you know, i get the feeling that mother jones would have been the first person to point out that america was never great to start off with. i mean, where was it's initial point of greatness? the slave trade or the indigenous genocide?
i'd be happier with "let's repair the harm america has done to the world".
i can do this the long way or the short way, but i'm going to do it the short way: i'm actually convinced (and have been since "climategate") that alex jones is actually working for the russians. i watch a ton of russian media designed for english audiences, and you can pick out a lot of overlap. his core message is john birch society, which says 'koch brothers'. and, he has admitted to taking money and influence from them. but, there was some kind of break at some point during the bush administration with a lot of these jbs-type conservatives turning against the party, accusing it of being in league with the united nations and taking this pro-putin perspective, instead. the idea is that the russians are a serious counterweight to the nwo. newt gingrich is another person that seems to have fractured along these lines. and, it maybe strains credulity to suggest that the fact that these groups are all aligning around trump is some kind of coincidence.
i've quietly pointed towards this for a few months now, actually. it's silly to suggest trump is working for the clintons. but, the idea that he may have some kind of agreement with the russians? my intuition - all circumstantial - suggests that there's something very real to this, although it's unclear what that actually means.
----
Zach Pileggi
Turk is mad because he got OWNED last night. Watching Alex Jones troll you brought joy to my heart. You said that we are against the Suadi Arabians but Hillary is accepting donations from their government for her foundation.
jessica
what i find really ironic is that supporters of a so-called independent media personality can't get out of the two-party system. you know that cenk has spent the last ten years attacking hillary clinton from just about every angle you could imagine, right? but, the only thing these people can understand is 7(trump) = clinton.
life experiences can be defining. i've seen this kind of out of character reaction before: that's not the first bully that cenk's had to stand up to.
cenk's always leaned right. and, the truth is that his audience does, too. it's really about time that he came out of the closet.
it's been pretty obvious the whole time that what the young turks does is seek out an alternative and then try and corner the market. up until now, that's broadly been on the left. the market appears to be evaporating, so he's shifting. it's very easy to understand and very predictable if you can see between the lines.
some of the other hosts here are a little more principled. but, cenk is just following the dollar signs. there's a bigger market for johnson than there is for stein. and, he sees a vacuum to take advantage of. so, that's what the coverage is going to swing to.
if you're disappointed, you weren't really paying attention.
greenmeister18
Does Cenk understand that Gary Johnson is a libertarian. Cenk doesn't have a libertarian bone in his body, and there's a lot of body.
jessica
see, it's funny that you say that, because i'd classify cenk as a classical liberal rather than a modern one.
i think he'd have rather supported gary johnson over bernie sanders in the first place.
but, i also think he's suffering from the same lack of careful thinking that libertarians everywhere suffer from. gary johnson's policies are not how you get money out of politics, they're how you reduce politics to nothing except money.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
1:50. i'd rather something other than a fucking elf, but it's good to go.
this is absurdly racist.
i've been saying for a while that trump = gadget.
it's like gta.
but, what i'm looking for is a screen shot of those swirly eyes that comes up whenever somebody gets under mind control. point me to the right episode, if you can?
Cheyenne Cook
I think you are thinking of episode 10...A Star Is Lost where Claw wants to use superstar Rick Rocker to make a record that can control minds
jessica
naw, that's not the one. but i found the screen shot i wanted in a christmas special, where they brainwashed the elves.
again: at some point the rnc will need to pull it's head out of it's ass and realize it's own voters don't even want what it's pushing. i agree that cruz probably walked in there setting himself up for the next cycle, and that's the narrative that cruz wants, that the banks want, that the koch brothers want - that this whole constellation of big money wants. but, he got booed. at the convention. it's truly absurd. rather, that may be the breaking point that the party "intellectuals" need to kick your coulter types to the curb.
the future of the republican party is not in "movement conservatism", but in right-wing libertarianism. you get all the market fundamentalism, but you drop the christianity and you drop the racism. this stuff dies with the boomers. they're going to look back at this cycle and realize they blew it. this very well might be the symbolic end of the reagan era.
dude. how many of those eight hour speeches in congress were with prompters?
i wanted to make an abstract algebra joke, but the etymology of the term got the better of me.
all black sub-groups are isomorphic, no doubt.
the indians must by cyclic.
but, i'll wait to see his decomposition before i go further.
jessica
the ceo never does any work. big bonuses, lots of golf. hey, you told us that you wanted government run like a business, right?
Jeriel Baker
<tips hat> Screwdriva you believe everything the media you, don't ya?
jessica
i'm pretty skeptical, actually. but, you don't need a lot of critical thinking skills to realize that trump couldn't tie his own shoes. he makes chewing gum and walking at the same time seem like a practicable skill.
hidden track added to inri007. audio permanently closed.
===
so, how exactly does one go about being transgendered, anyways? i mean, like anything else, i guess you have to come to terms with it, first. then, what?
it was the "what next?" part that took me a very long time to grapple with before i was able to come to some kind of course of action. i don't remember exactly how old i was when i realized that i was more like a girl than a boy, but i will state that my thought process was always that i was like a girl, rather than that i was a girl. i have to be blunt: i was a precocious child. i understood the biology of sexual organs at a pretty young age. i knew which organ i had, that it was the same as the one my dad had and that it was different than my mom. i never felt as though i was in the wrong body - that's not how i'd articulate it. i knew i was male. but, all my friends were girls. i preferred to do "girl things". so, i realized at a very, very young age that i was more similar to the girls in my life than to the boys, despite being well aware that i was genetically a boy. it functioned more on the level of social inclusion and conscious choice of gender role than it did on the level of anything biological. am i really that atypical? i don't know. but, i know that i never had any difficulty at all, whatsoever, in separating between sex, gender and gender roles. so, for example: i have very early memories of asking my mom to let me wear lipstick, and of asking to get my ears pierced (3,4 years old) but i don't attach those memories to feelings of gender dysphoria. i didn't see any reason why boys couldn't wear make-up. further, nobody really "corrected" me on it. so, i grew up without any shame or second thoughts attached to being a boy that was more like a girl, and consequently without any particularly strong urges to become a girl. my very early life actually finds it's best explanation in the theories of radical feminism: because the gender binary was never enforced on me, i never felt oppressed by it. i have to argue for a very healthy early upbringing.
what screwed me up and set me back a good ten years was the school system. when i got there at the age of four and a half, i wouldn't talk to the boys. i wanted to skip rope and play hopscotch with the girls. well, all my friends were girls. i didn't know how to play with the boys. what's a marble? i just didn't know. i got stuck with a fossil of a kindergarten teacher that actually flat out banned me from skipping rope. worse, she banned me from reading books. my absolutely docile and clinically rational temperament at that age probably worked against me. but, i had two choices: i could play with the trucks with the boys in the corner or i could go to sleep.
in fact, i slept a lot.
but, gradually, the system socialized me as a male. or, at least it seemed like it did.
