14-06-2016: the joy formidable (detroit/ferndale)

their music:
https://www.thejoyformidable.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/06/14.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0OiC893c8k

this is the version that came as a ltd edition with mail orders of musick to play in the dark.

unfortunately, i lost my certificate of provenance. yet, i remain provenant!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_Presents_Time_Machines

j reacts to california's perpetual electoral irrelevance being perpetual

stop.

california always votes last and never matters. this is, of course, by design. i believe that the general understanding is that the last time california mattered in the democratic primaries was in 1968, when they shot bobby kennedy.

so, it hasn't mattered in decades - and the last time it mattered, the candidate they were going to pick got shot to prevent it from mattering.

that 's america for you: texas matters. california doesn't. by design.

so, this idea that turnout was down because they called it the day before is incoherent. the race was already over in 2008, and she got almost twice as many votes.

it's nonsensical enough for a conspiracy theory, really.

j reacts to the fascism inherent in the reduction of democracy to career advancement

this "qualified" thing that the media is pushing is an attempt to uphold their narrative and gloss over the problems with the process. i mean, he won a series of states afterwards - and he lost the week previously. there is no discernible turning point in the campaign around new york. it was a closed primary, and there was mass deregistration.

but, it bugs me anyways. not because it was actually a set-up: she claimed he was unqualified, and he just responded in turn. i don't even think he said anything really contentious. if this were a job interview, the fuck up over iraq would be pretty catastrophic.

but, it's not a job interview - and the fact that she's being considered at all is evidence of this. government is not the private sector. it should not be run like the private sector. it's not a meritocracy. elections are not a process of gaining experience and working your way up a ladder; the premise is starkly undemocratic. so, the language of glass ceilings doesn't even actually make any sense. democracy is a question of reflecting the popular will, not a question of being "qualified to get promoted".

but, it's the clintons - they distort things. they've been doing this for decades. this is a small irritant. granted. but, it's grating. and these small, grating things add up.

j reacts to the likely purpose of the clinton/sanders meeting

so, what is this meeting tonight?

my guess is that it's something like this.

look. you said one thing. but, you have a history of doing something else. so, what are your actual positions. do you support the tpp? what will you actually do about health care?

no, i heard what you said. but i want to know what you'll actually do before i decide what to do.

two things.

1) he has to believe what she says. that's hard. so, she can't just tell him what he wants to hear. he'll know if she tries.
2) there has to be some kind of real upside. that's hard, too.

don't assume the outcome of this is predetermined. she doesn't see him as an insider. she's not likely to really open up - she's more like to see him, and everything about him, as a liability. and, if he can't get a straight answer, he won't endorse her.

13-06-2016: final archiving steps are done (still ranting...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

"there are no forces and they have no control"

j reacts to the proper comparison to 2016 being 2000, not 2008

history is not destiny, but right now what it seems like we're re-living is gore v. bush. the similarities are actually really startling.

- while bush had the party behind him, he was widely seen as unfit to run. his intelligence was widely mocked.
- gore's opinion of bush was so clearly abysmal that he could barely be bothered to debate with him. he didn't see him as a serious opponent.
- the incumbent is popular in the center, but loathed by both the left and the right.
- the left signaled clearly that it was not going to elect gore unless he swung left. he didn't.

a lot of people will argue that the lesson is that you don't run a third party candidate. but, gore has given us no reason to think he would have been any different than bush. remember: gore was instrumental in the sanctions against iraq that killed millions of children. and, he is on the record - repeatedly - as not just supporting the invasion, but supporting the surge before the invasion even happened.

the real lesson here is not for voters but for democrats. hillary is hurtling down exactly the same path that gore was. and, if that's not corrected, you're going to see the same outcome - if not a worse one, as sanders is much stronger than nader ever was.

atonement.

j reacts to hillary's insta-cave to the right on islamophobic language

it depends on what the definition of radical islamic terrorism is.

it's like an episode of seinfeld, except without the irony.

she can't let him define the narrative like this, or the election becomes a joke - and he wins, by default.

i've been over this. the moment he's taken seriously, it's over.

her natural instinct is going to be to cave because the truth is that she actually agrees with him. but, then she's just folding to the narrative. it's her entire strategy - to control the centre. but, when he pulls her in like this, she loses in both directions. the right doesn't interpret her as moderate, they interpret her as weak. and, the left sees her for what she really is - and recoils.

the thing is that it doesn't make sense for her to push back, because she can't do it credibly. this is of course why the left can't go along with this. we expect her to push back against this, even if we realize it's kind of trivial. it's just a matter of principle to avoid linking the two things to avoid falling into the trap of xenophobia. but, she is at heart no less xenophobic than him.

if they set this up as "belligerent asshole" v. "belligerent asshole light", which is what she cluelessly actually wants, then it's no contest - you pick the real thing.

and, look at it from the other side - it's day one and she's already caving on islamophobic language. they haven't even voted in dc yet. you think she's going to hold her base?

this is going to be a disaster. by october, she'll be supporting the wall. by the end, she'll be standing meekly beside him and applauding his every racist statement. let's be real - isn't that what she's actually always done? stood beside clinton? stood beside bush? stood beside obama? why wouldn't you expect her to ultimately stand beside trump? to adopt his ideas, if she thinks they're popular?

america needs to get behind a strong third party candidate immediately.

give me the right headline.

clinton caves on islamophobic language

i'm no advocate of strong leader rhetoric. but, hillary clinton is a follower. and, if trump leads, she'll get in line behind him.

j reacts to "conscience rights" as an orwellian construction to restrict rights

i don't agree with this. health care shouldn't be seen of as a market transaction (which is the basis of this decision) but as a right. denying access to services would fall under the denial of a right.

that's not to say that doctors should be forced to carry out the procedure, exactly - they have every right to quit in protest. but, they should not have the right to deny access to the service.

that said, i realize that my opinions are not entirely in line with canadian jurisprudence. canadian law would interpret my argument as basically correct, but nonetheless rather unreasonable. the law would suggest that you don't need to force people to make the choice to administer or quit (although i would hold to this, out of principle) so long as there's somebody around that is willing to perform the procedure. i'll plead guilty to being hard-headed; the law will not follow me in my rigidity to patient rights and my rejection of "conscience rights".

but, the law may argue that allowing hospitals to opt-out altogether is not the proper balance.

i think the way the dust settles on this is that the hospitals have to have a department. the law will argue that it's needlessly belligerent to force individual doctors to administer, but that the hospitals must nonetheless provide access - that they can't opt-out like this.

the province should realize this and avoid the imminent legal battles that they should know they will lose.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-hospitals-allowed-to-opt-out-of-assisted-dying-raising-conscientious-accommodation-concerns

htttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/saudi-arabian-scholar-issues-fatwa-against-naughty-neighbours-who-steal-wifi-without-permission

i agree.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ndp-marijuana-decriminalization-1.3632525

“Hillary has a hidden agenda. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t trust her.”

hrmmn.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/06/stephen-harper-hidden-agenda-poll_n_2251234.html

j reacts to clinton's strength over sanders being her greater appeal to independents

"There is no guarantee Mrs. Clinton would go along and embrace certain liberal ideas that she opposed during the campaign and that could make it tougher for her to win over independents in November."

thanks for the heads up, wsj.

