but, chris, you know that the whole point is to reduce the election to personalities.

this is a really bad argument for clinton surrogates. we don't all have the memories of fruit flies...

"So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts. Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must be prepared to go the limit. And wishful thinking based on best-case scenarios or excessively literal transfers of recent experience to different conditions would be a recipe for disaster." - al gore arguing in favour of the iraq war, 2002

here's another historical fact: as a senator in the 90s, al gore voted for the invasion of the first iraq war. unlike in 2002, this put him in the minority. and, he was arguing for regime change during the first bush presidency.

al gore was not just following the status quo on iraq. he was unusually hawkish. he didn't just support the sanctions, he argued for them.

here's an interesting question: how much influence did gore have, directly or indirectly, into clinton's vote for the war?

would gore have invaded iraq? yeah. you betcha he would have.

for those that are curious, i'm going to post the two dominant sources that i'm likely to get actual news from. i tend to watch a lot of boring, wonky stuff as well. but, what are some video news sites that i'd recommend? that i actually have clicked 'subscribe' for?

1) democracy now is really the standard news site on the soft left. but, their biases are well known and it is consequently sometimes a little bit of a problem trying to digest them as a news site rather than as a propaganda outlet. i actually didn't even really consult them at all on the primary, because i knew what i was going to get. there's a few links here and there. but, their contempt for the democratic party is legendary. what i wanted was reporting from a pro-sanders slant, and i knew better than to think i was going to get it from there. the little bit that i saw was critical of sanders for selling out - which just didn't strike me as relevant. i didn't disagree. i just didn't see the use in hearing it. sell out or not, he was far and away the most exciting thing the left had seen in decades. i didn't need a sober analysis from amy & juan.

democracy now:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuqE7-t13O4NIDYJfakrhw

2) the other site that i normally pay a lot of attention to regarding day-to-day news is the real news network, which is kind of a canadian thing. paul jay used to be employed by our state run media, but got fired for being a communist - or something like that. trnn is not as reliable as democracy now, but it's often more direct. that is, if you want to know what's happening quickly, trnn is often the best primer to hit.

trnn:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrmm_7RDZJeQzq2-wvmjueg

those are the sites i would normally hit for daily news regarding things like geopolitics, not the sites i've been frequenting recently due to the primary.

i've pointed out a few times that kerry was the only modern democratic party candidate that i've supported as an acceptable lesser evil (i didn't even see gore as a lesser evil...), and i actually think he's done a truly super-human job in cleaning up the absolute disaster that clinton left the state department in. he remains probably the only person in the democratic party upper echelon that i would really seriously consider voting for. and, i've enjoyed a lot of his speeches as secretary - although i should point out that just as many of them are pretty orwellian. he's not as bad as biden on the orwellian front (at this very summit, biden had the temerity to present columbia as an example of american leadership in fighting corruption.), but he can get a little staggering sometimes. still, i find his speeches a lot more inspiring than anybody else in the club. i know that's the exact opposite of the media narrative, but that's pretty expected for me.

i watch this stuff when i eat. i don't put aside time for it. but, i think this overlaps with what i was saying about fat shaming and why it's so important that we all fat shame our kids into consuming what they need and not what they want.

to be clear.

gore: not a lesser evil.
kerry: a lesser evil.
obama: not a lesser evil.
clinton: not a lesser evil.

don't expect me to ease up on her. i keep saying it. i never eased up on obama. i never eased up on gore, either.

well, i gave obama a bit of a break for a few months after he got elected. i gave him a chance, you could say.

j reacts to the extreme social coercion that exists around fossil fuel culture

actually, the fact is that i don't have a driver's license.

the truth is that i've never wanted one. the reasons were always largely environmental. i always said that i may revisit the point if the infrastructure allows for electric vehicles, but i've learned since then that this was somewhat naive: the manufacturing process is awful enough that merely switching to electric is not enough of a solution. or, not for me, anyways. i wouldn't buy an electric car unless it was made from 100% recycled material.

right now, i mostly walk everywhere out of a combination of necessity and circumstance. my bicycle is out of order. i haven't prioritized fixing it because i wouldn't really use it right now if i could. that will change once they get the new bridge to detroit built.

so, fuck your cars. i don't want them. and, you shouldn't, either.

j reacts to clinton's reactionary politics

i've got a great idea for clinton to try and reach young voters in a way that naturally reflects her campaign movements: reduce her campaign to a series of reacts videos on youtube. that's what the campaign is going to feel like. so, she'd might as well go full retard...

27-07-2016: horribly distracted by everything (the a/c, the mri, the convention...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/on-sexual-confusion-in-adolescence-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

feel free to remove this. i was really just looking for decent coverage of the primary, and this was the closest thing i could find to it. i was never really looking for a debate. i don't even live in your country. it's more that i have a tendency for procrastination and you kept throwing shit down that i felt i could make some kind of point in reacting to. so, it's more like i saw an opportunity to co-opt something - i saw a stage to rush, a platform to yell over. i was never under the illusion that i'm anywhere close on the spectrum to this channel, which i'd run into previously on multiple occasions and had largely written off as a mouth piece for the right side of the democratic party (it was all about fiscal issues...). frankly, you surprised me with your primary coverage. the recent coverage is actually more in line with what i might expect. i guess i was never here in the first place - i didn't ever even go through the symbolic act of clicking subscribe - but i'll go ahead and leave you alone, now.

Commented on The Young Turks's Discussion tab

jessica
the argument that slave conditions in the south were preferable to market labour working conditions in the north has been made by essentially every american socialist since 1850, including chomsky, zinn and dewey. it's not generally presented as an argument in favour of slavery, though - it's usually presented as an argument against labour markets.

a variation on this argument is the observation that slave owners rarely killed their property, as they were invested in it, but were more open to killing "free workers" as they could just hire another one.

----

Xavier Mahan
With Ana's definition of slavery most of us are slaves.

jessica
yeah, she kind of screwed that up. in fact, o'reilly is perverting a leftist intellectual tradition that rejects the difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery. she didn't mean it, but she's accidentally absolutely right.

My Cat's Life
Petulant millennial bernie bros would rather sink the country because they were told no once in their lives. in the real world not everyone gets a participation award.