my path through elementary school didn't really ease up on the gender segregation until the seventh grade, at which point it was essentially too late. the system had successfully prevented me from socializing with girls, but had never taught me how to socialize with boys. so, i had spent the last twelve years of school in social isolation, usually without any friends at all. i'd lost the opportunity to have all the gendered experiences one associates with childhood - which means i was deeply socially stunted. i was still pretty smart, academically speaking. however, i was operating at the social level of a much younger child because the school system had arrested my social development through segregating me into a gender role that i didn't understand how to fulfill.
by the time i got around to writing this song at the age of 16, i'd just become entirely stoic about the whole thing. i knew i was more like a girl, but what exactly was i going to do about it? i guess i had the perspective, at 16, that life was largely about managing misfortune and you just have to deal with shit, whether you like it or not.
rational? perhaps, from a certain perspective. it gnawed at me, though. the trauma underlying the track was the realization that i was a good part of the way through puberty, without ever having signed up for it. this was by no means unexpected, either, and i didn't ultimately feel that i had any recourse of action in preventing it. but, i felt like i'd been cheated out of something and was being forced into something i didn't remotely want.
as with the rest of the early tracks, the lyrics here are at their core the exploration of a morbid fantasy. i'm taking things too far, i'm taking any excuse i can to keep taking things too far and i'm enjoying watching you squirm when i do it. in one sense, it's a sarcastic allegory on the question of thinking with one's cock, which is a bio-chemical problem that all testosterone producers are forced to come to terms with at some point. in another sense, it's a transgendered teenager carrying out a sort of morbid fantasy and desperately looking for a way to prevent the masculinization of my body.
it took me another five years or so of internal struggle before i could get to the point where i saw hormone therapy as a realistic option, rather than a kind of utopian fantasy that would be perpetually out of reach until i finally expired.
this is the only period 1 piece that was further expanded through the addition of some bass and piano sequencing near the start of the piece. the vocals were also brought back in without redaction. so, this ep starts off with a full reconstruction of the piece that is only available on this single. the ep further comprehensively documents all other released versions of the track.
initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. sequenced on jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 10, 2016. hidden track added and refinalized on july 21, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, drum kit, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production
some themes are starting to develop from this cycle.
i think that what people are going to determine from this cycle in the long run is that it's the last gasp of the baby boomer generation. the republicans are stuck in the lalaland of the reagan era, and the democrats are stuck in the cold war.
well, both of the candidates are 70 years old. they should be retired, not vying to run the world. they're both out of touch. they both live in a world that doesn't exist anymore.
it kind of ties into the broader narrative of american decline. this is american democracy? this election belongs some time in the 70s.
whoever wins is going to be worse than a lame duck. they're going to be irrelevant before they're even sworn in. the country is going to be looking beyond either one of them before there's even a vote to be held. and, nothing either of them pass will last more than a few years.
it seems like i've been waiting my whole life for the boomers to just go away already. it's clear that they're not going to. but, whatever the outcome, this is their last gasp.
i don't feel like this is republican v democrat, or right v left. this is old v young. it's past v future. and, as it has been for most of their lives, the boomers have already won due to sheer numbers without any serious debate. but this has to be the end...
i'm already looking at 2020. and, i really hope we see some generational overturn all around. they won't survive another boomer. america may not survive this one, whoever it is.
this is the final version of something i'd been playing with since about '94 or so, and by this time the track had become something that was beyond absurd. in a way, this is the culmination of everything i did in this period. it's the central track of my inri years: it's both the first thing i spent any time seriously writing and the ultimate realization of the musical ideas i was exploring. it's the longest track on the first demo. the drum programming is deep, there's an orchestration through sequencing, synth parts in the background, lead guitar work coming to the forefront - it's everything thrown together at a coherent level, really for the first time.
that this is the central track of this period maybe demonstrates how ridiculous i was and how ridiculous my musical vision was. maybe it also demonstrates just how young i was.
the remaining tracks in this period sort of pivot after this.
i should be clear: this is pretty much the most terrible song that you could possibly imagine existing, and that was kind of the intent. the shock value is entirely up front. but at the same time, it's just so terrible that it's kind of funny, and that was entirely intended as well.
you could maybe say something about how somebody like alice cooper ripping live chicken heads off in the middle of a performance is just about the most tyrannical thing you could imagine somebody getting away with on stage. it's just *so* ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh - even as you're horrified.
it's a phase a lot of teenagers go through. i guess the difference between me and a hundred thousand other kids is that i was exploring it through composition.
-
now that i'm an adult, this isn't something i would write or promote. yet, i sort of am by uploading it. the interest here is to document the existence of a troubled child. well, and to document myself - i was that troubled child.
the history of the track is perhaps a little less obnoxious than may be suspected. i was actually being taunted by somebody in the eighth grade. that person had never met and never would meet my mother. it's just a remark that young boys make. freudian analyses aside, i don't think there's really that much conscious thought put into it.
my decision to write a song about it was half a joke and half a response to being teased. i listened to and feigned laughter at a lot of oppressive jokes when i was younger; to an extent, i regret not speaking up, but i can state with honesty that i never felt comfortable taking part (now, self-deprecating humour, often of a sexual nature, is another thing). this reaction, on that "fuck you" level, shouldn't provide for any specific discomfort.
however, the fact that i explored the topic in a deeper level of depth than my taunters did perhaps might, and perhaps should. i need to bring you back to my aims in recording this early demo: i was trying to be as disturbing and shocking as i possibly could be. my taunters provided me with a particularly disturbing subject matter to explore, and i took full advantage of that.
this track is certainly disturbing and certainly shocking. success? well, i guess. looking back, i've always been torn between regret and satisfaction. i still am...
initially written in 1994. first full recording in 1996. recreated in mar, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed & remixed on july 18, 2015. released jan 7, 2016. sequenced jan 6-8, 2016. finalized on july 20, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 1998, 2013, 2015, 2016).
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, drum programming, drum kit, synths, sequencers, sampling, digital wave editing, production
lead track added to inri005. audio permanently closed.
===
this is maybe a little hard to understand, if you weren't a teenager in a very specific period - about '91-'99, the 90s i guess, when the nu metal shift "corrected" things and tough guys went backing to being metalheads.
that period overlaps with a period when punk fashion moved from subculture to dominant culture. as with any other failed social revolution, the period is more defined by certain subculture traits being co-opted than it was by any meaningful change in social attitudes, even if it did correspond with a move towards liberalizing social attitudes in the older members of gen x.
i remember playing this for my aunt, who was a teenager in the 80s, and she was just confused by it. in her day, the skaters were the skinny punk kids that got picked on by the meathead jock metal heads. as mentioned, i think people that were teenagers in the 00s may more readily associate with this as well.
but the 90s were weird in this sense. skater culture in the 90s was defined by a sort of thuggish machismo gang mentality that overlapped more into gangster rap than punk rock. what you had where i grew up was a lot of upper middle class white kids skating because it was advertised to them as the "cool thing to do" and in the process co-opting this sort of survivalist 'hood mentality into a tool of oppression that they used to bully and intimidate the kids that, a decade before, would have identified as skateboarders. those kids may have maintained an interest in punk rock, but weren't generally accepted into the skater clique - which was essentially the "in group".
the culmination may seem a little surreal nowadays, if for no other reason than that it's been forgotten. but i remember sneaking through back alleys, evading skateboarding gangs made up of kids into slayer, while i had socal punk music blasting through my headphones. and i'm sure you'll get similar stories if you ask around - or maybe you were also that kid.
on one hand, this track was constructed to be sort of precious, and i think that it is. it's a pretty catchy pop song, really. on the other hand, i think i was trying to be a bit tougher than i actually was. i wasn't one to back down from confrontation - i'm still not. while i think it's true that i could have taken most of these brats one-on-one, i probably would have mostly chosen not to. see, the fear was always more that they'd convert the boards into weapons and then jump you. in canada, guns aren't much of a concern, but knives are.