this is the next round of absurdity: in order to win independents, clinton needs to reject sanders' proposals.

they don't even care if it makes sense.

j reacts to accusations that sanders is working for the party to suppress the left

this article is describing the situation properly, but it is overestimating where america stands in it's social advancement. if america were europe, or canada, this argument would be reasonable. but, the levels of inequality in america - along with it's culture of glorified militarism and it's widespread working class support for the most brutal types of social darwinism imaginable - make it more comparable to dickensian britain and the necessary tactics more aligned to those used there, or elsewhere when the social advancement was so low. american leftists need to stop thinking of america as an advanced country and reject the kind of tactics we have been using in the modern world in favour of the kind of tactics that the modern world utilized a century prior - when it was at the level of social development that america is at today.

the social revolution must come first. but, in america they need a social awakening before they can have a social revolution.

the struggle in america should consequently be focused on winning the kinds of basic reforms that have been won elsewhere in the developed world. america cannot begin to talk about socialism until it has a functioning public education system. it cannot begin to organize until it has a functioning health care system. & etc. we don't even have to worry about maoism when the most impoverished are told by their religious leaders - and believe - that they need to work harder to get ahead, that they are being restricted by government policies designed to strangle the "free market"....

so, yes: sanders is a front. but, it's less that he's conspiring to give legitimacy to a party that deserves none and more that he's being played like a fool - and perhaps that he actually is a fool. he is arguing for nothing more than the realization of the promises of eleanor roosevelt more than a half century ago - minor concessions to deliver the reward of basic human rights. and, they are minor concessions. but, the kinds of minor concessions that this article is rejecting as insufficient have to, rather, be seen as starting points. they are certainly insufficient. but, there is no deeper revolutionary potential in a country reared on institutional violence. they are simply too deeply brainwashed; bernie is exactly what they needed, whether he gets crucified in the end or not.

to see him as an end point is an error. but, everything has to start somewhere - and this is where it must start, in america: education  & health care.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/13/bernie-sanders-orchestrated-demise/

12-06-2016: combining large word documents (still ranting, too)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

this is a record of startling continued relevance in 2016 - 30 years later.

yeah.

j reacts to orlando (trigger warning?) pt 2

see, this is what i'm talking about.

your choice is to support a candidate that wants to restrict minority rights (what would de tocqueville say?) or a candidate that wants to repeal the second amendment, while acting as a sales agent for overseas arms purchases.

they're equally wrong. there's no good choice here. it's one form of right-wing extremism vs another form of it. neither approach remotely addresses any kind of remotely relevant issue - it just aimlessly pits one demographic against another.

it's divide and conquer.

then, you wonder why we have conspiracy theorists?

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-13/orlando-massacre-throws-twist-into-clinton-trump-battle

--

i have very little love for guns. if i know there's a gun in a house, i won't go in it. but, we don't have a constitutional protection on arms up here, so we have different legal mechanisms. the point is just that i'm not opposed to gun control (even while recognizing the legal realities of the second amendment, and kind of insisting on the rule of law, as it applies to whatever country we're talking about). what i am opposed to is conflating the issues. not because i love guns - i really hate them - but because i know that's a dead-end to inaction (it's not just the gun lobby, it's the constitution) and a dead-end to effective policy (it's not going to work, anyways).

canada is a bad comparison, because we neither have a gun rights culture nor do we have as strict of a class hierarchy. so, you can say we have harsher gun control laws and be correct - but we also have more integrative social engineering policies. i'd suggest the latter is more important. although, note that we had an isis-inspired attack on parliament hill a few years ago, and have had less frequent mass shootings (there was one of historical importance in montreal in the 80s). we've also had massacres that use other weapons, like knives and explosives. but, you can twist the data around every which way and not real get anywhere with it.

i think france is a better example. france has some of the strongest gun control laws in the world, but it also has an incredibly poorly integrated migrant underclass as a consequence of it's history of colonialism in northern africa. so, you get these muslim ghettos full of algerians that face all kinds of barriers to full participation in society. the result is riots, gang violence - and, yes, mass shootings. if they had weaker gun control laws would it be worse? i dunno. but, i think it's pretty clear that the strict gun control laws haven't resolved anything. and, you wouldn't expect it to, because it's not the root cause of the issue.

again: i'm not opposed to gun control on it's face. background checks are a good idea. i don't see any value in buying an assault rifle. and etc. but, it's just disingenuous to think this is going to solve anything.

i'll predict the future. one day, the gun control advocates will get their way and launch a warn on guns. i don't want to say that nothing will change, because something did change with the war on drugs - black people ended up in jail on drug charges and white people didn't. that's what you're going to see with stricter gun laws: minorities will get arrested and whites won't. and twenty-thirty years later, you'll get a movement to stop the war on guns. meanwhile, another generation will pass that is just that much more damaged by a culture of gun violence.

a lot of people are pointing fingers at religion and patriarchy and the media and the political class and i have no argument against it, it's just that i'd like to see more attention pushed towards the war economy. that's primarily what i was getting at when i blamed the culture. we're constantly being drummed up for war. we glorify violence. not just at the military level, either, but at the police level, too. when you live in a society that glorifies violence, one should not be surprised when it manifests itself in daily life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4MC0vZgwfM

--

i don't have the background required to fact check any of this, but it makes a lot of sense to me. so, when you hear a barely reformed dixiecrat like clinton make this the center of her platform, just a few decades after her husband used criminal justice reform for the same purposes.....

the choices are terrible. i have to tune out. i'm going to drive myself mad. or potentially get shot, myself.

https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

--

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/gun_controls_racist_reality_the_liberal_argument_against_giving_police_more_power/

this is a canadian site, so i can speak in more plain terms that will be better understood.

obama v clinton was like ignatieff v rae. they had different hair. they were otherwise identical candidates that represented identical interests. they were clearly of the same party.

trying to get sanders and clinton to work together is more like trying to build a coalition between the liberals and the ndp. they may both hate trump. but, there's major hurdles to overcome. and, at the end of the day, it's something that ultimately simply just doesn't make sense.

there ought to be a lot of haggling between now and july, but i frankly don't think that clinton is even going to grant him an audience beyond some initial pleasantries. he's not going to get a thing from her. so, i'm hoping that sanders marches his supporters to stein - because it's now too late for him to get on the ballot in most states.

i mean, if you want to argue that you should vote liberal to stop harper, you're going to get quite a bit of sympathy. but, you're going to get quite a bit of push back, too. worse, the reality is that the american spectrum has become so skewed that clinton is really running well to the right of harper - she's so far to the right that she wouldn't even get nominated in this country. she's got kagan and kristol and kissinger endorsing her. so, there *has* to be some pull back to a more sane place on the spectrum.

in the end, trump might win. but, it's blatantly obvious to many, now, that there's no use in continuing to support the democrats in their current incarnation. if they can't be steered in a different direction, the party needs to collapse.

ipolitics.ca/2016/06/11/clinton-owes-sanders-a-dignified-exit/

Tallacus
so are they still going to bash Christianity even though now a MUSLIM is the biggest mass murderer of gay people here in America?

jessica
yes. i'll have great fun bashing both of them. i'll bash the jews, too.

truth
Christians rule. Our LORD is returning and will destroy all of his enemies.

jessica
will he bring his 12 boyfriends with him?

truth
you will find out one day when you stand before him on Judgment Day trembling in fear for your blasphemy.

jessica
actually, i'm counting on somebody going back in time and killing mary before jesus is born.

or. wait. is that a naturalistic explanation for a virgin birth?

truth
Yep, Islam was last. Muhamad added a whole bunch of his own stuff.

jessica
i see. and the other two books are totally legit. just like the book of mormon, i suppose.

