party may get their nominee, in the end. but, it's tone deaf.
if mike pence is the vp choice, it all but guarantees that hillary wins.
in canada, the magic number is 30%. when you see the conservatives running around 30%, you know they've been reduced to their core of supporters - the type that will never vote for anybody else. it all but guarantees a liberal victory. this number has been determined empirically.
the american system is of course different, but it seems like the magic number that's coming out is 35%. that seems to be their bottoming out, their true-believer base.
trump's goal right now needs to be to get out of that rock bottom, to make the party appealing beyond it's base. pence does not do that. what he does is reassure the base.
besides stupidity, the other reason that this approach is taken is as a concession. it can be openly transparent: we're throwing away this election, and just turning inwards for a good circle jerk. see you in four years...
so, you could argue there's some kind of a poison pill in this - that it's an inside job to take him down. maybe, sure.
i don't think so, though. i think it's legitimate cluelessness, because it so deeply mirrors the tactics that his opponents took - and so deeply reflects establishment republican wisdom.
in a sense, it doesn't matter, though. let's say it's an attempt to take him down from the inside, so they can run a movement candidate in four years. that still indicates that they don't understand what just happened, and what is happening and will keep happening in the country. it's a special type of stupid to think that you can just wait this one out and that the demographic and ideological trends in the united states will suggest that ted cruz or somebody like him will be more competitive in four years.
at some point, the republicans are going to have to emerge from their echo chamber, react to the polling and move away from these hard right candidates that can't generate support. in the mean time, keep an eye on that 35% number. it may be around for a while.
donald trump just proved that you do not need conservative support to win the republican party nomination. that is, donald trump's nomination process victory signals the death of "movement conservatism". he then picks a movement conservative as a running mate, demonstrating that he doesn't understand the significance of his own victory.
what pence does is negate any appeal that trump had to anybody at all. he's been marketing himself as an outsider/maverick type. what pence does is reduce him to a loudmouth, establishment talking piece. it reduces him to rush limbaugh.
mike pence completely destroys the donald trump brand.
or, you can look at it as it probably actually is - trump just sold his startup company to the republican party.
let's hope that some people are taking notice of the real consequence of this process: the reagan revolution is dead. the conservative movement is over. if trump wants to run as reagan, he will lose in a landslide. the party just rejected reagan!
the polling i've seen does not indicate that trump is having trouble holding evangelicals. it indicates he is having trouble holding libertarians, and isn't getting anywhere in the rust belt. if trump's supposed appeal to rust belt voters is his position on trade, pence actually undermines that. i mean, if they wanted the christian right, they'd have voted for it at some point in the last fifty years, right? they haven't. now, in the twilight of the conservative movement, they think they're going to win ohio on abortion? it's stupidity. pence will not reverse the numbers that exist, he will cement them in place.
the only way that trump is going to challenge clinton is if he can find somebody that matches his celebrity appeal, and can bring in libertarians at the same time. don't get me wrong: that's a tough sell. i've suggested jesse ventura would be a good pick. ron paul is in the right neighbourhood.
by picking mike pence, he's making exactly the same mistake that everybody that he beat made. and, i suspect that if somebody were to sort through the situation carefully, they'd see this is not a coincidence. i can almost guarantee you that this decision was made by a republican party insider cruz staffer that moved over after he dropped out.
....meaning that the party may get their nominee, in the end. but, it's tone deaf.
if mike pence is the vp choice, it all but guarantees that hillary wins.
in canada, the magic number is 30%. when you see the conservatives running around 30%, you know they've been reduced to their core of supporters - the type that will never vote for anybody else. it all but guarantees a liberal victory. this number has been determined empirically.
the american system is of course different, but it seems like the magic number that's coming out is 35%. that seems to be their bottoming out, their true-believer base.
trump's goal right now needs to be to get out of that rock bottom, to make the party appealing beyond it's base. pence does not do that. what he does is reassure the base.
besides stupidity, the other reason that this approach is taken is as a concession. it can be openly transparent: we're throwing away this election, and just turning inwards for a good circle jerk. see you in four years...
so, you could argue there's some kind of a poison pill in this - that it's an inside job to take him down. maybe, sure.
i don't think so, though. i think it's legitimate cluelessness, because it so deeply mirrors the tactics that his opponents took - and so deeply reflects establishment republican wisdom.
in a sense, it doesn't matter, though. let's say it's an attempt to take him down from the inside, so they can run a movement candidate in four years. that still indicates that they don't understand what just happened, and what is happening and will keep happening in the country. it's a special type of stupid to think that you can just wait this one out and that the demographic and ideological trends in the united states will suggest that ted cruz or somebody like him will be more competitive in four years.
at some point, the republicans are going to have to emerge from their echo chamber, react to the polling and move away from these hard right candidates that can't generate support. in the mean time, keep an eye on that 35% number. it may be around for a while.
at
05:01
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i walked out of that concert completely fried due to minimal sleep, overexposure to my ears (remember: i saw swans on tuesday, too), alcohol, nicotine and the other one that's still a few months away from open mention. so, i'm not done sleeping yet. but there was an experience near the end of the show that i want to say something about. it was one of those really surreal moments of racism that you just can't do much about besides point out loudly and shake your head about. so, i'm going to scream about it for a few paragraphs.