...and the fear often came out of trivial reasons. talking with somebody's girlfriend. having a pair of headphones or a pair of shoes that might be worth something. basic thug shit.
in hindsight, the analysis here is a little simplistic. suggesting that these kids are going to grow up into pimps is problematic on numerous levels, although i can state with blunt honesty that a number of the people the song was about have grown up to be petty criminals with lengthy criminal records. i have to own that lack of depth and how it comes out in sometimes less than ideal statements, but i'm going to once again blame that on my age.
overall, i like this track on both a musical and thematic level. i just wish i had articulated myself a little bit better.
===
there was a specific story that influenced the track. when i was in the ninth grade, one of these skater bro types took it upon himself to start body-checking me into lockers. it was well understood that this person was older, but that just gave him more clout in the school's skater clique; he knew the older kids that they looked up to. i was never certain if he was on his second or third try at grade 9.
this wasn't the first time somebody had tried to get physical with me, but it was an escalation that i couldn't really tolerate. people flicking my ears was an annoyance, and especially so when it was a game, but it's the kind of thing one withstands. these were full on, run-at-me body checks that seemed to be designed with intent to harm.
i actually tried a few different tactics before i reacted. i tried sitting behind in class until he left, but it was visibly starting to make the female teacher uncomfortable that i was just sitting around waiting after class - and perhaps not unreasonably so. as for bringing it up with the teacher? well, this guy went out of his way to look for a teacher watching before he took a run. i couldn't be followed around by a teacher all day. i had to react on my own.
so, i tricked him into running at my open leg, which had him fall face first into the locker. he did not see the retribution in the act; he got up looking for a fight. as i was walking toward the exit, which was a staircase downwards, he took another run at me - which i dodged. that was an adrenaline filled movement, i tell you - he was full of stupid, hot rage and sidestepped like an angry bull. but, i still had to time it. there was no escape. he ended up falling down several flights of stairs and breaking his leg. consider what would have happened if i hadn't moved - even considering that i may have helped him lose his balance, a little.
from that point onwards, i lived in fear of being swarmed. rumours were floating around that i'd better stay away from certain people - which was a broadcast to me to stay low. i got the message, and spent the next several years sneaking around back passageways in and out of the school. i learned where the cuts in the fences were, how to detour across floor levels to follow the crowd, how to time the bus (we had public transit passes - and that fact alone probably spared me broken bones) to come in to class during the national anthem and other various scheduling and transiting tactics to avoid being alone at critical junctures. and, then i started to enjoy living that way, too.
i don't think that student came back the next year, so i'm not sure if he ever finished grade 9. but, part of the reason i'm telling you this story is that it helps paint a clearer demographic picture of the narrative that i'm presenting. if you remove the "skater" designation, this could be a story about gangs in schools that could be applied equally well across any other grouping. it just happened to be that the gangs at my school were populated by white skater kids, some from the welfare projects and others comfortably middle class. that might help to explain what some might see as a difficult reference point.
== =
i've presented this track in chronological ordering because i wanted
to tell the story of the track itself. looking through my releases, it
may be difficult to tell what is an ep from what is a single, and what
is an ep from what is a record. this is an ep, and not a single. it's an
ep because it's a conceptual ordering of the tracks, rather than just
an exploration of a single incarnation of a specific track.
i
don't deny that the lyrics are painful. and, wasn't i supposed to be
getting rid of painful vocals? well, perhaps. but, note that no vocal
takes of this track make it on to any of the abum-format presentations
of it, excepting inricycled. the vocals are tied into the concept of the
ep, which is a narration of the song as it developed.
so,
chronological ordering is the only rational way to present the tracks.
further, a comprehensive exploration of the track's development actually
becomes necessary, in order to narrate it's entire development.
i'm not going to take this approach to every single. i just think that this track had to be preserved in this kind of way.
initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. deconstructed dec 18, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 6, 2016. lead track added and refinalized july 20, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 2013, 2016).
the canada border services agency
English Version *** La version française suit ***
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is conducting a public consultation regarding proposed amendments to Regulations under the Customs Act governing Trusted Traveller Programs (TTPs). The amendments will clarify the eligibility criteria that will replace the good character provision, the conditions of the authorizations, and the circumstances leading to suspension and cancellation of membership.
The CBSA website provides detailed information on the changes, as well as the rationale behind them.
As a valued stakeholder, you can provide your feedback on these changes by replying to this email no later than 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on August 19, 2016.
Regards,
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
*****************************************
Version française *** The English version precedes ***
jessica
if you want some consultation, my view is that cross-border travel is a right and not a privilege and that upcoming legislation should reflect that in reducing red tape for cross-border travel, not erecting further walls and barriers. the border should not be a barrier to movement in any kind of way. i was hoping that the change of government in canada would lead to less hassle at the border. so, the general crux of this movement seems disappointing.
the canada border services agency
The Canada Border Services Agency thanks you for your comments regarding the proposed changes to the Presentation of Persons (2003) Regulations. Comments received will be addressed in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement published in the Canada Gazette following the completion of the public consultation period.
Thank you.
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
you just don't realize you have thermoregulation privilege.
how about this- they're the same damned thing.
paul jay's a smart guy, and i get what he's saying. he's roughly twice her age. and, it kind of does show here at points. if we rewind back eight years, paul jay was loudly making the argument that obama would be better on iran than mccain. bomb bomb iran, right. that was a clear and present danger. and, was he right? well, i think he kind of lost the plot on iran, actually. he got lost in the western propaganda narrative of the issue being about hegemony, rather than about competition. and, i've yet to see him really address the whole "russia-is-stacking-iran-with-anti-aircraft-systems" thing - which was kind of key in inking something now, or losing the leverage of the sanctions forever. so, kinda.
i'm not convinced that mccain would have actually bombed iran.
likewise, is hillary less belligerent than trump? hillary's a true believer. we're not really sure what is driving trump, besides ego. i reject the narrative that trump is in control: i think he's being handled, and making very few of the decisions in the campaign. as such, i think the reagan comparison is historically useful: he's a figurehead. the party is operating behind his back and over his head. so, this argument - which is coming directly from the clinton campaign - that trump has a bad temperament is largely moot. he can throw things at the wall and stomp his feet all day, that doesn't mean he's going to get his way.
i think the same thing is basically true of hillary. look at the email scandal, for example. she avoided indictment because she had no oversight over her staff. so, you look at the issue in libya - for example - and you have to wonder how much influence she really had. there's been enough information released to conclude that she at most had an executive role. that is, she basically signed off on things that were brought to her. that's the only reason she's not going to jail.
