Saturday, December 15, 2018

see, this is just reflective of his blurry thinking around this.

any future government can repeal any legislation of this sort. the only actual way to stop it would be for the senate to block it, which would create a serious constitutional crisis - and would not actually happen.

so, on some level it's merely symbolic. but, it's actually deeply irresponsible, and it would really be better if he just didn't do it at all.

i don't even think these changes would survive a shift to a new liberal pmo, let alone a change in power.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/15/justin-trudeau-to-block-future-pms-from-reversing-senate-reforms_a_23618918/
ok. so that was more time consuming than i wanted it to be, but i'm now caught back up to where i was in mid sept, 2016.

so, what i've done is pull all of the hidden youtube posts down from both profiles up to that point and place them in proper order, meaning the master document and both vlogs are now properly synced. i will eventually need to create a third vlog for music reviews, but who knows when that will be

i want this to be systematic, so i'm going to explore some further things before i get back to the rebuild. i think i've posted at google+, for example. and, there are some other local documents to file.

but, i'm going to put it aside for now and get the court documents ready to file, hopefully for mid-week.
i'm coming up on seven months straight-edge, btw.

i'm getting better, but i feel i'm still recovering from the issues in the previous apartment and am planning to remain straight-edge over the holidays, at this time.
well, i don't know.

can the democrats do better than bernie sanders?

i consider elizabeth warren to be a republican and would not support her. she's a market fundamentalist; she's more like obama than sanders.

i don't think it helps anybody to be seriously considering the idea of running people that will be octogenarians by the end of their first term, but i don't really see a viable option - and if he's the best they've got, i'll line up again. sure.

but, i need to reiterate the point - i have not historically supported the democrats. i was a nader supporter and have been a stein supporter. during the primaries, i've supported candidates like sanders and kucinich, and have then tended to withdraw support during the actual election. my endorsement of clinton was exceedingly weak.

i felt kerry was legitimately a lesser evil, but that was the exception to the rule.

i'm probably not going to support the democratic candidate as a lesser evil, whomever it is. sorry.
it's kind of like how all of that money they sunk into clinton couldn't beat trump, isn't it?

https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/59vz9k/beto-orourkes-dollar69-million-couldnt-defeat-ted-cruz
i think democrats should probably set their sets a little higher than somebody that couldn't even beat ted cruz.

"well, maybe trump won again, but look - we only lost texas by 2%."
so, you want to run somebody that lost to ted cruz.

ok, then.

you know who completely demolished ted cruz, right?
i mean, i wonder if elizabeth warren is more or less indigenous than theresa spence?

they don't look very different from each other, do they?

there's really no justification for these purity tests - they need to be abolished. nobody should be supporting this kind of hyper-insularist thinking. 


it seems to me that it's these tribes that are being racist in refusing to accept that a phenotypically white person may have some native american ancestry - they are refusing to accept her as one of their own because of her skin colour, and that she be called out and denounced.

more broadly speaking, this is something that should be spoken about with greater transparency. there is widespread misunderstanding all around about this that needs to be properly held up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

despite what some tribal leaders may imagine is the case, the fact of the matter is that indigenous is not a closed identity, and indigenous groups have taken in genetic variation from all over the world, particularly western europe and western africa. indigenous groups in north america have changed so much through the introduction of foreign genetic material that their ancestors would not recognize or understand them at all. there are some indigenous tribes that report over 80% r1* markers, which is the indo-european male marker - these groups are dominantly european in their ethnic background, yet they have no problem claiming indigenous identity, despite having minimal indigenous ancestry. and, these aren't posh senators from massachusetts, they're people with influence in their own communities.

in 2018, essentially nobody east of the rockies is going to test as more than 30% indigenous. that's the cold, hard fact of it.

is there a concept of metis in the united states? in canada, elizabeth warren would haven't to identify as a specific tribe to gain indigenous rights, she could identify as what we used to call a "half-breed" and today call "metis". but, see, this is a consequence of the fact that canada doesn't have a history of one-drop definitions in terms of racial identity. in latin america, you have an entire vocabulary of different categorizations; in the united states you're either white or not. and, maybe that's really the problem.

depending on the test, i'm likely to test positive for native ancestry, jewish ancestry, african ancestry and asian ancestry - despite being widely mistaken for white. i'm only, like, 30% white. and, i don't know how to identify, besides rejecting the premise. so, i have a little empathy around this.

people condemning her for this should really take a step back and reflect on what they're doing and whether they can really justify it or not - because the actual empirical reality is that a random sample of phenotypically indigenous people is not going to be very indigenous in the genotype, in the first place. you're really, legitimately just criticizing her for what she looks like - and that shouldn't be normalized or accepted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-dna-test-2020.html?module=inline
while i tend to support the use of violence in revolutionary struggle, there are only two imperialist wars in the modern period that i've supported - or, more accurately, two entities that i've supported using force against.

