what it does is cast doubt on the honesty of the investigation.

so, the feds have taken this company down by manufacturing charges against it (and note that the globe was complicit in this). are they doing this to pave the way for larger distributors (molson?) or are they backtracking on the policy altogether?

i will repeat what i stated a few weeks ago: at this time, i do not expect the government to carry through with it's campaign promise to legalize. rather, they seem to be in the process of shutting down the medical use of the drug, as well.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/company-caught-selling-tainted-marijuana-cant-trace-source-of-contamination/article34144902/

i think that people maybe misunderstood.

this whole thing about obama playing multidimensional chess probably has a little bit of truth to it. you just thought he was playing against the status quo, rather than in lockstep with it.

see, this is what i feared and predicted: they've managed to manipulate working class people into mobilizing to save obamacare......which is the republican healthcare plan designed to prevent a single payer universal health care system.

once again: a formal gramscian analysis on how we got to the point where self-identified leftists are standing up for the heritage institute's healthcare proposals would be an enticing read and an important contribution to the literature on the actual left.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/02/26/if-theyre-going-to-pass-trumps-agenda-republicans-first-have-to-weather-the-indivisible-movement.html

this is a bait and switch from electoral reform.

so, you should not just ignore it as paranoid idiocy, but should actively attempt to steer the topic back to electoral reform whenever it's brought up.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/02/27/cyberspy-agency-eyes-political-blackmail-as-risk-to-canadas-electoral-system.html

they should just let the seat sit vacant...

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/02/27/york-school-board-grapples-with-filling-elgies-seat.html

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

well, the good news is that my throat doesn't hurt anymore. but, that inflection point didn't go through: my head didn't fully clear yesterday, and took me out several times, including at the end of the night.

i woke up with a mild background headache: it's workable, but a reminder that i'm not over it, yet.

i just finished up the last few shows from 2011 this morning, so i'm making progress. slowly, through a difficult wrench, but surely. i'm going to eat now, and hopefully i'm able to be productive after lunch. but, i could end up waiting for the headache to pass, too.

is this all the result of whatever happened the other night at the festival? i've been noticing a symptom of very bloodshot eyes. but, you'll recall that i was complaining about that weeks ago, and that i thought it was connected to the hep b (which i don't actually have). and, you'll recall that i've been complaining about headaches connected to the gas leak in here...

my nose has not been working recently, but i'll point out that i woke up to that same nasty smell, this morning, that i've been associating with the leaks, which i've been associating with the headaches. how much of this is due to concussion, how much of it is due to gas leaks, how much of it is due to allergies and how much of it is due to the virus are things i'll probably never be able to disentangle.

what i really want is for the temperature to stay above ten degrees so that i can keep the windows open and get some fresh air in here without cranking the heat up.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/index.html

so, let's understand what happened with the dapl.

1) obama cancelled it, which was not an honest order but merely intended to clear the camp.
2) the new administration created a distraction around refugee policy to coerce the lifers into a different direction.
3) once the camp was cleared, and the cold of winter had set in, the new administration reversed obama's order to cancel it.
4) various factors (including the distraction around refugee policy, the weather, the fashionable nature of protest in the 21st century (#dapl is so last year) and what could be called 'protest fatigue') prevented re-mobilization from being powerful enough to cause a serious disincentive towards the use of force.
5) the camp was shut down, and the pipeline was finished.

so, what can we learn from this?

i suppose the immediate thing to analyze is what could have been done differently. the obvious point is that the new administration would have had a harder time ramming through the new policy if the camp hadn't cleared on it's own. but, we cannot blame activists for being tricked by obama, can we?

well, we can, actually: i saw this coming, and i'm sure many other people did, too.

so, the immediate lesson is that protest spaces should never be cleared in a transfer of power, especially not one from a more friendly government to a less friendly one. but, did people really not know that? and, why didn't they come back?

i've been over this with other protest movements. the essential root problem is that activists have adopted the language and tactics of viral marketing campaigns. now, i need to be clear: these tactics can be potentially effective if you need large numbers of people for a short amount of time. but, people are trained to understand the substance of viral marketing as inherently limited in temporal scope.

when you assemble people with a viral marketing campaign, you need to expect that the group will be disassembled by the next viral marketing campaign. what you've done is reduce the resistance to a type of fashion, a fad to discard for the next fad.

the next fad is in fighting "islamophobia". and, that's where everybody went.

on the other hand, this realization merely serves to amplify the importance of ensuring that activists do not allow camps to clear until objectives are confirmed. realizing the short attention span of #hashtag protestors is in some ways just a pre-requisite to developing tactics to neutralize that short attention span. but, the deeper lesson needs to be that viral marketing, as useful as it may be in some ways, is not a replacement for movement building - and can in fact act against it.

so,

1) the immediate lesson is not to disperse until you've won.
2) but, the broader lesson is that #hashtag activism is fleeting, and cannot replace deeper movement building. to the contrary, the shorter attention spans of young people (as brought on by viral marketing...) is an obstacle to deal with in deeper movement building.

reality check: forcing constituents to accept senior staffers with almost no connection to their ridings as candidates is called nepotism and is a type of corruption. the fact that it is relatively common in our system does not make it ok. and, everybody should support the local candidates in their aim to ensure that the riding maintains local representation. mccallum was a good mp with strong ties to the riding, and he should not be replaced by a staffer that is being flown in on the pmo's direction.

seats in the house of commons are not perks to be handed out to political cronies in exchange for political favours, or as rewards for good behaviour. and, this comes just weeks after the government rejected electoral reform under concerns that a proportional system would minimize local representation...?

the hypocrisy is stunning.

this should be a very big deal. and, it should cost them the seat, out of principle.

and, they should stop fucking doing this, already.

i've seen this happen about a dozen times, now, and the candidate that the party tries to push down never survives. the party has blown safe seats this way. it has sen leaders lose their seats this way. and, why wouldn't it expect blowback from what is quite obviously the subversion of a basic democratic principle of self-determination?

so, this is the question we're going to be asking ourselves over the next couple of years: why is the liberal party of canada incapable of learning simple lessons from simple errors?

http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/02/27/markham-thornhill-liberals-open-revolt-alleging-party-rigging-nomination-process-get-pm-trudeaus-top-adviser-ng-elected-candidate/97556

you know, i'd like to see a formal gramscian analysis of working class support for increasing immigration of unskilled workers. it might be hard for a lot of people to read. it would no doubt create the expected reactionary responses of accusations of privilege and racial bias. but, it would be tough medicine, in the end, because it's the harsh reality of it: they've got you supporting policies that are going to minimize your bargaining power. they've got you working in their interests...

so, do you have a thesis to write? do you understand what i'm getting at? then, write it up and get it circling around online.