so, if trump wins, the party will be operating behind his back. if clinton wins, the party will be operating behind her back, too. in the end, she may take a little bit greater interest in being briefed than he will. but, i think there would be very little difference.
fwiw, on the gore invading iraq issue? check out some of gore's statements while it was happening. he left very little up to imagination: he all but stated that he would have invaded iraq. further, he called for more troops repeatedly. that's right out of his own mouth. i've looked this up a dozen times already, i don't really feel like doing it again. the idea that he would have behaved differently is not grounded in the facts.
i don't think hillary likes golf. so, it's not clear what she'll be doing when she's on vacation for ten months a year.
it boggles my mind that there are people that don't understand that orwell was a left libertarian.
social media is free media.
trump had a real advantage, as his tactic needed to be to moderate - which is what he would have been expected to do anyways. all he needed to do was pick a kasich-type moderate and he'd instantly rebuild the base. clinton, on the other hand, had to find some way to balance the centre with the left.
by picking pence, he is grabbing the ball and running out of bounds. he just gave up the entire centre. that was his advantage. moderate republicans are going to flock to clinton, now.
i don't think those numbers mean anything. i suspect that they reflect ignorance more than anything else. kneejerking. or, maybe clinton's team was right all along - that a substantial amount of bernie's supporters were just frustrated men.
i'm leaning more towards kneejerking, right now.
i think it will ease up.
but, i mean, keep in mind that you're talking about small percentages, too. 2%. 3%. would i find it surprising that 2-3% of sanders supporters were just flat out, open misogynists? not really.
---
if you vote for johnson as a protest vote, it sends the message that you want more tea party policies. so, why not just write in charles koch? or ted cruz?
---
AS Deckard
There is no 'Libertarian left.' Libertarians fall on the right of the American spectrum, as we're generally more focused on the economy than social issues.
Daisy Chains
Actually, the Libertarian Party represents mostly right-wing Libertarians... Left-Libertarians, Green Libertarians, Anarchist Capitalists/Voluntaryists etc are going to vote for Jill Stein.
see, i think tyt are right-wing assholes pretending to be liberals :P
the language used in american political discourse is not just confused, it's actually deeply orwellian. you can barely make sense of it. it's not some accident.
the term libertarian comes out of the french revolution and means something like anarcho-communist. libertarians completely reject the concept of market theory, and for good reason - markets are the absolute anti-thesis of any coherent concept of freedom.
the way americans use the term "libertarian" maps politically to the concept of "classical liberalism" virtually everywhere else in the english-speaking world.
the democrats and republicans are both conservative parties. they're just different variants on it.
i think the only real liberal party left standing in the anglosphere is the liberal party of canada.
---
(deleted)
"Anyone who embraces libertarian economic policies isn't liberal."
a statement like this needs to be translated for non-americans. what the poster meant to type was:
"Anyone who embraces liberal economic policies isn't a socialist."
which is true enough. but, again: the language is not confused by accident.
---
millionfish animation
What are Johnson's policies?
Just a Channel
Libertarian basics: "can we solve this problem with more freedoms? If so, we go that route". Look up Penn from Penn & Teller on YouTube describing him being a Libertarian. He covers it very well.
jessica
all you need to survive is a gun and a bunker full of canned food. get off my lawn!
it's clown-car stuff; you can't take even really take him seriously.
---
Peter Perfect
Johnson is a loon! He wants to abolish social security, medicare, medicaid and all entitlements.
jessica
or we could cut military spending, instead?
RocketmanRockyMatrix
No entitlement mentality.
jessica
yeah. and, that is very frustrating after sanders' campaign, which really reduced to an articulation of the universal declaration of universal rights. we were making progress. and then this.
i am entitled to human rights, and fuck you if you disagree.
----
Chris Teal
i support johnson because of his social issues...i care not of economics.
jessica
i think it's really hard to make that argument regarding johnson and specifically in the context of it being an american election, because his economic policies have such dramatic negative social consequences. it's not something trivial like a debate over deficit spending. it's either disingenuous or poorly thought through.
i mean, i cringed pretty hard when hillary supporters started accusing sanders of privilege. but, it kind of rings accurate when applied to johnson. you can only make that argument if you're pretty wealthy to start off.
Trent Richards
I get the feeling that issues that you call social aren't social at all. Government services are a fiscal matter, not a social one. Social matters are things like Gay Rights, Affirmative Action, and The War on Drugs. Fiscal matters are things like Taxation, Government Spending and Trade Regulation. Government services all fall under the government spending section. It would be a rare thing for someone to oppose universal health care for instance if money wasn't involved. The fiscal aspect of these services are all that ever gets debated. That is why these are called fiscal matters.
jessica
the term "socio-economic" has meaning for a reason. the point i'm making is that you can't coherently argue that you support his social positions, but oppose his fiscal opinions - unless you haven't thought through the social implications of his fiscal policy.
i may have been overheard some time last fall arguing that i didn't care about fiscal issues, but that was in the context of an election where the canadian social system was not in any serious jeopardy and the issue was really nothing more important than deficit spending. what i meant was that i don't care if the government runs a deficit or not.
that's very different than voting for legalized marijuana and shrugging off the abolition of corporate taxation. you'd have to have smoked yourself stupid...
RocketmanRockyMatrix
Libertarians are for human rights.
jessica
libertarians tend to uphold orwellian concepts of human rights, as brought to you by anti-humanist liberals like rawls. the "free market", when applied to labour particularly, is completely inconsistent with any concept of human rights. you can't tell somebody to work or starve, then tell them they have rights. rather, what you do instead is come up with these ridiculous mental gymnastics that give people the right to starve.
----
Pallas AnitaSarkeesian
Feel the Johnson and end the FED. Gary Johnson 2016!
jessica
i don't think that ending the fed would be such a good idea, actually. you'd have big bankers manipulating currency rates at a whim. the markets would crash. you wouldn't know how much bread costs on a daily basis.
i'm all for a revolution, but i don't think you guys need to make the same mistakes made during perestroika.
Sonyaliloquy
'Feel the Johnson'? Might wanna try for a different slogan.
jessica
i think it's great: vote gary johnson to get fucked over.
---
Joeybrah
His economics are pretty simple, lower taxes. I think everyone can relate...
ApesAmongUs
Relate that it's stupid? Yea, I've seen a lot of stupid in my life.
jessica
well, once they implement self-regulation over academic accreditation, it should at least lower tuition. is mom smart enough to start a university? let the market decide!
home-schooling for the win!
---
Nakas Dougen
The libertarian ideas are the exact opposite of democratic socialism, it's beyond me why he has appeal with the Bernie crowd and the tyt audience
Wmarshal
Think he means his ideas on war, the handling of the middle east in general, and over all freedoms.I disagree with him on alot of things, but his thoughts on war is what won me.
Kevin Lai
he doesn't. if the a 3rd party candidate who leans republicans can take away some of would-be trump supporters, that opens the door for a 3rd party candidate for democratic-leaning 3rd party candidate (ie, jill stein)
Natalie Brown
The exact opposite of democratic socialism is fascism. Libertarian ideas intersect with liberal ideas on a social level. I'm a Liberal with Libertarian tendencies so the jump from Bernie to Gary seems quite natural to me...
