Pa spoke generally to the circle. "It's dirt hard for folks to tear up an' go. Folks like
us that had our place. We ain't shif'less. Till we got tractored off, we was people with a
farm."
A young thin man, with eyebrows sunburned yellow, turned his head slowly.
"Croppin'?" he asked.
"Sure we was sharecroppin'. Use' ta own the place."
The young man faced forward again. "Same as us," he said.
"Lucky for us it ain't gonna las' long," said Pa. "We'll get out west an' we'll get work
an' we'll get a piece a growin' land with water."
Near the edge of the porch a ragged man stood. His black coat dripped torn
streamers. The knees were gone from his dungarees. His face was black with dust, and
lined where sweat had washed through. He swung his head toward Pa. "You folks must
have a nice little pot a money."
"No, we ain't got no money," Pa said. "But they's plenty of us to work, an' we're all
good men. Get good wages out there an' we'll put 'em together. We'll make out."
The ragged man stared while Pa spoke, and then he laughed, and his laughter turned
to a high whinnying giggle. The circle of faces turned to him. The giggling got out of
control and turned into coughing. His eyes were red and watering when he finally
controlled the spasms. "You goin' out there—oh, Christ!" The giggling started again.
"You goin' out an' get—good wages—oh, Christ!" He stopped and said slyly, "Pickin'
oranges maybe? Gonna pick peaches?"
Pa's tone was dignified. "We gonna take what they got. They got lots a stuff to work
in." The ragged man giggled under his breath.
Tom turned irritably. "What's so goddamn funny about that?"
The ragged man shut his mouth and looked sullenly at the porch boards. "You folks
all goin' to California, I bet."
"I tol' you that," said Pa. "You didn' guess nothin'."
The ragged man said slowly, "Me—I'm comin' back. I been there."
The faces turned quickly toward him. The men were rigid. The hiss of the lantern
dropped to a sigh and the proprietor lowered the front chair legs to the porch, stood up,
and pumped the lantern until the hiss was sharp and high again. He went back to his
chair, but he did not tilt back again. The ragged man turned toward the faces. "I'm goin'
back to starve. I ruther starve all over at oncet."
Pa said, "What the hell you talkin' about? I got a han'bill says they got good wages,
an' little while ago I seen a thing in the paper says they need folks to pick fruit."
The ragged man turned to Pa. "You got any place to go, back home?"
"No," said Pa. "We're out. They put a tractor past the house."
"You wouldn' go back then?"
"'Course not."
"Then I ain't gonna fret you," said the ragged man.
"'Course you ain't gonna fret me. I got a han'bill says they need men. Don't make no
sense if they don't need men. Costs money for them bills. They wouldn' put 'em out if
they didn' need men."
"I don' wanna fret you."
Pa said angrily, "You done some jackassin'. You ain't gonna shut up now. My
han'bill says they need men. You laugh an' say they don't. Now, which one's a liar?"
The ragged man looked down into Pa's angry eyes. He looked sorry. "Han'bill's
right," he said. "They need men."
"Then why the hell you stirrin' us up laughin'?"
"'Cause you don't know what kind a men they need."
"What you talkin' about?"
The ragged man reached a decision. "Look", he said. "How many men they say they
want on your han'bill?"
"Eight hunderd, an' that's in one little place."
"Orange color han'bill?"
"Why—yes."
"Give the name a the fella—says so and so, labor contractor?"
Pa reached in his pocket and brought out the folded handbill. "That's right. How'd
you know?"
"Look," said the man. "It don't make no sense. This fella wants eight hunderd men.
So he prints up five thousand of them things an' maybe twenty thousan' people sees
'em. An' maybe two-three thousan' folks gets movin' account a this here han'bill. Folks
that's crazy with worry."
"But it don't make no sense!" Pa cried.
"Not till you see the fella that put out this here bill. You'll see him, or somebody
that's workin' for him. You'll be a-campin' by a ditch, you an' fifty other famblies. An'
he'll look in your tent an' see if you got anything lef' to eat. An' if you got nothin', he
says, 'Wanna job?' An' you'll say, 'I sure do, mister. I'll sure thank you for a chance to
do some work.' An' he'll say, 'I can use you.' An' you'll say, 'When do I start?' An' he'll
tell you where to go, an' what time, an' then he'll go on. Maybe he needs two hunderd
men, so he talks to five hunderd, an' they tell other folks, an' when you get to the place,
they's a thousan' men. This here fella says, 'I'm payin' twenty cents an hour.' An' maybe
half a the men walk off. But they's still five hunderd that's so goddamn hungry they'll
work for nothin' but biscuits. Well, this here fella's got a contract to pick them peaches
or—chop that cotton. You see now? The more fellas he can get, an' the hungrier, less
he's gonna pay. An' he'll get a fella with kids if he can, 'cause—hell, I says I wasn't
gonna fret ya." The circle of faces looked coldly at him. The eyes tested his words. The
ragged man grew self-conscious. "I says I wasn't gonna fret ya, an' here I'm a-doin' it.
You gonna go on. You ain't goin' back." The silence hung on the porch. And the light
hissed, and a halo of moths swung around and around the lantern. The ragged man
went on nervously, "Lemme tell ya what to do when ya meet that fella says he got
work. Lemme tell ya. Ast him what he's gonna pay. Ast him to write down what he's
gonna pay. Ast him that. I tell you men you're gonna get fooled if you don't."
The proprietor leaned forward in his chair, the better to see the ragged dirty man. He
scratched among the gray hairs on his chest. He said coldly, "You sure you ain't one of
these here troublemakers? You sure you ain't a labor faker?"
And the ragged man cried, "I swear to God I ain't!"
"They's plenty of 'em," the proprietor said. "Goin' aroun' stirrin' up trouble. Gettin'
folks mad. Chiselin' in. They's plenty of 'em. Time's gonna come when we string 'em
all up, all them troublemakers. We gonna run 'em outa the country. Man wants to
work, O.K. If he don't—the hell with him. We ain't gonna let him stir up trouble."
