i walk around the neighbourhood, and i don't smell much food baking - but i do smell a lot of marijuana. for blocks, around.
i suspect this christmas will be remembered by canadians as "the year we smoked mom".
see, i think it's already fairly normal for the family members under 40 - or is it 50 now - to take a walk out to the garage at the christmas get together and come back smelling a little funny. i guess the proposed change is more an inclusive thing.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
cheetahs may not be easy to tree, but they are in fact closely related to cougars. it's interesting to wonder what would happen should the cheetah make contact with a cougar of the opposite sex.
if it weren't for the collar, i may even wonder how likely it would be for a cougar to maintain their spots to such an age.
what would a cougar-bobcat hybrid look like? being intermediate in size is almost guaranteed, and cheetah-like spots are a distinct possibility.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/cheetah-on-the-loose-along-highway-near-kootenay-bay-bc-/61268/
if it weren't for the collar, i may even wonder how likely it would be for a cougar to maintain their spots to such an age.
what would a cougar-bobcat hybrid look like? being intermediate in size is almost guaranteed, and cheetah-like spots are a distinct possibility.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/cheetah-on-the-loose-along-highway-near-kootenay-bay-bc-/61268/
at
12:32
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
thanks
got your card and your check. thanks.
it's been very warm here, too. there were days in november where we got over 20 degreees, and over 25 with the humidex. humidex readings in november! and, we've gotten over 15 a few times in december.
it's 12 right now, but it's more than the temperature - it feels like april. just the air humidity. the fact that there is no frost in the ground at all. i don't think we're going to actually get a winter, here at all. the closest thing to winter will be a few snaps around 0.
i mean, the days are getting longer, now. there's no ice on the lakes. there's not even much snow cover in northern ontario. in order to have winter here, we have to have snow cover north of here to reflect the sunlight and we have to have the lakes freeze over, at least a little bit.
it's supposedly the el nino, and that's no doubt true. but these increasingly intense el ninos are a consequence of warming ocean temperatures.
i think it might get cold again for a few years after this, though. when the el nino fades, we're going to have to go back to dealing with those exaggerated jetstreams as a consequence of the upcoming solar minimum. so enjoy the nice weather this year.
it's been very warm here, too. there were days in november where we got over 20 degreees, and over 25 with the humidex. humidex readings in november! and, we've gotten over 15 a few times in december.
it's 12 right now, but it's more than the temperature - it feels like april. just the air humidity. the fact that there is no frost in the ground at all. i don't think we're going to actually get a winter, here at all. the closest thing to winter will be a few snaps around 0.
i mean, the days are getting longer, now. there's no ice on the lakes. there's not even much snow cover in northern ontario. in order to have winter here, we have to have snow cover north of here to reflect the sunlight and we have to have the lakes freeze over, at least a little bit.
it's supposedly the el nino, and that's no doubt true. but these increasingly intense el ninos are a consequence of warming ocean temperatures.
i think it might get cold again for a few years after this, though. when the el nino fades, we're going to have to go back to dealing with those exaggerated jetstreams as a consequence of the upcoming solar minimum. so enjoy the nice weather this year.
at
12:05
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'm going to explain why this is a bad tactic: it's because it's too easy to emulate, and turn horribly. in fact, it's probably already too late.
imagine the conservatives, with defense industry backing, running an action movie star that wants to turn canada into a terrorist killing supermachine. boom boom. pow wow. when you lower the narrative this far, you open people up for this level of manipulation.
fashion is highly subjective, but there is one objective truth about it: it always burns itself out. there's always a new thing. it's a way to write yourself directly into irrelevance, by giving yourself an expiry date.
but, i think you have to expect this kind of institutional pr shtick from the liberals. the team is full of educated, upper class people. they'll never figure it out.
www.cbc.ca/news/arts/sophie-gregoire-trudeau-style-icon-1.3376861
SkyBlue1
Hahahaha! you're kidding right? This is the Arts and Entertainment section, I think people can figure it out for themselves except those miserable cons who can't get past the fact that their guy lost.
jessica murray
they seem to be following a conscious strategy of mobilizing the apolitical. it's a strategy that various third parties have cited for quite some time - this idea that 30% of the population doesn't vote, and if you can tap into them then you can build a base out of them. while there may be some value to this, mobilizing them on the basis of fashion or popular culture is a self-defeating proposition.
imagine the conservatives, with defense industry backing, running an action movie star that wants to turn canada into a terrorist killing supermachine. boom boom. pow wow. when you lower the narrative this far, you open people up for this level of manipulation.
fashion is highly subjective, but there is one objective truth about it: it always burns itself out. there's always a new thing. it's a way to write yourself directly into irrelevance, by giving yourself an expiry date.
but, i think you have to expect this kind of institutional pr shtick from the liberals. the team is full of educated, upper class people. they'll never figure it out.
www.cbc.ca/news/arts/sophie-gregoire-trudeau-style-icon-1.3376861
SkyBlue1
Hahahaha! you're kidding right? This is the Arts and Entertainment section, I think people can figure it out for themselves except those miserable cons who can't get past the fact that their guy lost.
jessica murray
they seem to be following a conscious strategy of mobilizing the apolitical. it's a strategy that various third parties have cited for quite some time - this idea that 30% of the population doesn't vote, and if you can tap into them then you can build a base out of them. while there may be some value to this, mobilizing them on the basis of fashion or popular culture is a self-defeating proposition.
at
11:45
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
yeah. this is basically reducing a classic work of art to strict pornography.
i would probably react well to something that was more thought out.
i need to point something out, though.
if i were the remaining members of queen, as one entity, i might be somewhat unhappy with the song's identification with wayne's world, and might want to have that changed - both for artistic reasons and perhaps also for financial ones. that association seems to be fairly engrained in people's minds.
see, they'd have to do a lot better than this to break that association, though.
i mean, honestly.
imagine having your masterpiece forever entangled with a dana carvey & mike myers skit. there should have been a "no rhapsody" sign on the filming set. it's an injustice!
i would probably react well to something that was more thought out.
i need to point something out, though.
if i were the remaining members of queen, as one entity, i might be somewhat unhappy with the song's identification with wayne's world, and might want to have that changed - both for artistic reasons and perhaps also for financial ones. that association seems to be fairly engrained in people's minds.
see, they'd have to do a lot better than this to break that association, though.
i mean, honestly.
imagine having your masterpiece forever entangled with a dana carvey & mike myers skit. there should have been a "no rhapsody" sign on the filming set. it's an injustice!
at
01:05
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
should rem actually release a hip-hop compilation? should they let fucking ice cube or something loose on some old tapes?
there's enough material for a full record. maybe get some new phat spits out of the man in the process.
there's enough material for a full record. maybe get some new phat spits out of the man in the process.
at
00:36
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
that flow, baby. that flow.
i'm just a little confused by this recent meme of rem being the whitest music ever.
not that there isn't some gleam of truth to it, or that it would be terrible if it were true.
but, i think that the idea of pigeon-holing their music by race would strike them as a revolting one, and i think there's plenty of potential for cross-cultural enjoyment of their music - especially, as it would be, with hip-hop fans. there's actually legitimately some very serious crossover potential, there.
it's sad to me that people don't see that, and are willing to jump to what are blatantly unsupportable conclusions based on minimal exposure.
i'm just a little confused by this recent meme of rem being the whitest music ever.
not that there isn't some gleam of truth to it, or that it would be terrible if it were true.
but, i think that the idea of pigeon-holing their music by race would strike them as a revolting one, and i think there's plenty of potential for cross-cultural enjoyment of their music - especially, as it would be, with hip-hop fans. there's actually legitimately some very serious crossover potential, there.
it's sad to me that people don't see that, and are willing to jump to what are blatantly unsupportable conclusions based on minimal exposure.
at
00:22
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
this is motherfucking flow.
it's beatnik flow. but, it's flow.
it's beatnik flow. but, it's flow.
at
23:31
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i think that compensating those convicted of non-violent marijuana offenses is a noble use of some of the tax funds.
if we acknowledge that consensual marijuana use amongst adults is absolutely harmless today, it means it always was and the state has a duty to right the wrong created by it's previous negligence.
a class-action suit would win, and should win.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marijuana-convictions-justin-trudeau-legalization-1.3377056
if we acknowledge that consensual marijuana use amongst adults is absolutely harmless today, it means it always was and the state has a duty to right the wrong created by it's previous negligence.
a class-action suit would win, and should win.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marijuana-convictions-justin-trudeau-legalization-1.3377056
at
10:01
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
21-12-2015: the predictable quarterly stomach ache
tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/im-sure-your-mom-is-probably-a-very-nice-person
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/im-sure-your-mom-is-probably-a-very-nice-person
at
01:59
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Monday, December 21, 2015
if you're going to title your talk "obama in china", i fully expect gratuitous use of airbrushed photos of obama's head on nixon's body, dancing provocatively in front of giant pictures of mao.
hey. the republicans would pay good money for it.
deathtokoalas
+jessica i've been waiting for years for the discourse to change to language that suggests that the problem is being taken more seriously, and if anything the language and consequent ideological approaches have only gotten worse. i actually read one report a little after paris that criticized the agreement for being too reliant on "20th century governing approaches" and not "implementing modern, incentive-based policies".
all that this language broadcasts is that the issue isn't actually being taken seriously - still.
i think maybe some of it might have to do with the way that wealthy people interact with the environment. it's seen as something in the realm of philanthropy. politicians treat it all as legacy issues. the result is that the upper class has this warped perspective - making space for a wetland is "giving something back", merely an act of unprovoked kindness, whereas destroying a wetland is just doing business. there's no sense of duty - either legally or morally.
from this warped concept, we get the idea of levying fines to address climate change. we give out fines for breaking rules that have few externalities, or largely meaningless ones. if you park your car on the side of the road, or cross the street away from the lights - that's a fine. and, if you dump acid into the river then that's a fine, too - because not doing so would be an act of kindness, of giving back.
we're never getting anywhere with this until we change our attitude. dumping acid into the river is a crime and should land you in jail. that's right. jail. down the river. cuffs.
you think that's too much? then you're not taking the problem seriously.
stop. shut up. you really aren't.
hey. the republicans would pay good money for it.
deathtokoalas
+jessica i've been waiting for years for the discourse to change to language that suggests that the problem is being taken more seriously, and if anything the language and consequent ideological approaches have only gotten worse. i actually read one report a little after paris that criticized the agreement for being too reliant on "20th century governing approaches" and not "implementing modern, incentive-based policies".
all that this language broadcasts is that the issue isn't actually being taken seriously - still.
i think maybe some of it might have to do with the way that wealthy people interact with the environment. it's seen as something in the realm of philanthropy. politicians treat it all as legacy issues. the result is that the upper class has this warped perspective - making space for a wetland is "giving something back", merely an act of unprovoked kindness, whereas destroying a wetland is just doing business. there's no sense of duty - either legally or morally.
from this warped concept, we get the idea of levying fines to address climate change. we give out fines for breaking rules that have few externalities, or largely meaningless ones. if you park your car on the side of the road, or cross the street away from the lights - that's a fine. and, if you dump acid into the river then that's a fine, too - because not doing so would be an act of kindness, of giving back.
we're never getting anywhere with this until we change our attitude. dumping acid into the river is a crime and should land you in jail. that's right. jail. down the river. cuffs.
you think that's too much? then you're not taking the problem seriously.
stop. shut up. you really aren't.
at
07:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
you would need to run super-computers in parallel, hillary. it needs to be brute force.
unless you think you can revolutionize number theory in ways that are widely considered to be impossible and have eluded mathematicians for thousands of years. can you find a pattern in the distribution of prime numbers, for example? these are very difficult, but very foundational, questions in mathematics. history has repeatedly presented answers to questions of these sorts in the form of accidents, and often from unknown prodigies. i'd love to see the money directed that way, but you're not going to get a better theory of arithmetic by increasing spending.
there's no royal road to geometry.
there's a sticker on my microwave that claims that the device is complaint with communications regulations. what that actually means is that it can be controlled remotely. this is true of almost any electronic device. if you can pass a law that says the government has the right to take control of your toaster, i don't know why it's considered so brazen to pass a law that says that the government has the right to take control of your phone.
i think people need to change their perspectives on digital privacy. it's not even a question of ideals, it's more of a question of being realistic. if you have a reason to not use a phone, you should really not use a phone. i don't mean to present that in your typical "you have nothing to hide" context, i mean to state that as a pragmatic directive: if you are an activist, and you have any legitimate concerns about privacy whatsoever, be it in the context of civil disobedience or perhaps corporate espionage, you should not use any telecommunications devices.
what you do through telecommunications - which travels in public through airwaves or cables - needs to be perceived as as public as what you do at a shopping mall. i guess the disconnect is that you were once on a computer in your living room, so people saw the internet as in the realm of your personal life. but, this collapses pretty quickly when you think about it. if you're walking around in public and sending signals through the air to towers then you're in public - and should behave as though you are.
if you're going to use their servers, you're simply naive to expect them not to snoop on you. this question of exactly what they're doing and exactly what they're not doing is not what you should be concerning yourself with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gph0CupQv0
unless you think you can revolutionize number theory in ways that are widely considered to be impossible and have eluded mathematicians for thousands of years. can you find a pattern in the distribution of prime numbers, for example? these are very difficult, but very foundational, questions in mathematics. history has repeatedly presented answers to questions of these sorts in the form of accidents, and often from unknown prodigies. i'd love to see the money directed that way, but you're not going to get a better theory of arithmetic by increasing spending.
there's no royal road to geometry.
there's a sticker on my microwave that claims that the device is complaint with communications regulations. what that actually means is that it can be controlled remotely. this is true of almost any electronic device. if you can pass a law that says the government has the right to take control of your toaster, i don't know why it's considered so brazen to pass a law that says that the government has the right to take control of your phone.
i think people need to change their perspectives on digital privacy. it's not even a question of ideals, it's more of a question of being realistic. if you have a reason to not use a phone, you should really not use a phone. i don't mean to present that in your typical "you have nothing to hide" context, i mean to state that as a pragmatic directive: if you are an activist, and you have any legitimate concerns about privacy whatsoever, be it in the context of civil disobedience or perhaps corporate espionage, you should not use any telecommunications devices.
what you do through telecommunications - which travels in public through airwaves or cables - needs to be perceived as as public as what you do at a shopping mall. i guess the disconnect is that you were once on a computer in your living room, so people saw the internet as in the realm of your personal life. but, this collapses pretty quickly when you think about it. if you're walking around in public and sending signals through the air to towers then you're in public - and should behave as though you are.