I'm sorry but in the real word not everyone wins. You politically naive Bernie bros have found this out and now you will be responsible for the destruction of our country.

jessica
you can cry about it and call them names, or you can do something constructive to win their votes. but, you're just another dipshit whining baby boomer that's had everything handed to you on a silver platter your whole life. you can't fathom actually working for anything.

My Cat's Life
For millennial bernie bros who are politically naive who have never been told no it's a hard pill to swallow but the in the real world not ever gets a participation award.

jessica
it's really amazing to hear boomers tell younger people that not everybody gets a participation award, when they grew up in a world where everybody got a fucking house as a reward for graduating high school - and then destroyed that world to pay for cocaine. i guess all the drugs fucked their memory up, huh?

we could live in a world where everybody wins, but the boomers' parents were right - they fucked the whole thing up.

i've got a great idea: why don't we fund student loan forgiveness with social security money?

My Cat's Life
you Bernie bros are deluded. gleefully cheering the destruction of America and the rise of new fascism just because you didn't get your way once in life. wakey wakey millennials not everyone gets a gold star

jessica
trump is not smart enough to be a fascist. but, if you're educated on hillary's track record, it's a pretty apt description.

we don't really have a choice: we've been dealing with creeping fascism since the hippies elected nixon, and this election is going to carry it forward one way or another.

i mean, you can't really blame it on the clintons. the first clinton presidency is going to actually be largely forgotten, sandwiched between reagan and bush. the reagan era will be said to extend some time past 1980, hopefully ending in 2020. clinton and his legacy will be folded entirely within it.

if he's lucky he might get something like clinton-reagan. but, that will probably actually end up as reagan-bush.

Kelli Barnhouse
Bush/Chaney Bankrupted this country After They spent The Surplus President Clinton Left Them!!! President Clinton was the best President this Country Ever Had!!! Didn't You learn anything In High School History Class!!!

jessica
there's some truth to this, but nobody cares about surpluses, or whether they're based on funny math or not - nor does having a surplus imply anything positive about the state of the economy or anything positive about the state of the country.

clinton was a caretaker president that carried on the policies that were set in motion by his predecessor. this is also largely true of obama. we're due for some kind of transformative change, but it's been resisted up to this point - and will not happen in the next four years, unless it comes from trump (but i doubt this).

if you were to sit down and press hillary on the era, she'd sound a lot like phyllis schlafly.

j reacts to fat shaming as an anarchist social control mechanism

fwiw, i have no problem with fat shaming. in fact, i encourage it. again: i'm an anarchist, i'm not a christian progressive. fat shaming is an example of what anarchists refer to as informal social control mechanisms. it's what we promote as replacements for state institutions. and, there's a giant level of inherent statism in erecting all these things that require policing, but are really just a lot of bourgeois fantasies and nonsense upon stilts.

--

n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-o....

i think this whole idea of comparing categories is absurd to begin with, because i don't like putting people in categories. but, being gay and being black are similar in at least one way - it doesn't harm anybody. i think we can all agree that we can't really change our skin colour (without an extreme expense). can we change our orientation? i don't particularly care if we can or not. it's the question of harm that's important.

that's standard liberalism. but, the harm principle is also very important to anarchists. there's a big point of agreement there. if you're getting bogged down in the question of choice, you're exiting liberalism and aligning with....see, there's those christian progressives again. with homosexuality, though, the harm issue is at the center of academic liberalism. it's in some ways the actual defining issue - because it's so prominent in mill.

so, what about being fat? is that a choice? probably, but who cares. the important issue to me - both as an anarchist and as a liberal - is whether it produces harm. this is a complex point, but there are a few things to think about. food scarcity. is that really an issue? well, the issue has more to do with distribution - or at least it does here. my bigger concern is health care, which is in fact scarce. when you take poor care of yourself, you do consequently harm others by wasting resources that are being inefficiently distributed. it follows that society has a valid mandate to fat shame you.

the people that call themselves liberals nowadays want to talk about individual rights theory, while ignoring the more important questions of social harm. i don't pretend i'm a liberal to start with. i'm a socialist. it's obvious how this makes sense to me. but, "liberals" have lost the plot if they think we all have the right to waste resources for no good reason.

this kind of thinking isn't actually really christian, either. it's only christian on the most base, surface level. christianity was constructed in an economy where food scarcity was a real issue  - that's why gluttony is a sin.

it's more along the lines of what might be referred to as nihilism, this idea that we should just live in excess and tell everybody else to fuck off. it's utilitarianism, certainly - but basely so. satanism, perhaps, in the sense that it appeals to base, animal instincts. objectivism, in the sense of it upholding selfishness as a virtue.

but it's not a coherent liberal view (it causes social harm), a coherent socialist or anarchist view (it rejects distributive justice, if not in food then in health care) or even a coherent christian view (gluttony is sinful).

==

body temperature is 36-38 degrees celsius.

you're sweating at 25 degrees because you're unhealthy. i don't sweat at 25 degrees. i barely sweat at 30 degrees.

hypothermia sets in when your body goes below 35 degrees celsius. that's about 95 degrees farenheit.

we evolved in eastern africa, not siberia. we like it hot. if we're healthy...

ok, so i should have probably expected that i would have been a little distracted by the primaries, but this is the end of day three of aimlessness and i didn't want this at all.

i've moved my laptop back into my bedroom to re-establish a separation between play and labour. the dangerously obese, parasitic piece of shit upstairs will not relent on the air conditioner (which i'm paying for), so the heat is currently set to 31 degrees celsius - and i'm willing to increase it further. this has an effect on alertness, but it's better than living in a fucking fridge.

i still haven't heard back from the mri and it's still eating at me. but i'm at least a little more focused. i think.

i need to be a little bit more strict with myself because i want to finish what is in front of me by the end of the week so i can get all the between-things things done at the end of the month.

j reacts to the impossibility of feminine men within hierarchical heteropatriarchy

"so why don't you just be a girly dude."

i just got that one. again. the reason is that you can't actually live that way.

i'll just show up to work in a skirt, right? ok, maybe that's not as out there as it was even a few years ago. here's another example that cuts a lot deeper: women just don't ask guys out.

so, why don't i show initiative? why don't i take control? why don't i be a man about it?.

whatever the answers to those questions, i think it gets the point across: you can't just be a girly dude. i think it's a lot easier to be a masculine female. you may even get a little privilege out of it. but, the premise you're throwing at me just really isn't actually feasible, and i don't think that you need to be queer to be cognizant of it.

do you know what would have actually happened had i shown up to work at microsoft in a skirt?

they'd have sent me to hr, and off to a psychiatric assessment - where i would have been given hormones, and probably the option to go on leave for a few months. i may have even been transferred.