The ragged man drew himself up. "I tried to tell you folks," he said. "Somepin it
took me a year to find out. Took two kids dead, took my wife dead to show me. But I
can't tell you. I should of knew that. Nobody couldn't tell me, neither. I can't tell ya
about them little fellas layin' in the tent with their bellies puffed out an' jus' skin on
their bones, an' shiverin' an' whinin' like pups, an' me runnin' aroun' tryin' to get
work—not for money, not for wages!" he shouted. "Jesus Christ, jus' for a cup a flour
an' a spoon a lard. An' then the coroner come. 'Them children died a heart failure,' he
said. Put it on his paper. Shiverin', they was, an' their bellies stuck out like a pig
bladder."
The circle was quiet, and mouths were open a little. The men breathed shallowly,
and watched.
The ragged man looked around at the circle, and then he turned and walked quickly
away into the darkness. The dark swallowed him, but his dragging footsteps could be
heard a long time after he had gone, footsteps along the road; and a car came by on the
highway, and its lights showed the ragged man shuffling along the road, his head
hanging down and his hands in the black coat pockets.
The men were uneasy. One said, "Well—gettin' late. Got to get to sleep."
The proprietor said, "Prob'ly shif'less. They's so goddamn many shif'less fellas on
the road now." And then he was quiet. And he tipped his chair back against the wall
again and fingered his throat.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
THE WESTERN STATES nervous under the beginning change. Texas and
Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family
moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the
land. The land company—that's the bank when it has land—wants tractors, not
families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong?
If this tractor were ours it would be good—not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the
long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that
tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But this tractor does two
things—it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between
this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think
about this.
One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the
highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am
bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in
and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children
listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two
squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the
thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split
and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—"We lost our land." The danger is
here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we"
there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If
from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the
movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are
ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single
pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold.
Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket—take it for the baby.
This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."
If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might
preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that
Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that
you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you
off forever from the "we."
The Western States are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to
concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million
more, restive to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.
And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.
Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family
moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the
land. The land company—that's the bank when it has land—wants tractors, not
families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong?
If this tractor were ours it would be good—not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the
long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that
tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But this tractor does two
things—it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between
this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think
about this.
One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the
highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am
bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in
and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children
listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two
squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the
thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split
and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—"We lost our land." The danger is
here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we"
there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If
from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the
movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are
ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single
pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold.
Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket—take it for the baby.
This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."
If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might
preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that
Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that
you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you
off forever from the "we."
The Western States are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to
concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million
more, restive to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.
And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.
i think he's right that the focus on identity was an error, but the reason he's right is that the messenger was terrible. everybody knows that hillary clinton is a racist, chistian homophobe. the evidence is paramount. you can't just take this lady with this long history of racist and homophobic polices and statements and then expect that she'll sway votes through uttering pleasantries. in the end, the votes did not appear. that is, the blacks and the gays - and even the women, too - saw through the charade.
the solution is to stop running racists, and to be more inclusive.
the tweaks are minor:
1) instead of not talking about blacks and gays and women, the next candidate should single out whites, too. and, in many of the same ways. you'll note if you're paying attention that barack obama usually did that, probably because he didn't approach his focus groups with the explicit attempt of pandering to coloured minorities.
2) don't run a fucking racist in the first place.
http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/12/16/13924742/mark-lilla-identity-politics-liberalism-trump-clinton-race-2016-election
the solution is to stop running racists, and to be more inclusive.
the tweaks are minor:
1) instead of not talking about blacks and gays and women, the next candidate should single out whites, too. and, in many of the same ways. you'll note if you're paying attention that barack obama usually did that, probably because he didn't approach his focus groups with the explicit attempt of pandering to coloured minorities.
2) don't run a fucking racist in the first place.
http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/12/16/13924742/mark-lilla-identity-politics-liberalism-trump-clinton-race-2016-election
" Research has long suggested that over the course of a campaign, partisans come home to their party’s candidate."
sure. and, i don't dispute that there was a solidifying of conservative support for trump in the final weeks. but, this doesn't provide the margin. if trump caught up exactly to romney by taking votes back from clinton, and he statistically basically did in the end, then he'd lose by the same amount that romney did, right?
i know that they talk about shifting to third parties, but those margins don't add up, either.
the question you need to answer is about turnout. clinton lost because there was low turnout amongst her supporters. this is despite early media reports that there was record high turnout in early voting. so, why were clinton supporters unable or unwilling to vote for her?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-really-did-switch-to-trump-at-the-last-minute/
sure. and, i don't dispute that there was a solidifying of conservative support for trump in the final weeks. but, this doesn't provide the margin. if trump caught up exactly to romney by taking votes back from clinton, and he statistically basically did in the end, then he'd lose by the same amount that romney did, right?
i know that they talk about shifting to third parties, but those margins don't add up, either.
the question you need to answer is about turnout. clinton lost because there was low turnout amongst her supporters. this is despite early media reports that there was record high turnout in early voting. so, why were clinton supporters unable or unwilling to vote for her?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-really-did-switch-to-trump-at-the-last-minute/
you have to check the fine print with these guys. but, this is a little bit of what i was hoping for, in that it has an eye towards transition. we've got a few steps in that direction.
and while i think the pipelines south are a certainty, i also think that kinder morgan is subject to a real fight, and may be delayed long enough that it becomes obsolete.
again: none of the parties were going to stop what is happening right now. but, the liberals broadcast a stronger dedication to transition in the medium term. this was truly the best we can get, right now. it's encouraging, and i hope it remains a focus.
what's in the fine print, though? my intuition is that the area is being preserved for possible substantial urbanization. the sea is going to open up substantially, and when it does this will be a beautiful place to live.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.3905933
and while i think the pipelines south are a certainty, i also think that kinder morgan is subject to a real fight, and may be delayed long enough that it becomes obsolete.
again: none of the parties were going to stop what is happening right now. but, the liberals broadcast a stronger dedication to transition in the medium term. this was truly the best we can get, right now. it's encouraging, and i hope it remains a focus.