if you're going to use their servers, you're simply naive to expect them not to snoop on you. this question of exactly what they're doing and exactly what they're not doing is not what you should be concerning yourself with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gph0CupQv0
at
07:02
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'm a little skeptical of the idea that light is the absolute limit, but i'm not at all skeptical about the idea of a boundary point occurring in mass-energy transfer. the reason light is claimed to be the speed limit is because it's assumed to be pure energy. no mass. there's no experimental support for this claim; rather, we have a particle-wave duality that ought to cast some questions on it. on top of that, the math makes more sense when you acknowledge the existence of the always present implied epsilon, rather than pretend it's not really there.
but, if light is not the fastest thing then the fastest thing cannot be much faster because light cannot have much mass. there is some space for the possibility of moving two or three times the speed of light, but not faster than that.
so, therefore aliens are impossible, right? no. because, you're making another assumption without realizing it: that aliens must have comparable life spans to humans. if an alien could live for tens of thousands of years, space travel would be an entirely feasible proposition.
some biologist will reject this offhand. but, the truth is that we seem to have taken a wrong turn on the evolutionary tree in terms of longevity, some time many millions of years ago. had we evolved from turtles, we would likely live for several centuries rather than several decades. there's no intrinsic requirement for cell death; arguments about the laws of physics on earth only apply to the earth. a different kind of environment may actually select for extreme longevity.
it seems to be clear that space travel is not something that humans will be possible of for many eons, if ever at all. we're running up against a biological limit rather than a technological one. now, there's abstract ways around this. we could consider cloning our consciousness to data storage and then reuploading it into a new clone created from scratch - that way we could exist in the computers for the thousand of years of travel time. but, that is not just solving the problem of space travel, it is solving the problem of mortality.
i think the key point in grappling with this is in realizing what the actual problem is in contemplating the likelihood of travel, and it's that our lives are too short.
but, if light is not the fastest thing then the fastest thing cannot be much faster because light cannot have much mass. there is some space for the possibility of moving two or three times the speed of light, but not faster than that.
so, therefore aliens are impossible, right? no. because, you're making another assumption without realizing it: that aliens must have comparable life spans to humans. if an alien could live for tens of thousands of years, space travel would be an entirely feasible proposition.
some biologist will reject this offhand. but, the truth is that we seem to have taken a wrong turn on the evolutionary tree in terms of longevity, some time many millions of years ago. had we evolved from turtles, we would likely live for several centuries rather than several decades. there's no intrinsic requirement for cell death; arguments about the laws of physics on earth only apply to the earth. a different kind of environment may actually select for extreme longevity.
it seems to be clear that space travel is not something that humans will be possible of for many eons, if ever at all. we're running up against a biological limit rather than a technological one. now, there's abstract ways around this. we could consider cloning our consciousness to data storage and then reuploading it into a new clone created from scratch - that way we could exist in the computers for the thousand of years of travel time. but, that is not just solving the problem of space travel, it is solving the problem of mortality.
i think the key point in grappling with this is in realizing what the actual problem is in contemplating the likelihood of travel, and it's that our lives are too short.
at
06:35
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Stone Pestal
Hey Justin I am a Canadian who cannot find a job ,along with 1,000,000 plus other Canadians .Your government just allowed 27,000 unknown Syrian refugees into Canada .Meanwhile Canadians are homeless ,living on the streets and short of food .You are paying $375 a month for rent to people on Welfare .You have just brought in refugees while Canadians are suffering and there is an affordable housing crisis .What ? Are you going to do for Canadians ?
jessica
+Stone Pestal
there's not really a reason why we have to choose between helping existing canadians and getting people out of a situation of imminent genocide. i don't want to stop the flow of refugees, but i would like to see more resources put into subsidized housing.
the thing you have to understand, though, is the way the division of powers in the country works. it's not 100% a provincial responsibility. but, it's about 90% a provincial responsibility. trudeau can basically do one thing, here, and it's write a check. if you're concerned about the low level of assistance, or the shoddy state of subsidized housing, you need to contact your mpp and your local city council representative.
jessica
+Karl Hans
if the refugees we're admitting were in support of sharia law, they'd have stayed in the region.
the governments of syria and iraq, pre-catastrophe, were both secular. organizations that outlawed groups that supported sharia law. you could be executed for joining the muslim brotherhood, which is actually relatively moderate.
the historical roots of the assad and hussein regimes were in atheistic socialism, not islamic fundamentalism. this has been the conflict in the region for decades.
the refugees are more likely to be communists than fundamentalists.
Hey Justin I am a Canadian who cannot find a job ,along with 1,000,000 plus other Canadians .Your government just allowed 27,000 unknown Syrian refugees into Canada .Meanwhile Canadians are homeless ,living on the streets and short of food .You are paying $375 a month for rent to people on Welfare .You have just brought in refugees while Canadians are suffering and there is an affordable housing crisis .What ? Are you going to do for Canadians ?
jessica
+Stone Pestal
there's not really a reason why we have to choose between helping existing canadians and getting people out of a situation of imminent genocide. i don't want to stop the flow of refugees, but i would like to see more resources put into subsidized housing.
the thing you have to understand, though, is the way the division of powers in the country works. it's not 100% a provincial responsibility. but, it's about 90% a provincial responsibility. trudeau can basically do one thing, here, and it's write a check. if you're concerned about the low level of assistance, or the shoddy state of subsidized housing, you need to contact your mpp and your local city council representative.
jessica
+Karl Hans
if the refugees we're admitting were in support of sharia law, they'd have stayed in the region.
the governments of syria and iraq, pre-catastrophe, were both secular. organizations that outlawed groups that supported sharia law. you could be executed for joining the muslim brotherhood, which is actually relatively moderate.
the historical roots of the assad and hussein regimes were in atheistic socialism, not islamic fundamentalism. this has been the conflict in the region for decades.
the refugees are more likely to be communists than fundamentalists.
at
05:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Gravitating
To this day.. I have no idea what Michael Stipe is signing about.. I like to think, that he was singing about something, so Beautiful, it couldn't be expressed in words...
deathtokoalas
+Gravitating
he'd long grown out of mumbling at this point. and, in general, i don't think he's as hard to decipher as a lot of people claim. but, i think the general theme of this record is exasperation. there's a kind of process of accepting the futility of struggle that, in places, comes off as sort of absurdist.
i think this is the most important line on the record:
i know that this is vitriol. no solution, spleen-venting,
but I feel better having screamed. don't you?
the record exists in that space where you're done screaming. or, at least are for the day, anyways.
Peter Gray
+deathtokoalas ..true to the exasperation in point - but maybe it's a kind of maturity.. almost like Ghandi's non violence ethos .. accepting a higher (not particularly religious) plane, and way of thinking .. complete absurdity (?) - yet sublime (?) ..after the storm is always peace.
deathtokoalas
+Peter Gray
but, i think there's a difference between this kind of philosophical perspective that change is impossible in general and concluding, through observation, that change is impossible right now.
i didn't really understand stipe well until i read up a little on the beat poets. i mean, i got the themes, sort of, but i didn't really grasp it. i think there was a big buddhist slant in their writing, but i also think there was a big existentialist slant in it. stipe draws from both traditions, but i think he tends to lean more towards an existentialist concept of futility than a buddhist concept of release.
To this day.. I have no idea what Michael Stipe is signing about.. I like to think, that he was singing about something, so Beautiful, it couldn't be expressed in words...
+Gravitating
he'd long grown out of mumbling at this point. and, in general, i don't think he's as hard to decipher as a lot of people claim. but, i think the general theme of this record is exasperation. there's a kind of process of accepting the futility of struggle that, in places, comes off as sort of absurdist.
i think this is the most important line on the record:
i know that this is vitriol. no solution, spleen-venting,
but I feel better having screamed. don't you?
the record exists in that space where you're done screaming. or, at least are for the day, anyways.
Peter Gray
+deathtokoalas ..true to the exasperation in point - but maybe it's a kind of maturity.. almost like Ghandi's non violence ethos .. accepting a higher (not particularly religious) plane, and way of thinking .. complete absurdity (?) - yet sublime (?) ..after the storm is always peace.
deathtokoalas
+Peter Gray
but, i think there's a difference between this kind of philosophical perspective that change is impossible in general and concluding, through observation, that change is impossible right now.
i didn't really understand stipe well until i read up a little on the beat poets. i mean, i got the themes, sort of, but i didn't really grasp it. i think there was a big buddhist slant in their writing, but i also think there was a big existentialist slant in it. stipe draws from both traditions, but i think he tends to lean more towards an existentialist concept of futility than a buddhist concept of release.
at
04:42
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Sunday, December 20, 2015
your constitution is hundreds of years out of date, functionally obsolete and needs a serious rewrite, and you're just going to fall further and further behind until you figure that out.
i could say something ironic about false idols. but, this is more like blood-letting.
i mean, don't let it get as bad as it's gotten with the christians.
it's an over two hundred year old text, and you're still thumping it around like it's a state of the art document. will you be doing this when it's two thousand years old? how long before enough is enough?
don't be that country.
canada's constitution is only 33 years old. it's a modern, comprehensive document - far superior to your moldy old thing.
(deleted post)
jessica
somebody just asked me if that means i think communism was right (the comment was painfully stupid and has been removed).
the constitution is actually so old that it says nothing about communism because it didn't exist yet, and couldn't have existed yet. it was before marx ever wrote anything. it was before the failure of the french revolution. in fact, it was before any kind of industrial revolution in the united states.
this is actually useful in grappling with how irrelevant the document is. we currently live in a post-industrial economy; call it what you will, but it's defined by the unravelling of the socialization of labour. and, that phenomenon suggests that marx was very wrong.
yet, you want to base your society around a document written before the industrial revolution? you want to hold to it without modifications? read it literally?
i think you need to rip it up and start all over again, myself. it's become so out of date that it's an impediment to progress.
John Roy
+jessica It has been changed since the industrial revolution, it can be amended, has been many times before. Tearing it up and starting new wouldn't help much. If we did that then most of what was already on there would return.
deathtokoalas
+John Roy the modifications are minor. you replaced chattel slavery with wage slavery, for example. but, the document is still fundamentally designed for an agrarian society, and an agrarian economy. it can't and won't be able to keep up with changes in the modern world. so long as america holds to the archaic document, it will fall further and further behind.
you have routine yearly crises around trivial governing issues that most countries couldn't even contemplate. it's not an expression of greater democracy, it's just a waste of everybody's time and everybody's resources. it actually fuels mass apathy. you can't get basic agreements signed. you can't participate in international forums as a full member. it's really a noose around your neck. and, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world gets fed up and relegates you to the status of a failed pariah state.
i could say something ironic about false idols. but, this is more like blood-letting.
i mean, don't let it get as bad as it's gotten with the christians.
it's an over two hundred year old text, and you're still thumping it around like it's a state of the art document. will you be doing this when it's two thousand years old? how long before enough is enough?
don't be that country.
canada's constitution is only 33 years old. it's a modern, comprehensive document - far superior to your moldy old thing.
(deleted post)
jessica
somebody just asked me if that means i think communism was right (the comment was painfully stupid and has been removed).
the constitution is actually so old that it says nothing about communism because it didn't exist yet, and couldn't have existed yet. it was before marx ever wrote anything. it was before the failure of the french revolution. in fact, it was before any kind of industrial revolution in the united states.
this is actually useful in grappling with how irrelevant the document is. we currently live in a post-industrial economy; call it what you will, but it's defined by the unravelling of the socialization of labour. and, that phenomenon suggests that marx was very wrong.
yet, you want to base your society around a document written before the industrial revolution? you want to hold to it without modifications? read it literally?
i think you need to rip it up and start all over again, myself. it's become so out of date that it's an impediment to progress.
John Roy
+jessica It has been changed since the industrial revolution, it can be amended, has been many times before. Tearing it up and starting new wouldn't help much. If we did that then most of what was already on there would return.
deathtokoalas
+John Roy the modifications are minor. you replaced chattel slavery with wage slavery, for example. but, the document is still fundamentally designed for an agrarian society, and an agrarian economy. it can't and won't be able to keep up with changes in the modern world. so long as america holds to the archaic document, it will fall further and further behind.
you have routine yearly crises around trivial governing issues that most countries couldn't even contemplate. it's not an expression of greater democracy, it's just a waste of everybody's time and everybody's resources. it actually fuels mass apathy. you can't get basic agreements signed. you can't participate in international forums as a full member. it's really a noose around your neck. and, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world gets fed up and relegates you to the status of a failed pariah state.
at
11:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'm not sure if he's applying for president or that-barely-used-snl-cast-member-that-nobody-is-aware-of.
i gotta wonder though: is this focus grouped? and is the republican base really that warped? or is this just desperate, aimless flailing?
as a canadian, what i really see here is some kind of weird, post-modernist version of stephen harper.
i gotta wonder though: is this focus grouped? and is the republican base really that warped? or is this just desperate, aimless flailing?
as a canadian, what i really see here is some kind of weird, post-modernist version of stephen harper.
at
10:42
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
see, you gave him the benefit of picking a segment where he's saying something that's actually true. in an attempt to "prove she's tough", hillary has become a horrible, barbaric, war monger. her stint as secretary of state really renders her unelectable, in the same way that ignatieff was unelectable from the start in canada. trump is more so, mind you. and, she'll get a little help from history - she's so close to dubya, that he will probably end up taking credit for her catastrophes. but, only if she's forgotten...
she was really amongst the worst foreign policy leaders that the country has ever had. this was predictable, but not to this extent. we all should have known she has going to wave her cock around a little in the republicans' faces. that was predictable. but, the scale of it was not predictable. the consequences of her rather substantial errors are going to take decades to resolve.
it may be the best argument for electing her - so she can fix the mess she created.
again: i'm not suggesting trump is better. i'm suggesting that trump v clinton means we're all fucked. they're both lunatics. they're both war mongers. they're both insane. we're probably looking at an escalation of world war three, either way.
but, this is a trick - he doesn't sound smart here because of the tone of his voice. he sounds smart because he's actually right, for once.
but, the broad swath of you seem pretty stupid for thinking that intelligence is contained within style rather than within substance.
we should really all take a moment to reflect on the candidacy of bernie sanders. i think this is bigger than the current election cycle. people say that about every election cycle, i know. but, i think it's actually true this time.
the united states is in one of those historical pivot points, where it needs to choose a longer term direction. the direction being presented by clinton differs little from the direction being presented by the republicans. and, it is a path towards the conversion of the "perpetual endless wars" of the "war on whatever" towards a serious geopolitical conflict that could only be referred to as a new world war.
