the only effect that drugs have on your brain is that they make you stupid.

maybe you'd rather be stupid.

i'll pass.

when i'm sitting at home in my apartment, i don't want to turn my brain off - i want to use it.

it's when i'm interacting with other people, out and about, that i want to turn my brain off.

again: it's one thing if i'm using it as a way to escape the stress of social interaction.

but, it's another if i'm unable to focus when i'm trying to read or write or think or create or record, by myself.

the best way i can describe this is asking you to try to imagine waking up unable to speak.

so, you try to do what you want to do, whatever it is - and all that comes out are jumbled words. you try and focus, and you can't. you might need to communicate with a fast food worker to get a coffee, and you can't get the order out. or, maybe you're trying to communicate with a co-worker and just getting confused glances.

this is what it's like trying to read or write or create when you're involuntarily under the influence of drugs - you want to do something, but it's just impossible, or it can only be done slowly, or at a reduced rate.

i'm operating at 60-70%, if that.

so, it's like stumbling around at work with a lobotomy.

so, i'm just sitting here trying to read, and i can't - i end up coughing. having difficulty staying awake, difficulty focusing...

if there was somebody to talk to, i might have a different perspective.

but, i don't want to talk to anybody, right now. i'm not out - i'm at home. alone. trying to work. i want to read. or write. or create. and i can't do that. and it's frustrating.

in my mind, it makes absolutely no sense to stay home and smoke drugs.

it's just a waste of time.

& a waste of drugs.

the smoke tonight is ridiculous. i've got my front door open to try and clear it out.

"it's a friday night."

but, i'm at home. i don't want to be stoned when i'm at home. pretty much ever.

when i go out somewhere, it's not to get drunk or stoned, it's to see a concert. you'll note that i don't go to parties, that i don't go to get togethers, that i don't have a group of friends, etc - that the only time i ever go anywhere is to see a concert. and, that is the purpose of going out - to experience the music.

but, i have a lot of difficulty socializing with people. i need the intoxiucation to deal with the people.

so, i go out to see the show - but i can't handle the social interactions unless i'm inebriated. the need for inebriation is consequently a function of the social interaction. so, if you take away the social interaction, i have absolutely no interest in the inebriation.

so, it's easy to ask "why don't you just stay home and get drunk?", but you're missing the point - the only reason i'm drunk is because i can't deal with the social interactions. if i were to stay home, ii wouldn't have to escape from the social interaction, and i'd rather be sober.

i hope i'm helping people understand this conflict a little bit better. it might not seem like it makes any sense for me to complain about marijuana smoke, if i'm stoned every time anybody sees me. but, the only reason i'm stoned is because i can't handle talking to you when i'm sober. do you get that? that when i go home, i want to be straight edge, and i'm only fucked up because i can't handle talking to you, otherwiise?

the efficient flow of traffic in a city does not rely on generous gestures, it relies on everybody understanding and obeying the concept of a right of way.

if you have the right of way, you should never slow down or stop or let somebody past. that is not doing something nice, it is slowing down traffic.

and, if you are going to slow down traffic, you deserve an angry response.

windsor is not a major city, but it is not a small town, either. this is the canadian side of detroit - a major, if scattered, metropolitan centre. if you had misplaced ideas about small town canadian life, and want to live in a small town with a midwestern mentality, i'd suggest moving to one of the outlying areas, or perhaps the northern part of the province, if not the prairies themselves.

in a city, people expect you to carry on and not disrupt the flow - because they don't appreciate waiting for you to stop and smile.

donald trump, like much of washington, including the clintons, is in the pocket of the saudi theocracy.

that is the basis of his hostility towards iran.

and, it is the basis of his hostility towards turkey, as well.

the russians are on the other side of this conflict, both trying to pull iran into it's sphere and take advantage of turkish-saudi tensions.

the russians and turks are on opposing sides of a long byzantine civil war, and a union, in the long run, is almost inevitable. america should be trying to keep them apart, not pushing them closer together.

the foreign policy narrative that the democrats are pushing is an outgrowth of the propaganda spewed by the clinton campaign and has no basis in reality whatsoever.

it is important that we have a principled foreign policy critique from the opposition, at this time; they need to just drop the bullshit altogether.

bend over, donald.

the prince is here.

america had moscow where it wanted it, but it fucked it up with it's own mismanagement.

of all of the stupid things trump does, actually siding with the saudis against the turks will likely be the dumbest.

i mean, it's one thing to stand back and let them destabilize each other, or even create the instability that does it.

but, to actively pick the side of the weakling saudis over the powerful turks is just simple stupidity. that is a war that is over before it starts.

"but, the saudis buy more weapons..."

right now, maybe, sure. in the long run? and over the last hundred years? and in the next hundred?

there's a powerful critique of capitalism in picking short term profit over long term geostrategic stability, isn't there?

the russians will clean up the mess, in the end.

and, this is potentially historic - because it is potentially stable. a turko-russian alliance has the potential of very deep integration.

so, is prince mohammad fucking you in the ass or what, donald?

how much did they pay you?

russian jets at incirlik? hrmmn.

they're setting up the discourse as demanding we make a choice between banning guns and hiring more cops.

i reject both approaches as equally stupid.