Bad Company Gaming
Believe it or not, Christianity actually condemns violence against non-Christians, not that it means they don't view homosexuality as sin, but they do encourage kindness and love for the individual. Of course this won't stop the libtards from doing what they do best, I have a theory on how they are still going bash them after events like this. Either by actually or pretending to acknowledge that islam has violence and tolerance problem, but not without putting christians in the same boat(which is stupid, because there's a HUGE difference between christians protesting gay events and muslims massacring gay events), blaming christian fundamentalist for encouraging anti-gay hate from radical islam, or maybe come up with some bs excuse or logic to defend islam and bash christianity by attempting to "prove" that it has an even worse violence and tolerance problems(again, very stupid).

no
when has a Christian in this day in age committed a massacre killing 50 homosexuals

Bad Company Gaming
Spolier Alert None

jessica
hitler was a christian.

Bad Company Gaming
no he's a fake christian, just as fake as a darwinist who believes in a god.

jessica
well, by that logic, you very well can't claim these people are real muslims.

if these people are muslims, and representative of muslims, then hitler was a christian, and representative of christians; if you reject that hitler is representative of christianity, you must also reject that terrorism is representative of islam.

fwiw, i would be more likely to argue that hitler is a representative christian and isis is also representative of islam, then argue we should tear down all religion. it's not that most christians aren't like hitler so much as it is that most christians don't understand their religion - if they did, they'd act and sound more like hitler. likewise, islam is vile to the core - but most "muslims" don't really practice their faith.

the problem here is the divide and conquer. they want to pit us all against each other. the solution is to reject the division, which also means rejecting religion.

Bad Company Gaming
I would say your right, but you're not, because christianity condemns murder and other unjustified acts of killing or violence. Hitler was using christianity to get to power and keep the Germans from turning on him, he basically made them think that he was a christian, when really he was agnostic (or an insane person who tried to merge two word-views that contradict each other). The reason why the Orlando shooter and ISIS is more likely to be follow the islamic faith than Hitler following the christian faith, is because unlike christainity, islam promotes violence against infidels(non-muslims), there's not one thing in the quran that condemns actions like these, despite muslim leaders saying otherwise, which further supports islam having a violence and tolerance issue in modern world, thus rationalizing the term "radical islam", and while I do agree, this doesn't mean they represent every muslim or that every muslim is at fault, it does mean they represent muslims who share the same or similar views. BTW even if Hitler was religious, he was beaten(in kill count) by atheistic dictator Joseph Stalin, not saying that this proves religion is bad or good, but it does prove that atheists can be just as evil.

Also, did you know Hitler had an muslim friend? Don't believe me? Look it up.              

jessica
listen, i didn't bring up hitler to get into a genocidal pissing match. but, do you realize how many deaths fdr is responsible for, too?

the bible, like the koran, tells you to never kill - and then tells you when it's ok to kill. like, for example, if you're an adulterer. or gay.

what you're not really realizing is that christianity and islam are not just sort of the same thing but are actually literally the same thing. think of it like a trilogy. judaism is vol. 1. christianity is vol 2. islam is vol 3.

Tallacus
so I am calling for the Termination of @Zack Ford the author for Think Progress LGBT issues who blamed Christian America for the Massacre in Orlando, I ask anyone who is for truth to join in in the #FireFord  campaign for this PoS to issue an apology or resign

jessica
actually, i think it's probably tactical to stand back and watch the christian right and the neo-liberal right tear each other down. i'd recommend that the left should sit this fight out.

Tallacus
the left is perpetuating it with their hatred of Christianity, I am not religious myself but I really see this as wrong so fuck @Zack Ford Think Progress needs to kick his ass out, a journalist has a responsibility to tell the truth, Mr. Ford's hatred of the values that built this country makes him an ally to the enemies that are destroying it

jessica
a debate between christians and neo-liberals over "the values that built this country". hrmmn. well, you both supported slavery.

i'm more interested in discussing the values that can tear down your country, myself.

Tallacus
you had to be living under the rock to be unaware of all these values destroying our nation, from SJW Fascism, to Socialism to anti male, anti constitutional sentiments just to name a few

jessica
i'm not debating your premise, i'm encouraging your projected outcome.

like i say: this is more of a source of entertainment than a political battle that i want to pick a side on. i'd rather just make some popcorn and watch.

i'm going to give you a little bit of a pro-tip about the anti-sjw thing, though.

i'm pretty critical of them, and that might suggest that we're on the same side. but, we're not. see, you think they're evil communists. i think they're confused conservatives. you fear them as tyrants. i just make fun of them, and think they're harmless idiots.

the actual truth, the way i see it, is that if you could sit down with them and have a reasonable discussion, you'd determine that you actually have a lot of common ground. i, on the other hand, am never going to agree with either of you.

from my perspective, you're two sides of the same coin.

Tallacus
oh yeah its all fun to watch and make fun off, until it comes for you

jessica
well, i've taken steps to protect myself, too: i have a rain coat to protect me from their tears.

Tallacus
a rain coat isn't going to protect you, this isn't something you poke fun off at, I am talking about real protection, arming yourself, knowing what is dangerous and to avoid it, and informing others of the great evil we all are facing

jessica
yeah. you know, i'm not really afraid of kids with thin skin. they're just annoying. but, people that want to react with guns are legitimately a little bit unsettling.

Bad Company Gaming
this could be the lgbt's time to get the NRA's good side, arm themselves, and fight back against radical islam.

Tallacus
some are at least the non a feminine ones are taking a stance to protect themselves

jessica
if i was going to pick something to fight here, it would be the continued occupation and bombing of afghanistan. it's time to end america's involvement in overseas wars.

bring the troops home, NOW. i don't want to escalate. i never wanted to fight in the first place.

i'd rather tear the state down to end the war than escalate it. america offers me nothing of value, nothing worth fighting for. see the russian revolution for historical precedent.

Bad Company Gaming
Of all the things I disagree with, I do agree with you on one thing. We need to bring are guys back.

MrAranton
Hitler had the members of the SS swear that they believe in a (singular) god-creator  and that atheists are arrogant, delusional and unsuited for their cause. That clearly shows that he was not an atheist and believed in a monotheistic relgion, and there aren't that many around. If Hitler wasn't a christian, do you think he was a muslim, a sikh, a zoroastrian, a Yazidi or dare I even say it: a jew?

jessica
it was actually well understood at the time that the catholic church was a part of the alliance of axis powers. that is, the pope was close to both hitler and mussolini. they helped in rounding up groups for the concentration camps. and, remember: the anti-semitism in nazism was built on top of the anti-semitism in catholicism.