i mean, these forces are already in full swing. it's not a question of starting something. it's a question of stopping something.
i'm not exaggerating when i suggest that electing sanders may be the only way to save the country.
she was really amongst the worst foreign policy leaders that the country has ever had. this was predictable, but not to this extent. we all should have known she has going to wave her cock around a little in the republicans' faces. that was predictable. but, the scale of it was not predictable. the consequences of her rather substantial errors are going to take decades to resolve.
it may be the best argument for electing her - so she can fix the mess she created.
again: i'm not suggesting trump is better. i'm suggesting that trump v clinton means we're all fucked. they're both lunatics. they're both war mongers. they're both insane. we're probably looking at an escalation of world war three, either way.
but, this is a trick - he doesn't sound smart here because of the tone of his voice. he sounds smart because he's actually right, for once.
but, the broad swath of you seem pretty stupid for thinking that intelligence is contained within style rather than within substance.
we should really all take a moment to reflect on the candidacy of bernie sanders. i think this is bigger than the current election cycle. people say that about every election cycle, i know. but, i think it's actually true this time.
the united states is in one of those historical pivot points, where it needs to choose a longer term direction. the direction being presented by clinton differs little from the direction being presented by the republicans. and, it is a path towards the conversion of the "perpetual endless wars" of the "war on whatever" towards a serious geopolitical conflict that could only be referred to as a new world war.
i mean, these forces are already in full swing. it's not a question of starting something. it's a question of stopping something.
i'm not exaggerating when i suggest that electing sanders may be the only way to save the country.
at
10:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
but, this is in fact the time of year when the sun is down for days at a time. there is somewhere in canada that will have no light over that period.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/15-days-of-darkness-in-november-its-not-going-to-happen/59800/
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/15-days-of-darkness-in-november-its-not-going-to-happen/59800/
at
09:13
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
what if the reason we can't make contact with extra-terrestrials is that we're in some kind of a system that treats us as an infection, and we simply haven't been treated yet?
what if it doesn't even know we exist, yet? what kind of depths would we need to penetrate to set off a reaction?
see, this is why cosmological theories don't impress me. i'm not really looking for a technical argument right now, but all these broadly unjustifiable assumptions just mask the limitlessness of the actual possibilities. nothing we think we understand about the universe makes sense unless we assume it's a closed system. but, i think we have more reasons to think it's open, and then the entire concept of the universe collapses - on the basis of reversing a single, tiny and mostly unrealized but absolutely vital and yet entirely baseless assumption.
what if it doesn't even know we exist, yet? what kind of depths would we need to penetrate to set off a reaction?
see, this is why cosmological theories don't impress me. i'm not really looking for a technical argument right now, but all these broadly unjustifiable assumptions just mask the limitlessness of the actual possibilities. nothing we think we understand about the universe makes sense unless we assume it's a closed system. but, i think we have more reasons to think it's open, and then the entire concept of the universe collapses - on the basis of reversing a single, tiny and mostly unrealized but absolutely vital and yet entirely baseless assumption.
at
08:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this is just a little bit of historical fiction that i was thinking about as i was having a smoke.
i was thinking about something i typed somewhere, about how any kind of serious cold war monument would have to recognize the struggle of the cuban and angolan freedom fighters against the apartheid regime. that's loaded language. but that's also the correct and necessary language - perhaps toned down only by a miniscule degree. the cubans and their communist allies would need to be recognized as being on the correct side of history in that struggle, however complex the situation may have been.
it got me to thinking that you really have to put apartheid in the context of the cold war, and we never do that, here. so, we don't really understand it, because we don't put it in context. at the bottom line of everything else, the new british empire - and remember that south africa was a reasonably important british colony - had to maintain an imperialist friendly regime in the face of russian interests in the region. finding some way to transition power that was acceptable to the british would have meant ensuring that there were no communist-friendly elements, and that was a non-starter for decades. it's not a coincidence that the anc took over at the same time as the collapse of communism, allowing for eventual effective western co-option in the absence of any meaningful russian influence.
so, then how does that lesson apply to israel? well, it would suggest that any effective strategy would have to remove israel's strategic usefulness to the british imperialists. that is at the core of the issue. the americans will only change their policy relating israel when maintaining control of israel is no longer such a pressing geostrategic necessity. this is related to oil. so, the solution is oil independence - or fossil fuel abandonment.
that got me to thinking about the fracking push in the united states....
i was thinking about something i typed somewhere, about how any kind of serious cold war monument would have to recognize the struggle of the cuban and angolan freedom fighters against the apartheid regime. that's loaded language. but that's also the correct and necessary language - perhaps toned down only by a miniscule degree. the cubans and their communist allies would need to be recognized as being on the correct side of history in that struggle, however complex the situation may have been.
it got me to thinking that you really have to put apartheid in the context of the cold war, and we never do that, here. so, we don't really understand it, because we don't put it in context. at the bottom line of everything else, the new british empire - and remember that south africa was a reasonably important british colony - had to maintain an imperialist friendly regime in the face of russian interests in the region. finding some way to transition power that was acceptable to the british would have meant ensuring that there were no communist-friendly elements, and that was a non-starter for decades. it's not a coincidence that the anc took over at the same time as the collapse of communism, allowing for eventual effective western co-option in the absence of any meaningful russian influence.
so, then how does that lesson apply to israel? well, it would suggest that any effective strategy would have to remove israel's strategic usefulness to the british imperialists. that is at the core of the issue. the americans will only change their policy relating israel when maintaining control of israel is no longer such a pressing geostrategic necessity. this is related to oil. so, the solution is oil independence - or fossil fuel abandonment.
that got me to thinking about the fracking push in the united states....
at
08:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Saturday, December 19, 2015
finalizing i’m sure your mom is probably a very nice person
this track is now closed. i've also stuck with the mix from last july.
the remaining tracks have yet to be uploaded.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/im-sure-your-mom-is-probably-a-very-nice-person
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/omm
the remaining tracks have yet to be uploaded.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/im-sure-your-mom-is-probably-a-very-nice-person
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/omm
at
23:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing no longer confused
i'm closing this one as well. no changes since july...
there will be a few more mixes of this track coming. if i do any singles, this track will get a single.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/no-longer-confused
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/cnusodef
there will be a few more mixes of this track coming. if i do any singles, this track will get a single.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/no-longer-confused
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/cnusodef
at
21:36
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing yup. i still fuck the dead.
i'm closing this, as well. no alteration since july.
the pattern is clearly that the mixes were stable all along, and it was the playback that altered. that's now clear, although it wasn't for quite some time.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/yup-i-still-fuck-the-dead
the pattern is clearly that the mixes were stable all along, and it was the playback that altered. that's now clear, although it wasn't for quite some time.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/yup-i-still-fuck-the-dead
at
19:04
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing just say no to mood altering prescription drugs
i had remixed this track in september, but i was confused about what the natural conditions of the output should have been. i double compressed it, which squished the fuck out of the drums.
i have replaced the september version with the initial july version and closed the track.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/just-say-no-to-mood-altering-prescription-drugs
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/open
i have replaced the september version with the initial july version and closed the track.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/just-say-no-to-mood-altering-prescription-drugs
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/open
at
16:23
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
splitting the ry30 mixes off from inrimixed
i had decided to add an extra component to inrimixed of ry30 mixes. i've decided to split this off into it's own idea, and include ry30 material that was created after period 1.2. so, this will now be inri05x and positioned at the end of period 2.
that opens up some more spaced on inrimixed for loose ends that i think ought to be released.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ry30-remixes
that opens up some more spaced on inrimixed for loose ends that i think ought to be released.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ry30-remixes
at
15:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i know i said that i give up, but i'm still flabbergasted.
so, when you say you're pulling out of a mission, that's something you need to plan for. you need to give your allies notice, ensure a transition is in place, etc. that's going to take a few months. i don't understand what's confusing.
further, the government has indicated repeatedly that the reason they're pulling out is because they have a mandate to. now, i think this has actually gotten worse over the week - because now you're actually denying the mandate, rather than having a discussion about it.
i'm all for the resulting discussions. i've had them. if it's necessary, i'll reiterate. but, let's get the mandate part clear, first.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/real-change-comes-early-to-liberal-promises-1.3371721
mnovak
if you are already flabbergasted, think how you will feel about this government in 3 years time?
jessica murray
i'm not confused by the government. the government has been very clear. i'm flabbergasted by how the media is seemingly unable to understand what is really very simple and clear messaging.
Day Tripper
My how you Liberals change your story once elected. We all heard what JT said during the campaign and no amount of spin will change what he said. He had no idea what he was talking about and lied period.
jessica murray
well, i'm not a liberal. it would be more accurate to call me a new democrat, although i think they're both far too right-wing for me to really identify with either party. i'm actually a left libertarian.
but the point is that the story is not being changed. the media seems to be trying to force them to change their story, and they're very much resisting this. it's got to the point where instead of debating interpretations of their mandate to withdraw, they're denying a mandate altogether.
the reason i'm keying on this is that i'm really just sort of concerned by the way the media is reacting to this. it goes beyond the usual media incompetence and suggests some kind of ulterior motive. war drums are being beaten loudly, by what has becoming a jingoist, pro-war media. why is this happening?
i mean, how did canada end up with this aggressive, militaristic media? when did this happen?
you could reasonably ask in return: when did the country become isolationist? and while liberals may suggest that something like "non-interventionist" is better language, they'd be spinning that argument: the country is currently isolationist. and i can answer when that happened: when we got stuck in an intractable conflict that we don't actually want anything to do with.
so, when you say you're pulling out of a mission, that's something you need to plan for. you need to give your allies notice, ensure a transition is in place, etc. that's going to take a few months. i don't understand what's confusing.
further, the government has indicated repeatedly that the reason they're pulling out is because they have a mandate to. now, i think this has actually gotten worse over the week - because now you're actually denying the mandate, rather than having a discussion about it.
i'm all for the resulting discussions. i've had them. if it's necessary, i'll reiterate. but, let's get the mandate part clear, first.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/real-change-comes-early-to-liberal-promises-1.3371721
mnovak
if you are already flabbergasted, think how you will feel about this government in 3 years time?
jessica murray
i'm not confused by the government. the government has been very clear. i'm flabbergasted by how the media is seemingly unable to understand what is really very simple and clear messaging.
Day Tripper
My how you Liberals change your story once elected. We all heard what JT said during the campaign and no amount of spin will change what he said. He had no idea what he was talking about and lied period.
jessica murray
well, i'm not a liberal. it would be more accurate to call me a new democrat, although i think they're both far too right-wing for me to really identify with either party. i'm actually a left libertarian.
but the point is that the story is not being changed. the media seems to be trying to force them to change their story, and they're very much resisting this. it's got to the point where instead of debating interpretations of their mandate to withdraw, they're denying a mandate altogether.
the reason i'm keying on this is that i'm really just sort of concerned by the way the media is reacting to this. it goes beyond the usual media incompetence and suggests some kind of ulterior motive. war drums are being beaten loudly, by what has becoming a jingoist, pro-war media. why is this happening?
i mean, how did canada end up with this aggressive, militaristic media? when did this happen?
you could reasonably ask in return: when did the country become isolationist? and while liberals may suggest that something like "non-interventionist" is better language, they'd be spinning that argument: the country is currently isolationist. and i can answer when that happened: when we got stuck in an intractable conflict that we don't actually want anything to do with.
at
10:12
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i think everybody should read this and think about it:
http://www.theweedblog.com/how-can-you-tell-if-your-marijuana-comes-from-a-cartel/
imagine buying a bag with paperclip in it. has that ever happened to you? no, worse - imagine being the guy that sells the bag with a paperclip in it.
"dude. you sold me a bag with a paperclip in it. what the %$#!?"
(and i apologize for censoring that myself, but there are certain childish rules in this forum that one has no choice but to adhere to, should they decide to use the forum. it is what it is.)
"really?", suppressing laughter, "it had a paperclip in it?"
"yeah. not joking."
"i don't know where that came from man, but i think i should be more careful with my sources, clearly. i'm sorry man."
"you know you're never going to live this down right. ten years from now, i'll be asking you if there's a paperclip in it. if i ever go over to your place with my grandchildren, they will ask you if there's paperclips in the meals you prepared and my daughter-in-law will carefully check the meals to make sure."
i think that the major aim of the cartels is to cross borders. it's something that requires significant amounts of bribery, and hence necessarily requires a proper system. but, the canadian market doesn't source it's marijuana from outside the country, and there therefore isn't a requirement for a cartel system. that would only be necessary for canadian exports - and for imports into canada of more tropical drugs.
i just think we need to understand what we're actually driving out of business before we drive it out of business, and take a good long think about it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-should-liquor-control-boards-manage-weed-sales-they-already-know-how/article27757191/
--
Wild bill 2
When marijuana is sold as all other products I will have one more thing to worry about when I drive my car
Now we have drunk drivers - drivers on cell phones - drivers texting - - drivers taking selfies - drivers eating - drivers having romance with their ladies - and now thanks to selfie baby PM Trudeau we will have drivers high on marijuana
I think it is time to pull the car over and park !
deathtokoalas
you'd be doing future generations a tremendous service if you were to drive less. i would like to thank you for them, in advance, as they will not get a chance to, themselves.
http://www.theweedblog.com/how-can-you-tell-if-your-marijuana-comes-from-a-cartel/
imagine buying a bag with paperclip in it. has that ever happened to you? no, worse - imagine being the guy that sells the bag with a paperclip in it.
"dude. you sold me a bag with a paperclip in it. what the %$#!?"
(and i apologize for censoring that myself, but there are certain childish rules in this forum that one has no choice but to adhere to, should they decide to use the forum. it is what it is.)
"really?", suppressing laughter, "it had a paperclip in it?"
"yeah. not joking."
"i don't know where that came from man, but i think i should be more careful with my sources, clearly. i'm sorry man."
