this is perhaps the most confusing, intricate and difficult topic in canadian politics: the indigenous community's approach to the indian act.

indigenous activists will loudly stand up and denounce the legislation as racist, and they're right to do so. but, when give the opportunity to dismantle it, they demur - to a man or woman. the reason is that they don't want to be assimilated.

it's easy enough to accuse them of not wanting to give away what is even quickly becoming a strawman. as people leave the reserves, the scope of the indian act continues to wane. there have been attempts to introduce blood quantum rules that would amount to assimilation in a few generations. so, the easiest way to get rid of the indian act may actually be to stop amending it - to let it collapse into obsolescence.

but, this is a minefield, up here. - and it is legitimately hard, because it is not actually a contradiction. they want sovereignty and equality at the same time, to be the one and the other, the same and different - or separate, yet equal. by request.

the elder trudeau wanted assimilation, and he didn't get it. the younger trudeau may end up with little more than a confused mess.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/edmonton-afn-forum-policy-changes-1.5119133

"but, who feeds you and clothes you while you're off carrying through with your enlightened purpose?"

it's a neat trick they play on you. first, they define this idea called property that ensures that anybody that doesn't own a substantive amount of it is unable to exist independently. then, they tell you that you're living off the system when you refuse to roll over at the extortion.

i'll tell you what my answer is: i have no sympathy for people that buy into the system, and then complain about the people that don't. my answer is: get out of the system, which is not a response of insolence but is actually one of self-interest.

i would rather feed and clothe myself. i'm happy to do it, but you won't let me - you insist on controlling the property. and, i'll look you in the eye and say it to your face: you can't have it both ways.

so, let's call the welfare check a redistribution of property rights, then.

somebody should do an experiment.

stand outside a fast food restaurant and record how angry and alienated people are as they walk by.

but, this is what capitalism does to people: it turns them into these self-loathing ticking time bombs that are so full of hate at themselves and everybody else that they're set to explode at random people they meet on the street.

we have the power to change our own culture. this isn't inevitable. we can end this.

the bottom line is this: you made the choice to go to work and waste your life. it's not my fault that you're miserable, so don't take it out on me - take responsibility for your own failures and turn your life around by quitting the job that you hate.

once you've emancipated yourself, maybe you'll lose the urge to start fights with people standing around waiting for the weather to clear. maybe you'll stop hating yourself that much. eh?

if you want some kind of purpose, some kind of meaning, to "do something with your life", you must begin by taking yourself back from the collectivist horde of market capitalism.

you must first define yourself.

and, if you're not intelligent enough to do that, you're a lost cause. enjoy your slavery.

"i have purpose. i have kids."

that's pathetic. your kids rely on you. that's not purpose, it's responsibility.

"well, i have a job."

are you the boss?

"sort of..."

a middle manager is not a boss.

"ok, i'm not the boss."

so, your purpose is doing what you're told? pfft. some purpose.

"but i have religion."

religion is not a purpose, but the absence of it.

"but..."

...but nothing.

i'll tell you what you lack. individuality. you're not a person. you're a slave. and, that's what you're struggling to figure out.

i am in fact driven very powerfully by my artwork. i dedicate long hours to it, and it gives me great meaning and great purpose.

the truth is that all of these dipshits criticizing me could be so lucky as to find as powerful of a driving force.

i already have what they think i lack - and they lack what they think i need.

as is so often the case, it's all about the blind leading the blind.

i got stuck doing groceries in the rain, so i stopped to get a sub. the rain was still going when i was done, so i stood outside the door, waiting for it to pass.

some idiot showed up and couldn't figure out how to get past me, and had a hissy fit about it, essentially trying to pick a fight with me in the process.

i'm never going to back down from a shouting match with anybody. i will stand my ground. i don't care who the fuck you are. you get in my face, i'll get right back in yours.

but, this guy was clearly not very bright. and, i'll leave it at that.