...because it was fucking microsoft.

in canada.

it would have been a little different at a mcdonalds in dallas.

but, you get the point. it's not a real option.

j reacts to the predictability of hillary clinton's campaign strategy

if you were to play a game of chess with hillary, she would mimic your every move until the clock runs out. absolutely predictable. so, beating her is easy: you predict that and adjust.

she may be surprisingly easy to trick into shooting herself in the foot.

dude, you gotta lay off the cheese, or something. you sound constipated as fuck.

THE MOST CONSTIPATED SOUNDING ASSHOLE ON YOUTUBE

Commented on LeafyIsHere's Discussion tab

i don't think they should ban this kid, i just think they should send his revenue to the creators of south park.

the only thing i find offensive about him is his lack of individuality & deficit of critical thinking skills.

what would be better is if he did all his videos dressed up like a sheep.

this kid doesn't smoke, either. that's bullshit. "sheepy" fits a lot better.

it's just a lot of ideas that have been put in his head with cartoons, memes and viral social media.

the sad part is that people look to him for some kind of wisdom. dude. he's a fifteen year-old kid repeating the media he was brainwashed with...

when he grows up and becomes his own person, he's going to look back at this and cringe.

j reacts to the surreal truth that trump comes off as a dove when compared to clinton

“I’m not going to tell Putin what to do,” Mr. Trump said. “Why should I tell Putin what to do?”

i'm sorry. but, i like this a lot better than clinton's belligerence.

it wouldn't convince me to back trump, or vote for him or whatever else. but, the more this narrative unfolds, the less urgent stopping him seems and the more appealing the green party becomes.

i'm not giving him any credit, either. i'm blaming the clinton campaign. why is she running on such a violent foreign policy?

j reacts to "online polling".

online polling, panel polling and all other types of polling that are not random are simply propaganda. polls of this type are designed to influence popular opinion, not to measure it, and should neither be reported on nor aggregated.

put another way, this is not actually polling at all.

that said, we may have just experienced the media's expected to shift to trump.

it's just disingenuous to expect sanders supporters to concede that the difference between trump and clinton is that great. all the language thrown around treats it as an assumption - or something so obvious that it doesn't need to be demonstrated. the basis of the push back is just simply that the case has not been made. hillary supporters are going to have to actually make that case: they are going to have to convince these people that hilllary is measurably better than trump.

it's not obvious. and you do have to make that argument.

j reacts to continuing democratic party frustration with the left

it's just disingenuous to expect sanders supporters to concede that the difference between trump and clinton is that great. all the language thrown around treats it as an assumption - or something so obvious that it doesn't need to be demonstrated. the basis of the push back is just simply that the case has not been made. hillary supporters are going to have to actually make that case: they are going to have to convince these people that hilllary is measurably better than trump.

it's not obvious. and you do have to make that argument.

see, here's the twist: i don't think it's actually true. trump is absolutely terrible. hillary is in some ways even worse, because she's more calculated.

i have no problem spinning the language around: how can you look your grandkids in the eye and tell them you voted for hillary clinton? i couldn't.

the facts are not on bernie’s side. i don't want to pretend that i don't understand his perspective, but he's just not correct.

like, what is it. you want to vote for clinton on climate change? on immigration policy? on foreign policy? how is she better at any point along the way? i'm not even sure she supports stimulus spending, which is the one place she might be a little bit better. and, she wants to run on everything except the economy.

you have to actually have this debate, if you want to convince people. and, good luck to you.

the current approach - "have faith in the party" - is going to get the reaction it deserves.

26-07-2016: having difficulty focusing on inri013

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/on-sexual-confusion-in-adolescence-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

i think that a big part of the reason that i'm floaty is the mri. it's some kind of repressed anxiety. even when i'm not explicitly thinking about it....

we'll have to see what it says. but, i guess the next thing to check is my jaw, if my ear comes back clean. but, i'm kind of still convinced there's something in there. it sure feels like it...

the other big thing i'm concerned about is if it comes back with lesions. i'm actually becoming more and more convinced that it's lyme disease. i had said i would get that checked last month, but i decided i should wait for the mri, first. short of finding a giant tumour in my eustachian tube, that's almost certainly going to be the next thing i check.

you can imagine it's a little distracting. so, cut me some slack for a few days, here.

there was an episode of the simpsons in the 90s, where they did a parody of the x-files....

but, this is what they're running, i think. they want to play down the political differences between the candidates and turn it into a popularity contest. remember: hillary is apparently unaware of the fact that she's not widely loved.

the thinking, though, is that if you can take the issues off of the table - or minimize them - then it gets reduced to a no-brainer decision: trump is batshit crazy and she's just a little bit crazy.

two reasons why i think they're doing this. first: she always does this. it doesn't matter who her opponent is. bernie opposes the tpp? she opposes the tpp. weasel language, but nonetheless. abortion drives the gop base? they bring a pro-life vp in. it's the tactic she always uses. second: it's actually kind of true. they are basically the same candidate, except she's a little less crazy. or at least seems that way. for the first three seconds...

i'm not convinced it's a sure loss. i mean, she doesn't have a lot of better options. she can't be alienating the moderate right. that is a sure tactic to lose, because she is going to certainly bleed on the left.

she needs some kind of sugar, there. i don't know the best way to do it...

the grievance, rachel, is that they don't believe anything she says. is hillary even her real name?

remember when the other clinton was against nafta?

and, it's not like it's some kind of error in pr management, either. you can't blame this on the primary. she's spent her whole career lying to people. now, nobody believes her. how does that saying go, when we're on to "fool me for the thirty-ninth time"?

actually, i think that this is why she has to swing right. she has a better chance of convincing conservatives than she does of convincing leftists. it's perhaps a crisis point for the democrats - in two years. right now, the goal has to be to win the election. she's not going to do that by telling lies to people that don't and never will believe her. her better chance is to lay the truth on the table and go after the right. not happy about it, of course. but, is it not obvious that she'll never convince them?