"you know you're never going to live this down right. ten years from now, i'll be asking you if there's a paperclip in it. if i ever go over to your place with my grandchildren, they will ask you if there's paperclips in the meals you prepared and my daughter-in-law will carefully check the meals to make sure."
i think that the major aim of the cartels is to cross borders. it's something that requires significant amounts of bribery, and hence necessarily requires a proper system. but, the canadian market doesn't source it's marijuana from outside the country, and there therefore isn't a requirement for a cartel system. that would only be necessary for canadian exports - and for imports into canada of more tropical drugs.
i just think we need to understand what we're actually driving out of business before we drive it out of business, and take a good long think about it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-should-liquor-control-boards-manage-weed-sales-they-already-know-how/article27757191/
--
Wild bill 2
When marijuana is sold as all other products I will have one more thing to worry about when I drive my car
Now we have drunk drivers - drivers on cell phones - drivers texting - - drivers taking selfies - drivers eating - drivers having romance with their ladies - and now thanks to selfie baby PM Trudeau we will have drivers high on marijuana
I think it is time to pull the car over and park !
deathtokoalas
you'd be doing future generations a tremendous service if you were to drive less. i would like to thank you for them, in advance, as they will not get a chance to, themselves.
at
01:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
well, see, i'd rather interpret this as a well-deserved insult to lettuce, which is basically useless. check the nutritional components. you'd might as just have a glass of water. i've long made a habit of holding the lettuce, as it's just entirely pointless and simply takes up too much space. when you get off it for a while, getting something with lettuce starts to taste like you left it underwater.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/the-one-way-lettuce-is-actually-worse-for-you-than-bacon/61296/
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/the-one-way-lettuce-is-actually-worse-for-you-than-bacon/61296/
at
00:48
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
see, when trudeau says he's going to spend the money from pot legalization on "treatment" and "education", this is what i worry about happening.
it's really only a cgi sloth away from being realistic.
also, regarding relevant substitutions for pot, i think i'd lean towards prozac.
this is not a good reflection of what pot does to you. but, it's a reasonable reflection of what prescription drugs can do to you.
it's really only a cgi sloth away from being realistic.
also, regarding relevant substitutions for pot, i think i'd lean towards prozac.
this is not a good reflection of what pot does to you. but, it's a reasonable reflection of what prescription drugs can do to you.
at
00:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i have to say i do remain unconvinced.
what is the alternative?
what is the alternative?
at
00:22
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's that time of year for a good head cleaning :)
less tabula rasa. more like a controlled fire. get rid of the old shit, let the fresh grow in.
less tabula rasa. more like a controlled fire. get rid of the old shit, let the fresh grow in.
at
00:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Friday, December 18, 2015
see, this was high end pop. i could dig this. why doesn't this exist anymore?
i'm just thinking about tinfoil, because i've got my headphones wrapped in it. and this song started randomly playing in the ol' noggin.
although the song's not actually about tinfoil :P
i'm just thinking about tinfoil, because i've got my headphones wrapped in it. and this song started randomly playing in the ol' noggin.
although the song's not actually about tinfoil :P
at
23:57
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
there's a very simple two-step solution to this problem.
1) F. and don't give in on it. hold to it. as long as it takes. let his parents deal with it from there.
2) students that fail - even once - need to be put in separate classes. they should be able to get out of those classes by passing a full year, too. but, it's the way to get out of this pushing-them-through mentality. nobody wants 20-somethings in high school. that does have real consequences; i broke some asshole's arm in the ninth grade by pushing him down the stairs because he kept slamming me into the locker, and he should have been in 12th grade (and he was white, of german descent). so, put them in their own classes. at their own schools, even.
we need to bring back the idea of failing.
1) F. and don't give in on it. hold to it. as long as it takes. let his parents deal with it from there.
2) students that fail - even once - need to be put in separate classes. they should be able to get out of those classes by passing a full year, too. but, it's the way to get out of this pushing-them-through mentality. nobody wants 20-somethings in high school. that does have real consequences; i broke some asshole's arm in the ninth grade by pushing him down the stairs because he kept slamming me into the locker, and he should have been in 12th grade (and he was white, of german descent). so, put them in their own classes. at their own schools, even.
we need to bring back the idea of failing.
at
23:23
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this is actually a useful short because it explores the situation from russia's defensive priorities, which has been their dominant concern since before stalin. so much western media focuses on this bluntly comical idea of russia as an offensive power, trying to conquer the world.
it's also useful in the sense that it really draws the connection between modern russia and historical rome. this foreign policy is quintessentially byzantine, and so are the consequences - perpetual suspicion of imperial treachery.
i think that, in the broader historical perspective, "western civilization" has yet to truly break it's way out of the division of the roman empire. i know this is very abstract, but it's something i've drawn attention to before and i really think there's a lot of truth to it.
it's tied into the american historical psyche, and to the foundations of the nation itself - this idea of america as the new rome. but, it's sort of typically american in it's lack of scope. london was the actual new rome. washington is in many ways the new constantinople.
but, it's recursive. as much as the american revolution was a civil war within the british empire rather than a revolution, one that ended with washington as the new center of the british empire, the new roman empire, this is only the western half of the story.
the eastern half of the story sees moscow as the new constantinople, the continuation of the eastern sphere of roman civilization. and, it sees the russian empire as the continuation of the byzantine sphere.
so, then what was the cold war, really?
as history unfolds, conflicts localized in space and time open themselves up to these broader interpretations. the details fade. what's left is the broader narrative.
when this story is told to children on distant planets, it seems unlikely to me that any meaningful separation will occur over what we call the modern era. the whole thing will coalesce. moscow vs. washington, constantinople vs. rome, pope vs patriarch - this will all become intertwined into a single, epic struggle for control over roman civilization.
it's also useful in the sense that it really draws the connection between modern russia and historical rome. this foreign policy is quintessentially byzantine, and so are the consequences - perpetual suspicion of imperial treachery.
i think that, in the broader historical perspective, "western civilization" has yet to truly break it's way out of the division of the roman empire. i know this is very abstract, but it's something i've drawn attention to before and i really think there's a lot of truth to it.
it's tied into the american historical psyche, and to the foundations of the nation itself - this idea of america as the new rome. but, it's sort of typically american in it's lack of scope. london was the actual new rome. washington is in many ways the new constantinople.
but, it's recursive. as much as the american revolution was a civil war within the british empire rather than a revolution, one that ended with washington as the new center of the british empire, the new roman empire, this is only the western half of the story.
the eastern half of the story sees moscow as the new constantinople, the continuation of the eastern sphere of roman civilization. and, it sees the russian empire as the continuation of the byzantine sphere.
so, then what was the cold war, really?
as history unfolds, conflicts localized in space and time open themselves up to these broader interpretations. the details fade. what's left is the broader narrative.
when this story is told to children on distant planets, it seems unlikely to me that any meaningful separation will occur over what we call the modern era. the whole thing will coalesce. moscow vs. washington, constantinople vs. rome, pope vs patriarch - this will all become intertwined into a single, epic struggle for control over roman civilization.
at
22:56
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i really think we need some fact-based analysis here.
1) most people don't buy pot from cartels. they buy it from local growers.
this is useful reading:
http://www.theweedblog.com/how-can-you-tell-if-your-marijuana-comes-from-a-cartel/
2) your kids' hook-up ultimately probably comes from somebody's dad, or somebody's older sibling, and not from organized crime.
3) marijuana is not addictive.
4) because marijuana is not addictive, pushers don't push it. they push speed. meth. it's big business, and run by smart business people. if you can create a speed addict, you're going to get steady revenue streams from that person - regularly, multiple times a week. if you get a marijuana customer, you'll get sporadic sales every once in a while. so, they don't focus on pot because it's not in their self-interest to.
i've had these discussions with street-level dealers, and a lot of the time they don't even know where to find pot - despite having a knapsack full of speed that they're selling on the corner. you ask them for pot, and they try and push you speed and then tell you to get lost.
i'm not opposed to putting some of the money towards treatment centres. but, it would be better spent on treatment for actually damaging and actually addictive substances. the most damaging, addictive substance in our society is alcohol.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/legal-marijuana-taxes-1.3370358
(removed reply)
as i mentioned, marijuana is not addictive. acid isn't either, and i wouldn't be opposed to legalizing it, although i'm not about to strenuously argue the point, either. the thing about hallucinogenics is that you'd have to set a higher legal age, but the truth is that people mostly grow out of them by the age of 21.
the gangs push speed and meth, mostly. they don't start with pot. they jump right to the stuff that hooks them; pot is useless in hooking them. it's all about pills. and, it's actually a very different subculture, too. you would be targeting very different kinds of kids that would go for popping a pill to get an upper than kids that want to smoke a joint and chill out.
also: kids don't do heroin. it's an adult drug
i remember watching kids pop speed pills on the school bus when i was 13. nobody in that group had ever tried or knew how to get pot. i don't even think any of them had smoked a cigarette. and, i think that observation is pretty normal.
they weren't the outcast kids, either. they were the popular kids - the in crowd.
--
anglophile
No one will buy pot from a Gov't outlet. It will be expensive, much like cigars, or more. Once the substance is legal, pot smokers will simply grow it in their backyards, even if it is less potent. There will be no legal means to prevent this from happening. Also, remember that pot can't be used without abusing it. only a few "tokes" will have you completely inebriated. Unlike alcohol, it can't be used responsibly. A "casual" pot user, would be equivalent to an excessive drinker. One can enjoy a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and still be legal to drive home, or supervise their children. Parents who smoke at home might find that they are putting their children at risk, if they smoke a joint only to find they have to rush the kid to the hospital for some reason. Their judgment would be so impaired that they might not even recognize a serious situation. Also, pot will be the chosen drug for kids at school. A few tokes between classes will get you stoned, while the same high might requires 7 or 8 beer, which would be hard to carry around, or consume inconspicuously.
jessica murray
i'm not going to comment on your conclusions regarding how marijuana users behave, but i want to point that you're half right about effects.
marijuana tolerance increases as you smoke. i'm a light, sporadic and social smoker - i only need a three toke pass to get stoned for the night, and into the morning. that wouldn't be true if i smoked regularly, but it is true because i don't smoke regularly. so, you're right that you don't need a lot, if you don't use a lot.
the flip side of that is that marijuana does a fraction to you of what alcohol does, and plateaus at a fairly low point. you will never blackout and forget what you did last night due to marijuana use. you won't spontaneously pass out. "as stoned as you can get" is roughly equivalent to the immediate buzz you get after talking 2-3 shots at the same time and it lasts for several hours - but then you can't get more stoned than that, and you don't deal with the effects of drunkenness.
so, it's faster, yes. and you need less. but it's also impossible to overdo it.
it's common sense that one should not drive stoned. but, the reality is that you're never going to see any stoned person stumbling all over the place, slurring words, cursing, unable to walk straight. marijuana just doesn't have the ability to create that effect, or at least not on it's own.
--
AlanWilliams
This will only drive the drug dealers to push harder more dangerous substances into the market. They will plan to adapt in order to maintain their market share and profits. This will result in even more people in addictive states unable to function in a sustainable lifestyle. The liberals are only doing this to protect the rich kids of Toronto (Rosedale) from getting a criminal record! They don't care about the devastating results although they say the money will go into addiction programs. Why not just criminalize pot as a deterrent and save lives???
jessica murray
actual drug dealers - bikers and whatnot - already mostly ignore pot, because you can't build dependence on it. they don't bother selling it as a gateway or whatever. they just jump right to selling speed in candy wrappers. and that's something that people should actually be concerned about.
--
captain canada
I can just see the fun at the border when Canada legalizes pot . Get ready to wait while US customs searches for that one joint your kid left in the back seat of the car and you end up in jail for smuggling pot to the USA .
jessica murray
bernie is claiming he'll drop the federal restriction. if he doesn't win, i can't see it being more than 4-8 years away.
1) most people don't buy pot from cartels. they buy it from local growers.
this is useful reading:
http://www.theweedblog.com/how-can-you-tell-if-your-marijuana-comes-from-a-cartel/
2) your kids' hook-up ultimately probably comes from somebody's dad, or somebody's older sibling, and not from organized crime.
3) marijuana is not addictive.
4) because marijuana is not addictive, pushers don't push it. they push speed. meth. it's big business, and run by smart business people. if you can create a speed addict, you're going to get steady revenue streams from that person - regularly, multiple times a week. if you get a marijuana customer, you'll get sporadic sales every once in a while. so, they don't focus on pot because it's not in their self-interest to.
i've had these discussions with street-level dealers, and a lot of the time they don't even know where to find pot - despite having a knapsack full of speed that they're selling on the corner. you ask them for pot, and they try and push you speed and then tell you to get lost.
i'm not opposed to putting some of the money towards treatment centres. but, it would be better spent on treatment for actually damaging and actually addictive substances. the most damaging, addictive substance in our society is alcohol.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/legal-marijuana-taxes-1.3370358
(removed reply)
as i mentioned, marijuana is not addictive. acid isn't either, and i wouldn't be opposed to legalizing it, although i'm not about to strenuously argue the point, either. the thing about hallucinogenics is that you'd have to set a higher legal age, but the truth is that people mostly grow out of them by the age of 21.
the gangs push speed and meth, mostly. they don't start with pot. they jump right to the stuff that hooks them; pot is useless in hooking them. it's all about pills. and, it's actually a very different subculture, too. you would be targeting very different kinds of kids that would go for popping a pill to get an upper than kids that want to smoke a joint and chill out.
also: kids don't do heroin. it's an adult drug
i remember watching kids pop speed pills on the school bus when i was 13. nobody in that group had ever tried or knew how to get pot. i don't even think any of them had smoked a cigarette. and, i think that observation is pretty normal.
they weren't the outcast kids, either. they were the popular kids - the in crowd.
--
anglophile
No one will buy pot from a Gov't outlet. It will be expensive, much like cigars, or more. Once the substance is legal, pot smokers will simply grow it in their backyards, even if it is less potent. There will be no legal means to prevent this from happening. Also, remember that pot can't be used without abusing it. only a few "tokes" will have you completely inebriated. Unlike alcohol, it can't be used responsibly. A "casual" pot user, would be equivalent to an excessive drinker. One can enjoy a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and still be legal to drive home, or supervise their children. Parents who smoke at home might find that they are putting their children at risk, if they smoke a joint only to find they have to rush the kid to the hospital for some reason. Their judgment would be so impaired that they might not even recognize a serious situation. Also, pot will be the chosen drug for kids at school. A few tokes between classes will get you stoned, while the same high might requires 7 or 8 beer, which would be hard to carry around, or consume inconspicuously.
jessica murray
i'm not going to comment on your conclusions regarding how marijuana users behave, but i want to point that you're half right about effects.
marijuana tolerance increases as you smoke. i'm a light, sporadic and social smoker - i only need a three toke pass to get stoned for the night, and into the morning. that wouldn't be true if i smoked regularly, but it is true because i don't smoke regularly. so, you're right that you don't need a lot, if you don't use a lot.
the flip side of that is that marijuana does a fraction to you of what alcohol does, and plateaus at a fairly low point. you will never blackout and forget what you did last night due to marijuana use. you won't spontaneously pass out. "as stoned as you can get" is roughly equivalent to the immediate buzz you get after talking 2-3 shots at the same time and it lasts for several hours - but then you can't get more stoned than that, and you don't deal with the effects of drunkenness.
so, it's faster, yes. and you need less. but it's also impossible to overdo it.
it's common sense that one should not drive stoned. but, the reality is that you're never going to see any stoned person stumbling all over the place, slurring words, cursing, unable to walk straight. marijuana just doesn't have the ability to create that effect, or at least not on it's own.