Bad Company Gaming
Well his actions completely contradict his "faith", he even killed christians who opposed him, not only that but he also believed that the ayran (or german) race was, not only superior, but an evolving race while other races are destined to die out (sounds a lot like "survival of the fitness" from darwinism). So my answer is this proves that he's not a christian or an atheist, but an insane person who tried to merge two contradicting world views, it's like as if he's trying to make the wrong puzzle piece fit. Besides if you think  christianity is bad just because one of the most evil person claims to be one, then that should mean that atheism and  is bad thanks to other murderous leaders like Joseph Stalin(again, killed more than Hitler), Fidel Castro, and Mao Zedong.

BTW, just someone criticizes atheists doesn't mean they're religious(not even me), take liberal atheists and feminazis vs conservative and neutral atheists for example.   

jessica
you're right about the crazy person part, and it applies equally well to the orlando shooter.

but, i just want to point out that the ideas you're attributing to darwin are not his. true darwinism is better articulated by the mutualism of peter kropotkin; it's not a fundamentally violent worldview. what is a fundamentally violent worldview is capitalism, and what you're (incorrectly) assigning to darwin is actually rooted in the economic writings of nineteenth century liberal capitalists like malthus and spencer. you should be focusing your ire on the right, not on the left.

the protestants were basically right about the catholic church: it was an organization devoted to secular power. and, marx was right to point out that it merely used religion as a tool of control, without bothering to care what it was actually about. that's where your contradiction collapses - the church itself only ever paid lip service to it's beliefs. so, when hitler said he was christian, it meant that he wished to utilize the control mechanisms of the christian social order for his own gains.

but, the reformation was also a failed and co-opted social revolution that produced even more violent institutions than the catholic church. much of nazism can in fact be traced to christian writing, sometimes through the intermediary of nietzsche (who was himself a christian).

further, the real christians were always on the far left of the social spectrum, and it remains that way today. marx basically articulated the line that is attributed to gandhi: i like your christ, but i hate your christians - or, perhaps, i like your christians, but i hate your christianity. an educated christian would see their system reflected in the writings of kropotkin, of russell, of chomsky...

MrAranton
Hitler was not a christian because ... reasons is a "no true scotsman"-argument. You're redifining christianity to somehow not include Hitler. What gives you the authority to do so? But even if I let you off the hook on this one: Hitler had christian accomplices and loads of them. The first international treaty Hitler signed, was with the catholic church. The catholic church also shipped Nazis to South America to help them escape the trials set up by the Allies.

Given the amount of christians killed by christians in conflicts between protetstants and catholics (in my country those fights left a larger percentage of the population dead than both world wars combined), the claim that Hitler wasn't a christian because he killed christians, too is just ridicoulous.

The Nazis did not invent anti-semitism. There was religiously based anti-semitism for centuries before anyone ever heard of Nazis. "The jews killed our saviour, any hatred they face, they brought upon themselves" That's something I was taught when I still was a Christian - and one of the reasons why I didn't want to be one anymore.

The doctrine gulags were established to enforce was communism. That's not the same as atheism.

State Communism as developed in the USSR and their Satellite states is often referred to as a political religion because it functioned a lot like a religion. Actually it's almost a carbon copy of christianity; just replace any reference to god and jesus with a reference to the writings of Karl Marx and Lenin, replace "heaven" and "the kingdom of god" with "The classless society", "hell" with "gulag" and "sin" with "counter-revolutionary thought and/or action" and you're done. The dead of the gulag do not prove the dangers of atheism. They prove the dangers of doctrine-based thinking. And no, even though atheism can be incorporated into larger doctrines, it is not complex and encompassing enough to be considered one itself.

jessica
the state actually literally pushed for the worship of stalin; the cult of personality had an apex of literal emperor worship that looked like something from the roman period. stalin was a tsar, a caesar - a god. the soviets tried to erase this from history under khrushchev and largely succeeded; it's so disturbing that western scholars have even avoided it. but, you can find pictures of icons of stalin on the internet, along with modified christian prayers that replace jesus with stalin in verse. the state distributed these icons and prayers to orthodox christians and expected them to use them to replace their jesus worship with stalin worship.

Bad Company Gaming
Stalinism, in a way, is a parody of christianity, where the worship of god is replaced by worship of man.

First off I'm not redefining christianity, If I was then there wouldn't be anything in the bible that contradicts Hitler's ideas or actions(and before you say something like for example "but Hitler hated gays", let me explain to you the difference between him, westbro baptist chuch, and other christians who disagree with homosexuality. Hitler and westbro hates homosexuals to the core and like islam think they should be put to death, while the other christians believe homosexuality is a sin(religious crime) that can be forgiven, this doesn't mean that they hate gays like Hitler or westbro, they just disagree with them, they dislike the "homo" not the person who is gay, its kinda confusing, but hey at least they view and treat them like humans compared to muslims), the one redefining christianity was, guess who, Hitler himself, to better fit the nazi regime by excusing his racist ideas(something that is contradicted by "all men are created equal" in the bible), liking all humans to animals or sacs of meat, and rejecting the vision of heaven and hell, creation, and suggestive opposition to tyranny(something that was controversial in the roman empire). Hitler used christianity, and faked his faith in order to rise to power and began to use "the no-true-scotsman" fallacy to exclude christians that were against him and turn the "positive christians" against them, according to Goebbels Diaries(one of the leading member of the Nazis) "He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity". Not to forget he was influenced by the occult a big no no for christians. Besides the way you guys use the "no true scotsman" arguement is as bad as the way the left use it to whitewash the attack in orlando and excuse islam, if you think it's rational to hate christianity because Hitler claimed to be one, then it should rational for me to hate atheism because Stalin claimed to be an atheist. Also, I just wanted to clarify something the point about my previous post was that it didn't matter what you're religious view is, you can commit the most awful crime and become the most evil man, regardless of your morals contradicting it or your religion condemning it as "sin" or promoting it as a "righteous act". 

jessica
i didn't realize that the declaration of independence was now canonical.

MrAranton
You keep treating christianity as if it were a monolithic block. But there are hundreds if not thousands of denominations, there some communalities that make them christian, but beyond that there are a lot of differences. Because of that almost any statement along the lines "christianity stands for x" or "y is un-christian" is a sweeping and inaccurate generalization.

To understand the religous undertones of Nazi ideology you have to be aware of some peculiarities of language used in German political discourse at the time. Most of them have to do with the somewhat unusual religous landscape of Germany. It is not dominated by a single denomination - like in France or Sweden - but it is nowhere near as fragmented as it is in the U.S. Additionally there has been a lot of bad blood between the denominations - after all the religously fueled conflicts of the 17th century had - in relation to the total population - been more destructive than both World Wars combined. Because of that bad blood - and the "Kulturkampf" of Bismarck era - religious affiliations were downplayed in politics. In the 1920s and 1930s a vast majority of people just would not vote for candidates who openly affiliated himself with another denomination.

Nazi-ideology contains a lot of ideas that have their origin in christianity, but in order to avoid the denominational minefield that Germany was at the time, these ideas were re-phrased in a denominationally neutral fashion and unless you're aware of that, a lot of them sound downright secular. I guess this gets even more prounounced if you're not looking at the original German but any translation of it.

Another thing you've missed: Hitler's mind was quite erratic to begin with, and it got worse over time. You can't pin his position down on anything because for most of them you'll find at some point in his life he held an opposite view. Because of that individual quote don't prove anything about Hitler. Up to 1919 for example there is correnspondance in which he speaks very favourably of Jews. He did develop a fascination with the occult, but then at the time a lot of christians did; that was fad of the time and does turn him into a non-christian. And yes there are statements in which he blames christianity for "dulling" the superior germanic mind; but on the other hand, as soon as his power within the NSDAP was great enough to do so, he kicked out all Neo-Pagans. So apparantly returning to the old germanic beliefs wasn't his goal either...