Nakas Dougen
I believe from philosophical grounds that the most important thing for a human to be truly free is to secure their material conditions first.
It is not freedom neither liberty when a mother has to choose which of their 3 children they can afford to go to college.
It is not freedom or liberty when you have to 'choose' between health and disease based on your income.
It is not liberty when you can go bankrupt for getting cancer, you could not possibly know that.
Sure the world is a non Euclidean space but at the heart of everything lies class struggle, the struggle of the dispossessed be it traditional proletariat, underprivileged race or gender. The free market does not fix any of that and this is why all other western countries embraced free healthcare and a lot of them free higher education.
Libertarians would reverse labour law and make life much much harder for the average worker because he/she would lose much of what they gained through centuries of protest and fight.
I assume you are not working class, you do not work minimum wage. I know America confuses classic liberalism (based on the idea of protection of private property from state, kings etc and tolerance ) with traditional leftistsm (Stems from dialectical materialism and class struggle).
Philosophically speaking Social Democracies were created as a compensation between the capitalists (including conservatives and 'libertanians' or neoliberals) and Marxist socialism.
On almost every issue social democracy and libertanians fundamentally disagree. Non interventionism and protection of personal liberty are not necessarily features of social democracy, they just happen to coincide in American context.
Natalie Brown
Well we are in the American context, aren't we? We are also talking about people in a political race. Not philosophies and ideologies. While, yes, these 2 factors play in important role in who people decide to vote for for some people, for the majority this is not the case. Gary Johnson supports the ending of the war on drugs and allowing for recreational marijuana use, right for women to choose whether or not to have an abortion, protection of the environment, maintain the freedom of the internet, immigration reform (not just building a wall), and cutting military spending. In the modern American context these are all liberal ideas. All of these ideas i have heard get support from Bernie supporters. The jump is not as absurd as you make it seem.
jessica
i'm in agreement with you. but, i just want to point out that you're assuming certain things that right-libertarians would contest. so, you're right to point out that they would abolish minimum wage laws. but, they have this convoluted argument that, at the end, allows them to conclude that abolishing the minimum wage law will increase wages. remember the laffer curve? these are people that will stand up and look you in the eye and argue that decreasing corporate taxes will increase tax revenue. they'll come prepared with charts, too.
on the one hand, they're obviously wrong and not particularly hard to disprove. on the other hand, their voters and supporters and donors and social media advocates actually believe this stuff.
you need jobs before you can have unions to smash.
i'm not in favour of union-busting. but, america is post-industrial, and this language is anachronistic. unions are no longer a meaningful political force in the united states, because the percentage of the workforce that is unionized is insignificant.
a ubi is in fact a better answer, moving forward. we're moving into a reality where goods are made by robots, and there are very few jobs available servicing them. it's communism. ironically.
it's just that his dismantling of the financial system is going to make his ubi proposals impossible to implement. you need very strong controls on inflation for that to work. it's often promoted as a free market policy, but it can't work in an actual market. the rentiers would just steal everything.
(deleted)
jessica
again: you're talking about such a small percentage (2-3%), that there is no reason to build a theory. #berniebrosforgaryjohnson is good enough.
Chris Teal
because they are only thinking of economics...Johnson get my vote on social issues...seperation of church and state...check...end drug war...check..forgien policy...check i dont care about economics...there are rich and poor..always have..always will be
jessica
again: you can't separate these things, unless you're operating from a position of privilege.
consider abortion, for example. he wants to leave it to the states, and he wants to cut federal funding. so, you're going to end up with a decrease in access to social services as a consequence of his economic policies. you could say the same thing about his health care policies.
if you're wealthy anyways, you're not going to care. but, the vast majority of people will be far better off under hillary than johnson. and, trust me, i'm no fan of hillary - i think she should be convicted of war crimes and publicly executed. the libertarian economic/social policies are just that bad. it's barbarism.
if the choice is between corruption and barbarism, i'll pick corruption.
--- shazil888
Can't see Sanders supporters bleeding over to a Libertarian candidate. They either don't know the difference between a Progressive and a Libertarian, or they are easily swayed.
EarthianLifeForm
Because they still agree with Libertarians on 65% to 80% of the Libertarian platform and like Bernie Sanders, Libertarians are genuine, sincere, and not corrupt. Just like how Sanders is genuine, sincere, and not corrupt.
shazil888
Libertarians are Libertarians first and foremost because of their stance on limited government. That completely contradicts every major task that Sanders is trying to accomplish. Minimum Wage, Education, Healthcare, Regulation, Income Inequality.
I only see agreement on social issues, foreign policy (and that too is debatable), and drugs. In reality, that boils down to more like 15% to 30% agreement.
jessica
there is going to be some percentage of sanders supporters that are driven by conscious or unconscious misogyny, and will not support stein for the same reason they won't support clinton. an obscure minority, but it will exist. the numbers i've seen suggest that the bleed is roughly consistent with a reasonable estimate of the size of that group.
----
Twostones00
Gary Johnson won't protect the environment. Jill will. Jill has more attention than people think. Jill is a progressive much like Bernie.
TheJuranomo
We the people should protect the environment
jessica
this is another one of those twisted points, as libertarians will argue that the way to benefit the environment is not through regulation but through the enforcement of property rights. they forget to mention that this is also a license to pollute. but, hey. why should the gummamint tell me what to do on my property? it's almost like they have allodial title or something. the gummamint shouldn't have control over my fiefdom! isn't that why it's a fiefdom? wait? what?
see, if you cut the river up into pieces and sell it off then people will protect their parts of the river. because you always step into the same river, every time. it's your property, after all.
it's the same thing with the air. if you own the air over your property, then you have the right to keep the pollution out of it. because pascal's law is modifiable by an act of parliament.
we can always fine the particles, if they refuse to self-regulate.
Joe person
Yes he will, he's a huge supporter of the EPA
jessica
see, over here on the actual left, we consider the epa to be the perfect example of a captured agency. saying you support the epa as "good government" is equivalent to arguing that you're in favour of corporations buying off agencies in order to eliminate oversight - which is exactly how the epa actually operates.
so, it's kind of a trick. i know that the right hates the epa for land expropriation reasons, and that's "whatever". but, to cite the epa as an example of good functioning government is to argue in favour of open corruption and big money in politics, not to argue in favour of environmental oversight.
---
Zone gaming
For all those liberals who love Bernie, Gary Johnson is in favor of UBI something that even Bernie didn't really talk about. The fair tax is something that can easily be UBI.
jessica
but, his policies are starkly inflationary. how's $50/year sound?
in all seriousness, coming from somebody that is in solidarity with their core message, this is a flat out stupid tactic. not because it upsets people - fuck you, i don't care what you think. what this does is provide the cops with an excuse for excessive force, and they'll absolutely use it. if you start seeing riot cops walking around, you can thank blm for it.
the left has completely lost the plot. strike action is supposed to be about finding ways to put leverage on the system. it's a way to meet power with power. this has been co-opted by religious nonsense and converted into a means to enforce the moral majority. power is supposed to understand that it's morally wrong and adjust. it's a message that is as air-headed as the people articulating it.
if they want to "stop production", the way to do that is to send moles into the police force and organize police strikes. it can be about pay to start, so long as the goal is eventually to get cops to reject their training in racial profiling. we need to collectively find ways to get cops to reject their command structure. that is the tactic that will be successful.