--
AlanWilliams
This will only drive the drug dealers to push harder more dangerous substances into the market. They will plan to adapt in order to maintain their market share and profits. This will result in even more people in addictive states unable to function in a sustainable lifestyle. The liberals are only doing this to protect the rich kids of Toronto (Rosedale) from getting a criminal record! They don't care about the devastating results although they say the money will go into addiction programs. Why not just criminalize pot as a deterrent and save lives???
jessica murray
actual drug dealers - bikers and whatnot - already mostly ignore pot, because you can't build dependence on it. they don't bother selling it as a gateway or whatever. they just jump right to selling speed in candy wrappers. and that's something that people should actually be concerned about.
--
captain canada
I can just see the fun at the border when Canada legalizes pot . Get ready to wait while US customs searches for that one joint your kid left in the back seat of the car and you end up in jail for smuggling pot to the USA .
jessica murray
bernie is claiming he'll drop the federal restriction. if he doesn't win, i can't see it being more than 4-8 years away.
at
22:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
start at 33:00.
it is more trade. he was right.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?80216-1/uscanada-relations
it is more trade. he was right.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?80216-1/uscanada-relations
at
21:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing i still don't fully understand this
this track is also closed. not altered.
even with the tinfoil, i'm picking up a little bit of signal right now. i'm going to tentatively suggest it's because it's friday night and the magnetic field is stronger due to the lines being at peak electrical use, do something else for a few hours and reapproach a little after midnight.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-still-dont-fully-understand-this
even with the tinfoil, i'm picking up a little bit of signal right now. i'm going to tentatively suggest it's because it's friday night and the magnetic field is stronger due to the lines being at peak electrical use, do something else for a few hours and reapproach a little after midnight.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-still-dont-fully-understand-this
at
19:24
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing in some neighbourhoods, the boogeyman is slightly more than an imaginary monster
this track is closed. not altered.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/in-some-neighbourhoods-the-boogeyman-is-slightly-more-than-an-imaginary-monster
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/ogyanemob
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/in-some-neighbourhoods-the-boogeyman-is-slightly-more-than-an-imaginary-monster
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/ogyanemob
at
17:47
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
takers
i've decided to upload a drum machine mix of this after all. this is a brand new mix, dated to today.
initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. deconstructed dec 18, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/takers
initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. deconstructed dec 18, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/takers
at
17:31
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
finalizing use value is somewhat difficult to define in the human propensity towards artistic expression
i'm closing this track, as well. no change from the initial upload.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/use-value-is-somewhat-difficult-to-define-in-the-human-propensity-towards-artistic-expression
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/use-value-is-somewhat-difficult-to-define-in-the-human-propensity-towards-artistic-expression
at
14:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
fisk's comments here are very unfortunate, and no doubt driven by feelings of bitterness by ndp supporters, who were positioned to win the election for months leading up to the vote. strangely, this is no doubt second hand bitterness. this kind of reporting is useful in the line of work fisk usually does, but doesn't lend itself well to an analysis of an election in another country.
it seems like the reporting for the article consisted of fisk calling up a couple of friends in canada.
however, i think that it must also be acknowledged that quebec has developed a nasty nationalist streak in it's politics, but in the context of two important points: first that it is a pragmatic tactic to achieve independence, and second that this tactic keeps getting rejected by voters.
lucien bouchard blamed the loss in the second sovereigntist referendum on "money and the ethnic vote". that's the beginning of this strain of thought, as far as i know, but some others may want to trace it back further. he seemed aware that his vision of a sovereign quebec nation was being thwarted by people that did not have deep roots in the region. while it may be over-exaggerating a single factor at the expense of the importance of others, it is not a spurious observation and there is no doubt some level of truth to it, too.
in fact, there is also some truth to the idea that the federal government - under the guidance of quebec prime ministers - has purposefully targeted quebec for immigration with the purposes of changing the nature of quebec society, to prevent separation.
after the second referendum, quebec clearly started to get a little tired with this one party rule that didn't campaign on spectrum issues. they wanted a debate driven by normal election issues: budgets, services, changes in the laws, etc. so, the separatist forces started breaking up into different political factions. this was very much driven by the body politic, who just wanted a better debate on issues that actually affected them.
when you open things up like this, you have to expect that some bottled up issues are going to get out. there were bent up energies in the quebec nationalist regions that saw people without these multigenerational roots in the region as being responsible for the failure of the referendum. within this, a conservative separatist group - called the adq - started building a kind of collection of ideas about religious immigrants that would eventually be picked up by both the pq (the biggest separatist party) and the liberals (the federalist party).
you have to understand that the legal changes they want to make are purely about assimilation. there's not a racial bias to it, nor is there an exclusionary nature to them. it's about turning immigrants into cultural quebeckers, so they vote in favour of independence. they don't want to restrict immigration to any specific group, they just want to ensure that whomever comes to quebec becomes a quebecker and aligns with what they see as quebec values. should any of these ideas be adopted, i would not expect them to survive independence by very long.
but, canada is a pluralistic society, and so the federal law sometimes gets in the way of these ideas - there have been constitutional challenges. in canada, you can't arbitrarily tell somebody not to wear a scarf and try to enforce it under threat of something.
when the laws are explored over a public debate, the ramifications of them begin to make people uncomfortable - even if they are rational to get to the end point of separation - and they are invariably rejected, even when people admit to agreeing with them - confusing pollsters and policy makers. a few years ago, the pq lost an election over a "values charter" that would have acted as an assimilating force regarding things like head coverings and jewelry. polls claimed strong support for the values charter - yet the party lost, because of it. to support an idea of something is not necessarily to support the actualization of it. "i'd like to tell you to take that off your head" does not necessarily translate into "the law should be able to force you to take that off your head".
we saw the same thing in the last federal election. harper's rhetoric about muslims was pretty gross. public opinion polls seemed to suggest people both approved and realized that they can't actually vote for it.
the nativist streak is there. it has historical reasons. but, it's not xenophobic; rather, it's very strongly assimilating.
it may be a little bit real right now, so it may be easy to lose perspective, but we need to analyze trump correctly, as well. and, le pen, for that matter - although i think le pen is something very different, and destabilizing the region quite intentionally.
my very first comments about trump, before i got lost myself, were that you have to put him in context and understand *why* this is happening. when all the nonsense is debunked, your left with the reality that white people have done poorly in america since the 70s. with the collapse of the unions, the offshoring of jobs, mechanization and the rest, there are really declining living standards. it may not be informed to blame it on mexicans and muslims. but, we can't just leave it at that. the economics underlying this spasm need to be seriously addressed - and a fair bit of it needs to be attributed to nafta. there's other causes, of course. but, you can't do that in print, it seems.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-joy-of-canada-delivered-from-stephen-harper-s-darkness-to-justin-trudeau-s-light-a6779106.html
Emdx
> however, i think that it must also be acknowledged that quebec has developed a nasty nationalist streak in it's politics
Ah, yet another outsider that only relies on other outsiders for his information. You just fell exactly into the same trap you deplore with Mr Fisk.
> lucien bouchard blamed the loss in the second sovereigntist referendum on "money and the ethnic vote".
It was not Lucien Bouchard who made that famous remark, but Premier Jacques Parizeau. The next day, Parizeau resigned and Bouchard became premier.
But yes, Parizeau was right. Of course, money would be against us, as in any colonial situation. And the amount of money illegally spent to buttress the “NO” side during the referendum campaign was staggering. For example, whole planeloads were flown to Montréal, courtesy of airlines, at no cost to passengers. This kind of expense squarely fell into the purview of our election financing laws, and it was clearly illegal.
But nobody howled at the “money” part of the comment, because it was a given that money would be against us.
Let’s tackle instead the “ethnic vote”. Historically, immigrants have been used as a tool to minorize us. The expectation was that any immigrant who would come to Canada would become anglicized, and thus would not become part of our community. This was completely true until 45 years ago when the assimilation machine was stopped dead on it’s tracks by Law 101, which simply shut down access to english schools for immigrants.
This is the main reason why Canada hates Law 101, because it almost killed outright the assimilation machine.
What Jacques Parizeau was referring to with the “ethnic vote” is those immigrant communities who blindly vote for what their leaders tell them to, without asking themselves any questions.
Anyone with a brain would acknowledge that such behaviour in a Democracy is pretty deplorable.
Well, we lost by some 50,000 votes, and no doubt a lot more than 50,000 “NOs” were clearly “ethnic votes”.
There is nothing racist in denouncing this, in fact, Parizeau’s remark was clearly a denunciation of the racism that brings about those “ethnic votes”, racism fomented by Canada against Québec’s aspiration for independence.
But again, any minority seeking freedom from a larger country, like the Scots or the Basques are readily labelled as “intolerant”, “xenophobes” and all the unsavoury stuff you hear from Canadian media whenever the subject skirts Québec.
> you have to understand that the legal changes they want to make are purely about assimilation.
As I said before, immigration has been largely been used as a tool to minorize the french and the indians in Canada.
> but, canada is a pluralistic society,
Bollo*ks. It's only “pluralistic” when it suits Canada. And you see it bursting at the seams whenever there are high concentration of immigrants. Why do you think Rob Ford got elected as mayor in Toronto?
We get tagged as “racist” because our interculturalism policies are at odds with the canadian multiculturalism. We have good reasons to reject multiculturalism, because it’s mostly a tool to divide and rule; with immigrants isolated in little cultural ghettoes, it is far easier to manipulate them to keep them subservient than if they were full members of their adoptive society.
Which is what interculturalism does: we only take what we like from what immigrants take here; what we don’t like, we soundly reject and tell immigrants that they better forget about it.
Yes we are assimilationists. Although having immigrants keeping their culture is nice and all that, we don’t really care; what we want is them to take our language first and foremost. Culture will only naturally follow. We do this because we are strictly opposed to segregation and ghettoes; we want immigrants to be full-fledged members of Society, quite unlike the English who are very happy keeping their class system to keep the rabble at it’s place, which is pretty normal for a colonial society.
> In canada, you can't arbitrarily tell somebody not to wear a scarf and try to enforce it under threat of something.
Sure we can. And yet again, you cet carried away with the canadian media misrepresentation about Québec. We don’t bitch against the scarves (fu*k, we wear them ourselves six months a year — during winter, that is), it’s against the face veils we have against. And we’re not the only ones, almost all Europe is up in arms regarding this.
It’s just that the liberal crowd is so taken up in it’s multiculturalism that it stubbornly keeps going into the multiculturalist dead-end, despite the fact that this very subject made the NDP lose the chances at getting in power.
> the nativist streak is there. it has historical reasons. but, it's not xenophobic; rather, it's very strongly assimilating.
Well, yes. But it seems that in Canada, while it's okay to assimilate to the english, it's a no-no to assimilate to the french.
Which is a damn fine reason to get out of Canada.
deathtokoalas
i just want to point out that i'm a french canadian that grew up in the ottawa area. i do appreciate your correction about parizeau - i did misspeak on that point. but, i think you're otherwise demonstrating my points rather than rebutting them.
emdx
As a "french canadian from Ottawa", you have learned early on that your place is subservient to the english, and you clearly show it by your thoroughly colonized positions.
If you want to be french, you're welcome to come to Québec, but if you backstab us, you will be treated as you deserve.
deathtokoalas
i would rather leave ethnic nationalism in the 20th - if not the 19th - century. again: you're demonstrating my points.
to reiterate: the nativist streak is a problem in quebec, but they're not xenophobic. they're assimilationist. it's a very big difference in understanding them from a distance
perhaps the better way to understand quebec nationalism from britain - or the middle east - is to compare it to merkel's recent statements, rather than le pen's. the door is open. but they demand that migrants accept their value systems, should they choose to come in.
--
something else that you'll see floated around by the canadian pseudo-left is this idea of quebec as a victim of settler-colonialism. this is an outrageous narrative; france was of course a participant in settler-colonialism, and the french settlers were fundamentally no different than the english settlers. i'm glossing over a complicated history, but to put the french settlers on the side of the colonized is fundamentally wrong. regardless, i've seen it cited in international sources over the last few years, indicating that the narrative has some traction because it fits into the theories people like.
the actual reason this argument has popped up is due to the supreme court reference case on succession, which claimed that a unilateral declaration would only be valid in the context of a colonial relationship. as no such colonial relationship exists, such a unilateral declaration would be considered illegal and unconstitutional in canada.
you have to understand that context to make sense of the debate, but that's not what gets out of the country.
Emdx
Of course you are (again) wrong.
When the french settlers came, they certainly did not see themselves as superior to the natives; in fact, we actually “went native” and we formed a hybrid european-indian society.
To this day, we carry on several native way of doing things that are rather different from France (like seeking consensus rather than outright imposing one's views).
In all Canada, only the Québec government deals with natives as equals, on a nation-to-nation basis, rather than the “stupid, juvenile savage” way the federal government does. And the results show: in Québec, 80% of natives still speak their language (that’s because law 101 ALSO protects native languages) as opposed to less than 20% in Canada. We also deal with their traditional social structures, rather than the sham democracy that is imposed by Ottawa, and who elects corrupt, unaccountable band councils.