what's in the fine print, though? my intuition is that the area is being preserved for possible substantial urbanization. the sea is going to open up substantially, and when it does this will be a beautiful place to live.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.3905933
and, to an answer an obvious question that seems to somehow be disqualifying, if there was a cia plot to install trump then obama would have had to have at least been privy to it. see, just because a department signs off on something doesn't mean it directed it, right. i'd bet a large amount of the president's actual job is signing stuff that magically appears on his desk. i'd guess that the seriousness of the president is determined less by how much time is spent determining policy and more by how much time is spent analyzing it, and in a very serious case even amending it. i don't think we've had a president that serious since clinton, though.
but, would obama have to have signed off on it at some point? sure.
i actually picked up a little bit of apprehension from obama near the end of the campaign. i think that a careful historical reconstruction could probably pinpoint the date to a relatively small window - that information can probably be constructed, if desired.
i know it seems disqualifying, but it isn't. i've outlined national security concerns attached to a clinton presidency, and how a contingency plan could have been operated. and, if a contingency plan were to be operated, it might be pre-authorized to exclude details from the president until a late date in operation. like, i'm not suggesting that you should think of the cia behaving as a rogue actor, i'm suggesting that they were acting within their congressional authority to stop threats to the united states. i want you to think about that and let it sink in.
i actually think that bill knew before obama did, and sided with the secret service.
so, i don't want to hear "it can't be cia, because then obama would have known.". obama would have had to eventually known, but not until the end, and may have decided in the end to sign on to it - sure. don't discount that. at all.
but, would obama have to have signed off on it at some point? sure.
i actually picked up a little bit of apprehension from obama near the end of the campaign. i think that a careful historical reconstruction could probably pinpoint the date to a relatively small window - that information can probably be constructed, if desired.
i know it seems disqualifying, but it isn't. i've outlined national security concerns attached to a clinton presidency, and how a contingency plan could have been operated. and, if a contingency plan were to be operated, it might be pre-authorized to exclude details from the president until a late date in operation. like, i'm not suggesting that you should think of the cia behaving as a rogue actor, i'm suggesting that they were acting within their congressional authority to stop threats to the united states. i want you to think about that and let it sink in.
i actually think that bill knew before obama did, and sided with the secret service.
so, i don't want to hear "it can't be cia, because then obama would have known.". obama would have had to eventually known, but not until the end, and may have decided in the end to sign on to it - sure. don't discount that. at all.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
what the federal reserve does is prevent foreign manipulation of the us dollar. do you want vladimir putin manipulating the exchange rate of the dollar? great: get rid of the federal reserve.
i have no patience for ignorance on this topic. if you want the federal reserve abolished, there are really truly only two possibilities as to why:
1) you are a banker, or a front for the bankers.
2) you're a retard.
i have no patience for ignorance on this topic. if you want the federal reserve abolished, there are really truly only two possibilities as to why:
1) you are a banker, or a front for the bankers.
2) you're a retard.
THE TRACTORS came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like
insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying
the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood
idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar.
Snubnosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the
country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in
straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored
hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.
The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber
dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The
thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the
earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not
control it—straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight
back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat', but the driver's hands could not
twitch because the monster that built the tractors, the monster that sent the tractor out,
had somehow got into the driver's hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him
and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception,
muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as
it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth.
He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or
encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip
or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If
a seed dropped did not germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered
in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the
tractor.
He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the
tractor—its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders;
but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth
with blades—not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the
second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by
the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that
the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long
seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping
methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud
of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no
man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No
man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised,
had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually
died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
At noon the tractor driver stopped sometimes near a tenant house and opened his
lunch: sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, white bread, pickle, cheese, Spam, a piece
of pie branded like an engine part. He ate without relish. And tenants not yet moved
away came out to see him, looked curiously while the goggles were taken off, and the
rubber dust mask, leaving white circles around the eyes and a large white circle around
nose and mouth. The exhaust of the tractor puttered on, for fuel is so cheap it is more
efficient to leave the engine running than to heat the Diesel nose for a new start.
Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they
watched. They watched hungrily the unwrapping of the sandwiches, and their hunger-
sharpened noses smelled the pickle, cheese, and Spam. They didn't speak to the driver.
They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him
chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant
who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.
"Why, you're Joe Davis's boy!"
"Sure," the driver said.
"Well, what you doing this kind of work for—against your own people?"
"Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner—and not getting it.
I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day."
"That's right," the tenant said. "But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty
families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the
roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"
And the driver said, "Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars
a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don't you know? Can't
make a living on the land unless you've got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor.
Crop land isn't for little guys like us any more. You don't kick up a howl because you
can't make Fords, or because you're not the telephone company. Well, crops are like
that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That's
the only way."
The tenant pondered. "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that
property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can
walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain
falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if
he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so."
And the tenant pondered more. "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't
take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it—why, then the property is
the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the
man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and
he's the servant of his property. That is so, too."
The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. "Times are changed,
don't you know? Thinking about stuff like that don't feed the kids. Get your three
dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody's kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you'll never get three dollars a day.
Big shots won't give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three
dollars a day."
"Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?"
"And that reminds me," the driver said, "you better get out soon. I'm going through
the dooryard after dinner."
"You filled in the well this morning."
"I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I'm going through the dooryard after
dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And—well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so
I'll tell you this. I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out—if I have an
accident—you know, get too close and cave the house in a little—well, I might get a
couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."
"I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are
wired to the stringers with baling wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down—I'll be
in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I'll pot you like a rabbit."
"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look—
suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but long before you're hung there'll be
another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right
guy."
"That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to
kill."
"You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, 'Clear those
people out or it's your job.'"
"Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a board of directors. I'll fill up the
magazine of the rifle and go into the bank."
The driver said, "Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The
orders were, 'Make the land show profit or we'll close you up.'"
"But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don't aim to starve to death before I
kill the man that's starving me."
"I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn't men at all.
Maybe like you said, the property's doing it. Anyway I told you my orders."
"I got to figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop
this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by
God that's something we can change." The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver
thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and
the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut,
and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again;
the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the
house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so
that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask
covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the
ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand.
His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the
tractor.
insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying
the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood
idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar.
Snubnosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the
country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in
straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored
hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.
The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber
dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The
thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the
earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not
control it—straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight
back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat', but the driver's hands could not
twitch because the monster that built the tractors, the monster that sent the tractor out,
had somehow got into the driver's hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him
and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception,
muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as
it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth.
He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or
encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip
or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If
a seed dropped did not germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered
in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the
tractor.
He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the
tractor—its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders;
but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth
with blades—not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the
second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by
the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that
the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long
seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping
methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud
of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no
man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No
man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised,
had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually
died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
At noon the tractor driver stopped sometimes near a tenant house and opened his
lunch: sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, white bread, pickle, cheese, Spam, a piece
of pie branded like an engine part. He ate without relish. And tenants not yet moved
away came out to see him, looked curiously while the goggles were taken off, and the
rubber dust mask, leaving white circles around the eyes and a large white circle around
nose and mouth. The exhaust of the tractor puttered on, for fuel is so cheap it is more
efficient to leave the engine running than to heat the Diesel nose for a new start.
Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they
watched. They watched hungrily the unwrapping of the sandwiches, and their hunger-
sharpened noses smelled the pickle, cheese, and Spam. They didn't speak to the driver.
They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him
chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant
who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.
"Why, you're Joe Davis's boy!"
"Sure," the driver said.
"Well, what you doing this kind of work for—against your own people?"
"Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner—and not getting it.
I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day."
"That's right," the tenant said. "But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty
families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the
roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"
And the driver said, "Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars
a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don't you know? Can't
make a living on the land unless you've got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor.
Crop land isn't for little guys like us any more. You don't kick up a howl because you
can't make Fords, or because you're not the telephone company. Well, crops are like
that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That's
the only way."
The tenant pondered. "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that
property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can
walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain
falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if
he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so."
And the tenant pondered more. "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't
take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it—why, then the property is
the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the
man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and
he's the servant of his property. That is so, too."
The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. "Times are changed,
don't you know? Thinking about stuff like that don't feed the kids. Get your three
dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody's kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you'll never get three dollars a day.
Big shots won't give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three
dollars a day."
"Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?"
"And that reminds me," the driver said, "you better get out soon. I'm going through
the dooryard after dinner."
"You filled in the well this morning."
"I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I'm going through the dooryard after
dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And—well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so
I'll tell you this. I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out—if I have an
accident—you know, get too close and cave the house in a little—well, I might get a
couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."
"I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are
wired to the stringers with baling wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down—I'll be
in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I'll pot you like a rabbit."
"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look—
suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but long before you're hung there'll be
another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right
guy."
"That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to
kill."
"You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, 'Clear those
people out or it's your job.'"
"Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a board of directors. I'll fill up the
magazine of the rifle and go into the bank."
The driver said, "Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The
orders were, 'Make the land show profit or we'll close you up.'"
"But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don't aim to starve to death before I
kill the man that's starving me."
"I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn't men at all.
Maybe like you said, the property's doing it. Anyway I told you my orders."
"I got to figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop
this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by
God that's something we can change." The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver
thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and
the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut,
and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again;
the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the
house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so
that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask
covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the
ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand.
His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the
tractor.
THE OWNERS OF THE land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for
the owners came. They came in closed cars, and they felt the dry earth with their
fingers, and sometimes they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The
tenants, from their sun-beaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove
along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their
cars to talk out of the windows. The tenant men stood beside the cars for a while, and
then squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust.
In the open doors the women stood looking out, and behind them the children—
corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and
the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner
men. They were silent.
Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and
some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold
because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.
And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated
the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the
mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a
finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank—or the Company—
needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a
monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no
responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while
the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men
were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat
in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long
enough, God knows. The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and
yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on
the soil, it might not be so bad.
The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land's getting poorer.
You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.
The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops
they might pump blood back into the land.
Well, it's too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of
the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat
and pay taxes; he can do that.
Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the
bank.
But—you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't
breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If
they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad
thing, but it is so. It is just so.
The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on? Maybe
the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all
the wars—God knows what price cotton will bring. Don't they make explosives out of
cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling. Next year,
maybe. They looked up questioningly.
We can't depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It
can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't
stay one size.
Soft fingers began to tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on
the restless drawing sticks. In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women
sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and
the toes working. Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four tires
one after another. And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get
the cleansing dust down to the skin. In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over
the muddy remnants of the slops.
The squatting men looked down again. What do you want us to do? We can't take
less share of the crop—we're half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We
got no clothes, torn an' ragged. If all the neighbors weren't the same, we'd be ashamed
to go to meeting.
And at last the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won't work any
more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him
a wage and take all the crop. We have to do it. We don't like to do it. But the monster's
sick. Something's happened to the monster.
But you'll kill the land with cotton.
We know. We've got to take cotton quick before the land dies. Then we'll sell the
land. Lots of families in the East would like to own a piece of land.
The tenant men looked up alarmed. But what'll happen to us? How'll we eat?
You'll have to get off the land. The plows'll go through the dooryard.
And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had
to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An' we was
born here. There in the door—our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money.
The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.
We know that—all that. It's not us, it's the bank. A bank isn't like a man. Or an
owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either. That's the monster.
Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We
were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours.
That's what makes it ours—being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes
ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It
happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.
The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but
they can't control it.
The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we
can kill banks—they're worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep
our land, like Pa and Grampa did.
And now the owner men grew angry. You'll have to go.
But it's ours, the tenant men cried. We—
No. The bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go.
We'll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then?
Well—first the sheriff, and then the troops. You'll be stealing if you try to stay,
you'll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn't men, but it can make men do
what it wants.
But if we go, where'll we go? How'll we go? We got no money.
We're sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can't be
responsible. You're on land that isn't yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick
cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don't you go on west to California?
There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick
an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?
And the owner men started their cars and rolled away.
The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to
figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were
light. The women moved cautiously out of the doorways toward their men, and the
children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted
beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What
did he want?
And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We
got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories.
Where'll we go? the women asked.
We don't know. We don't know.