--
Chris Healy
Get out of the road. Some people actually have jobs to go to. jessica
fuck your job.
Atheistic Luciferian
Fuck you, welfare queen.
jessica
i'm sorry? get back to work, you fucking slave.
dingusmungus
Enjoy the disability checks leech...
neatpete
Hey disability is probably considered a raise for those on welfare. Hes going out for dinner tonight
jessica
i produce more of value on disability than you ever will in your wage/slave labour.
what have you ever created to justify your existence, besides profit for your owners?
so, again: fuck your job. go run around in circles in a field, instead. it's just as useful.
Sheryl Goolsbee People's job's are paying the taxes so that people can live in subsidized/HUD housing, receive medicaid, bridge card benefits, pay for the better school's that all kid's can attend, WIC, abortion clinics, county run hospital's that are widely used by the indigent, family planning centers (birth control centers), methadone clinics, county psych services, etc. People work to pay for all of these services offered in most communities.
jessica
right. because government couldn't work without taxes. derp. have you ever considered the idea of abolishing money altogether?
The Daily Digest
People may be forced to contribute to a lot of socialist, government programs. None of which are Constitutional.
That is what we are trying to change.
jessica
in fact, i don't really support taxation. with the current system, i don't think you should pay taxes unless you're very wealthy - but that if you are very wealthy, you should pay almost all your income in taxes. so, somebody making $100,000/yr should really only have to pay consumption taxes. but, somebody making $10,000,000/yr should fork over 70%+ in taxes. and, the corporate tax rate should be over 50%. i'm perfectly happy with printing whatever else.
so, chances are pretty high that i don't think you should pay taxes at all.
but, in the long run, as an anarcho-communist, i would prefer to abolish the concept of exchange in favour of the concept of need.
The Daily Digest
That's one way to completely break the economic system. Punish the creators and business owners and you take away any incentive. Just do a mediocre job, and don't be too successful. Worked great for the Soviet Union, eh?
Taxing does one thing - enables a huge government to steal more and more. If you like where our system is now, then you must love big (criminal) government.
Punishing success does not, and never will, work. Too many collapsed governing systems, that include your communism.
You give over your power to a government that is sure to screw its people. I think I'll stick with working on Capitalism.
jessica
i'm not going to have this debate with you because we have to start from a more basic point than you're conceding. i don't agree with your definition of terms like "success", "creators" and "punish". if we were to have this debate, i would be constantly pulling the rug out from under you - much as i just did with that tax argument.
but, i don't think america comes across very well when compared economically to the soviet union. your levels of inequality are deplorable. the vast majority of americans live in abject poverty. you have third world child mortality levels. and, your policies have led to rapid deindustrialization. whatever you want to say about the soviet union, america is anything but an economic success story. The Daily Digest
There really is no debate. Communism requires relying on a central power - whether it starts that way or ends up that way. Central powers are always corrupt. Socialism, Fascism, and Communism have historically been abysmal failures. I've lived through each and know this to be.
As these three systems make their way into a system based on Capitalism, they corrupt it and eventually it fails. An example is our system in the U.S. today. We started allowing Fascism to take over our system back in 1913 (really before) when our monetary system was signed over to the banking cartels. Fascism, historically, will fail. Same with Communism.
Our levels of inequality are based on each person's willingness to participate. The reason we have a third-world anything in this country, is because of government intervention and controls. These take away the right of each person to decide for themselves, and allows government, with all the inherent corruption, to make the rules.
Communism, Fascism, and Socialism are all bound to fail. Unfortunately Capitalism ends up being co opted by these corrupt systems.
jessica
you don't know what any of those words mean.
but, let me ask you this question: why do you think it's so important to let foreign interests manipulate the exchange rate?
i just woke up from a recurring dream that i've been having for a
really, really long time. thirty years? it's not every night or
anything, but i definitely recognize it when i have it. i'm not going to
add this to the liner notes for confused because it's kind of
tangential, but it's a good example of the kind of thing that will end
up on the aleph-disc. i've also had this discussion quite a bit over
various fora, so it should be familiar to secret admirers.
despite
what certain christian apologists may argue, this genetic v.
environment debate is largely rejected altogether by science. christian
apologists? well, this you-don't-have-a-choice nonsense is not science
but a "progressive" opinion coming out of the religious fundamentalism
of everybody following "god's plan". if you paid close attention in
sunday school, this denial of agency in gender roles should be entirely
logical to you. yet, it's truly hard to make sense of it, otherwise.
remember:
i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. so, i have a strong
attachment to the idea of a tabula rasa. my politics make no sense if
we're all genetically determined. if that were true, i'd have to concede
to some conservative concept of "human nature" and fall into the
standard hobbesian apologism for deep totalitarianism. i readily concede
that humans are assholes, but i blame capitalism and not biology.
that's the point of being an anarchist: that abolishing capitalism will
abolish this right-wing concept of "human nature" and allow us the
freedom to decide how and what we want to be. if we have no way out of
this, we're stuck with the police state - and the most violent forms of
repression and surveillance become justified. i don't have any patience
for this middle-of-the-road liberal nonsense: we can either transcend
capitalism or we can't.
and, i believe that we can. but, we need
to be able to change. the technically correct statement comes from
chomsky: we don't yet understand humans well enough to know if we have a
nature or not. yeah, well you probably fell for a strawman. your source
probably sucks, and that's your epiphany, there. the term is currently
meaningless. but, the way it's thrown around has to essentially be
right-wing propaganda. otherwise, just give me a gun and get the fuck
off my lawn.
so, because i'm an anarchist and not a christian
progressive, my biases are towards tabula rasa rather than genetic
predetermination. and, because i don't get my science from left-wing
political rallies, i've run into quite a bit of push back on my refusal
to uphold certain types of loaded sloganeering. let's be clear on that
point.
real scientists will tell you that there's no evidence for
a genetic basis for gender nonconformity. in fact, it's not even
considered to be a psychological condition, let alone a genetic one.
think of it like this: suppose your daughter wants to wear pants.
nobody even cares anymore. you might even buy your daughter pants
without even thinking about it. but, suppose your son wants to wear a
dress. well, that's seen as some kind of mental illness. the only mental
illness here is repressed misogyny in the parents! yet, i'll
acknowledge that it's an empirical question. sort of. what do the
studies say?
the truth is that they're all terrible. one of the
studies you see thrown around to argue it's genetic relies on the
reversal of flawed notes. so, the doctor that did the study has
acknowledged that he falsified data and even sexually assaulted the
participants. such a study ought to be completely discarded. instead,
advocates of the genetic theory just negate all of the notes. this is
their core argument. see, the staunch truth is that this is the best
they can do in terms of presenting evidence in favour of a genetic basis
for gender non-conformity. they may also throw some studies about
twins at you, but if you look at the data closely it invariably actually
contradicts their argument.