the first is the nazis. the second is isis. and, i'm absolutely willing to draw very deep comparisons between the nazis and the saudis, as they are both operating under warped ideologies that see themselves as the rightful inheritors of a system of global dominance - these are brutal systems of race-based oppression that are actually very similar in operation.

it was never isis itself that was the root of the problem, but the saudi monarchy that needs to be overthrown. we need regime change in saudi arabia, a secular revolution to overthrow the islamists, and if you really want a longlasting peace in the region, you realize the need for that - that getting out of the way is just an algorithm for allowing the saudis to continue slaughtering people with impunity. finding peace means getting to the root causes, not getting out of the way.

further, in both cases, i understand that the motives of the imperialist power are not aligned with the left. the anglo-soviet alliance was not created to save jews or gypsies or communists, but to contain german expansion - it was an imperialist war through and through. nobody argues against the fact that the nazis had to be defeated, nonetheless, even if it meant supporting an imperialist government in order to do it. and, likewise, history will not be kind on those that resisted bombing campaigns against the islamic state, regardless of the fact that the motives of the various actors are purely self-interested - these are groups that cannot be allowed to exist in any capacity at all whatsoever.

due to russian help, as is so often the case, isis is losing; what was once a dangerous power vacuum is being filled, and support for radical jihadist movements is being replaced by support for secular forces, who are increasingly able to reach the population as the islamists are driven out or brutally killed. this is a success that should be celebrated. it was very important that the islamists be made an example of, so people could see that their ideology is hollow - these people were not chosen by anything or anybody besides saudi oil money, and their claims to any magical supernatural powers are belied by the fact that they are strung up in the public square by their bowels. it was necessary to do this. and, a massive public re-education campaign that reasserts secularism must now follow.

but, what that means is that it is time to withdraw and allow for the secular governments in the region to establish themselves. this is not consistent with the logic of imperialism, but support for the imperialists must be withdrawn, nonetheless - once the fascists are destroyed, the temporary alliance must be dissolved, and support must shift to the people on the ground that are arguing for self-determination via modern, civilized forms of governance.

i do not see any other ongoing imperialist wars that i have any support for. but, my conditions for aligning with imperialist powers are on the table - fascism cannot be tolerated in any form, and alliances with imperialism are justified in the face of any rising threat of fascism, as difficult as that may be to stomach.

the primary focus right now should be on supporting leftist, secularist revolutionary forces inside of the saudi kingdom that are agitating to overthrow the monarchy.
can you point me to a left-wing democrat that has organized a membership drive for tens of thousands of new voters?

no?

then expect another female candidate that is a republican in all but name. that's what the people that actually registered and actually donated actually want.
the democrats are not the party of working class people, they're a bourgeois party that represents middle income earners in the educated part of the professional class. they're a moderate conservative party with middle class values. yes - they can be "liberal" on a good day, which means they believe in equality of opportunity and don't like unnecessary wars. but, it is structurally almost impossible to organize for meaningful change within the party - it requires organizing a hostile takeover via a massive registration drive, with the full understanding that the party is going to discard the results any way it can, while it holds massive advantages in funding and resources.
the big problem that sanders had was that he couldn't get his people registered in time. all of these kids out at those rallies couldn't vote for him.

so, the focus over the last several years should have been on a massive voter registration drive, in order to shift the democratic base away from older conservatives and towards younger voters.

however, all of this anti-trump mainstream media coverage in the centre or even the right of the spectrum, the maddows and the snls and whatnot, has turned anti-trumpism into a popular movement, rather than a political one. and, if you're a democratic party oligarch, that's the kind of registration drive you wanted. you don't want college students with massive debts that may or may not show up, you want middle aged professionals that are able to donate to the party and are going to register when they're hooked.

so, the problem that sanders faced is going to be exacerbated - it's going to be impossible to win the primary.
support for universal healthcare is racist.

get ready for it.
i have no idea who is going to win the democratic primary, and you don't, either.

...but, the fact that the democrats are operating under a large tent right now means an obama-style conservative democrat is far more likely than a "progressive".

these white, suburban voters that are being registered by snl are not going to get excited by universal healthcare. they want bourgeois approaches to feminism and a focus on liberal values like equality of opportunity.

and, they're going to browbeat you into organizing to save obamacare by accusing you of being a nazi if you don't support them.
but, there's no ethical consumption in late capitalism.

whatever, man. yolo.

#backwardshatsaresubversive

it's not a total solution, but it's a good start. let's have an applause for the mp on this.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/14/modern-slavery-bill-john-mckay-forced-child-labour_a_23618530/
they were both racists.

fuck.
you're not going to look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you think hillary clinton isn't horribly racist, are you?

i wonder if any super-predators went back in time and tried to stop her from voting for goldwater.