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work

j reacts to hillary clinton's perception of the value of democracy

i know i do a lot of long rants, but i'm just going to leave you with a statement and ask you to keep it in mind as you see the coverage unfold. i just saw an interview at rcp with cory booker wearing a purple tie and talking about the left and right coming together. first of all, who does that remind you of? what does "bipartisanship" mean to you? but, forget about that for a minute. just remember this statement over the next several months:

hillary clinton thinks that government policy should exist independent of the election cycle - that party differences in policy creates instability that makes the country less safe and less productive. it follows that she believes that elections should not affect policy decisions.

if you're having trouble understanding things, just come back to that statement of explanation.

j reacts to the absurd naivete on the "left" around dws

that's right. she did a great job, so she got promoted.

i've said my bit about the kaine thing, already.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/T_v_jcyaRTc

j reacts to the expansion of broadband as social engineering tactic

this is actually a great idea, and something that left-leaning governments everywhere should look into. they're arguing it will be good for the economy, and they might even be right.

i support the idea more on social engineering grounds.

if you look at a map of most of the world right now, you notice something pretty dramatic: urban areas lean towards inclusive/liberal parties and rural areas lean inwards and towards the right. ontario is no different. modernizing the rural areas could consequently be interpreted as a type of enlightened gerrymandering.

except that we need to eat, too.

i hypothesize that one of the biggest reasons that we have these divides is the insularity of rural communities. if you live on a farm that's an hour drive from any real civilization, you just don't come into contact with any kind of diversity. so, you're naturally suspicious of it - because you don't know it.

increasing internet access in rural areas is consequently a sort of window into the present for a lot of these communities, who otherwise have little access to modernity.

little access. it's not zero access. but one of the major windows into the world from these communities right now is the print media, which is dominated by the right-wing. in canada, we have the sun chain along with the national post. replacing the bottleneck on information in the print media with open internet access will broaden people's opinions.

it won't lead to seat changes overnight. it may even take a generation to have any meaningful effect. but, it may be the single most powerful thing that the left can do to break the lock that the right has on rural communities.

i've been pushing this for a while, and i'm happy to see the government pick it up.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/governments-spend-180m-on-high-speed-internet-in-ontario-1.3695222

something else that i'm in strong support of is the idea that internet lines should be interpreted as public infrastructure, like roads. so, i hope that the government hangs on to the lines, this time. we had publicly owned phone and cable lines in canada for a long time, but sold them off during the neo-liberal period. that was a big error.

yeah. he's got some 'splainin' to do, alright.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/bill-clinton-speech-hillary-clinton-democrats-1.3695087

25-07-2016: i woke up early for an mri, and never really recovered for the day

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

whatever the russians think about trump, they hate clinton.

for example: sergei lavrov is on record calling her a war criminal.

jessica
fool me once...

i don't blame him. maximize revenue, right? and, hey - it's more legit than making money from ad revenue, anyways.

i see that you didn't like the 40 minute vlogs about music production.

so, i've given you 80 minute vlogs about music production.

a correlation is developing: trump's numbers consistently go up when terrorist attacks happen, and then fade when it's quiet. he consistently beats her on national security in polls. that might be the wild card that decides the election. and, if they figure it out, it might be the october surprise.

that part is actually clear to me. the convention was a mess. he didn't get a bump from that.....

he got a bump from the munich attack.

what's a little less clear to me is whether this is emotional or intellectual. the fact that he fades when things get quiet seems to suggest that people are kneejerking. they see an attack, they get mad, they say they want to vote for the guy that wants a muslim ban. but, then once their fruit fly length memory wipes it out, they come to their sense and realize it's a bad idea.

are they actually going to do it? what factors will work them up enough to actually pull the trigger on it? and, what's the antidote?

it's a dangerous situation, certainly.

j reacts to the phantom trump bump, and presents an alternate explanation for it

if trump just got a bounce, i might suspect it has more to do with the recent spate of terrorist attacks than the convention.

the last few weeks - and the last week especially - has been horrific. i don't think that trump has the answers, of course. but it's hard not to conclude that some kind of drastic action is required.

he consistently beats her on national security....

....which is why she wants to run the election on foreign policy...?

the vlog may be a little late tonight, but it is coming.

j reacts to the absurdity of stealing low quality audio streams

i've been noticing that the bandcamp site is getting many times more visitors than plays. so far in july, i have just over 1100 visits and just under 400 plays. one would expect the opposite. even if everybody shows up and just skips through three songs, that's still three times as many plays as visits. how can i have a third as many plays as visits? what are people doing on my bandcamp site - which has little besides a play button - if not listening?

my best guess is that this is a metric regarding just how bad the problem of bandcamp downloading is. i'd just like to make a few comments.

first: please recognize that i don't prostitute myself to capitalism by selling my labour for a wage, and i'm never going to ever again. this is a basic political position of mine. i consider it more noble to live on welfare than to sell my labour for a wage. for the same reason, i don't have a record label, and i don't want one. i don't make money through advertising, and i don't want to. i'm pushing the point out of principle: do you not think you have an obligation to pay for something if you're enjoying it? i just don't understand the thought process that would take somebody to an audio site to download a low quality file out of the stream that only exists for promo purposes, then tell me i should force people to listen to an ad for condoms if i want to eat. that's not the world i want to live in. that's the world i want to abolish.

second: there's no way around this. if you can stream something, you can pirate it. but, again: i can't understand why this is the arrangement that you actually want.

third: the pirated version that you're getting is absolutely shit. my music is very sonically complex. the 128 kbps mp3 that you're streaming is really worth what you're paying for. i have to clarify that you're not actually getting a proper representation of the sound, that way. i'm not exaggerating, either. there's a reason that i am constantly requesting that you listen to the music though headphones. if you're going to listen through a shitty mp3 (no doubt on your phone speakers or on laptop speakers), you're barely even getting an approximation of it. again, i don't understand what you're getting out of this. this isn't vocally driven music. if you're not listening to the arrangements, what are you listening to? as an example, the most recent track that i uploaded is mixed in such a way that i literally cannot hear the bass part on my laptop speakers. it's not the first time i've noticed this, either. you really need to be listening to it in flac, and through a decent setup. the stream can only give you a taste. to steal the stream is to completely miss the point.

fourth: broadly speaking, i think you're missing the point. the message that sends to me is that you don't understand the art. so, why are you listening to it? you can barely hear it, and you don't understand it.

so, it's hard for me to get angry. it's less that i feel like i'm a victim of theft, and more that i feel like i'm not getting my ideas across very well. or, maybe i am. after all, one of my main messages is the ubiquity of human stupidity. perhaps you're just demonstrating the point.

if you're going to listen to this at all, please do yourself the favour of downloading it in high quality - and listening to it through headphones. that's not a hollow request. you cannot possibly understand what i'm creating, otherwise.