what i can't make sense of is why
any scientifically literate person would consider it to be a valid
hypothesis in the first place. it's behavioural. genes don't code for
behaviours. that's religious thinking. but, in the sense that it
remains an empirical question, i need to see a properly designed study.
unfortunately, such a study would no doubt be unethical.
i can
accept some concept of hormonal imbalance as a complicating factor, but i
remain convinced that the issue is primarily environmental. so, we have
another straw man: i'm arguing it's a choice and that conversion
therapy should be attempted. which is completely ridiculous...
the
argument that we are shaped by our environment is not in any way the
same as the argument that we have a choice in our sexual orientation or
sexual identification. that should not need to be stated. i often have a
difficult time arguing this point, because i can't even make sense of
the implication. the reason, again, is that i'm not a christian
progressive. i'm an anarchist. the only reason you would come up with
such a ridiculous assertion is if you're framing the issue in terms of a
religious debate. so, these christians come at you with this idea that
it's a choice and you're evil or something (i don't even know...), and
your response is "no. it's genetic.". so, if i'm rejecting the idea that
it's genetic, i'm taking the side of the christians you're arguing
with.
i've made this argument about nihilism. i've been accused
of nihilism, because i'm so openly atheist. but, an atheist cannot even
make sense of nihilism, because it's framed in religious terms.
likewise, i cannot make sense of these arguments from progressives
because they are framed in religious terms.
so, no i don't think
it's a choice. not exactly. i think it's a consequence of the stochastic
processes of the universe. see, that's another atheist thing: i believe
in chaos and randomness. your life is not determined by some
supernatural force. you were not "programmed" by anything or anyone. you
are a consequence of chance, and may have come out entirely differently
had certain events in your life been different.
so, when i think
back to being a girly boy at the age of four or five, i think it's
obvious that the reason is that i spent all of my time with girls. i had
a mother, a grandmother, two aunts, a sister, a female cousin and
little girls living in the houses around me. dad was around, but kind of
distant. that's not genetic, and it's not a choice. it's just a
function of chance. if i had an uncle or a boy cousin or there was a
little boy across the path, things may have been different.
but,
that doesn't mean it's a good idea to enforce an arbitrary gender
binary, either. remember: not a christian progressive. an anarchist. i
reject the nuclear family, too.
the recurring dream places me in a
field with a baseball glove. it was t-ball, technically, not baseball.
i'm very young - 4. 5. i'm supposed to be paying attention, waiting for a
ball from the sky, but i don't really care. i'm more interested in
picking flowers. well, i'm in a field. that's what i usually do when i'm
in a field with my grandmother. a ball rolls by me, and i choose not to
respond to it. my dad whirls in in a rage, scoops me up and brings me
to the car. he's ashamed. that's the dream: remembering his shame.
it's a quiet drive back to my mom's.
when
we get home, he takes me out of the car, walks me to the door and
promises he'll never make me stand in a field by myself ever again.
--
my parents were both libertarians, although they wouldn't have
identified that way. my mom was a poorly educated white person, and had
political perspectives (or lack thereof) that would be stereotypically
associated with a poorly educated white person - support for social
services and redistribution, peppered with a lot of xenophobia and
social exclusion. not so much into the gays. but, my grandmother was far
more liberal (small and big l - card carrying, in fact) and had a
bigger effect on me. my mom struggled with addictions and would
disappear for weeks at a time. i have almost no recollection of the
elder trudeau, other than that my grandmother loved him and my mother
hated him.
my dad wasn't really white, but he was more of the
typical canadian - "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". he was,
for a time, this strange canadian political animal: a progressive
conservative. not an old tory. a pc, meaning he had strong support for
progressive social policies but demanded that they be paid for through
responsible taxation. you could maybe call him a tax and spend liberal,
except to point out that he demanded the tax as much as the spend, which
is usually a straw man when applied to liberals (who don't actually
care about deficits). he was the only person i've ever met that was in support of the gst in the 90s - because he didn't want to see spending
cuts. he voted for kim campbell, and defended it until the day he died.
yet, he was also in the group that was highly critical of the reform
party and never dropped his opposition to harper, instead opting for the
right-leaning side of the liberal party. his perspective on social
issues was always staunchly libertarian, whether he ever really realized
it or not. the gays never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the
chinese never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the
blacks....well, maybe they bothered him a couple of times, but it's
better to just get out of their way.
the point is that they were
both into hands-off parenting. i had huge free rein from a very young
age. this is another reason why i'm decidedly gen x: they were both very
opposed to helicopter parenting and very much into letting me develop
"naturally". i've grown up as an advocate of free range parenting, as
well (i am an anarchist, after all). but, i think that this perspective
is important to point out in the environment v genetics debate.
the reason is that the assumption was always that i'd grow out of it -
which is genetic determinism. after all, i have male chromosomes, so my
inner male tendencies should eventually over power and i'll in the end
grow into a man. i'm just being a kid.
what i was trying to get
across in my liner notes is that this is a type of naturalistic
fallacy. in the end, i would not just magically become a boy in the
absence of any instruction due to genetic determinism. but, it leaves
open the question: if there was stronger instruction, might i have?
i don't know. i really don't.
what i do think that i can state
with a lot of certainty is that the segregation was a bad idea, and i
reacted pretty strongly to it. my parents never did this, but the school
system did. the more that the teachers told me i wasn't allowed to be a
girl, the more i insisted upon it. but, if you understand kids, you
know that's how kids are - they want what they can't have, and the more
you say "no" the more they push back.
i would propose that the error in approach was less in telling me what i
can't be and more in failing to teach me what i "ought" to be. "you
can't have this candy" is one thing. "have this apple instead" is
another. the kid can't just magically fill in the blank that it should
have an apple instead of the candy, it just dwells on not having the
candy. the apple has to be presented as an option before it can be
accepted.
of course, the apple can also be rejected. might i have rejected the
apple and insisted on the candy? see, if you take my position on this,
you have to realize that this is not pre-determined. the choices i would
have made would not have been in a vacuum - they would have depended on
the people around me. i can't consequently know if i would have
rejected the apple had it been presented to me. i can just point out
that it was never really presented. i was just told i can't have the
candy.
and, yes i do think this is the right way to think about gender roles in kids.
so, i'm left with a complicated set of alternate outcomes:
1) had the system not tried to beat the girl out of me,
a) i might very well have grown out of it on my own.
b) or, i might have grown into it younger.
that
would have depended on the environment around me. but, at least i
wouldn't have internalized it and it wouldn't have become this thing i
struggled with.
2) on the other hand, had the system more rigorously enforced maleness in addition to penalizing femaleness,
a) i may have been more effectively masculinized.
b) or the internalization may have been that much worse.
i think the key thing is in rejecting 2a) as some kind of ideal. this
"ought" ought not be an ought. randomness is what it is. shit happens.
but, kids need positive reinforcement one way or the other, and the
ability to make these choices in a way that is free of shame or
coercion.
so, i can't say what choices i would have made in the absence of
coercion. i can only point out how the presence of coercion affected the
choices i did make.
bonus tracks added to inri008. audio permanently closed.