i mother earth were a kind of iconic canadian band in the 90s, and they were uniting here with a singer they hadn't played with in many years. the announcer said 18 years. i'm not sure if that's literally true or not, but it's been a while. the audience was consequently full of nostalgia: an older and mostly white crowd rocking out to records released in 1993 and 1996. much drinking, yes.
now, everybody knows you're not supposed to smoke anything at all in these kinds of outdoor bank concerts. you're just supposed to shut up and drink your over-priced beer. that is, of course, the economic purpose of this event: to sell over-priced beer. but, you can't actually enforce this rule once the sun comes down a little, the least important reason being that most people in the crowd at rock concerts like this actually don't agree with bans on smoking at outdoor concerts. many of them actually even smoke. and, not just cigarettes.
the smell of marijuana is pretty normal at outdoor rock concerts. it's a part of the experience - whether you're actually inhaling, or just taking in the aroma. it wouldn't be a real festival, without it. whatever the eventual legality of the substance in canada, that smell is not going to lift from the concerts of the nation. there will simply be a trail of corrected signs "thank you for pot smoking".
the spirit of this event, combined with the nature of the audience, actually at one point near the end of the set had joints passing around amongst strangers. somebody decided everybody at the show ought to be high. or it seemed that way. they were just circling around. my nose and eyes caught multiple burning around me.
so, i will acknowledge that there were people smoking pot in the audience. see, but that's just it - *everybody* in the audience was smoking pot. no exaggeration. nine out of ten, anyways.
so, you'll imagine how absurd it was to watch security swoop in, walk past several burning joints and key in on the only black guy in eyesight - who, yes, was caught green-handed. like, they took it out of his hand. ok. drug abuse. but, they had to blatantly walk by scores of stoned white folks to do this, and then scores more as they were escorting him out. 90 out of 100 people in the immediate audience were stoned. it was being openly passed around. but, only one person in the audience was black.
i didn't stay for the literal headliner, so i don't know if they came back later for more minorities, or even for some white folk - or maybe if they just backed off and let people have a good time. but i know what i saw and how obvious it was.
i don't really have any point besides the obvious one: it's really not ok. i don't know exactly who the security personnel were (mall cops?), either, but....i guess the way i should articulate this to organizers is that i don't want to see anything like that ever again.
of course, this has nothing to do with the band. the actual show was excellent, for what it was. tight. no fuck-ups. the tracks were identifiable, but expanded upon enough to play out. i'd need at least two hands to count the number of times i saw this band in the 90s, and they were always a strong live set like that. so, i will actually have some footage coming up in the next few days of i mother earth with edwin in 2016. that's something that is actually happening. there's some teaparty footage, too.
right now, back to sleep....
i mother earth were a kind of iconic canadian band in the 90s, and they were uniting here with a singer they hadn't played with in many years. the announcer said 18 years. i'm not sure if that's literally true or not, but it's been a while. the audience was consequently full of nostalgia: an older and mostly white crowd rocking out to records released in 1993 and 1996. much drinking, yes.
now, everybody knows you're not supposed to smoke anything at all in these kinds of outdoor bank concerts. you're just supposed to shut up and drink your over-priced beer. that is, of course, the economic purpose of this event: to sell over-priced beer. but, you can't actually enforce this rule once the sun comes down a little, the least important reason being that most people in the crowd at rock concerts like this actually don't agree with bans on smoking at outdoor concerts. many of them actually even smoke. and, not just cigarettes.
the smell of marijuana is pretty normal at outdoor rock concerts. it's a part of the experience - whether you're actually inhaling, or just taking in the aroma. it wouldn't be a real festival, without it. whatever the eventual legality of the substance in canada, that smell is not going to lift from the concerts of the nation. there will simply be a trail of corrected signs "thank you for pot smoking".
the spirit of this event, combined with the nature of the audience, actually at one point near the end of the set had joints passing around amongst strangers. somebody decided everybody at the show ought to be high. or it seemed that way. they were just circling around. my nose and eyes caught multiple burning around me.
so, i will acknowledge that there were people smoking pot in the audience. see, but that's just it - *everybody* in the audience was smoking pot. no exaggeration. nine out of ten, anyways.
so, you'll imagine how absurd it was to watch security swoop in, walk past several burning joints and key in on the only black guy in eyesight - who, yes, was caught green-handed. like, they took it out of his hand. ok. drug abuse. but, they had to blatantly walk by scores of stoned white folks to do this, and then scores more as they were escorting him out. 90 out of 100 people in the immediate audience were stoned. it was being openly passed around. but, only one person in the audience was black.
i didn't stay for the literal headliner, so i don't know if they came back later for more minorities, or even for some white folk - or maybe if they just backed off and let people have a good time. but i know what i saw and how obvious it was.
i don't really have any point besides the obvious one: it's really not ok. i don't know exactly who the security personnel were (mall cops?), either, but....i guess the way i should articulate this to organizers is that i don't want to see anything like that ever again.
of course, this has nothing to do with the band. the actual show was excellent, for what it was. tight. no fuck-ups. the tracks were identifiable, but expanded upon enough to play out. i'd need at least two hands to count the number of times i saw this band in the 90s, and they were always a strong live set like that. so, i will actually have some footage coming up in the next few days of i mother earth with edwin in 2016. that's something that is actually happening. there's some teaparty footage, too.
right now, back to sleep....
at
03:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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