24-07-2016: closing inri012 while fighting the distraction of the upcoming mri

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

publishing i think i feel much better now (inri012)

audio permanently closed for inri012.

==

the roots of this track are a variation on a common theme. this is taken from the write-up for the initial 1996 demo version of the track:

"more silly teenage angst, intersecting with more rejection of religion and quite a bit of misanthropy. i may make an interesting observation or two, but the reality here is that i sound just as brainwashed as the masses of people i was looking down on...and if i'm going to criticize myself, or feel embarrassed, it's on that level of a lack of originality, rather than the actual content."

by 1998, the lyrics had been rewritten to be a little less angsty in an attempt to expand further on the secular humanist basis of the track. yet, i still don't really get over the irony inherent in the track. as much as i want to break free of mindlessness and conformity, i don't have anything particularly original to say. worse, the way i'm saying it is cliched, childish and kind of trite. for these reasons, i've decided to eject the vocal mixes from the official release altogether, although they are available here as a part of the download.

musically speaking, i initially actually wanted this track to be the basis of something more marketable. i remember listening to the first side of the initial demo and lamenting that it was void of anything i could really release as a single and then trying to come up with some kind of "jangle" or "college" rock thing to compensate for it.  in the end, the track would warp into some kind of adult prog, but you can hear the initial buckian template in the guitar work.

as with a number of the other tracks from this period, i don't really want to walk anything back - i just wish that i had articulated myself better. it's not the subject matter that's cringey, it's the exact choice of words. yet, that's a scant excuse, in context. word choice is what writing is all about!

the decision to create a single for the track in 2016 was drawn out by two considerations. the first is that there are legitimately two distinct modern versions of the track, along with a collection of discarded mixes, and i do feel the need to offer them together as a package, as i have done with the other tracks. the other is that this is literally the only song on the first demo that is not offered in this format. i felt that it would be absurd for me to offer every track as a single except for this one.

the lead track on this single combines the album version with the connector that follows it on the record, which explains the chosen release date (the actual song was completed on march 22, 1998). that connector is one of the many pieces of sample art that i had created over this period in cool edit, using a number of basic manipulation tactics and noise generation techniques. i had to emulate this in 2016 in order to rebuild the record. while the result is not identical, it is actually pretty close.

initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on nov 26, 2015. sequenced on jan 10, 2016. released & finalized on july 24, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

this release is compiled on inriℵ0.
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set

regarding the subject matter of the deleted vocals/lyrics, please see the following vlog (which is also available on inriℵ0):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuhdwde1YKI&t=778s

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, drum kit, sequencing, vocals, sampling, found sound (printer), cool edit, digital wave editing, tapes, production

released may 22, 1998

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now


1) this is the version that was sequenced for the record, before it was split into two tracks for it. initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on nov 26, 2015. sequenced on jan 10, 2016.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now


2) this is the version that was reconstructed in 2015 from the 1998 source tapes. initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on nov 26, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/aliens-are-more-likely-than-god-2


3) from the deleted inricycled B compilation. initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. remastered in 2013. recycled jan 7, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/climb-up-a-cloud-to-combat-some-hideous-creatures-and-then-fly-away-hidden


4) 2013 remaster of 1996 demo. initially written in 1996. remastered in 2013. dated oct 21, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/guh-2013-remaster-of-1996-demo-2

5) deleted 2013 remaster of 1998 demo cd. initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. dated dec 21, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now-2013-remaster-of-1998-cd-2

6) deleted original 1996 mix. initially written in 1996. dated nov 24, 1996.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/guh-1996-demo-2

7) deleted original 1998 sequence from the initial demo cd. initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. the first section is from mar 22, 1998 and the second section is from may 22, 1998.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now-1998-cd-2

i actually really like this...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article90545862.html

j reacts to bloomberg as reaction to giuliani (hillary is a neo-con....)

i would highly advise that the clinton campaign requests that bloomberg not publicly endorse clinton.

i know she's running on the right and everything. but, bloomberg doesn't excite anybody she needs to swing. he just irritates progressive voters. it's one thing to focus on trying to win missouri, it's another to go out of your way to poke northeastern liberals in the eye like that.

new york is not in play. well, unless she bleeds dramatically to stein. which is what something like this facilitates.

my guess is it's some kind of reaction to giuliani or something.

nobody cares what rudy giuliani thinks, says or does. he's widely seen as a fringe idiot.

she's better off ignoring him.

that's what everybody else does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--WKtgngBg
http://downtrend.com/robertgehl/bloombergs-poll-shows-people-hate-michael-bloomberg

wait.

did she want giuliani?

ugh. just point me to the nearest fucking wall...

you know what it is, though? it's all this neo-con bullshit out of 9/11, this idea that america needs an enemy to fight against. it's right out of fucking leo strauss. so, because she buys into all that nonsense, she sees the giuliani endorsement as a threat.

 there's no other rational reason why she should care what giuliani thinks at all. the state is not in play. he's not actually particularly popular, or well regarded by anybody beside the lunatic fringe on the right. it's just the narrative that came out after 9/11 about how he was some kind of leader. when? between spraying the city with malathion and pushing racial profiling from city hall? nobody actually thinks that. it was just some bullshit floated on fox news.

in fact, he's been eaten alive by somebody with some actual influence on popular opinion: jon stewart. stewart destroyed the guy. he couldn't get elected dog catcher after the hatchet job stewart did on him.

but, she doesn't have any kind of meaningful connection to popular opinion. she just gets her perspectives from these shielded right-wing think tanks, and they never really dropped the bullshit.

ok, ok - it's very deductive of me to conclude that she's bringing in bloomberg to counteract giuliani. but, i mean, do you have a better explanation? both as to why she would want to be seen in public with bloomberg, and why she would think what giuliani thinks is at all important, if the connection is actually accurate?

it's consistent, anyways. and hillary is in fact consistent - both when she's lying and when she isn't.

but, note something else: she's reacting. she's not leading. again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/25/michael-bloomberg-no-chance-of-being-president-third-party-candidate-alienate-voters

j reacts to bernie sanders' reaction to tim kaine

"He is a very nice guy." - bernie sanders on tim kaine

but, bernie. what do you think about his policies?