==
my recollection of the initial recording of this track is unfortunately
somewhat vague. when we push our memories like i'm trying to, we become
more likely to imagine the past in terms that never actually existed.
so, how real is this vague memory of wanting to hear some backwards
guitars? i fear that it's perilous to try and force my mind to be more
specific.
it's at least fully consistent with what i know about
the situation. this was initially the second track recorded in my
basement studio in the fall of 1996. so, i was still at the point where i
was looking to try things in the studio for the first time. as for
backwards guitars? i was very interested in both zappa and hendrix (two
of my biggest guitar influences) at the time, and that is actually
blatantly obvious if you listen to inri000. they both used backwards
guitars. there are multiple occasions on inri000 (and afterwards...)
where the nods to both of these players are beyond heavy-sleeved. so, my
vague memory at the very least makes sense.
how i made the jump
from trying to create a backwards guitar solo to turning a song into a
palindrome is another question and i don't really have a good answer
besides stumbling upon it as i was listening to it. clearly, it is the
case that this struck me as a good idea at some point along the way.
when
i went to recreate the track in early 1998, i felt the need to recreate
the palindrome effect. so, i never saved any version of the track in
forward order (without the backwards overdub) or released it in any kind
of way. for all these years, there has simply never been a forwards
version of the track.
the remastering process over 2015 has
finally given me the opportunity to create a forwards version and spin
it off as a single for the express reason of documenting the track as it
was actually initially written, which was as a fairly straight forward
alternative pop song. that's a description that i do believe is very
old. yet, i may be imagining the past, too...
the new album mix
is a palindrome, as it always has been. the electronics mix is
constructed using the same algorithm. the backwards mix is just
literally that. combined together, the forwards and backwards mixes
create the album version. the 2013 remasters are appended as bonuses.
initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. finalized on july 11, 2016. bonus tracks added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
regarding the subject matter of the deleted vocals/lyrics, please see the following vlog (which is also available on inriℵ0).
credits
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, drum kit, tapes, production
hidden track added to inri006. audio permanently closed
==
the christmas of 1997 was a good one. in addition to getting a
four-track recorder to multitrack with, i also ended up with a jx-8p for
my birthday, which is in early january. now that i could use the
computer a little bit, i decided that i was finally ready to do some
serious recording.
i had committed myself to reapproaching the first demo tapes and
rerecording certain tracks to reflect the uplift that they got from the
drum machine; that is, i had already dramatically rewritten most of the
tracks around the drum machine, so i felt i should rerecord them. now, i
was going to need to uplift some of those tracks a second time with
synthesizer parts. i knew which tracks i wanted to approach and how, but
i wanted to ease myself in a little. so, i picked a new track as my
first synthesizer experiment.
that is a large part of what this track is. i had the lyrics
pre-written, actually, and knew that i wanted a spooky kind of
atmosphere to the track. so, i was approaching the synth with the
question of how to manipulate it into sounding "haunted". that may seem
trivial, but please realize that i had never seen an actual synthesizer
before - i'd just always used the presets on my sister's electronic
piano. it was a small victory to get the patch by increasing the sustain
on the preset, but it was a hard-fought battle.
after i got the track mixed down through the 4-track and mastered into
the pc by sending the signal into the back of the soundblaster, some
listening had me wishing that i had slowed the tape down a little. the
track is a kind of a child's understanding of the existential, which i
just felt would be more aesthetically in balance if i slowed the tape
down and made it seem a bit more mournful. so, i wanted to go back and
remaster it with the speed set a little slower.
i decided i should test it by slowing the track down digitally, first.
what i was trying to do was get an estimate to use to remaster it at a
different speed. i took a guess on half-speed to try and was going to
incrementally reduce the reduction through trial and error until i got
to a good point. then, i could set the tape speed by ear. i did not go
through that process; i stopped at half-speed. for several weeks in
1998, the half-speed version was the final product for the track. i
believe i even uploaded it to mp3.com slowed down this way.
i just instantly stopped at half-speed because, while the effect was
more exaggerated than intended, that exaggeration was to greater effect
than i imagined. i wasn't expecting the guitars to get that grungy, or
the vocals to get that deep. when i heard it, though, i knew that this
was the track.
in the end, i reverted back to the normal speed version, but this was
done with much internal division. the reason that this is the last track
on the demo is because i was holding out for space for the lengthier
version. it was only due to a combination of space requirements and pull
for conformity of sound through the demo that had me relent at the very
end.
in hindsight, i do think that the short version fits better on the flow
of the cd, and it will remain there - minus the vocals. yet, i also
think that this slowed down version deserves it's own document. i've
slowed down two other versions of the track, as well, to drag out the
fun. the album version closes this collection.
originally
created in 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed
in the summer of 2015 and then manipulated further in the summer of
2016. released & finalized on july 7, 2016. hidden track added and re-finalized on july 18, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016).
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, vocals, digital wave manipulation, production
you don't get ahead in this society by working hard. teaching your kids this lie is poor parenting - child abuse, arguably.
rather, you need to teach your kids how to cheat, how to steal, how to lie and how to manipulate their way to an advantage over their competitors. 'cause you know what? that's what the other kids are being taught. and, if your kids are out there strutting around with their dunce caps on and spouting the idiocy of hard work to get ahead in propertarian capitalism, they're going to get the shit beat out of them - and nobody's going to care.
yeah. it's a shitty system. but you have a responsibility to give your kids a competitive advantage. so, don't drag them down with naive stupidity.
you want send your kids to school?
the only growth industry in north america right now is financial services.
bankers. stock traders. that's how you make money nowadays.
hard work? hardly. it's parasitic. that's the economy...
so, stop with the fucking calvinism. it's not just tiring. it's damaging to the next generation.
and, you wonder why i don't give a fuck? why i refuse to participate? i know i'm lucky to have been born where i am, but the perspective just makes the society that much worse.
i do not feel that my politics are realistically attainable within my life time. this is why i would prefer to reject society and live in poverty in order to focus on art. i am entirely aware that i am so far outside of the status quo, that i cannot be coherently understood - except in a revolutionary context.
i consequently offer a kind of acid test, right. i would expect the status quo to reject virtually everything i say. so, if you find yourself of the opinion that i'm kind of extreme? sure. i agree with you. and, you're the status quo.
just understand two things:
(1) i expect a very small audience, because of the nature of my comments. i would be the first person to be shocked by the prospect of my audience growing. this would imply that my analysis is incorrect.
(2) the size of my audience has not and will continue to not have any effect on my comments.
i'm a musician. check out my tunes.
to be clear: i have called for the public executions (after trials...) of both bush and clinton. this isn't partisan. they're both war criminals.
cops are workers, too, and instilling a concept of class consciousness into the force - including fostering a tendency towards work stoppages - is an absolutely essential process for the left.
anything that gets them thinking more in terms of labour conflict and less in terms of a monopoly on force is a net positive.
just about the only thing that i can think of that might actually succeed in reducing racial profiling, for example, would be rank-and-file police officers threatening or implementing a work stoppage over it. at the end of the day, the only way that this will stop is if they stop "just taking orders".