We also let natives administer Justice as they see fit, so, unlike Canada, we do not have a high native jail population.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; go to Moonsonee (or Attawapiskat), Ontario, and ask the Crees who live there if they would rather live in Québec…
deathtokoalas
see, this is skewed so many ways that i don't see any point in bothering. it's political whitewashing. but, as i pointed out, there's a reason for it.
at the start of the colonial period, the various native american groups were broadly more interested in using western technology to defeat their ancestral enemies than they were in defeating the invaders. european powers took advantage of this. but, a big part of understanding how colonialism in north america was possible lies in understanding that they have a very different cultural concept of property rights - the truth is that they didn't really see westerners as invaders because they didn't conceive of themselves as owners of the land. rather, they conceived of themselves as users of the land; it would not have made sense to them to try and stop others from using the land. there were treaties of friendship and land use signed with both early english settlers and early french settlers; neither the french nor the english held to these treaties particularly strongly. today, they're both under the interpretation of the same court system.
despite the complexity of the history, the broad truth is that the various native groups often found themselves aligned with imperial interests against the interests of the colonies. that is broadly true across the continent, and the broadest way to understand the nature of conflict in the period, and continuing to today.
so, for example, you saw the major native groups align with the french imperial interests against british settlers in the seven years war, but then you saw those same groups align with the british crown against american settlers during the revolutionary war. one of the reasons for the revolutionary war was a ban by the british crown on expansion westwards, in recognition of the sovereignty of the existing tribes. and, one of the reasons for the signing of the treaties in western canada was protection from american expansion.
what you're saying about treaty rights is simple nonsense - both in legal terms and historical terms. the single most violent colonial body in the history of canada was the francophone catholic church. there are some french-canadian metis (mixed) groups, but there are also english, scottish and ukrainian metis groups, amongst others.
quebec really needs to come to terms with it's participation in settler colonialism, rather than continue to deny the reality of it.
it seems like the reporting for the article consisted of fisk calling up a couple of friends in canada.
however, i think that it must also be acknowledged that quebec has developed a nasty nationalist streak in it's politics, but in the context of two important points: first that it is a pragmatic tactic to achieve independence, and second that this tactic keeps getting rejected by voters.
lucien bouchard blamed the loss in the second sovereigntist referendum on "money and the ethnic vote". that's the beginning of this strain of thought, as far as i know, but some others may want to trace it back further. he seemed aware that his vision of a sovereign quebec nation was being thwarted by people that did not have deep roots in the region. while it may be over-exaggerating a single factor at the expense of the importance of others, it is not a spurious observation and there is no doubt some level of truth to it, too.
in fact, there is also some truth to the idea that the federal government - under the guidance of quebec prime ministers - has purposefully targeted quebec for immigration with the purposes of changing the nature of quebec society, to prevent separation.
after the second referendum, quebec clearly started to get a little tired with this one party rule that didn't campaign on spectrum issues. they wanted a debate driven by normal election issues: budgets, services, changes in the laws, etc. so, the separatist forces started breaking up into different political factions. this was very much driven by the body politic, who just wanted a better debate on issues that actually affected them.
when you open things up like this, you have to expect that some bottled up issues are going to get out. there were bent up energies in the quebec nationalist regions that saw people without these multigenerational roots in the region as being responsible for the failure of the referendum. within this, a conservative separatist group - called the adq - started building a kind of collection of ideas about religious immigrants that would eventually be picked up by both the pq (the biggest separatist party) and the liberals (the federalist party).
you have to understand that the legal changes they want to make are purely about assimilation. there's not a racial bias to it, nor is there an exclusionary nature to them. it's about turning immigrants into cultural quebeckers, so they vote in favour of independence. they don't want to restrict immigration to any specific group, they just want to ensure that whomever comes to quebec becomes a quebecker and aligns with what they see as quebec values. should any of these ideas be adopted, i would not expect them to survive independence by very long.
but, canada is a pluralistic society, and so the federal law sometimes gets in the way of these ideas - there have been constitutional challenges. in canada, you can't arbitrarily tell somebody not to wear a scarf and try to enforce it under threat of something.
when the laws are explored over a public debate, the ramifications of them begin to make people uncomfortable - even if they are rational to get to the end point of separation - and they are invariably rejected, even when people admit to agreeing with them - confusing pollsters and policy makers. a few years ago, the pq lost an election over a "values charter" that would have acted as an assimilating force regarding things like head coverings and jewelry. polls claimed strong support for the values charter - yet the party lost, because of it. to support an idea of something is not necessarily to support the actualization of it. "i'd like to tell you to take that off your head" does not necessarily translate into "the law should be able to force you to take that off your head".
we saw the same thing in the last federal election. harper's rhetoric about muslims was pretty gross. public opinion polls seemed to suggest people both approved and realized that they can't actually vote for it.
the nativist streak is there. it has historical reasons. but, it's not xenophobic; rather, it's very strongly assimilating.
it may be a little bit real right now, so it may be easy to lose perspective, but we need to analyze trump correctly, as well. and, le pen, for that matter - although i think le pen is something very different, and destabilizing the region quite intentionally.
my very first comments about trump, before i got lost myself, were that you have to put him in context and understand *why* this is happening. when all the nonsense is debunked, your left with the reality that white people have done poorly in america since the 70s. with the collapse of the unions, the offshoring of jobs, mechanization and the rest, there are really declining living standards. it may not be informed to blame it on mexicans and muslims. but, we can't just leave it at that. the economics underlying this spasm need to be seriously addressed - and a fair bit of it needs to be attributed to nafta. there's other causes, of course. but, you can't do that in print, it seems.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-joy-of-canada-delivered-from-stephen-harper-s-darkness-to-justin-trudeau-s-light-a6779106.html
Emdx
> however, i think that it must also be acknowledged that quebec has developed a nasty nationalist streak in it's politics
Ah, yet another outsider that only relies on other outsiders for his information. You just fell exactly into the same trap you deplore with Mr Fisk.
> lucien bouchard blamed the loss in the second sovereigntist referendum on "money and the ethnic vote".
It was not Lucien Bouchard who made that famous remark, but Premier Jacques Parizeau. The next day, Parizeau resigned and Bouchard became premier.
But yes, Parizeau was right. Of course, money would be against us, as in any colonial situation. And the amount of money illegally spent to buttress the “NO” side during the referendum campaign was staggering. For example, whole planeloads were flown to Montréal, courtesy of airlines, at no cost to passengers. This kind of expense squarely fell into the purview of our election financing laws, and it was clearly illegal.
But nobody howled at the “money” part of the comment, because it was a given that money would be against us.
Let’s tackle instead the “ethnic vote”. Historically, immigrants have been used as a tool to minorize us. The expectation was that any immigrant who would come to Canada would become anglicized, and thus would not become part of our community. This was completely true until 45 years ago when the assimilation machine was stopped dead on it’s tracks by Law 101, which simply shut down access to english schools for immigrants.
This is the main reason why Canada hates Law 101, because it almost killed outright the assimilation machine.
What Jacques Parizeau was referring to with the “ethnic vote” is those immigrant communities who blindly vote for what their leaders tell them to, without asking themselves any questions.
Anyone with a brain would acknowledge that such behaviour in a Democracy is pretty deplorable.
Well, we lost by some 50,000 votes, and no doubt a lot more than 50,000 “NOs” were clearly “ethnic votes”.
There is nothing racist in denouncing this, in fact, Parizeau’s remark was clearly a denunciation of the racism that brings about those “ethnic votes”, racism fomented by Canada against Québec’s aspiration for independence.
But again, any minority seeking freedom from a larger country, like the Scots or the Basques are readily labelled as “intolerant”, “xenophobes” and all the unsavoury stuff you hear from Canadian media whenever the subject skirts Québec.
> you have to understand that the legal changes they want to make are purely about assimilation.
As I said before, immigration has been largely been used as a tool to minorize the french and the indians in Canada.
> but, canada is a pluralistic society,
Bollo*ks. It's only “pluralistic” when it suits Canada. And you see it bursting at the seams whenever there are high concentration of immigrants. Why do you think Rob Ford got elected as mayor in Toronto?
We get tagged as “racist” because our interculturalism policies are at odds with the canadian multiculturalism. We have good reasons to reject multiculturalism, because it’s mostly a tool to divide and rule; with immigrants isolated in little cultural ghettoes, it is far easier to manipulate them to keep them subservient than if they were full members of their adoptive society.
Which is what interculturalism does: we only take what we like from what immigrants take here; what we don’t like, we soundly reject and tell immigrants that they better forget about it.
Yes we are assimilationists. Although having immigrants keeping their culture is nice and all that, we don’t really care; what we want is them to take our language first and foremost. Culture will only naturally follow. We do this because we are strictly opposed to segregation and ghettoes; we want immigrants to be full-fledged members of Society, quite unlike the English who are very happy keeping their class system to keep the rabble at it’s place, which is pretty normal for a colonial society.
> In canada, you can't arbitrarily tell somebody not to wear a scarf and try to enforce it under threat of something.
Sure we can. And yet again, you cet carried away with the canadian media misrepresentation about Québec. We don’t bitch against the scarves (fu*k, we wear them ourselves six months a year — during winter, that is), it’s against the face veils we have against. And we’re not the only ones, almost all Europe is up in arms regarding this.
It’s just that the liberal crowd is so taken up in it’s multiculturalism that it stubbornly keeps going into the multiculturalist dead-end, despite the fact that this very subject made the NDP lose the chances at getting in power.
> the nativist streak is there. it has historical reasons. but, it's not xenophobic; rather, it's very strongly assimilating.
Well, yes. But it seems that in Canada, while it's okay to assimilate to the english, it's a no-no to assimilate to the french.
Which is a damn fine reason to get out of Canada.
deathtokoalas
i just want to point out that i'm a french canadian that grew up in the ottawa area. i do appreciate your correction about parizeau - i did misspeak on that point. but, i think you're otherwise demonstrating my points rather than rebutting them.
emdx
As a "french canadian from Ottawa", you have learned early on that your place is subservient to the english, and you clearly show it by your thoroughly colonized positions.
If you want to be french, you're welcome to come to Québec, but if you backstab us, you will be treated as you deserve.
deathtokoalas
i would rather leave ethnic nationalism in the 20th - if not the 19th - century. again: you're demonstrating my points.
to reiterate: the nativist streak is a problem in quebec, but they're not xenophobic. they're assimilationist. it's a very big difference in understanding them from a distance
perhaps the better way to understand quebec nationalism from britain - or the middle east - is to compare it to merkel's recent statements, rather than le pen's. the door is open. but they demand that migrants accept their value systems, should they choose to come in.
--
something else that you'll see floated around by the canadian pseudo-left is this idea of quebec as a victim of settler-colonialism. this is an outrageous narrative; france was of course a participant in settler-colonialism, and the french settlers were fundamentally no different than the english settlers. i'm glossing over a complicated history, but to put the french settlers on the side of the colonized is fundamentally wrong. regardless, i've seen it cited in international sources over the last few years, indicating that the narrative has some traction because it fits into the theories people like.
the actual reason this argument has popped up is due to the supreme court reference case on succession, which claimed that a unilateral declaration would only be valid in the context of a colonial relationship. as no such colonial relationship exists, such a unilateral declaration would be considered illegal and unconstitutional in canada.
you have to understand that context to make sense of the debate, but that's not what gets out of the country.
Emdx
Of course you are (again) wrong.
When the french settlers came, they certainly did not see themselves as superior to the natives; in fact, we actually “went native” and we formed a hybrid european-indian society.
To this day, we carry on several native way of doing things that are rather different from France (like seeking consensus rather than outright imposing one's views).
In all Canada, only the Québec government deals with natives as equals, on a nation-to-nation basis, rather than the “stupid, juvenile savage” way the federal government does. And the results show: in Québec, 80% of natives still speak their language (that’s because law 101 ALSO protects native languages) as opposed to less than 20% in Canada. We also deal with their traditional social structures, rather than the sham democracy that is imposed by Ottawa, and who elects corrupt, unaccountable band councils.
We also let natives administer Justice as they see fit, so, unlike Canada, we do not have a high native jail population.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; go to Moonsonee (or Attawapiskat), Ontario, and ask the Crees who live there if they would rather live in Québec…
deathtokoalas
see, this is skewed so many ways that i don't see any point in bothering. it's political whitewashing. but, as i pointed out, there's a reason for it.
at the start of the colonial period, the various native american groups were broadly more interested in using western technology to defeat their ancestral enemies than they were in defeating the invaders. european powers took advantage of this. but, a big part of understanding how colonialism in north america was possible lies in understanding that they have a very different cultural concept of property rights - the truth is that they didn't really see westerners as invaders because they didn't conceive of themselves as owners of the land. rather, they conceived of themselves as users of the land; it would not have made sense to them to try and stop others from using the land. there were treaties of friendship and land use signed with both early english settlers and early french settlers; neither the french nor the english held to these treaties particularly strongly. today, they're both under the interpretation of the same court system.
despite the complexity of the history, the broad truth is that the various native groups often found themselves aligned with imperial interests against the interests of the colonies. that is broadly true across the continent, and the broadest way to understand the nature of conflict in the period, and continuing to today.
so, for example, you saw the major native groups align with the french imperial interests against british settlers in the seven years war, but then you saw those same groups align with the british crown against american settlers during the revolutionary war. one of the reasons for the revolutionary war was a ban by the british crown on expansion westwards, in recognition of the sovereignty of the existing tribes. and, one of the reasons for the signing of the treaties in western canada was protection from american expansion.
what you're saying about treaty rights is simple nonsense - both in legal terms and historical terms. the single most violent colonial body in the history of canada was the francophone catholic church. there are some french-canadian metis (mixed) groups, but there are also english, scottish and ukrainian metis groups, amongst others.
quebec really needs to come to terms with it's participation in settler colonialism, rather than continue to deny the reality of it.
at
08:31
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
god, my brain hurts.
you know what? i know where the baltics are. i can identify each of them on a map. i know their capital cities. i know which language groups their dominant ethnicities fall into. and, i even know a fair bit of their history.
but, i don't have a favourite one. because that's really NOT a thing.
well, maybe prussia. it's them hats. but that would be a confusing answer.
i don't have a favourite balkan, favourite korea or favourite caribbean island, either.
i really hope the stupidity stops, soon. the canadian media is making fox news look insightful, right now.
this isn't tabloid quality journalism. it's closer to onion quality journalism.