After the first successes during WW2 the propaganda presented Hitler as a vessel of god's will and the Nazi-ideology as a supplement or clarification on Christianity. The general spin was that Hitler was to lead god's new chosen people into the conquest additional "Lebensraum im Osten" just as Joshua led the Isrealites to conquer the promised land of Kanaan. Go read the book of Joshua, compared to the atrocities that book boasts were commited in the name of god, Hitler was an innocent choir boy. The bible is an awful book that sets a lot of bad examples and can be cherry-picked to justify absolutely every single atrocity Hitler comitted. And because of that as long as christians call the bible holy, they cannot distance themselves from Hitler. And no, Jesus' "love thy neighbour" does not negate that, because filty heathen scum are not neighbours.

Bad Company Gaming
BTW, Friedrich Nietzsche was an agnostic. He may have christian in his early years, but he rejected his religion and became a skeptic of christianity, take his work "death of god" for example. I seem to notice you guys have a problem all acts of violence(including self-defense), makes me ask a question, are you a pacifist? Reason why I'm asking is cause it seems like your logic associates, for example, a guy who kills a creep to defend his daughter's life (and virginity), with a murderous serial-killer like the one in the shooting.    

jessica
i don't think nietzsche was ever truly an agnostic or an atheist, i think he was what you call a christian that was struggling with his faith. he framed certain discourses in certain ways that challenged traditional western thiinking, but he never transcended christian thought. you could never understand his writing without a rigorous study in christian philosophy, and in the end his writings don't even make sense outside of a christian discourse. you could think of him as a christian equivalent to job.

i'm not a pacifist. i'm an anarchist. i believe in self-defense. but, i reject state violence. so, i'm in solidarity with somebody stepping in to prevent a crime, but i reject state violence (including "punishment") as an act of criminality, itself. liberals refer to this as the rule of law. i don't want to speak for the other poster.

real atheists don't have much to say about nietzsche that is very nice. it's a collection of false dilemmas and non-debates that only make sense in the context of christianity, itself.

just briefly: i don't think that the collapse of religion necessitates either the collapse of society or the collapse of morality, because (as an atheist) i don't think that society was built on religion, or that morality has anything to do with religion in the first place. this would only be a serious debate to me if i was a christian to begin with. as a non-christian, this is just not a relevant discourse to me.

you consequently have no choice but to place him in the christian discourse, if you want to place him in a discourse at all.

he makes no sense in an atheistic discourse. in fact, he's decidedly ahistorical in an atheistic discourse - about 1000 years out of date.

he kind of makes the classic error of conservatism, in glorifying a past that never existed.

----

Kevin Solway
"Racist religious hate is a problem with any religion", says CNN.

What gives CNN the right to insult Buddhism? They have no idea what they are talking about.

jessica
google search term: rohingya.

j reacts to "delete your account"

listen.

i know clinton has trouble with young voters. but, she's dipping into the barely legal area with "delete your account".

twelve year olds can't vote, hill. they're actually widely ridiculed online, too. oops? yeah.

this hip grandma thing is a dead end of possibly catastrophic proportions. that's not to say she shouldn't be trying to spin a few memes out, but it's going to work better if it's authentic.

that is, after all, the actual problem, right? she's widely seen as a big faker. hiring a staff of....is that the new scandal? clinton uses child labour for her twitter account?

but, that's just obviously fraudulent. all you're going to get out of kids from that is an awkward laugh and some eyeball rolling. i actually don't think there's anything particularly uncool about grandma memes. it would actually even be sort of pioneering. digital natives are a lot less cognizant of the technological divide than older people are; they don't really see the screen the same way. what i mean is that older people tend to look at the internet as some alternate reality that you have to move into, while digital natives just see it as an extension of reality. so, there is not real-life hillary and internet hillary. there's just hillary. that means that you want to use their tools, sure, but you want to look and sound your age, too - because they won't separate the digital from the physical the way that older people will. you are your twitter account.

if trump wasn't such a loud-mouthed buffoon, he'd have a natural advantage because he's actually writing the stuff himself. that's what the kids want, they just don't want what trump is saying.

she shouldn't delete her account. but, she might want to get more involved with it.

i was a canadian before it was cool.

this is a bit of a classic piece of canadiana; some people may even argue that this was the best canadian band of all time, although it was very short-lived - we only got two records out of the original line-up.

they're doing a twenty year anniversary set with the original line-up at the windsor bluesfest (and they managed to get jeff martin, singer/guitarist of another obscure-outside-of-canada canadian act called the tea party, to open).

the fact is that i saw this concert once before. it was called edgefest, and it happened in 1997.

to get an idea of the popularity of these bands in canada, note that the opening bands were collective soul, green day and the foofighters. the headliners were the tea party, i mother earth & our lady peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNhGGdfqFME&list=PL919D15E55E8F8498

this is a couple of cuts from the tea party's opus, the edges of twilight.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7pg4ndDy_gaVTV_e6gcFigsqAuTvt7Bo

note to self: don't consume five grams of mushrooms this time.

Tippi
Or he could just become a Democrat - an actual one, not just someone who thought running as an independent wouldn't him get enough attention.

deathtokoalas
i'd rather see him split the democrats in half. two-party spectrums are really one-party oligarchies. a third party is necessary to save the country's democratic institutions from lapsing into a nepotistic cesspool, to be sold to the highest bidder.

ipolitics.ca/2016/06/11/clinton-owes-sanders-a-dignified-exit/

j reacts to clinton v sanders being more like luke v vader than clinton v obama

so, it's been clear for a while now that people are not entirely cognizant of the severity of the divide in policy. what's not so clear to me is if sanders is seen as less progressive than he is, if clinton is seen as more progressive than she is or if it's somewhere in between.

it's also no doubt a little bit of a reflection of familiarity. the united states is a two-party system.

it's the old kodos line.

"go ahead, waste your vote."

the only way that most people can really conceive of a role for sanders at all is in the democratic party. so, of course they throw out ideas like a vp run.

remember: clinton's view is they ran the race and she beat him and he therefore loses and his ideas should go away.

i've been clear that i don't think that a meaningful collaboration is possible. it's like telling skywalker and vader to put aside their differences and get along. the fact that people can't see, or won't see, or can't process, the difference is kind of disappointing.

there's still a long time before the convention.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-sanders-idUSKCN0YY0F9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcngdW2Ju4

"bernie. i am your master."

"join the dark side, bernie."

noooooo!!!!!

don't do, it bernie! don't join the dark side!

that's right. don't join the dark side. heed your own advice, sir.


listen.

bernie's been shuffled home. the stage is set for episode VI. but, that means that this shit ain't over until i see some happy ewoks dancing in the forest. which means we have until burning man to set this right.

no, really.

there's an important part in return of the jedi where luke tries to convince vader to turn away from the dark side. that's what's up next. but, it will fail. and, we will have to blow up the party.

somebody call chomsky, make sure he's ok.