put another way: the market is a collectivist dictatorship that excels in one thing and one thing only, and that is stamping out the ambitions of creative individuals to accomplish their own goals and dreams.

in the end, you'll wake up retired and wonder where your life disappeared to.

and the answer is that you wasted it at work.

the reason we have such high levels of depression in this society is because we center it around employment, and then try to define ourselves that way, as though the market has the ability to provide meaning and purpose to existence.

it doesn't.

all that any job will ever do is prevent you from getting to where you want to in life by wasting your energy and your focus and your resources.

people that want to "do something with their life" don't get jobs, as though there's a category of people that have decided not to do anything with their life, as though that isn't a contradiction in terms.

people that want to "do something with their life" quit their jobs in order to do it.

which is actually where i am in life.

if you're curious.

it's a long process ahead of me.

the next step is filing in superior court.

i'm a victim, here.

and i deserve the compensation i am seeking.

harassment is a serious crime, i don't doubt this.

that's why i've never harassed anybody.

and, it's why i'm going to ensure that the people responsible for falsely charging me are held accountable for their own crimes in harassing myself.

the facts are that i was falsely accused and the charges were dropped. as the guilty party is a police officer, i understand that i have an uphill battle in getting him charged. however, i'm confident that the evidence is on my side and that i will eventually prevail in the matter.

so, i mean...

can they do better than trump? certainly. could they do worse? absolutely.

and, might the democratic nominee end up less appealing? it's a distinct possibility...

i want to make my viewpoint clear on this.

how bad is trump? or how not so bad is he, really?

these are the presidents over the last fifty years - a list that both jfk and lbj are no longer on.

- nixon
- ford
- carter
- reagan
- bush I
- clinton
- bush II
- obama
- trump

where does trump fall in the list?

well, it's not such an impressive list, is it? you can be a really shitty president, and still end up somewhere in the middle. that's the real problem we're facing in trying to understand trump: his contemporaries were not very impressive.

who were the really, really bad presidents that you put at the very bottom? nixon has a bad reputation, but he had nader on his ass, so you got things like the epa out of him. i would not put nixon at the bottom of this list, or even near it. of the presidents in this pile, bush II is in sole contention for the bottom of the list. so, you take him right out - he was probably the worst the country's seen, and may be the worst the country ever does see. pointless wars, collapsed economy - nobody comes close to this.

are there any near the top? no. i don't think any of these presidents are worth identifying as having done a good job.

are there any that kind of just sat on the throne for a while, keeping it warm? if doing no harm is better than creating harm, you put the caretaker presidents at the top.

so, it follows that the best president of the last fifty years would be gerald ford, because at least he didn't fuck anything up. you'd need to put carter in as a close second, because he didn't accomplish very much, either. the next least memorable president would be obama.

that leaves nixon, reagan, bush, clinton and trump left to place in the middle.

reagan and bush may not have been the disasters that dubya was, but i can't think of a single good policy that they did while in office, and there was certainly a lot of bad, so i'm going to list them together at 7/8. at this stage in history, i can't think of any positive policy that clinton pushed through either, and he really only tweaked the bush-reagan legacy, so he barely comes in at number 6.

trump, on the other hand, may end up with a positive trade legacy - it's hard to say. he has a mixed bag on the military front, but if he ends up being responsible for a serious withdrawal from the middle east, that's more than clinton - who bombed the fuck out of iraq - can claim. if he gets through his term without bombing latin america, he could be the most pro-peace president in the list, with the potential exception of carter.

but, neither clinton nor trump can compete with the positive legacy of nixon, even if he was being pushed by nader, and even if it was on the tail end of the lbj administration. nixon may be responsible for the direction the republicans took in later years, but his legacy in terms of positive policy still stands out in this particular list. if it weren't for all of the terrible things he did, if we were to measure him solely by his positive contributions, he'd clearly be the best in this list.