And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children
ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even
on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust. After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about—at the pump put in ten years
ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block
where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the
patent crib hanging in the rafters over it.
The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma?
Where we going to go?
The women said, We don't know, yet. Go out and play. But don't go near your
father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work,
but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust—perplexed and figuring.
the owners came. They came in closed cars, and they felt the dry earth with their
fingers, and sometimes they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The
tenants, from their sun-beaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove
along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their
cars to talk out of the windows. The tenant men stood beside the cars for a while, and
then squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust.
In the open doors the women stood looking out, and behind them the children—
corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and
the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner
men. They were silent.
Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and
some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold
because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.
And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated
the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the
mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a
finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank—or the Company—
needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a
monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no
responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while
the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men
were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat
in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long
enough, God knows. The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and
yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on
the soil, it might not be so bad.
The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land's getting poorer.
You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.
The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops
they might pump blood back into the land.
Well, it's too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of
the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat
and pay taxes; he can do that.
Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the
bank.
But—you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't
breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If
they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad
thing, but it is so. It is just so.
The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on? Maybe
the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all
the wars—God knows what price cotton will bring. Don't they make explosives out of
cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling. Next year,
maybe. They looked up questioningly.
We can't depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It
can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't
stay one size.
Soft fingers began to tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on
the restless drawing sticks. In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women
sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and
the toes working. Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four tires
one after another. And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get
the cleansing dust down to the skin. In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over
the muddy remnants of the slops.
The squatting men looked down again. What do you want us to do? We can't take
less share of the crop—we're half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We
got no clothes, torn an' ragged. If all the neighbors weren't the same, we'd be ashamed
to go to meeting.
And at last the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won't work any
more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him
a wage and take all the crop. We have to do it. We don't like to do it. But the monster's
sick. Something's happened to the monster.
But you'll kill the land with cotton.
We know. We've got to take cotton quick before the land dies. Then we'll sell the
land. Lots of families in the East would like to own a piece of land.
The tenant men looked up alarmed. But what'll happen to us? How'll we eat?
You'll have to get off the land. The plows'll go through the dooryard.
And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had
to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An' we was
born here. There in the door—our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money.
The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.
We know that—all that. It's not us, it's the bank. A bank isn't like a man. Or an
owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either. That's the monster.
Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We
were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours.
That's what makes it ours—being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes
ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It
happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.
The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but
they can't control it.
The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we
can kill banks—they're worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep
our land, like Pa and Grampa did.
And now the owner men grew angry. You'll have to go.
But it's ours, the tenant men cried. We—
No. The bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go.
We'll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then?
Well—first the sheriff, and then the troops. You'll be stealing if you try to stay,
you'll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn't men, but it can make men do
what it wants.
But if we go, where'll we go? How'll we go? We got no money.
We're sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can't be
responsible. You're on land that isn't yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick
cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don't you go on west to California?
There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick
an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?
And the owner men started their cars and rolled away.
The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to
figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were
light. The women moved cautiously out of the doorways toward their men, and the
children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted
beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What
did he want?
And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We
got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories.
Where'll we go? the women asked.
We don't know. We don't know.
And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children
ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even
on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust. After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about—at the pump put in ten years
ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block
where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the
patent crib hanging in the rafters over it.
The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma?
Where we going to go?
The women said, We don't know, yet. Go out and play. But don't go near your
father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work,
but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust—perplexed and figuring.
when you make a deal with somebody like donald trump, you make the assumption that the terms will be broken at the earliest possible moment (unless you're a fool, i suppose, but these foreign governments are not represented by fools). as such, you sign the deal with the explicit intent to maximize concessions, because you know the other party is untrustworthy. and, if you don't get the terms you want, you don't sign because you know they'll never live up to it, anyways.
it follows that the only people that are going to be interested in making deals with donald trump are entities looking to take advantage of him; there is no other reason to sign a deal with a dishonest actor.
it follows that the only people that are going to be interested in making deals with donald trump are entities looking to take advantage of him; there is no other reason to sign a deal with a dishonest actor.
it's absurd, but let's consider the premise - that donald trump will make good deals.
let me ask you this question: would you expect donald trump to keep his end of the bargain? so, why would you expect the chinese or the russians to?
suppose he makes a deal with the russians that lets the russians stay in syria. would putin expect trump to live up to his side of the deal? and, if not, why would he carry out his side of the deal?
i could accept the premise, however tentatively, if the deal maker were perceived as honest. reagan was a lunatic, but he was an honest dunce, too. trump cannot project that kind of trust and won't get it.
talk about "playing a hand", huh? the entire world knows his word is worthless.
if he makes any deals at all, they'll be terrible. there's no other possible outcome.
let me ask you this question: would you expect donald trump to keep his end of the bargain? so, why would you expect the chinese or the russians to?
suppose he makes a deal with the russians that lets the russians stay in syria. would putin expect trump to live up to his side of the deal? and, if not, why would he carry out his side of the deal?
i could accept the premise, however tentatively, if the deal maker were perceived as honest. reagan was a lunatic, but he was an honest dunce, too. trump cannot project that kind of trust and won't get it.
talk about "playing a hand", huh? the entire world knows his word is worthless.
if he makes any deals at all, they'll be terrible. there's no other possible outcome.
see, again: they're putting ivanka through the same fashion circuit that they put trudeau through. or. at least they're trying to. i understand there's been pushback. but, they're following the same algorithm.
there's been this underlying narrative that exposes the administration view that ivanka is to essentially be presented as a princess, and try to present herself as a kind of role model for young women. this seems to be an idea with some priority, for whatever calculated reasons. i think it remains to be seen whether she's presented as a princess diana or as a dagney taggart.
there's been this underlying narrative that exposes the administration view that ivanka is to essentially be presented as a princess, and try to present herself as a kind of role model for young women. this seems to be an idea with some priority, for whatever calculated reasons. i think it remains to be seen whether she's presented as a princess diana or as a dagney taggart.
is there a desire by political elites to import islam into the west? well, i'm not going to claim i can answer that question. but, i can explore the topic a little.