...and it's sinking the conservatives to an ontario pc party level of amateurism. suddenly, they're more humorous than scary.
do they really think people can't work this out? really?
globalnews.ca/news/2409408/baltics-a-thing-because-its-2015/
Jane tow
Good for you Jessica, you sound like a very intelligent young lady. I hope one day you are PM!!
jessica amber murray
that's a good laugh.
maybe i should address this point. i've been rambling enough places that i think i have a passive audience. just a feeling. maybe paranoia, maybe solipsism - but maybe accurate. it's at least as likely, really, isn't it?
the idea of me running for office right now is really something that ought to be explained in the terms of a comic strip, with hilarious hijinks leading to total failure along the way. but, even if it weren't such an outrageously ludicrous proposition, the reality is that i wish my focus was 100% on music production at the moment. hear me out on this.
so, i've been dealing with radio interference in my head phones since july. since then, canada has been through an election and i've been kind of vocal about it. but, it was totally by the accident that my system was malfunctioning, and i had absolutely no idea why.
it took me forever to figure it out. first, i had to check things like drivers and system files, as it's the most likely option. that took months to rule out entirely, and i wasn't helped by the fact that i had two sets of headphones, both, it turns out, with shorts. so, every time i checked for issues with the phones, it was always "either the equipment is faulty, or both my phones are faulty.". and, you always take the odds on that gamble - you always say the equipment is faulty.
but, then i finally realized it had to be electrical. so, you have to check everything that could be creating interference. in a room full of gear, that's a nightmare. eventually, i realized that i was getting the same noise out of an mp3 player as i was getting out of the grid - indicating that the interference had to be in the air, as the mp3 player is not connected to the grid.
so, then i had to check to see how far i could go with this interference, realizing it has boundaries that are blocks away - meaning the interference is broadly environmental, and not coming from inside the unit. but, in the process i found the short in one pair of the phones. then, maybe both pairs had shorts, after all.
so, i think the shorts in my phones are interacting with the environmental field to turn my phones into radio antennas, and i'm picking up the local am radio signals. this isn't creating the sound of a radio station, it's just making the audio sound like am radio - kind of jagged and rough at the edges.
it turns out i can block the radio signals relatively well using tinfoil.
but, it took me six long months of experiments to get me this far. and, i'd never had taken the time to ramble on the internet, if it weren't to vent frustration about not knowing why i can't be done mixing this project by now.
that said, i might think about it. one day. in the exceedingly distant future. under certain unlikely conditions. so, it's not likely. but note that i have thought about how unlikely it is on more than one occasion.
you know what? i know where the baltics are. i can identify each of them on a map. i know their capital cities. i know which language groups their dominant ethnicities fall into. and, i even know a fair bit of their history.
but, i don't have a favourite one. because that's really NOT a thing.
well, maybe prussia. it's them hats. but that would be a confusing answer.
i don't have a favourite balkan, favourite korea or favourite caribbean island, either.
i really hope the stupidity stops, soon. the canadian media is making fox news look insightful, right now.
this isn't tabloid quality journalism. it's closer to onion quality journalism.
...and it's sinking the conservatives to an ontario pc party level of amateurism. suddenly, they're more humorous than scary.
do they really think people can't work this out? really?
globalnews.ca/news/2409408/baltics-a-thing-because-its-2015/
Jane tow
Good for you Jessica, you sound like a very intelligent young lady. I hope one day you are PM!!
jessica amber murray
that's a good laugh.
maybe i should address this point. i've been rambling enough places that i think i have a passive audience. just a feeling. maybe paranoia, maybe solipsism - but maybe accurate. it's at least as likely, really, isn't it?
the idea of me running for office right now is really something that ought to be explained in the terms of a comic strip, with hilarious hijinks leading to total failure along the way. but, even if it weren't such an outrageously ludicrous proposition, the reality is that i wish my focus was 100% on music production at the moment. hear me out on this.
so, i've been dealing with radio interference in my head phones since july. since then, canada has been through an election and i've been kind of vocal about it. but, it was totally by the accident that my system was malfunctioning, and i had absolutely no idea why.
it took me forever to figure it out. first, i had to check things like drivers and system files, as it's the most likely option. that took months to rule out entirely, and i wasn't helped by the fact that i had two sets of headphones, both, it turns out, with shorts. so, every time i checked for issues with the phones, it was always "either the equipment is faulty, or both my phones are faulty.". and, you always take the odds on that gamble - you always say the equipment is faulty.
but, then i finally realized it had to be electrical. so, you have to check everything that could be creating interference. in a room full of gear, that's a nightmare. eventually, i realized that i was getting the same noise out of an mp3 player as i was getting out of the grid - indicating that the interference had to be in the air, as the mp3 player is not connected to the grid.
so, then i had to check to see how far i could go with this interference, realizing it has boundaries that are blocks away - meaning the interference is broadly environmental, and not coming from inside the unit. but, in the process i found the short in one pair of the phones. then, maybe both pairs had shorts, after all.
so, i think the shorts in my phones are interacting with the environmental field to turn my phones into radio antennas, and i'm picking up the local am radio signals. this isn't creating the sound of a radio station, it's just making the audio sound like am radio - kind of jagged and rough at the edges.
it turns out i can block the radio signals relatively well using tinfoil.
but, it took me six long months of experiments to get me this far. and, i'd never had taken the time to ramble on the internet, if it weren't to vent frustration about not knowing why i can't be done mixing this project by now.
that said, i might think about it. one day. in the exceedingly distant future. under certain unlikely conditions. so, it's not likely. but note that i have thought about how unlikely it is on more than one occasion.
at
07:17
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Thursday, December 17, 2015
finalizing there is definitely something wrong with ironic hipster homophobia
ok.
so, i still don't know if the ultimate problem here is the short or the interference, but i've found a short on the left side of my phones. and, i'm not sure if it's in the cord or in the phones, either.
i know that an extra bit of foil around the connector between the cable and the phones seems to have me fully shielded.
i am finalizing track four, as of right now. it hasn't been altered since june.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/there-is-definitely-something-wrong-with-ironic-hipster-homophobia
so, i still don't know if the ultimate problem here is the short or the interference, but i've found a short on the left side of my phones. and, i'm not sure if it's in the cord or in the phones, either.
i know that an extra bit of foil around the connector between the cable and the phones seems to have me fully shielded.
i am finalizing track four, as of right now. it hasn't been altered since june.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/there-is-definitely-something-wrong-with-ironic-hipster-homophobia
at
23:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'd rather see a monument to the victims of capitalism.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/victims-of-communism-monument-next-steps-1.3369261
--
Julius No, Ph.D.
Can we build a "Victims of Capitalism" memorial right next to it for balance?
sutherlj
who would pay for it?
jessica murray
it would be best if we just built it together using voluntary labour, and held it in common ownership.
BromleyBromley
Like all of the people it has elevated out of poverty? there arent any victims of capitalism. Only corporatism.
jessica murray
poverty is only possible under the enforcement of private property. capitalism can never lift anybody out of poverty - that's an absurd twisting of words - it can only mire people within it.
Corvus2
Although capitalism has a lot of bugs in it it is still preferable to hardcore communism.
North Korea is an example that is worth reviewing on this subject.
jessica murray
i agree that north korea is an example worth reviewing. how many autonomously owned worker co-ops exist in north korea?
the reality is that poverty has no meaning when divorced from the enforcement of property rights; you can only have poverty if you have property rights.
when you hear capitalists talk about "lifting people out of poverty", what they really mean is "erecting a hierarchy where one group exploits another."
MalContent Disabled
Victims of Crimelords. Victims of Monarchies. Victims of Bloodthirsty Nutjobs, Victims of Kleptocrats etc, etc.
jessica murray
i'd like a victims of trolling monument that rickrolls whenever you cross through a censor.
contributor7
You find it appropriate to joke while my relatives were starved to death by Stalin and executed following months of torture? How Canadian of you!
jessica murray
stalin was an extreme right-wing despot, though. i mean, you don't even need to read history. you just need to read animal farm.
this is the funnest stalin fact: the guy actually turned himself into a GOD in the russian empire. i kid you not. like, the kind of thing that ancient roman emperors used to do.
khruschev and his minions did the best they could in destroying all evidence of this. but, if you look hard enough you can find russian orthodox icons (you know, those pictures of jesus with the orbs around his head) with stalin in place of jesus.
they actually had people kneeling down and praying to images of stalin, as replacement for jesus.
that's not communism. that's as right-wing as the spectrum gets.
there's a shot of one:
https://02varvara.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/01-stalin-icon.jpg?w=600
if that was a picture of jesus, it would be relatively normal for a member of the orthodox church to say their prayers in front of it, maybe take a few beads off the rosary, etc.
what actually happened - and this is actually true - is that they replaced all the pictures of jesus with stalin, then left the people to carry on their rituals.
again: that's a roman emperor's tactic. that's caesar. that's augustus. and it ain't communism.
"It is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god." - khruschev, denouncing stalin
--
more seriously, i would support a monument for the victims of the cold war, more broadly: korean war deaths, vietnamese villagers that got wiped out by agent orange, those purposefully starved in the holodomor genocide, cuban/angolan freedom fighters killed by the apartheid regime in south africa, those purposefully starved by mao as population control, palestinians who have become throw away in america's need for an ally in the middle east, etc.
there's no deficit of people killed in the cold war that deserve remembering. and, in fact many of these stories are not well known in the west.
the problem with this is that it takes a side.
our world war one monuments don't talk about how we beat the germans down, or about victims of the kaiser. they recognize that the conflict was senseless, and take responsibility for it. that's what this monument seemed to be missing.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/victims-of-communism-monument-next-steps-1.3369261
--
Julius No, Ph.D.
Can we build a "Victims of Capitalism" memorial right next to it for balance?
sutherlj
who would pay for it?
jessica murray
it would be best if we just built it together using voluntary labour, and held it in common ownership.
BromleyBromley
Like all of the people it has elevated out of poverty? there arent any victims of capitalism. Only corporatism.
jessica murray
poverty is only possible under the enforcement of private property. capitalism can never lift anybody out of poverty - that's an absurd twisting of words - it can only mire people within it.
Corvus2
Although capitalism has a lot of bugs in it it is still preferable to hardcore communism.
North Korea is an example that is worth reviewing on this subject.
jessica murray
i agree that north korea is an example worth reviewing. how many autonomously owned worker co-ops exist in north korea?
the reality is that poverty has no meaning when divorced from the enforcement of property rights; you can only have poverty if you have property rights.
when you hear capitalists talk about "lifting people out of poverty", what they really mean is "erecting a hierarchy where one group exploits another."
MalContent Disabled
Victims of Crimelords. Victims of Monarchies. Victims of Bloodthirsty Nutjobs, Victims of Kleptocrats etc, etc.
jessica murray
i'd like a victims of trolling monument that rickrolls whenever you cross through a censor.
contributor7
You find it appropriate to joke while my relatives were starved to death by Stalin and executed following months of torture? How Canadian of you!
jessica murray
stalin was an extreme right-wing despot, though. i mean, you don't even need to read history. you just need to read animal farm.
this is the funnest stalin fact: the guy actually turned himself into a GOD in the russian empire. i kid you not. like, the kind of thing that ancient roman emperors used to do.
khruschev and his minions did the best they could in destroying all evidence of this. but, if you look hard enough you can find russian orthodox icons (you know, those pictures of jesus with the orbs around his head) with stalin in place of jesus.
they actually had people kneeling down and praying to images of stalin, as replacement for jesus.
that's not communism. that's as right-wing as the spectrum gets.
there's a shot of one:
https://02varvara.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/01-stalin-icon.jpg?w=600
if that was a picture of jesus, it would be relatively normal for a member of the orthodox church to say their prayers in front of it, maybe take a few beads off the rosary, etc.
what actually happened - and this is actually true - is that they replaced all the pictures of jesus with stalin, then left the people to carry on their rituals.
again: that's a roman emperor's tactic. that's caesar. that's augustus. and it ain't communism.
"It is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god." - khruschev, denouncing stalin
--
more seriously, i would support a monument for the victims of the cold war, more broadly: korean war deaths, vietnamese villagers that got wiped out by agent orange, those purposefully starved in the holodomor genocide, cuban/angolan freedom fighters killed by the apartheid regime in south africa, those purposefully starved by mao as population control, palestinians who have become throw away in america's need for an ally in the middle east, etc.
there's no deficit of people killed in the cold war that deserve remembering. and, in fact many of these stories are not well known in the west.
the problem with this is that it takes a side.
our world war one monuments don't talk about how we beat the germans down, or about victims of the kaiser. they recognize that the conflict was senseless, and take responsibility for it. that's what this monument seemed to be missing.
at
10:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the rich are sitting on far too much cash right now.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/apec-unicef-trudeau-chair-1.3368564
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/apec-unicef-trudeau-chair-1.3368564
at
10:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
after reading dozens of articles on the topic, i'm still not clear about what is unclear.
but, to answer a few questions posed in the article...
does committing to further bombing require purchasing new jets? how much will those jets cost? who will benefit from the defense contract? who might be pushing for that defense contract?
i think the liberals have been crystal clear - and that you should take them at face value. but, if you want to really delve into this, i think you need to be prepared to ask some questions, and receive some answers, that you're maybe not prepared for.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-isis-chris-hall-1.3368691
--
eggshaped
So, does that mean he will withdraw the jets but put our military personnel in harm's way by putting boots on the ground, even if only in a "training" capacity? Or is he going to wait for other countries to subdue ISIS so we can then take in the remnants?
jessica murray
the idea is that the only way to build stability in the region is to enable local actors to do it. not western ground troops, but iraqi ground troops.
it's something any expert will tell you. nato can't win this war. there is no tactic that will be successful. only iraqis can win this war. and it requires convincing the civilian population to work with the state. nothing else will ever work - and carpet bombing will just make it worse.
i think there's a bit of a caveat to that. if civilians begin aligning with isis, then they become isis and must be targeted. maybe we screwed something up to get there (or many things up...), but the end result remains. see, but then we're bombing villages - and canadians cannot stomach that the way americans can.
where it gets even more complicated is that the same logic suggests that only assad can win this war. worse, iraq seems to be increasingly aligning with assad. you put two and two together, and there's no way out besides pulling out altogether, or escalating dramatically. the inevitable outcome right now seems to be a russian-backed syrian/iraqi alliance to reconstruct both states. and, while that is probably the fastest way to end the war, supporting this would put as at odds with the americans.
the only specifics i've heard relate to supporting kurdish troops, which really sidesteps the issue.
but, to answer a few questions posed in the article...
does committing to further bombing require purchasing new jets? how much will those jets cost? who will benefit from the defense contract? who might be pushing for that defense contract?
i think the liberals have been crystal clear - and that you should take them at face value. but, if you want to really delve into this, i think you need to be prepared to ask some questions, and receive some answers, that you're maybe not prepared for.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-isis-chris-hall-1.3368691
--
eggshaped
So, does that mean he will withdraw the jets but put our military personnel in harm's way by putting boots on the ground, even if only in a "training" capacity? Or is he going to wait for other countries to subdue ISIS so we can then take in the remnants?
jessica murray
the idea is that the only way to build stability in the region is to enable local actors to do it. not western ground troops, but iraqi ground troops.
it's something any expert will tell you. nato can't win this war. there is no tactic that will be successful. only iraqis can win this war. and it requires convincing the civilian population to work with the state. nothing else will ever work - and carpet bombing will just make it worse.
i think there's a bit of a caveat to that. if civilians begin aligning with isis, then they become isis and must be targeted. maybe we screwed something up to get there (or many things up...), but the end result remains. see, but then we're bombing villages - and canadians cannot stomach that the way americans can.