so, here's your answer. here's a ranking of the presidents of the last fifty years:

1. ford
2. carter
3. obama
4. nixon
5. trump - tentatively
6. clinton
7/8. bush-reagan
9. bush II

this is harassment - this is why there are laws on the book.

you have a verbal warning being left, with what is determined to be a credible threat of harm. it's up to the state to show that the threat to harm bernie is indeed credible, and, if so, that would be in the small list of things that speech doesn't cover.

the key point is harm - there has to be a credible concept of harm.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/05/01/florida-man-guilty-of-leaving-threats-for-bernie-sanders.html

i've been clear, but i'll say it again.

when i said "i'd move to singapore, if it weren't for the muslims", that wasn't hyperbolic or an exaggeration.

they would literally imprison me. and they might kill me.

due to the religious laws in place in the society, that's not an option for relocation.

do you think you could fight off a tiger?

how about a police squadron?

or a mob of people looking to lynch you?

i would be imprisoned and probably killed if i moved to singapore.

that's not an exaggeration: the muslims would be as dangerous to me as the animals would.

i'm not the nazi, they are. that's my point.

i will not need to file an appeal on the file destruction request, at least.

except for the fact that i can't upload anything to noise trade because they won't accept any cover art, august of 2013 is totally done.

i'm going to be spending the morning readying myself for an appointment, and my fridge is almost empty. but, i'll actually be focusing on the court case, next - and getting back to the fall semester of 2013 only when i have a rough outline of what i'm filing.

it looks like i will need to file the following:

1) appeal of the oiprd decision
2) appeal of the access request
3) constitutional challenge on the legality of the arrest
4) human rights complaint against the property owner

i'm experiencing a total failure in the legal system and am going after it all at once.

i might not get to london until the end of july, but we'll see.

but, it's time to finally get to writing the papers.

so, the only way to get the chronologically ordered pdf file for this blog for right now is here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/08-2013-music-journal

i will not be posting these files to my google drive, moving forward.

so, no other site does what i want, besides noise trade.

bandcamp, it is. for now.

this blog & the music blog are both up at the link, and they will soon be joined by the dtk blog and the travel blog, as well as a zip of txt files.

to be clear.

i'm not "holding out" on spotify. i don't want higher royalties. i don't want them to change their approach. i'm not waiting for a better deal.

i am completely and permanently rejecting the premise of paying a third party to subscribe to music as a service; this will never be acceptable to me, no matter how they tweak it.

i refuse to participate in subscription services, either. ever. so, no spotify, no itunes, no google play and no scribd. to me, this represents the absolute death of art. i want a direct relationship, even if i need a bourgeois layer.

ugh.

so, what i want is a site that i can personalize (i want it to be *my* site, not just a searchable market) that will host the files for free and let you send me a donation if you want. noise trade does this, but virtually everything else is centered around amazon and kindles.

i can't upload this to amazon, because it's not a work of fiction. esa is a real person, and those are her actual words. those are actual emails exchanged between my stepmother, my sister and i. those are actual conversations with my actual mother.

like, it's not a work of fiction. so, i don't own the copyright...

but, i don't want my blogs for sale on amazon, either. that's disgusting. it's amazon. i want an independent site...

noise trade might be the only way to do this, and if it's shutting down or otherwise breaking then we're going to have to let it sit at bandcamp.

what i want is essentially a site for books that operates exactly like bandcamp....

so, the politics archive is finished, but i can't publish it to noise trade because it won't accept cover art submissions, which is stupid to begin with. i'm not selling pictures, i'm selling words. nobody cares about cover art...

the site was recently purchased by paste magazine, who have apparently ruined it in roughly a week.

i have no patience for this, so i'm going to be spending some time looking for a different site to host the files, and i'll just delete the account there once i find it. 

the reason i picked noise trade is that it allows for free downloads, but, for the time being, you'll have to get it at bandcamp (for a fee), instead.