"He is a very nice guy."

hey, i had a mom too. i get it.

trey parker called. he wants his show back.

what you're describing is kind of not what christianity is about, actually. at least not the american/calvinist variety.

part of the problem here is that "christianity" is impossibly vague. the different denominations are drastically different. you can't just throw "christianity" out there like it has some encompassing meaning. you've gotta be a lot more specific.

it's really just a buzz word. and people will assign just about whatever they want to it.

that's not recent, either. it's not just post-reformation. they had heretics all over the place from day one. it took them several centuries just to come up with a basic creed, and that didn't even really stick. nobody's really ever been sure what the term means.

jessica
either they got hacked, or somebody pulled funding.

i mean, if this isn't a hack, it really opens up some questions about who is running this channel. this is right-wing trash.

Giuliana Rexic
Right-wing trash? It's factual. Thousands of women are being maimed by these implants.

jessica
it's just slut-shaming bullshit.

Giuliana Rexic
WTF are you talking about?

jessica
this shit has been going on for fifty years. it's just the latest iteration of the 'contraception is unsafe' meme that the right has been pushing since the pill was patented.

Giuliana Rexic
I see. I'll let the Essure victims know that!

jessica
these people made an informed choice regarding a statistically safe means of contraception and unfortunately had to deal with an obscure defect. they're not victims of anything except bad luck. again: this right-wing catholic propaganda to make contraception seem unsafe is very longstanding.

Giuliana Rexic
They couldn't have made an informed choice when they weren't given the true risks of the product. You're all over the place.

jessica
again: this is a safe product. there's some chance you're going to get hit by lightning, but that doesn't mean you refuse to leave the house. you're dealing with the same kind of probabilities that you get with vaccination, or, in fact, with the birth control pill.

that information is available - and it's the consumer's responsibility to do that research, once the risks have been published. says who? says five hundred years of british legal jurisprudence.

so, why are they pushing this? again: it's the same bullshit that's been going on for fifty years.

what i'm pointing out is that the video is pushing a right-wing, catholic conspiracy theory. it is the same right-wing conspiracy theory you hear from people like alex jones: population control. eugenics. and, when i see that rfk, jr works for this channel, that is very suspicious.

j reacts to how dangerous and radical (right...) that picking tim kaine actually is

i just want to reject this idea that tim kaine is a "safe" pick. if that argument is directed anywhere, it's at the left of the democratic party. what tim kaine suggests to me is that clinton is going to be aggressively pursuing republicans. this isn't about playing defense, it's about positioning herself in such a way that she can credibly convince conservatives that she's more aligned with them.

this is what a two party system does. if you're going to uphold a two-party system, this is what you're going to get. the democrats are never going to fight on their left because they're never going to be threatened on the left. there has to be another party there.

the reason this is so predictable is because the system necessitates it. in a two-party system, all elections are fought in the center and the nominee of the party is obligated to focus her efforts on winning votes on the other side of the aisle. that's how the system works.

again: don't keep upholding this system, then expect it to do something it's not designed to do. if you want the democrats to swing left, you have absolutely no choice but to create a party on the left for it to compete with.

08. the summer of final reconstructions, pt 1 (inri000-inri011) (dvd 8)

23-07-2016: closing inri011, working through may/98 and defining inri012

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/nope-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/slipping-away
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/weedin-the-yard
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/wish-r2d2-mix
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-phantom-of-the-washing-machine

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

finalizing nope (inri011)

it's often remarked that there's a fine line between genius and idiocy. it's less often remarked that there's an equally fine line between wisdom and depression.

in early 1998, i was generating quite a bit of concern about my mental well being. ironically, i think this actually coincided with a period of very rapid mental development and maturation. i kind of just went to sleep one night as an immature teen and woke up the next morning as an overmature young adult. i can't really assign any kind of catalyst to it, either. while i haven't looked into this at all, i suspect it's a less uncommon phenomenon than might be imagined.

i should maybe give my parents, which at this point in time means my father and step-mother but primarily my father, a little bit of credit for at least being aware that my character underwent a sudden, dramatic shift from being a hyperactive kid to being a quiet and withdrawn teen. the immediate interpretation of such a shift is inevitably going to be that it is at least consistent with the onset of some kind of depression. so, i ended up dealing with the spanish inquisition for a while, regarding my shift in demeanor. was i alright? if i wasn't, would i tell him? would i agree to talk to somebody?

i did agree to talk to somebody, mostly to ease his own concerns. i mean, i just didn't see the need for him to be worrying about me like this.

the reality of the situation was that i had simply matured a little bit. sure: there were some real life concerns happening around me. life at 17 is not childhood any longer; it can be stressful. maybe that had affected me a little bit. but, depression? i didn't feel that i was suffering from anything. i just felt that my personality was asserting itself as something that was kind of stoic. i don't want to call myself a sociopath, exactly: stoicism gets the point across better. what's the point of getting irritable? what does it solve?

the doctor keyed in on some of the music i was listening to. now, it's the late 90s: right after grunge. people are still reeling from, like, kurt cobain copycat suicides. i was in a bit of a different musical head space than that, one defined mostly by nine inch nails (and including influences on nin and offshoots from it). that's actually considerably worse, on first glance, although i was aware of the fact that reznor was writing from the perspective of a character rather than from personal experience. the point is that i understood where the concern was coming from and was able to effectively articulate that point to the doctor. we agreed that i didn't necessarily need to be put on anti-depressants right away, but that i should accept a prescription and fill it at some point if i get overwhelmed.

so, i came home with a prescription and immediately hit the internet to research it. i didn't like what i found. i had explicitly told the doctor that i was experiencing a lack of emotional instability, not an excess of it. so, i didn't need to turn my emotions off; if anything, i would have benefited more from something that amplified my emotions more. the idea that i was depressed was just a misperception. nonetheless, the mere *idea* of taking drugs that would suppress my emotions and may have long term or permanent effects scared the hell out of me. the xfiles sample that appears on the original mix was something that i had put aside for future pro-atheist use but, after doing this research, became very relevant in a completely different context.