where it gets even more complicated is that the same logic suggests that only assad can win this war. worse, iraq seems to be increasingly aligning with assad. you put two and two together, and there's no way out besides pulling out altogether, or escalating dramatically. the inevitable outcome right now seems to be a russian-backed syrian/iraqi alliance to reconstruct both states. and, while that is probably the fastest way to end the war, supporting this would put as at odds with the americans.
the only specifics i've heard relate to supporting kurdish troops, which really sidesteps the issue.
at
10:12
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the americans had no right to demand that assad step down in the first place.
the propaganda has been very thick, and this will likely produce much convulsion. but, the americans are making the right choice in backing off from this demand. they can't pull this off. they need to back off, get rid of the crazies, re-establish the syrian and iraqi states and then talk about letting assad - who wants to step down anyways - work his way out in an orderly transition.
they should have done this years ago.
also realize this: they may be trying to get out to destroy a paper trail linking them to isis before the next election.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-assad-can-stay-once-again-u-s-capitulates-to-russian-demands-on-syria
the propaganda has been very thick, and this will likely produce much convulsion. but, the americans are making the right choice in backing off from this demand. they can't pull this off. they need to back off, get rid of the crazies, re-establish the syrian and iraqi states and then talk about letting assad - who wants to step down anyways - work his way out in an orderly transition.
they should have done this years ago.
also realize this: they may be trying to get out to destroy a paper trail linking them to isis before the next election.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-assad-can-stay-once-again-u-s-capitulates-to-russian-demands-on-syria
at
09:52
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the reason gangs don't push pot is that it's not addictive.
if you want to go down this route, it would probably be more useful to spend the funds on treatment for alcohol addiction.
i've had these conversations with street dealers. they push speed, mostly. and meth. it's cheap enough to sell to poor people, and it gets them hooked so they can generate revenue streams. the street dealers are throwaway fronts for serious business people. it's big money. and, pot is basically useless if you're trying to ensure a steady revenue stream because people smoke it sporadically & socially.
when was the last time you saw somebody on the street begging for change for pot?
it doesn't happen.
the marijuana distribution network looks more along the lines of a collection of pacifist hippies that don't want to get a job. the ponytails. the beards. that's your average pot grower/dealer. there's also plenty of people that do it as a second job. and, they clearly don't understand economics well, because there's been no discernible inflation on pot in decades.
i'm not saying gangs don't sell pot at all. but, it's not the real core of how it gets distributed. again: in 20 years, i've never seen a thug or a gun or anything remotely shady. it's just hippies with beards and ponytails - or pizza delivery guys, or managers at mcdonalds.
the reality is that, compared to speed or meth, it's a poor business model. you just don't create slaves out of marijuana addiction. and there's so many people selling from so many sources, that you can't build budgets around it or anything. not to mention the fact that most pot users don't want to deal with criminals. it's too unstable. and it's just not where the big money is...
so, it's like...let's do this to eliminate a problem that doesn't exist, to fund a problem that doesn't exist. ??. i know this is politics to ease centrists, but it simply doesn't exist in reality. i'd rather see an education program targeted at these centrists!
just sell it at the corner store, already. and, i'm not saying that funding addiction treatment is a bad idea, but it would help if it went towards something that's actually addictive.
i mean, it's going to be hilarious if we see marijuana addiction centers open up.
in today's society, the reality is that marijuana use is broadly passed down across generations, much as alcohol use is. it's cultural. if you look this up, you'll find that in a majority of cases of young marijuana use, there was a parent at home that was using it at some point. my dad quit when i was young, but he didn't have a problem with it and i was raised to see it differently than other drugs. i wouldn't even class it with alcohol. i'd class it with caffeine and aspirin. and, while not everybody can ask dad for a hookup, the reality is that that hookup that is found at some point along the chain is almost certainly coming from somebody's dad - and no doubt to a local grower without any connections to organized crime.
the reality is not like it is in the movies, built on reagan-era drug war propaganda.
globalnews.ca/news/2407903/trudeau-says-tax-on-legalized-pot-wont-be-a-government-cash-cow/
if you want to go down this route, it would probably be more useful to spend the funds on treatment for alcohol addiction.
i've had these conversations with street dealers. they push speed, mostly. and meth. it's cheap enough to sell to poor people, and it gets them hooked so they can generate revenue streams. the street dealers are throwaway fronts for serious business people. it's big money. and, pot is basically useless if you're trying to ensure a steady revenue stream because people smoke it sporadically & socially.
when was the last time you saw somebody on the street begging for change for pot?
it doesn't happen.
the marijuana distribution network looks more along the lines of a collection of pacifist hippies that don't want to get a job. the ponytails. the beards. that's your average pot grower/dealer. there's also plenty of people that do it as a second job. and, they clearly don't understand economics well, because there's been no discernible inflation on pot in decades.
i'm not saying gangs don't sell pot at all. but, it's not the real core of how it gets distributed. again: in 20 years, i've never seen a thug or a gun or anything remotely shady. it's just hippies with beards and ponytails - or pizza delivery guys, or managers at mcdonalds.
the reality is that, compared to speed or meth, it's a poor business model. you just don't create slaves out of marijuana addiction. and there's so many people selling from so many sources, that you can't build budgets around it or anything. not to mention the fact that most pot users don't want to deal with criminals. it's too unstable. and it's just not where the big money is...
so, it's like...let's do this to eliminate a problem that doesn't exist, to fund a problem that doesn't exist. ??. i know this is politics to ease centrists, but it simply doesn't exist in reality. i'd rather see an education program targeted at these centrists!
just sell it at the corner store, already. and, i'm not saying that funding addiction treatment is a bad idea, but it would help if it went towards something that's actually addictive.
i mean, it's going to be hilarious if we see marijuana addiction centers open up.
in today's society, the reality is that marijuana use is broadly passed down across generations, much as alcohol use is. it's cultural. if you look this up, you'll find that in a majority of cases of young marijuana use, there was a parent at home that was using it at some point. my dad quit when i was young, but he didn't have a problem with it and i was raised to see it differently than other drugs. i wouldn't even class it with alcohol. i'd class it with caffeine and aspirin. and, while not everybody can ask dad for a hookup, the reality is that that hookup that is found at some point along the chain is almost certainly coming from somebody's dad - and no doubt to a local grower without any connections to organized crime.
the reality is not like it is in the movies, built on reagan-era drug war propaganda.
globalnews.ca/news/2407903/trudeau-says-tax-on-legalized-pot-wont-be-a-government-cash-cow/
at
09:38
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, what’s the deal with those baltic states, anyways? are they really fascist, or is it just some kind of hipster irony?
“i can’t take it, jerry. i hear ‘lit your anus up’. every time. i can’t avoid it. it’s driving me nuts!”
well, perhaps you should take her up on her offer.
george’s eyebrow raises. the scene changes to one listening in from a distance.
“my god, what are you doing?”
“LIGHTING YOUR ANUS ON FIRE”
“what…no….HELP….”
www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-baltics-to-trudeau-yes-were-a-thing/
“i can’t take it, jerry. i hear ‘lit your anus up’. every time. i can’t avoid it. it’s driving me nuts!”
well, perhaps you should take her up on her offer.
george’s eyebrow raises. the scene changes to one listening in from a distance.
“my god, what are you doing?”
“LIGHTING YOUR ANUS ON FIRE”
“what…no….HELP….”
www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-baltics-to-trudeau-yes-were-a-thing/
at
09:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
people have been saying for years that the conservatives think voters are stupid. confirmation of this point is about the only thing i'm getting out of this.
of course he meant what he said he meant. that is blatantly obvious, and the only people that look stupid are the people jumping on him over it.
i don't like coming off as a liberal lackey. i'm not one. but, this is just an epic string of nonsense coming from the conservatives.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/17/trudeau-baltic-nations-macleans-video_n_8828124.html
of course he meant what he said he meant. that is blatantly obvious, and the only people that look stupid are the people jumping on him over it.
i don't like coming off as a liberal lackey. i'm not one. but, this is just an epic string of nonsense coming from the conservatives.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/17/trudeau-baltic-nations-macleans-video_n_8828124.html
at
08:52
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
mike,
you think those assault weapons are going to help you out against the swat team? or just give you a longer prison sentence?
bernie needed this. hope it helps.
you think those assault weapons are going to help you out against the swat team? or just give you a longer prison sentence?
bernie needed this. hope it helps.
at
03:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
i know it's a little early.
and i may regret it...
but, i'm officially declaring that winter is cancelled in the detroit-windsor region.
this announcement does not apply to the rest of canada.
there's basically zero ice cover on the great lakes, and above freezing temperatures forecast well into january. winter is a thing that builds on itself. the snow cover, the ice cover, the absence of sunlight, etc. but, the solstice is next week. at this point, it seems essentially impossible.
even if we get a dip in the jet stream, if the lakes are wide open it won't be very intense. and, the fact that the days start getting longer again next week means there's not much that winter can do to assert itself.
it's not crystal ball shit. there's a point on the calendar where an absence of winter buildup means it can't happen at all. we're really just about there.
like, we might get a week where it hovers around zero or something. but, that's not winter.
and i may regret it...
but, i'm officially declaring that winter is cancelled in the detroit-windsor region.
this announcement does not apply to the rest of canada.
there's basically zero ice cover on the great lakes, and above freezing temperatures forecast well into january. winter is a thing that builds on itself. the snow cover, the ice cover, the absence of sunlight, etc. but, the solstice is next week. at this point, it seems essentially impossible.
even if we get a dip in the jet stream, if the lakes are wide open it won't be very intense. and, the fact that the days start getting longer again next week means there's not much that winter can do to assert itself.
it's not crystal ball shit. there's a point on the calendar where an absence of winter buildup means it can't happen at all. we're really just about there.
like, we might get a week where it hovers around zero or something. but, that's not winter.
at
20:22
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's not that i dispute the broad statistical realities, or see anything offensive about calling out muslims. it's just that i have a problem with singling them out as somehow worse than other religions.
i don't really have the time to make this argument. but, a quick google search tells me that 73% of born-again christians think that homosexuality is a sin. i can't find numbers, but i would expect well over 26% of christians would argue that abortion clinic bombings are "sometimes" justified.
i think we need to have this debate; i think we need to get rid of religion. but, i don't think we should be singling out muslims when we do it.
BigBadJuju
+jessica The big difference is in the amount of power these two religions have. Look at the body count. You can't equivocate these two crazies. One is marginal and barely has the power to protest loud enough, the other has the world on its guard.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i really think you need to take a closer look at the body count. christianity has the near extermination of the western hemisphere in it's list of accomplishments.
BigBadJuju
Umm, no. Ancient holy wars are irrelevant. Christians today don't kill in the name of Christianity even a fraction of how much Islamists kill in the name of Islam. Don't get me wrong, all religions do some crazy shit, but the body count is incomparable.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i think you're mistaking what is no doubt a brief historical pause for some kind of permanent progress. if you take a broader historical perspective, you'll see that this pause is not unprecedented - and that it is in fact a consequence of christian hegemony rather than christian social evolution.
the kkk was not burning crosses very long ago, and hitler couldn't have succeeded to the extent that he did without support from the catholic church. the peace agreements in ireland are barely a few decades old. and, christians have no problem slaughtering people indiscriminately in africa.
mass christian violence has never been more than an inch under the surface; it's always been ready to erupt with the proper catalyst, which has always been economic.
BigBadJuju
+jessica I am not trying here to apologize for Christianity, or for any religion in that matter. Your argument may well have merit in the broader perspective. But I argue that, given the current circumstances, radical Islam is posing a more imminent threat and demands a more urgent action than any other religion today.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i don't agree. but, if i did, i'd still point out that what you do when you do that is deflect the argument away from an epistemological basis and towards an ethnic one, thereby creating a larger problem.
BigBadJuju
My argument has nothing to do with ethnicity. It has to do with the reality of radicals killing innocent civilians across the world in the name of religion. White European terrorist are just as bad as Middle-Eastern terrorists. You seem to argue from an idealistic perspective of how things should be and what we would like our problems to be. The reality is we have a distinct group that is making a lot of the troubles we have. And until you acknowledge this fact, this indisputable fact supported by every day events all over the world, your argument will remain detached from reality.
jessica
+BigBadJuju your argument has everything to do with ethnicity, whether you realize it or not. that's the faultline you're creating.
i don't really have the time to make this argument. but, a quick google search tells me that 73% of born-again christians think that homosexuality is a sin. i can't find numbers, but i would expect well over 26% of christians would argue that abortion clinic bombings are "sometimes" justified.
i think we need to have this debate; i think we need to get rid of religion. but, i don't think we should be singling out muslims when we do it.
BigBadJuju
+jessica The big difference is in the amount of power these two religions have. Look at the body count. You can't equivocate these two crazies. One is marginal and barely has the power to protest loud enough, the other has the world on its guard.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i really think you need to take a closer look at the body count. christianity has the near extermination of the western hemisphere in it's list of accomplishments.
BigBadJuju
Umm, no. Ancient holy wars are irrelevant. Christians today don't kill in the name of Christianity even a fraction of how much Islamists kill in the name of Islam. Don't get me wrong, all religions do some crazy shit, but the body count is incomparable.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i think you're mistaking what is no doubt a brief historical pause for some kind of permanent progress. if you take a broader historical perspective, you'll see that this pause is not unprecedented - and that it is in fact a consequence of christian hegemony rather than christian social evolution.
the kkk was not burning crosses very long ago, and hitler couldn't have succeeded to the extent that he did without support from the catholic church. the peace agreements in ireland are barely a few decades old. and, christians have no problem slaughtering people indiscriminately in africa.
mass christian violence has never been more than an inch under the surface; it's always been ready to erupt with the proper catalyst, which has always been economic.
BigBadJuju
+jessica I am not trying here to apologize for Christianity, or for any religion in that matter. Your argument may well have merit in the broader perspective. But I argue that, given the current circumstances, radical Islam is posing a more imminent threat and demands a more urgent action than any other religion today.
jessica
+BigBadJuju i don't agree. but, if i did, i'd still point out that what you do when you do that is deflect the argument away from an epistemological basis and towards an ethnic one, thereby creating a larger problem.
BigBadJuju
My argument has nothing to do with ethnicity. It has to do with the reality of radicals killing innocent civilians across the world in the name of religion. White European terrorist are just as bad as Middle-Eastern terrorists. You seem to argue from an idealistic perspective of how things should be and what we would like our problems to be. The reality is we have a distinct group that is making a lot of the troubles we have. And until you acknowledge this fact, this indisputable fact supported by every day events all over the world, your argument will remain detached from reality.
jessica
+BigBadJuju your argument has everything to do with ethnicity, whether you realize it or not. that's the faultline you're creating.
at
19:38
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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