--

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/another-neocon-endorses-clinton

j reacts to orlando (trigger warning?) pt 1

i guess that the right thing to say is that i've become entirely desensitized to mass shootings. i guess the way i react is something like this:

1) there's a lot of problems with mental illness, poverty, inequality and the correlated collection of issues in the united states.
2) therefore, they need more money for services, more wealth redistribution, more resources for integration, more attention on changing social attitudes, etc.
3) however, the deeply anti-intellectual culture in the country (fostered by elites through media and by politicians) rejects this in favour of militarization.
4) therefore, they're fucked until they change their attitude.

hey, look. a cloud.

the way i see it is that mass shootings are an expected result of american culture, and no sane person could look at the culture and expect anything different. so, i'm really not shocked. it's just expected. it would be shocking if americans just randomly stopped shooting each other for no good reason.

they don't need more gun control. they don't need more cops. they need a collective slap upside the head and a collective attitude adjustment.

it's a social issue, and they need a social revolution to address it. there's currently almost no understanding of this, and no reason to expect it to stop.

i'm not trolling. really. i don't want to hear about immigration reform. i don't want to hear about hiring more cops. i don't want to hear about gun control, either.

laws don't solve problems. jails don't solve problems. cops don't solve problems. what solves problems is people listening to each other.

so, that's what i want to hear about.

http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/25/the-gun-violence-epidemic/

but, you won't hear about a sane approach. you'll just hear bloviating nonsense back and forth.
there's nothing left-wing about gun control. it's harshly statist and deeply authoritarian.

a real leftist would approach the issue with a root-cause analysis and argue for more funding for mental health services.

but, there is no left in the united states.

11-06-2016: shifting gears back to final archiving steps (with rants in between)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

a presidential endorsement from the koala central command

sssshhhhhh.

history is clear - the american left gets nowhere by caving in. so, turn your scare tactics around and throw them at hillary - she'd better make some concessions, or she's going to lose the election. it will make little difference to anybody at all - to her donors, to her would-be supporters - if trump beats her. well, except to her. she's the only person that should be frightened of anything, and it's up to us to making sure she's shaking in her pants.

let's march, march, march until she begs us to stop.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-manning-barish/how-bernie-sanders-can-st_b_10385408.html

ok. so...

the russians hate hillary. this might be true. it might not be. but whether it's true or not has nothing to do with it. the more important thing to think about is how much the russians hate hillary, it's one of those deep gut hates, and whether you really think this whole electing her thing is a good idea or not. not because the russians should tell america what to do, but because it's kind of actually sort of a red line for them.

i know. usa! usa! ugh. well, at least stock up on some canned soup, k?

the air conditioner upstairs is starting to break. i can hear it wheezing. finally.

i'm trying to overload it.

it's literally 35 degrees out today - pre-humidity. i have the windows open. and i have the heat on - set to 28. it's actually on, too. i tried to turn it down, but i don't want to feel the slightest bit of refrigeration on my skin...i want to sit in my own sweat...

i don't think i'm being unreasonable. rather, i think there's absolutely no way to justify installing an air conditioner in your unit that affects the units around you. i don't care what he wants it set at; i don't want to know it exists. if it's 35 degrees outside, and the air conditioner is preventing it from being 35 degrees inside, i feel i have every right to set the heat to 35 degrees - and that the guy running the air conditioner is liable for the costs of returning the air in my room to ambient conditions.

i mean, ideally, i'd just open the window and let the heat come up and down with the temperature outside. yes - i really do want it to be 35 degrees in here. we only get a few weeks a year of nice, hot, humid weather like this. i'm not about to let him suck all the heat out of here.

he's going to wake up to a really nasty hydro bill. but, he earned it. i only wish that i could see his face.

j reacts to the mess with the senate over euthanasia (blame trudeau....)

ok.

listen.

i happen to agree with the senate on this particular issue. there should not be restrictions on euthanasia. there should be oversight, but not restrictions. the law needs to be about putting in place the contractual requirements to carry it out, not about dictating terms or conditions. this is the kind of normative tinkering that the liberals are supposed to be opposed to. i know americans are reading this - you want to think of canadian liberals as social libertarians, and pretty literal and pretty strict ones.

so, this is actually an unexpectedly strict piece of legislation from that party. i've criticized it, and i think rightly.

but, the fact that i agree with the senate on this issue is less important to me than the premise of picking a side between the senate and the house in the first place. i would rather see the house pass a bill i think is too restrictive than set a precedent for the senate to interfere with the house.

i neither favour abolishment (i think some check on power is a good idea, as an emergency mechanism) nor an elected senate (i don't want to see the kind of gridlock that exists in the united states). what i actually favour is the status quo, as it previously existed. i don't care about the costs. and, i interpreted trudeau's talk as just that - talk. i didn't, for a moment, think he'd be insane enough to give an unelected body a mandate to modify legislation by an elected body.

the thing is that it wasn't broken. it really wasn't. i don't agree with those that claim that it was. so, why fix something that isn't broken?

should the senate start interfering with the business of the house, then the system will actually all of a sudden become broken. they have no mandate for this. i will all of a sudden need to switch my position to abolition, but with a caveat - there needs to be a suitable replacement that can act as an emergency block on power, but not interfere in the day-to-day business of the elected house.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-senate-takes-on-the-house-over-assisted-dying/

the house should reject the amendments.

and, if trudeau wishes to block the rejection, there should be an immediate confidence vote that removes him from power.

it's really unprecedented. there was no referendum. and, it's a serious enough abuse of power for the canadian equivalent of impeachment.

yes: i voted for him. i support most of his platform. but, this is something that can't even be entertained.

j reacts to elizabeth warren as vp & the politics of regulatory capture in 2016

once again: the error is that you've placed warren in a category she was never really in. just like you did with obama.

warren's choice to wait until the primaries were done and then pick the winner was really rank opportunism. you expect that from the president. elizabeth warren is not the president. what it suggests is a lack of ideological conviction.

this is somebody that was a republican into her 40s, and switched parties because she thought democrats were better protectors of the "free market". she's then spent basically her entire career trying to turn the clocks back a hundred years, to a time before market theory was discredited across the spectrum. she's a fish out of water - the economic equivalent of a creationist looking for a university that hasn't drunk the kool-aid of evolutionary biology.

she's anything but progressive. she's lost in lala-land. clinton has her defects, but she's not going to appoint somebody lost in a bunch of long debunked, naive nineteenth century nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMCFYzSOwhQ

the reality is that she's widely seen as a crackpot.