now, remember: i'm an anarchist. so, the nihilistic way i'm perceiving of capitalism is entirely normal to me. i'll warn you of somewhat of a culture shock. interpret it academically, if you must. i think it's empirical, but interpret the evidence as you may.
if you were a banking elite in the west, you might want to analyze the question of how best to maximize return on your slaves. i know that we are supposed to have defeated feudalism, but the class analysis presented in marx almost seems like a cover - he never addresses the remnant feudal class, the existing landowners, the banking elite. they are supposed to disappear in the bourgeois revolution. yet, they did not ever truly relinquish control, they just disappeared from public view. if you want to be that much more cynical, you could argue that they delegated the role of public service to the private sector.
see, something is happening, though: mechanization and automation is ending the era of capitalism. this bourgeois layer is becoming obsolete. questions of maximizing return on slaves, held through debt, are once again at the forefront of the centralized planning establishments, which operate free of oversight in the private sector. this is the equivalent of a scattering of landholders, warring amongst themselves; it is truly a new feudalism.
the bonds have morphed. where the marks of ownership were once held in ideas like language, nationalism and race, the new feudal elite wants control through brand identification. this includes less expensive branding, like that done by clothing wear companies, and more expensive branding, like that done by academic institutions and mortgage brokers.
so, if we are to have a new feudalism, we are going to need a new system of mind control to go along with it. what is the best way to maximize return on slaves?
while traditionalists may expect the western banking elite to adopt the traditional form of control, christianity, the truth is that christianity's effectiveness in control has long been suspect. christianity teaches evangelism, which is inherently aggressive. a thoroughly christianized culture is consequently prone to internal divisions, as different factions spread the truth in different ways, and come to quarrels with each other. christianity's track record is a lot of civil war. the argument has actually been advanced very convincingly over a long period, culminating in some pretty brutal attacks about a hundred years ago. even if christianity's empirical failings can be explained away, it is difficult to imagine how westerners could develop, at this point, a faith in something that they fundamentally know is false. it does not have credibility.
if the default return to christianity is to be rejected, then what are the other options? buddhism is a hard fit to the west, and isn't much of a success story, either. atheism is out of the question. what about islam?
islam has been more successful in maintaining a stable system of control. perhaps this is because it teaches submission, rather than evangelism. i haven't done the math, but i could imagine that it may be seen as a preferable alternative to the bankers, who wish to design a new system to maximize return on their slaves.
this may sound crude, but it's been done all through history. one example is when the russian king adopted christianity and invited in greek missionaries to design a new society. the russian aristocracy adopted the christian model for social control. and, the society that they built still exists.
ok, maybe it happened in autocratic states in the past, but surely this can't happen in a democracy? chances are that your democracy has an immigration department. that immigration department has a large budget, and spends vast sums on understanding how to adjust the demographics of the country to maximize profit. this is the bourgeois layer. it exists. it is not fantasy.
i know of at least one example of a government using policy in this manner, and it is the canadian government's policy of settling refugees and non-european immigrants in quebec. the explicit purpose of this policy was to weaken the strength of the quebecois nation, under fears that it may seek independence. these refugees and non-european immigrants would not claim allegiance to a nationalist concept of quebec as white and francophone, and this would tip support to the federalists. it's not the same thing, of course, but it demonstrates a willingness of the bourgeois layer to manipulate populations for their benefactors.
i'm not saying that this is something that is happening. i'm just pointing out that it can be explained, if it is. there is an underlying logic to it. and, that's what gives a good conspiracy theory legs.
now, remember: i'm an anarchist. so, the nihilistic way i'm perceiving of capitalism is entirely normal to me. i'll warn you of somewhat of a culture shock. interpret it academically, if you must. i think it's empirical, but interpret the evidence as you may.
if you were a banking elite in the west, you might want to analyze the question of how best to maximize return on your slaves. i know that we are supposed to have defeated feudalism, but the class analysis presented in marx almost seems like a cover - he never addresses the remnant feudal class, the existing landowners, the banking elite. they are supposed to disappear in the bourgeois revolution. yet, they did not ever truly relinquish control, they just disappeared from public view. if you want to be that much more cynical, you could argue that they delegated the role of public service to the private sector.
see, something is happening, though: mechanization and automation is ending the era of capitalism. this bourgeois layer is becoming obsolete. questions of maximizing return on slaves, held through debt, are once again at the forefront of the centralized planning establishments, which operate free of oversight in the private sector. this is the equivalent of a scattering of landholders, warring amongst themselves; it is truly a new feudalism.
the bonds have morphed. where the marks of ownership were once held in ideas like language, nationalism and race, the new feudal elite wants control through brand identification. this includes less expensive branding, like that done by clothing wear companies, and more expensive branding, like that done by academic institutions and mortgage brokers.
so, if we are to have a new feudalism, we are going to need a new system of mind control to go along with it. what is the best way to maximize return on slaves?
while traditionalists may expect the western banking elite to adopt the traditional form of control, christianity, the truth is that christianity's effectiveness in control has long been suspect. christianity teaches evangelism, which is inherently aggressive. a thoroughly christianized culture is consequently prone to internal divisions, as different factions spread the truth in different ways, and come to quarrels with each other. christianity's track record is a lot of civil war. the argument has actually been advanced very convincingly over a long period, culminating in some pretty brutal attacks about a hundred years ago. even if christianity's empirical failings can be explained away, it is difficult to imagine how westerners could develop, at this point, a faith in something that they fundamentally know is false. it does not have credibility.
if the default return to christianity is to be rejected, then what are the other options? buddhism is a hard fit to the west, and isn't much of a success story, either. atheism is out of the question. what about islam?
islam has been more successful in maintaining a stable system of control. perhaps this is because it teaches submission, rather than evangelism. i haven't done the math, but i could imagine that it may be seen as a preferable alternative to the bankers, who wish to design a new system to maximize return on their slaves.
this may sound crude, but it's been done all through history. one example is when the russian king adopted christianity and invited in greek missionaries to design a new society. the russian aristocracy adopted the christian model for social control. and, the society that they built still exists.
ok, maybe it happened in autocratic states in the past, but surely this can't happen in a democracy? chances are that your democracy has an immigration department. that immigration department has a large budget, and spends vast sums on understanding how to adjust the demographics of the country to maximize profit. this is the bourgeois layer. it exists. it is not fantasy.
i know of at least one example of a government using policy in this manner, and it is the canadian government's policy of settling refugees and non-european immigrants in quebec. the explicit purpose of this policy was to weaken the strength of the quebecois nation, under fears that it may seek independence. these refugees and non-european immigrants would not claim allegiance to a nationalist concept of quebec as white and francophone, and this would tip support to the federalists. it's not the same thing, of course, but it demonstrates a willingness of the bourgeois layer to manipulate populations for their benefactors.
i'm not saying that this is something that is happening. i'm just pointing out that it can be explained, if it is. there is an underlying logic to it. and, that's what gives a good conspiracy theory legs.
