Saturday, June 23, 2018

the republicans are what happens to liberalism, once stripped of it's ideals and values.

anything to maximize profit.

anything at all.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-06-23/private-prison-shares-rise-us-eyes-more-migrant-family-detention-space
at some point it will click: this drug addict is costing me a lot of money.
in this circumstance, i have to hope the landlord eventually takes it out on the pothead; all i can do is extract damages for negligence.

and, i'm sure he will, eventually.
i mean, if the action was meant to punish this woman for her actions, and it was, then i'm certain she paid dearly, in the end - and there was really nothing i could have done to hold the space, anyways.
i just want to clarify a point, as i'm backing up the music vlog...

the last time i had an argument with a landlord, i put a case for thousands in claims on hold, was admittedly outmanoeuvred (albeit trivially, from my perspective, as i could not have claimed any winnings and there could not have been another outcome) and ended up getting evicted. so, i lost pretty badly, right?

well, it must have cost her at least five thousand dollars to evict me - plus whatever money flowed around under the table (i'm pretty sure some did.). added up, i may have spent $20 on printing costs. maybe. and, any money i would have "won" would have had to be returned to disability. i lost a plum spot, but i didn't lose any money on the move. further, it did become clear over time that she wanted me out, regardless - there wasn't anything i could have done to reverse the situation. even if i had won the case, she would have kept trying to get me out. i was fighting it on the hope that she was planning to sell..

i was clear in all of my communications with her that the purpose of the fines was to act as a disincentive for the continuing harassment, not as a means for me to make money from the situation. i even offered to donate the money to charity, at one point. what i wanted was for the harassment to stop. so, i was actually using the money as leverage - i didn't expect to ever see it. and, the other option was to just sit there and let them harass me, which was unacceptable...

but, the reality is that i didn't incur any losses, so i didn't have any grounds for action.

this is a different scenario. i might not be able to keep rent money, but i should be able to keep damages, and i should be able to apply moving costs. so, this case is worth fighting, and i intend to follow through one way or another.
so, i've got the facebook part of this updated now, and it shouldn't have taken nearly that long, but i was occupied by other things, too.

the next task will be to copy the rest of the music vlog into the master document.

i'm getting there.

really.
it's just the industrial reserve army.

https://monthlyreview.org/2017/02/01/marx-on-immigration/
listen.

there is a long history of writers with engineering degrees, isn't there?

maybe you might think of me as just another writer that gave up on the world, but i think of myself as the musician in the list.
i'm not exaggerating.

it's 75% As, 20% Ds and 5% Bs and Cs.
i'm your typical floater/dreamer artist - over-educated in philosophy, but disinterested in financial aspirations, and really focused solely on my art at the expense of anything and everything else.
facebook wants to know my education history. did somebody ask?

i went to carleton university, off and on, from 2000-2013. i was at various times enrolled in math-physics, mathematics, gender studies, music, english, computer science & law. i consequently have several undeclared minors, as well as an undeclared masters in mathematics, in addition to my b. mathematics (honours) (2006).

in hindsight, i would characterize my time in the math department as a large survey of the field. i did not walk out with any useful specialization, or any particular interest in developing one. i went back to study computer science because i learned that a math degree was really not very useful, and then walked out a half credit short after deciding that i just didn't want to work in the field. it's something that happens - you get to the end of a degree, and just don't want to do it any more. i got done three years of law in the process, and walked away for similar reasons. i had ambitions to fight the bastards, and just realized that the system is hopelessly rigged.

if i was born rich, i might have stayed in law, but you can't fight the good fight on that level when you're born poor.

through it all, my heart was always in music. i eventually made a choice to stop caring about bullshit and just follow my heart.

my gpa is in the B+/A- range, but it's an average of very good marks and very bad marks, rather than a lot of Bs. i tended to either ace courses or flunk them outright, and that's a story that will come out in the alter-reality.
it's an important historical question: why are we so rich, when they're so poor?

and how can we fix that?
i mean, what do we want, here?

do we want to end up more like them by importing their problems?

or do we want to help them become more like us?

it's hardly colonialism, when we're talking about what are, after all, spanish and portugese colonies - and the legacies of them. we should be looking at commonalities and asking what wrong there that went right here. but, i think we should separate our criticism of colonialism from our criticism of the methods colonialism used during less enlightened periods, too.
nafta was supposedly intended to improve the mexican economy; educated people know better than to pretend this is true.

but, i would rather see resources put into fixing the situation in latin america - a good neighbour policy - than open borders to accept refugees fleeing the catastrophe that america created there.

and, these countries are going to need these refugees to help them do that.
i've indicated that i would rather support humane detention, but are there exceptions where i would support release?

very limited ones.

but, i'm going to provide arguments that are very different than the ones you hear on the right.

i would want to see the following conditions set for release, to begin with:

- a released family must have existing family resources in the united states (or, as it may be, in canada - but our system is currently wide open). so, you can release an immigrant family to an existing family. i would not support releasing completely new families into the country. and, why not? the reason is that this reduces the supply of housing, thereby increasing the cost of rent, which puts real strains on working people and people that rely on assistance. in canada, it puts a strain on resources to provide subsidized housing. if you ask poverty advocates in the united states or canada, they will tell you that the system is strained as it is. but, if the family can find a way in that does not strain existing resources then that is potentially grounds for exception.

- a released family should not be allowed to work until or if it is granted status, and if they are found to be working while waiting then that should be grounds for immediate deportation. all costs should be shouldered by relatives. again: this is not what you're used to hearing. but, increasing the supply of labour (especially temporary or restricted labour) puts downward pressure on wages, which harms workers.

you're not going to hear these arguments from trump, but this is actually unfortunate, as i suspect it's what a number of people that voted for him actually want to hear from him.

and, you'll note that these arguments and conditions are specific to refugees, rather than immigrants, who are largely coming in with advanced degrees, job prospects and nest eggs.
it's the society that is sick.

i get it.