--

warren's ideas about banks are something akin to resurrecting beta max and hd-dvd: they failed the first time, so let's try them again.

i know she has a big email list. but, there's a reason she's broadly seen as a fringe idiot in washington.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/18/how-naive-is-elizabeth-warren.html

10-06-2016: still struggling to move on after the primaries

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

will the british exit the eu?

i dunno. i'm more interested in whether the germans are going to declare independence from washington, in which case the british association with the eu becomes a rather stark problem.

the pound is an anachronism. but, washington doesn't want london under the euro. in the end, they may end up under the dollar.

say goodbye to eurasia and hello to oceania, britain.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/11/gender-bathrooms-transgender-men-women-restrooms

it's indeed too early and nobody should get excited about anything. but, the averages are useless and should not be consulted. this is a useful way to measure responses to advertising, but it is a very, very poor methodology for political polling.

the general election is a snapshot that will reflect very short-term opinions, not the cumulative response of weeks of measurements. the polls you get on any specific day are, in fact, likely an accurate reflection of what people are thinking on that specific day. the error is in deducing that people will therefore think that same thing tommorrow.

voting choices are going to be especially volatile when there are very few policy differences of substance between the candidates, as is going to be the case in 2016. worse, they're both widely despised. who is less reviled this week?

that holds today as much as it will in november. all the averages can do is create inaccuracies by blurring together the margins. again: the error is in the model. elections are not market research surveys. snapshots are better measures than averages, you just have to know that they're volatile when you're reading them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-polls_us_575adbcbe4b0e39a28ad606c

this.

warren was a republican until the second bush administration, when she switched to the democrats because she thought that republicans had lost respect for free markets. she'd be better off on a ticket with ron paul.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-republicans_us_57586d0de4b0ced23ca6c42f

i put a graphic up on my google+ profile. i'm an exaggeration. but, using harper as a baseline - and being very familiar with both harper and clinton - you have to put clinton to harper's right. challenge the spectrum, if you want. but spectrums are relative. in that spectrum, that's the right place to put her: just an inch to harper's right in both directions. and, i simply don't know where to put trump.

i'm a caricature, as i point out. but, you can see the distance.

i've never played many video games. i remember sitting and watching friends play. kind of like the bitch in the room. turned out literally. but, my understanding is that this is the kind of thing that happens when a character dies - you're looking at a respawning somewhere, often randomly. then the plot regenerates itself. it kind of seems like that's what you're getting here...

just a reminder as to why we'll probably eventually get in a huge fight and never talk.

you're probably either in the blue, or very close to the origin point. it's the nature of living most of your life in a harshly neo-liberal society. you might not realize it. a lot of it is subconscious. it's reached the point of social norm. but, it's true nonetheless.

somebody asked me the other day why i'm on disability. the truth is that the answer is this chart. i can't even make myself breakfast without collapsing in a mess of contradictions.

it's cliched, but i have to remind you that i think i'm the one that's sane. there's probably not a meaningful answer as to who is crazy or who isn't. but, the current arrangement is the only possible one.

j reacts to the political spectrum, and where the candidates actually are on it

sometimes, pictures are more useful than arguments.

there's really no rational reason at all why you should expect me to support clinton, or think she's less terrible than trump. all you have is fear. and i'm not buying it.

i'm probably not representative of the average sanders supporter. i'm an exaggeration. a caricature. but, the picture demonstrates the point and why running clinton is so alienating for so many would-be democratic party supporters.

i'm not exaggerating, either. the conservative party of canada supports single-payer health care, didn't push back against gay marriage at all, won't even talk about abortion, supports medical marijuana, wrote some pretty tough campaign finance laws ...

she really is to the right of harper. both economically and socially. not dramatically. but measurably.

this is their take. pretty close to mine, actually - although i don't think trump belongs on the economic right like that with the rest of them.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/us2016.png

 

i just did that test and again came up well to the left of even sanders. it's crazy to tell me to vote for clinton.

but, i mean....i identify as an anarchist, or an anarcho-communist. i know i'm left of everything and everyone. no surprises, here. more like no shit.

but, the point i'm getting across should nonetheless be obvious.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/yourpoliticalcompass?ec=-8.0&soc=-6.62

by comparison, this is 2008. clinton & obama are right on top of each other. sanders is closer to kucinich. and, i'm closest to nader - who is who i supported.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/usprimaries_2008.png

what a bunch of racists.

hey, hey hillar-y....

j reacts to tea party republicans for bernie sanders?

see, this is typical vox propaganda.

there has, in fact, been rigorous polling - going back decades - that demonstrates that tea-party type republicans are strongly supportive of government programs like medicare. remember: in the era that sanders is representing, this was the democratic party base. they lean right on social issues like abortion, gay rights, gun control - but they're very much in favour of government services.

that's about class. again.

it's no secret that trump is unpopular amongst republican women, either. that's not really identity politics, though. i mean, listen to the guy. it's easy to understand why republican women are less than happy about the prospect of trump winning, and maybe a little irritated by anything that would help it along. you'll no doubt get the same reaction from republican hispanics.

it's not lazy journalism. it's corporate-financed and driven social engineering.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11902144/poll-america-bernie-sanders-race

http://inthesetimes.com/article/15732/the_tea_partys_misconception_of_medicare

yeah. snicker. i know. but, underneath the confusion is support for medicare, for veterans, for social security - they just lack the education to be able to articulate themselves.

i hadn't thought of this before. i figured sanders was mostly swinging anti-war libertarians. but, bernie sanders is actually exactly what the tea party needs.

https://erinamelia.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/medicare-keep-your-hands-off-my-medicare.jpg

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/on-social-issues-tea-partiers-are-not-libertarians/64169/

"A recent poll by Lake Research shows that 82 percent of all Americans oppose cuts to Social Security, including 83 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents, 82 percent of Republicans — and, in one of the most startling findings of all, fully three-fourths of all self-described Tea Party members (74 percent). (Social Security Works has a video and a petition on this subject.)"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/entitlement-cuts_b_4133753.html

this is a special kind of brilliant, existing in the intersection point of a parody of prog rock concept records and an exploration of wagnerian opera.

j reacts to sanders supporters preferring satan to trump (but what of stein?)

nobody has ever seriously suggested that sanders supporters will vote for trump - although i do think he had a chance had he stuck to trade and toned down the nonsense. it's still probably his best tactic, but it's the best of a bad bunch. it may be true that most people realize that he's not going to build a wall or ban muslims. but, the thing is that it also follows that he's not going to pull out of nafta, either. he just has absolutely no credibility at all. what he says is absolutely meaningless. so, if the problem with clinton is that you think she's a liar that's only in it for herself and that you can't believe a word she says, trump is not a solution. to a sanders supporter, they really come off more or less as interchangeable. so, the reverse of that is that trump doesn't seem so scary, either - he just seems like a non-solution.

the question is how many of those sanders supporters will ultimately move to stein as clinton reverses the minor concessions she's made in the general, not how many will move to trump.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/10/sanders-supporters-prefer-clinton-to-trump-exclusive-poll

something else, though.

"Analysis of the detailed poll findings also suggests Sanders voters could help Clinton recapture support from young people, union members and voters in the midwest and north-east."

ok. that's true - you didn't need a poll for it. but, why would they want to?

can you give me one reason that a sanders voter should vote for clinton? "trump eats children" is a good plot for a cartoon show, but not actually a very good argument.

now, i want to be clear: i'm not suggesting that you're going to see a poll with the greens competitive any time soon.

i think the libertarian thing, from sanders voters, is probably a kneejerk. it may be reflective of ignorance, or identity politics, or a bit of both. 15% seems like a lot, but 15% of 18% is less than 3%. we do live in a patriarchal society. it may be clueless and ignorant to label bernie supporters as 'bros', or suggest that her gender is what's pushing opposition to her (hey! hey! hillary! how many kids did you kill today?), but one would nonetheless expect some level of gender-based reactionary rejectionism. 3% seems like the right number. the sanders--->johnston swing may be a good metric to gauge how much it is that sexism is actually a problem. why else would you vote for gary johnson, after supporting a candidate that wants single-payer healthcare and state-funded tuition? you'd have to be entirely clueless or hopelessly sexist. i'm pretty critical of identity politics, but it has a use and this is it.