"Their stories deserve to be told, but the question is whether splitting the focus of this particular inquiry is a useful idea.
The statistics would suggest the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls got its name for a reason."
indeed. it may not be clear from outside the country, but the phenomenon appears to be policing related. that is, this is not an inquiry about domestic abuse. this is an inquiry about the disappearance of young (carrying aged) indigenous women. or, to use the word nobody uses: this is an inquiry to address concerns of the existence of a longstanding policy of extra-judicial genocide. and, activists will tell you this, even if the media won't.
this is the third try to do this. the first time, they actually got a database, but the government mysteriously pulled funding and then denied them access to their work. i've spoken to the women that lost hours of their time on this and they're convinced that the state shut it down to hide something.
it's not that there's much faith in the government to address this. i mean, the government may be doing this explicitly as a trust-raising exercise, but that's almost the worst motive possible. it's more that there's nothing else to do except wait for them to admit what's happened, and stop doing it.
it's anybody's guess when the information gets out. if anonymous is a real thing, guys, this is a real issue. we're taking about decades worth of suspicion, under multiple governments. but when this data finally gets released, it's going to be grisly and revolting.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/coalition-expand-violence-against-indigenous-women-1.3896346
The statistics would suggest the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls got its name for a reason."
indeed. it may not be clear from outside the country, but the phenomenon appears to be policing related. that is, this is not an inquiry about domestic abuse. this is an inquiry about the disappearance of young (carrying aged) indigenous women. or, to use the word nobody uses: this is an inquiry to address concerns of the existence of a longstanding policy of extra-judicial genocide. and, activists will tell you this, even if the media won't.
this is the third try to do this. the first time, they actually got a database, but the government mysteriously pulled funding and then denied them access to their work. i've spoken to the women that lost hours of their time on this and they're convinced that the state shut it down to hide something.
it's not that there's much faith in the government to address this. i mean, the government may be doing this explicitly as a trust-raising exercise, but that's almost the worst motive possible. it's more that there's nothing else to do except wait for them to admit what's happened, and stop doing it.
it's anybody's guess when the information gets out. if anonymous is a real thing, guys, this is a real issue. we're taking about decades worth of suspicion, under multiple governments. but when this data finally gets released, it's going to be grisly and revolting.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/coalition-expand-violence-against-indigenous-women-1.3896346
Monday, December 19, 2016
you don't have to believe my story. just look at the evidence.
the boomers gave us the staunchly anti-communist jfk in their youth, then picked nixon as a reaction to the civil rights movement, then found god and fell for a peanut farmer evangelical, then realized jesus really loves capitalism and got behind reagan to fight the evil empire, then made the mistake of listening to their kids in voting for clinton (they'll never do that again), then righted their error with bush and then...
then the fucking kids put a black guy in for a few years.
but, they're back now. and they're going to make america great again.
the boomers gave us the staunchly anti-communist jfk in their youth, then picked nixon as a reaction to the civil rights movement, then found god and fell for a peanut farmer evangelical, then realized jesus really loves capitalism and got behind reagan to fight the evil empire, then made the mistake of listening to their kids in voting for clinton (they'll never do that again), then righted their error with bush and then...
then the fucking kids put a black guy in for a few years.
but, they're back now. and they're going to make america great again.
i know i often sound like i'm a marxist, but i'm actually an anarchist. and, one of the things that anarchists tend to be fairly queasy about is this idea of vanguards.
i actually don't claim that vanguards are impossible, i just claim they are inherently counter-revolutionary, because they concentrate power into an exclusive zone. the best you can hope for with a vanguard is that it can carry through with reforms, but more realistically you're just looking at a renewal of the ruling class.
the vanguard movement of the 60s never made it anywhere near to challenging the ruling class. the few isolated attempts seem to have questionable intelligence contacts. consider john kerry's membership in cia frat house skull & bones, for example. it maybe got a little closer to power in canada, but it was implemented through a careful interpretation by the older generation, and hence was largely co-opted.
nonetheless, popular culture presents the middle of the century as a period controlled by this vanguard, which was in truth largely just a popular media phenomenon. i guess it's really a question of context, as if the media industry is presenting it's own history then it's going to narrate it through it's invented counter-culture. but, this is not an accurate people's history.
in truth, the people born after the war were born into a deeply traumatized culture. it is true that america suffered minimal casualties, in comparison to other nations like china and the soviet union, germany and even the uk. in canada, we lost a lot more people. regardless, the expectation that it should have been a lot worse carried on; the threat of nuclear war had every reason to feel real. today, it's hard to deny that a war did happen, through dozens of proxy conflicts, and that this war is as yet unresolved. it is the long war, the ancient cold war. this war may never resolve. it may even be extended into space.
if you were born early enough, and experienced a situation traumatic enough, then one of your earliest memories is no doubt of the red scare. this fear was broadcast through a crude but dangerously effective overwhelming of the senses. as terrible as it no doubt was, there was a need to ensure that people could be deployed against an enemy. the propaganda was essential. such is the nature of the ancient war.
this is what this generation was truly borne into, this overwhelming messaging to hate communism. for some, it was merely a slogan. others interpreted it through nationalism. others sought to internalize the messaging, and still others sought to rationalize it by exploring it intellectually. surely, there must be reasons to hate communism.