so, i wasn't keen on taking these drugs that were going to at best turn me into a zombie and at worst turn me into a mass murderer. nope. no thanks...

my dad pushed the point for quite a while, though. in his mind, i came home with a prescription and ought to fill it. this song is a reaction to his insistence, which i always knew was coming from a good place. in fact, he never really dropped the argument.

the doctor and i also talked a little bit about my own music, and how it was an outlet for various frustrations. i made the argument that, while i didn't feel depressed, i was nonetheless better off working out issues of the sort through art than i was taking pills. so, this song also exists on that kind of meta level.

in hindsight, i don't want to give off the impression that i reject psychology or the medicalization of depression. that is simply untrue. the honest truth is that i simply did not feel that i was suffering from any kind of depression. yet, i've also always been very uncomfortable with the way that this process unfolded. we talked for less than an hour, and i walked out with a prescription for a mind-altering substance that could have dramatically damaged me. why is there not more oversight in this process? one would think that i should have been given a blood test to determine if i actually had an imbalance or not. no doctor can determine an imbalance through intuition. that is flat out quackery! an imbalance must be measured. if it can be determined empirically, it ought to be reacted to. yet, i was never even tested.

as an artist, i'm glad that i had the presence of mind to reject the drugs at this age. i simply don't know what they would have done to me, or who i would be today had i taken them.

originally created in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 4, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015. vocals added jan 6, 2016. finalized on july 23, 2016. as always, please use headphones.  

the album version of this track appears on my first record, inri (inri015): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3 

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 (1998, 2013, 2015, 2016).

credits:
j - guitars, effects, synth bass, synths, drum programming, sequencing, vocals, sampling, digital wave editing, production

released april 29, 1998

i'm not a russian spy, but i know the russians are spying on me.

so, i'm actually going to dedicate this track to sergei lavrov.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/nope-2

it's ok if you don't get it.

Doug N
Carter caused huge inflation and unemployment. I agree with Bob that Republicans probably made a deal but I doubt Reagan was personally involved. After the huge inflation and unemployment Carter caused I'm glad the Republicans got him out.

deathtokoalas
the inflation was a consequence of the oil embargo. it had nothing to do with carter, except in the sense that he was an ally of israel. the person you should be blaming is henry kissinger.

rick0857
If that picture is your true picture YOU are not even OLD ENOUGH to know who jimmah Karter is, let alone comment on the history of the time. IF you know anything about it at all about that time, it was spoon fed to you by some MARXIST LEFTIST SCHOOL HOUSE/INDOCTRINATION CENTER with a definite leftward slant!

deathtokoalas
i actually don't have much of a rebuttal to this, other than to point out that the schools i've attended have been right-leaning, and i've sought marxist analyses on my own initiative.

what i'm presenting, though, is a very centrist keynesian/liberal analysis, and not a marxist one.

Martha Bartha
Proper names should be Capitalized.

deathtokoalas
but, i'm an anti-capitalist.

Martha Bartha
Oh OK. Is that a thing?

deathtokoalas
i don't know if it's a thing. i know i've been an anti-capitalist, alphabetical egalitarian and general grammar anti-authoritarian since the 90s. one could say it's a running gag, at least.

Doug N
What did Henry Kissinger have to do with it or being an ally of Israel? I guess you'd blame being an ally of Israel on the terrorist attacks too. Nothing to do with Islam and Arab oil producers.

deathtokoalas
assigning blame in complex situations is often foolhardy, and this is a good example of this. as i'm sure you know, however, the embargo was a consequence of us support for israeli policies. it does consequently follow that the architect of this us support shoulders a great deal of the responsibility for the embargo.

Doug N
You have a point about the reason not being Carter but I'll blame it on the ones who made it, the oil Muslims as there is nothing wrong with Israel being who and what it is.

deathtokoalas
you'll notice that i'm assigning the majority of the blame to kissinger, not to the israeli state. i will agree that you can't fault israel for aggressively pursuing it's self-interest.

Doug N
However you assign blame I don't see wrong in US policy with Israel. I see wrong with the Islamic countries unprovoked continuous actions of attempted genocide and smearing of Israel. I don't see Kissinger at fault for good policy that benefits both countries.

deathtokoalas
this is a moral argument, not a logical one. kissinger should have been able to see the consequences of his policies, and bears responsibility for them.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/new-dnc-email-leak-is-the-final-nail-in-the-party.html

"a new national poll reveals that 42 percent of Americans wrongly attribute Marx’s famous communist slogan, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” to one of the country’s Founding documents. Nearly one in five Americans believe this phrase can be found in the Bill of Rights, of all places. You can take some solace in knowing that among young adults, only six percent made this mistake, though 30 percent of them believe Marx’s statement can be found in either the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution."

j reacts to the irrelevance of the dnc leak on the upcoming election

i don't think this matters. not because it isn't a story, but because there's no new information. we already knew that the dnc was in clinton's pocket. we've all already decided whether it's going to affect how we react.

i'm an issues voter. and i'm a socialist. sanders himself has indicated that he understood what he was walking into, and what the democratic party is. what would be shocking is if this didn't happen.

so, those that speak of "party unity" are misunderstanding the situation. we were never democrats and we were never going to back clinton anyways...

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/new-dnc-email-leak-is-the-final-nail-in-the-party.html

jessica
i'm having a really time grappling with the idea that anybody at tyt approved this. it's not even political; this is the kind of anti-science bullshit that they're usually highly critical of. the day tyt does naturalnews exposes...

like, you want to know why your channel only has 30,000 subscribers? this video is why your channel only has 30,000 subscribers.

where's the vaccines cause autism video?

Top Dog
I mean TYT has talked shit about gmos before, misreported about zika before. They're not really scientifically literate.

jessica
i think that they may give themselves too much credit, but evidence-based research is a key aspect of their messaging.

if this isn't a hack, somebody pulled funding or got up and went home or something.

there's something seriously askew, here.

what if it's an inside job, though?

7/24 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.

------

Miranda N
"Johnson & Johnson" is such a silly anachronistic awkward name.