...and equally right-wing, fwiw.

i mean, a proper authoritarian vision would ban guns and hire more cops. what we really get to pick is which one we want first, right?

what we need to do is open a dialogue on reversing the americanization of our culture. we need social programs aimed at young kids. we need poverty reduction mechanisms. expanding educational opportunities.

but, this is going to be the new normal for the next four years: i'm going to find myself continually rejecting both sides of the argument, as two different types of conservatism.

so, he's going to reroute money away from programs that work and spend them on stupid ideas that no expert in the field thinks will be effective.

why doesn't he just round them up and yell at them?

in a van?

down by the river?

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/09/doug-ford-toronto-handgun-ban_a_23499331/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

ok.

the rebuild is now complete, from the beginning of 2013 forwards.

i'll need to push through 2015 quickly, to double check. but i should be back to where i was shortly.

and, i guess i'll need to be studying the market out of town, soon.

at the least i can say i got this done...and there's not a lot else i could be doing right now....

if trudeau wins in 2019, and he might, it will be on the strength of the celebrity brand he's built, and not on the liberal party brand or historical liberal party principles.

it will be because people are voting for his hair, not his policies.

it might happen, too.

in order for me to vote for the liberals again, they're going to need to do more than get rid of trudeau, who we've learned is basically trying to govern out of the back of some new age spiritual text. this guy is neither into passion nor reason but obsessed with magical thinking.

it's like voting for deepak chopra or something.

but, he's always been a front.

i'm going to want to see most of the backbench gone, too.

the party has fundamentally shifted, ideologically, in a way that i can no longer interpret as an acceptable governing party.

and, i expect that i'm going to be voting for smaller parties - or not at all - for the foreseeable future.

what we've learned is that if you vote for the liberals, even when they have a very left-leaning platform, you just get the conservatives, anyways. that was never true, previously. now, they have a very deep hole to climb out of in winning back their core base of supporters...

so, either as an environmentalist or as an anarchist, if you can vote for a major party that you think can actually win then you help do that. and, the liberals had both a good track record at the local level (if a less good one at the federal level...) and a good platform. so, you do that. perhaps cynically, sure, but you take that gamble - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

if the liberals had done anything in their platform, it would have been a worthwhile vote. and, neither the conservatives nor the ndp presented an acceptable environmentalist option....so it's not like there was some better outcome....

but, if you can't do that - which is now the case - then you vote for a protest party, or you don't vote at all.

i repeat that i think i made the right choice in 2015, even if they turned out to be dishonest, in the end - the evidence projected something else.

in 2019, i will be choosing between the smaller parties, if i bother voting at all.

voting with your heart is just stupid.

but, there's a place in anarchist theory for carefully, if cynically, voting with your brain.

in canada, you don't vote for the greens if you're serious about what you're doing. it's a protest vote.

there are usually two or three serious options in canada - and four in some ridings in quebec. elections generally reduce to which party is best positioned to defeat the conservatives this time around if you're not one; conservatives default to the conservative party. and, we often split the vote.

this might be changing, particularly in parts of bc and parts of ontario. but, this is a reaction to a rightward movement in the major parties.

up until now, the fact is that voting green has just helped the conservatives. this is just simple math. there is a strong argument that the greens cost stephane dion the election in 2008, although they were much less of a factor in 2011 - partly because of an ndp surge.

further, the liberals have generally presented enticing platforms to environmentalists, even when the ndp haven't. the ontario liberals made a lot of very good progress on converting the grid to sustainable energy. the bc liberals introduced a carbon tax. the quebec liberals have been relatively good on this, as well. the federal liberals basically ran on the green party platform in 2008. so, this hasn't just been empty promises - they've made concrete steps. people suggesting otherwise are being dishonest.

trudeau's platform was really not in any way inferior to the green party's platform, and you'd realize that if you actually read both of them. most interesting to me was the idea of a green infrastructure bank that, as a subsidiary of the bank of canada, would essentially print money and use it for transition. that is the way you actually transition - not through market schemes. what we need is massive direct government investment, and they were broadcasting it. i realized at the time that this seemed too good to be true, but the ndp were in the pocket of the oil industry and the conservatives were the conservatives, so it was a hobson's choice - you picked what seemed best.

based on the information available, the liberals were the right vote for environmentalists in 2015.

unfortunately, they've abandoned their platform - and demonstrated that all three major parties are beholden to the oil industry.

but, see, this ironically opens up the situation where voting green becomes necessary as an act of protest. it is only when all of the major parties are the same, when there is no possibility of using the ballot as a means of change, that you revert to voting as an act of protest....

anarchists prefer to broadcast lifestyle changes, and i agree with that. i don't drive. i don't create waste. my carbon footprint is truly negligible. but, insofar as we interact with the voting system, we need to make changes intended to maximize potential outcomes. all anarchists recognize that this is not a full solution, but the smart ones realize it is a tool for our use, too.

it is when we reduce voting to a meaningless statement of values or principles as an act of self-righteousness that we are giving in to the apathy of the voting system - and that is what we are doing when we vote for a party that we know has no chance of winning, when there is an acceptable option in front of us that does have a chance of winning.