the real fight is between clinton and stein. it might not present itself for a while. it might take until october, even. but, this is where bernie supporters' heads are at, and the choice they're going to be making.

the media will not cover this until it is forced to.

if she can get some traction to start with, though, don't be surprised if she gains support very quickly.

what we've learned with sanders is that americans are inherently conservative in their voting choices. they have to know their candidates. that's stein's biggest challenge.

and i would encourage sanders supporters to facilitate this, rather than get in line behind another war criminal.

if you can't make sense of what you're seeing in front of you with logic and policy-based analysis, then you need to look at other explanations - and identity politics are as valid as any other, to specifically explain how small numbers of voters react in irrational ways. it's when people start using identity politics as a dominant tool of analysis, or suggest that identity > ideology, that i'm going to push back and call "bullshit". this is a bankers' wet dream. some kind of vulgar gramscian brainwashing through advertising. it's divide and conquer. so, of course it gets pushed down. but, it's almost always very easily deconstructed as nonsense (and i've done that on this page).

what the system wants is to be able to manchurian candidate you by your identity - to push a few buttons and get every gay eskimo with a pet squirrel to behave the same way. they want to destroy your individuality in favour of a constructed identity that they can download into your brain from head office. the tools are still pretty crude - advertising, tv, movies, mainstream music, just media in general - but they're developing. and, they've managed to capture a large swath of the left.

again: it's usually deconstructed, and usually into class, with little effort. but, it's not some accident that the media goes out of it's way to obscure things and break you down into these atomized advertising demographics. they hope it's self-fulfilling. but, leave it to the misanthropic cynic to have more faith in human individuality than that.

so, yes - there are going to be people that will not vote for clinton because she's female. there will also be people that will vote for clinton because she's female. but, you need to measure this at around 2-3% of the total voting population, not 40% of all voters in the primary. and, you'll likely see it more or less balance out.

09-06-2016: cautious idealism gives way to dour realism (slowly tuning out)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

i'm not bleeding yet. but my wrists have been a problem for weeks. there's a huge red splotch that looks like it's going to blow. what do i do? go to a hospital? wait it out?

i'm trying to eat more and drink more water - and i actually think i'm succeeding. see..

i boosted my hormones a few months ago, and i think that what's happening is that they're not getting fuel to carry out their instruction set. something that happens when you take estrogen is that your body gets instructions (in the form of chemical signals) to redistribute fat differently. now, energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only converted from one source to another (we can be engineers in context - it's true enough). so, if you get instructions to increase hip width and and build breast size but you're not consuming more excess energy for storage then your body is going to have to go towards other stores of fat - like your arms - to complete the instructions being given out by the hormones. the solution is that if you're very thin and you want to boost your hormones then you should probably eat more, too.

like i say: i do think that increasing my calorie intake has started to make a difference. all the fat is migrating to the girl spots, which is a start. i'm not storing weight in my stomach (in fact, my stomach looks smaller because my hips are coming out). but i'm not noticing my fat stores in my arms or my neck come back yet, which was why i started eating more. it's only been about two weeks, though, too.

as i was typing this, the red mark disappeared. i think that's what i was expecting would happen. it was probably just irritation from laying it down on the table, although it remains reflective of not getting enough calories. listen: i actually eat well. i just put my body into shock.

had it blown, though, i'd definitely be seeking naturalistic explanations.

j reacts to the deeply orwellian takeaway from the primary

for real tuning out. just about done wiping the music facebook page. will need to catch up on the vlogs after. this is done, i'm disinterested, and i want to get some real work done.

but, let it be written that my takeaway from the primary is this:

hillary clinton has won the democratic primary not by winning minorities but by suppressing them through restrictive voter id laws. this is a relic of the old dixiecrat machine, which clinton in fact represents only a mildly reformed faction of. the media coverage is a function of this.

it'll take a few years. but, when the dust settles this will be properly understood.

if elected, she will carry on the dixiecrat-lite policies that her husband created and her predecessor carried on. in a brutal twist of irony, she will likely get her constitutional amendment to restrict abortion, too.

y'all should've paid closer attention to orwell in high school.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/06/the-definitive-case-for-why-bernie-sanders-should.html

j reacts to hillary's perception of herself as popular and bernie as unpopular

as mentioned. she's basically stuck in the 80s - she thinks she wins by winning reagan democrats, which means running against her own party. or, what used to be her own party, anyways.

absolutely predictable. completely tone deaf. sure. but predictable.

if anything at all, what you will hear from her is that the primaries prove that the democratic party is not leftist and america has left socialism in the 40s, or something.

stuck in the 80s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-kuzmarov/damning-report-on-mexico_b_10364942.html

j reacts to the media's false equivalency of 2016 with 2008

obama and clinton had very few policy differences. clinton and sanders are so different, it's hard to believe they're running for the same party. in the end, voters may turn out to be less informed than people like me are assuming - as angry as people like me get when crackpot sociology goofs try to argue for identity "politics". but, it's very hard to see why sanders supporters would consider it worth their time to vote for somebody that they are systematically opposed to on every single policy position on the table.

the truth is that clinton & trump are closer together than clinton & sanders are. sanders lost a three-way race early in his career, and never seems to have gotten over the guilt of being responsible for electing a republican. i don't know what the precise consequences were. but, he's still holding on to this. so, the circumstances are going to have to be extreme for him to avoid endorsing clinton.

but, his supporters are a different story. this is a different scenario than we've seen in a long time. past metrics are not going to be applicable.

what stein is going to need is a tipping point. there was a lot of mathematical research that came out about this around the arab spring. what was learned was that you only need to sway a small number of people to spur a movement. in fact, that appears to be what happened with sanders, too. he went from 10% to 45% almost overnight. it wasn't gradual. there's a lot of literature out there about this. stein's team should be reading up on it, because what it suggests is that she doesn't need to go after all of sanders' supporters, but just enough of them to get the tipping action.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/09/bernie-sanders-thorn-in-hillary-clintons-side#comment-76032206

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Sociology

j reacts to the future of the american left

i actually agree with this.

sanders has not changed the democratic party, and is not the party's future. rather, what he's done is demonstrate that the democrats are a dead-end for substantive change, and created a third party in american politics. that third party is not yet organized, but if it is not organized by sanders or stein then it will organize itself.

so, no - sanders is not the future of the democratic party. the democrats put themselves in an opposite direction back in the early 90s, with clinton/gore. rather, he's representative of the final fracture point that the clinton/gore/obama direction has pushed the party in.

the democratic party as we know it will not survive the belligerence of a hillary clinton presidency, or even the belligerence of a hillary clinton candidacy.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/9/11867810/bernie-sanders-obama-future-democrats

but, let's be clear. the democratic party has been fracturing for twenty years. what happened around obama was....he wasn't what people thought he was. people shouldn't have thought he was what they thought he was. and, a lot of people never realized he wasn't what they thought he was - still haven't, never will. they've still got this weird meme in their head. if that's the future of the party, it's a brave new world, indeed.

so, the better analysis is in terms of fracture points rather than approval ratings. and, what we're seeing this cycle is the consequence of a process, not the result of a personality.

if you want to blame somebody, the people responsible are the clintons.