PantsStatusZero
No. When Johnson come together, THAT'S when the magic happens!

jessica
well, he said he supports gay marriage.

j reacts to a type of creeeping right-wing revisionism around the holocaust

the nazis actually gassed leftists.

this line from the right isn't just ignorance. it's offensive.

it's as egregious as holocaust denial.

to an extent, it is holocaust denial: it's a denial of the nazis' mass slaughter of communists, socialists and liberals.

whether you want to raise it to that level or not, and whether you think it's arbitrary or not, it's the worst kind of historical revisionism. i can rarely handle another word from somebody when i hear that line. i just want to run them other with a bulldozer.

j finally (tersely) reacts to pokemon go

you have a supercomputer communications device in your pocket that you could use to start a revolution, and you've decided to chase cartoon monsters around parking lots, instead.

it's worse than infinite human stupidity. it's mass schizophrenia, brought on by the trauma of modern existence.

i want to see some footage of kids playing pokemon go beside footage of kids sniffing glue. i think it would be illuminating. which seems like it kills more brain cells?

22-07-2016: inri010.

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

seems like the bankers are safe for another generation.

i disagree. i mean, i don't like the pick, don't get me wrong. but, i think the silent majority has at least one more election in it, and kaine/clinton is exactly what that silent majority wants: quiet, stable status quo. in game theory terms, it completely dominates trump in the centre.

consider abortion. trump made a huge error in listening to special interest groups on abortion, and the pence thing sends the message that they're going to get right-wing justices. but, do most republicans want to end funding? of course they don't. most republicans have a middle-of-the-road position on this that is closer to where tim kaine stands. they dominate the center on this issue, and will appeal more to the wide swath of voters on both sides of the spectrum as a consequence of it.

or, you could look at foreign policy. do most republicans want to pull out of nato or cut funding? not at all. they're going to lean closer to where hillary stands. do most republicans oppose the tpp? not at all. & etc.

this could bump stein up to 10% over night, but it won't matter if she makes it up by winning moderate republicans. forget about virginia. why isn't missouri in play? arkansas? those are the kinds of states she should be going after, and that she can win by fighting the election on the center-right.

publishing why (inri010)

audio permanently closed for inri010.

===

here's the biting, satirical, misanthropic anarchist jessica that you know and love! finally...

this is the first thing that shows up that's explicitly political in more than a social sense. the lyrics are clear, obvious and mixed very much to the front. here's the story on that: i'm emulating a beat-box situation. i'm a politician, tongue-in-cheek, with a sound system in the back. the paper crumpling sound in the middle is meant to represent me spoiling a ballot.

in hindsight, i suppose that the idea that i'm trying to get across is largely gramscian. in the language of modern memes, the track simply tells us to keep calm and vote for the status quo. but, you'll note that i'm focusing a lot on the deficit of discourse. this could be interpreted a few ways. you could think about how the function of advertising is to suppress thought, for example. however, what i was thinking at the time intersects most cleanly with the idea of the state functioning as the modern church. in this system, which does not only exist on the right, the politician is also a priest and enforces the same role of thought suppression that the church did in the middle ages. the politician herds the sheep into the polls to uphold the status quo; democracy consequently leads to stasis, and prevents any kind of real change. what i had actually read at this age was not gramsci or chomsky but orwell. yet, what's actually driving me is something closer to what we would today associate with dawkins - largely through asimov.

you'll note that i'm not particularly hopeful about the process, either - i don't have a lot of faith in humans to transcend this process of control. it's a deep form of misanthropy, with little way out. yet, my idea of human nature is that we are very malleable, not that we are fixed in perpetual assholery. even at this age, i realize that we are not doomed....

....we're just very poorly equipped to get our shit together.

initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015. sequenced, released and finalized on july 22, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, drum kit, synthesizers, found sound (paper crumpling), pick scrapes, tapes, noise generators, cool edit synthesis, sampling, vocals, digital wave editing, production

released april 19, 1998

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/why


1) when i reclaimed this track in the summer of 2015, i output a vocal version for the fun of it and then left it to sit for several months. no single was constructed on the initial run through in early 2016 because i had made the decision to not release vocal mixes. however, with the creation of the epic "on sexual confusion in adolescence", i have reversed that decision and decided to release select vocal tracks as singles. this track makes the cut. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-3


2) this version has been edited and sequenced for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. sequenced and finalized on july 22, 2016.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-album-version


3) version reconstructed in 2015 from tape. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-2015-reconstruction-from-1998-source-tapes


4) this is a glitchy, instrumental remix of the track that i only vaguely recall putting together. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. converted to stereo on sept 24, 2014.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-wtf-mix-2


5) from inricycled. initially written in 1996. remastered in 2013. dated dec 11, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/phased-out-a-robots-lament-2


6) deleted 2013 remaster of the 1998 demo, which would later appear on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. dated dec 24, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-2013-remaster-of-1998-demo


7) deleted 1998 edit, which would later appear on my second record, inriched (inri021). initially written in 1996. recreated and edited in april, 1998.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-original-1999-album-edit


8) 2013 remaster of 1996 demo cassette. initially written in 1996. remastered in 2013. dated oct 12, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-2013-remaster-of-1996-demo-mix-2

9) deleted 1998 original, unsequenced mix. initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. dated april 19, 1998.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-full-1998-mix-2

10) deleted original 1996 mix. initially written in 1996. dated oct 20, 1996.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/end-sequence-of-side-a-of-the-1996-demo-tape-2

j reacts to the kaine pick being official

announcing on a friday night...

i think this took exactly twelve seconds to get published, but i've said my bit on this. yes: it will piss off the left. but, this election is going to be fought on the center-right, which in the united states means the solid right just about everywhere else.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/22/12244762/tim-kaine-hillary-clinton-vice-president-running-mate-announcement

i'm not the only person wondering this.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/donald-trump-working-for-russia.html

it gets complex because it intersects with what the clinton campaign is pushing. but, there's a real question, here, that requires some real research and a real answer.

why (album mix)

this version has been edited and sequenced for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021).  initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. sequenced and finalized on july 22, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-album-version

21-07-2016: fixing inri007, closing inri009, working through april/98 and defining inri010

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-did-your-mom-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-think-i-feel-much-better-now
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/convoy
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/wish
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/why
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

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.