to clarify context: i do not have kids. thank god. that should be clear.

but, the father of these kids (in everybody relevant's minds - don't delve - let it be) is about fifteen years older than her. they lived together for a long time and had two kids, a boy and a girl, without getting married. he may have had feelings for his ex.

she was young.

frankly, she needed somewhere to stay and that's partly my fault.

i'm just trying to put the right context in place; i had removed myself from the situation, and there is no direct comparison to be had.

if a comparison exists, it is to somebody that faded away years before the camera picked up.

they're reporting this over multiple sources like marijuana legalization is a divisive issue.

but, this is not a scientific poll. and, scientific polls put legalization closer to 80%, across age groups. consistently.

again: this reeks of policy reversal, and of the government trying to come up with excuses not to do it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/half-of-canadians-polled-support-marijuana-legalization-1.4025081

i'm legitimately not sure if this is purposeful scare-mongering or just absolute cluelessness.

it's not up to the government to run your business. i mean, maybe we can talk about that, but i wasn't expecting you to volunteer it.

here's the complicated, earth-shattering reality: hr departments are going to have to learn not to hire potheads, just like they don't currently hire drunks.

but, i mean, i say that like they don't know, right?

if you've never dealt with this before, here's a hint: when an applicant walks into the interview with slightly messy hair, red eyes and a sort of skunkish smell? don't hire that one.

can we get on with it now, already?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/marijuana-legalization-employers-safety-testing-impairment-medical-1.4017539

bunch of fucking peasants, right?

what do i know, i'm just a dumb artist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

i think the question that you need to ask yourself is this: is the function that you fill within society something that would be carried out by a slave in a system that allowed for slavery?

you might not actually know the answer....

....but, the truth is that most people would have to actually answer 'yes' to that question.

if that is the case, then why do you deny that you're a slave?

is it because you really enjoy your job? really?

is it because you're free to buy your own food and pay your own bills and make your own meals? or is it because you get a day or maybe two off a week, if you're lucky?

is it because you have a one in a million chance of escaping your reality if you work really hard and get really lucky?

i'm not trying to marginalize the importance of any of these things. certainly, a system with slaves that are treated well is preferable to a system with slaves that are treated poorly. and, a miniscule chance out is better than no chance at all.

but, being real about the situation presents a stark truth: there isn't a lot of difference between market labour and slave labour when you're in the bottom 95% of society. and, denying this reality is either being out of touch or being obtuse.

this is right out of zinn.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-wealthy-americans-divided-and-conquered-the-poor-to-create-the-concept-of-race/2016/04/19/2cab6e38-0643-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html

again: the capitalists don't care what colour you are. they're just looking for an excuse to enslave you, at any opportunity that they can. race. language. religion. gender. they'd enslave you on the basis of your eye colour, or your opinion of abbey road, if they could get away with it.

a pretty good exploration of this is actually howard zinn's people's history of the united states. one of the central themes of the text is that the core narrative of the history of the united states is the elite's use of racism as a tool to divide the labouring classes against each other.

when you see the capitalist press deny the reality of historical white slavery, and use language that is designed to make black people angry, what you are witnessing is the elite using race to divide workers against each other.

and, you need to see this for what it is in order to truly conquer it. you need to call it out for what it is. and, you need to not just stop promoting it but actively debunk it.

we need the working class to unite, and we need to stop falling into these racialized narratives that are designed to divide us.

read the zinn text, and apply what you learn to what you see in the world around us.

but, listen: if you think i'm trying to win a popularity contest or something...

i know that the revolutionary potential in our society is approaching zero. i don't pretend otherwise. and, i'm hardly interested in swaying public opinion.

i mean, what do you think? that i want to sit in the bourgeois parliament, or something? give me a fucking break. have you read anything i've written?

one of the things about not desiring power, and being interested solely in dismantling the propaganda of the state as a kind of historian for the revolutionaries of the future, is that i'm not remotely interested in what people think of me in the present tense. i mean, i know that i'm right - and i know that people will eventually know that i'm right. but, what that means is that i'm almost an acid test.

after all, you don't be a revolutionary by saying things that uphold the status quo. that's just not how this works. i'm necessarily going to piss people off. and, when you're finding yourself citing the new york times, you might want to take a step back and ask yourself who you're serving.

think of it like this: we'll know we're ready to take the next step when i'm not controversial. we'll know we've progressed when i don't make you upset. and, until that happens, i have an obligation to piss you off.

hey, guess what? i heard a nazi say, once, that the sun rises in the east.

therefore, anyone who says the sun rises in the east is a nazi.

and, that's not a common logical fallacy, either.

in fact, the reality is that there is a longstanding attempt to smear anybody that tries to draw the connection between wage labour and chattel slavery as a "white supremacist". it does not matter if these are the same people that have gone out of their way to abolish slavery. the ability to see through the propaganda must be attacked. this is a classic capitalist smear.

anarchists and socialists have been dealing with this kind of bullshit forever. and, here's the thing: if you fall for this, you're pretty far gone, to begin with. we can have these discussions if you insist. but, let's not miss the point, as they want us to, which is that slavery is about economics and not about race.

if you can't see through this tactic immediately, you're useless to the revolutionary left.

the capitalists don't care what colour you are. they're just always looking for any excuse they can to take away your bargaining power. race. religion. doesn't matter. they'll take whatever is available.

from the conspiracy theorists at jstor....hosting an article written by the unreliable charlatans at oxford, on behalf of the sketchy aha:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1833611?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

if you would like to learn more about irish slavery, you can do so by consulting the work of the white supremacists at the history department of the university of minnesota:

http://library.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/intro.html

anybody that questions the reality of irish slavery should begin by researching the law that repealed it:

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

i heard that the potato famine was also a myth.

the irish were enslaved by the protestant british because they were catholic, and this is mainstream history. there were repeated attempted genocides, as well. the person that wrote this article is an ignorant imbecile and should be fired.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ireland-slaves-conspiracy-theory-debunked-st-patricks-day-1.4028855

this is a noble attempt at spin for a good cause, but the actual problem is that the government refuses to appoint judges. this has been a problem for a while, now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dana-larsen/canada-cannabis-raids_b_15292868.html

here is an article that explains the issue:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-appointments-judges-senators-1.3806035

the chief justice has even written articles about it, and i've posted them, but i'm not looking it up right now. it's not something that came out of nowhere: it's a serious problem, and people have been drawing attention to it for a long time.

so, the actual reason that these case are being dropped is very likely as a protest to the government's unwillingness to staff the country's benches. what they're saying is that if the government won't provide access to justice then this is what is going to happen - so it had better appoint some fucking judges, already. and, this is a real failure of government, too. so, what the fuck is going on?

i haven't seen any statements by the government. but, my honest best guess as to what's slowing things down is that it's not a priority because there isn't any payola in it. this government only seems to be focused on things it can profit from. it's not concerned with actually running the government...

it's a sad reflection on the reality of things. but, we need some articles going after trudeau to appoint some judges, already. they're not over-booked, they're understaffed. the chief justice has done all she can. and, should people stay in jail indefinitely without a trial? they should not. the media needs to take him to task for this, and the government needs to get to fucking work on it.