and, a small number rebelled and formed a failed vanguard. these ones had the most interesting stories.
i actually don't claim that vanguards are impossible, i just claim they are inherently counter-revolutionary, because they concentrate power into an exclusive zone. the best you can hope for with a vanguard is that it can carry through with reforms, but more realistically you're just looking at a renewal of the ruling class.
the vanguard movement of the 60s never made it anywhere near to challenging the ruling class. the few isolated attempts seem to have questionable intelligence contacts. consider john kerry's membership in cia frat house skull & bones, for example. it maybe got a little closer to power in canada, but it was implemented through a careful interpretation by the older generation, and hence was largely co-opted.
nonetheless, popular culture presents the middle of the century as a period controlled by this vanguard, which was in truth largely just a popular media phenomenon. i guess it's really a question of context, as if the media industry is presenting it's own history then it's going to narrate it through it's invented counter-culture. but, this is not an accurate people's history.
in truth, the people born after the war were born into a deeply traumatized culture. it is true that america suffered minimal casualties, in comparison to other nations like china and the soviet union, germany and even the uk. in canada, we lost a lot more people. regardless, the expectation that it should have been a lot worse carried on; the threat of nuclear war had every reason to feel real. today, it's hard to deny that a war did happen, through dozens of proxy conflicts, and that this war is as yet unresolved. it is the long war, the ancient cold war. this war may never resolve. it may even be extended into space.
if you were born early enough, and experienced a situation traumatic enough, then one of your earliest memories is no doubt of the red scare. this fear was broadcast through a crude but dangerously effective overwhelming of the senses. as terrible as it no doubt was, there was a need to ensure that people could be deployed against an enemy. the propaganda was essential. such is the nature of the ancient war.
this is what this generation was truly borne into, this overwhelming messaging to hate communism. for some, it was merely a slogan. others interpreted it through nationalism. others sought to internalize the messaging, and still others sought to rationalize it by exploring it intellectually. surely, there must be reasons to hate communism.
and, a small number rebelled and formed a failed vanguard. these ones had the most interesting stories.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
publishing inri025
while the main purpose of the inriclaimed project was to remove the vocals from the records, i always intended to put a few tracks away and mix the vocals back in for an ep. this was actually factored into the logic that had me build a sequence of singles, in the first place. while there were tracks that i ruled out, i ended up mixing vocals back into most of those that i considered, constructing enough for a standalone lp.
there is no other way to get all of the vocal remixes at once. this release consequently fills an important functional gap in the discography.
this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 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 (2015, 2016).
there is no other way to get all of the vocal remixes at once. this release consequently fills an important functional gap in the discography.
this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 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 (2015, 2016).
credits
released January 30, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, sampling, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, found sounds, noise generators, sound design, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, vocal relics, production
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, sampling, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, found sounds, noise generators, sound design, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, vocal relics, production
while the
main purpose of the inriclaimed project was to remove the vocals from
the records, i always intended to put a few tracks away and mix the
vocals back in for an ep. this was actually factored into the logic that
had me build a sequence of singles, in the first place. while there
were tracks that i ruled out, i ended up mixing vocals back into most of
those that i considered, constructing enough for a standalone lp.
there is no other way to get all of the vocal remixes at once. this release consequently fills an important functional gap in the discography.
this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 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 (2015, 2016).
there is no other way to get all of the vocal remixes at once. this release consequently fills an important functional gap in the discography.
this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005. 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 (2015, 2016).
credits
released January 30, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, sampling, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, found sounds, noise generators, sound design, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, vocal relics, production
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth bass, synthesizers, sequencing, drum programming, sampling, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, found sounds, noise generators, sound design, digital wave editing, loops, vocals, vocal relics, production
finalizing inri024
when i sat
down to complete my discography in the fall of 2013, one of the first
problems i came up against was what to do with my first two proper
records, inri (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3) and inriched (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched).
in some sense, these records were complete: they were early works, but
they were complete recordings and the records were sequenced with quite
a bit of detail. it would not be right to modify them in a structural
sense, as they were completed as they were when they were. however, the
mixes had been degraded rather substantially through compression and the
vocals had a lot of problems. further, i knew the source material was
incomplete, but did not actually check the master tapes to see how
incomplete they were.
i decided that the best thing to do was to try and remaster them using izotope. the result was noticeably "better", and they were released in that form. i also released a compilation of shorts that focused on instrumental sections as inricycled b. however, i had to make a lot of compromises to get to that point. further, the fact that i couldn't remove the vocals continued to bother me.
i finally got around to digitizing the tapes in december of 2014, as an archival step. i did not expect to be able to do anything with this material, but i wanted it digitized to prevent the tapes from deteriorating further. what i learned through this process was that the masters were far more complete than i thought. samples and continuity were missing, but i seem to have dumped most of the sequencing and a lot of the digital noise generation. this forced me to rethink what i was able to present. i decided that if i was going to go through these tracks and recreate them then i was going to do it comprehensively, which would mean completely recreating a number of the tracks. i decided that this would be a project better left for a later date.
by june of 2015, i had made it through the discography to the end of the second period and began finalizing the aleph sequence of dvd and bd flac/mp3 compilations. i decided that the only cohesive way to present period one is as a single disc, which meant i needed to address reconstructing the tracks immediately in order to close it.
the material was digitized via the exact same tascam four-track it was recorded on to, sent out track by track. however, the material was bounced heavily when it was recorded, which means the digitized tracks generally have multiple parts. the four tracks generally exist as follows:
1) an electronics track. drum machines, synths, sequencers, loops, noises.
2) a guitars track. there are usually several guitar parts in this one track.
3) a bass track, or a synth bass track.
4) a vocal track.
unfortunately, digitizing the tracks one by one left them out of sync at a rate of around a half a second per minute, but there is no clear pattern in how they are out of sync. shifting them back in sync was a time consuming process done in cubase by importing the remastered tracks and trying to find markers in the wave files, then using a sort of "newton's method" to compress or decompress the files until they lined up with the master. this issue was compounded by the fact that the initial masters were sometimes subtly out of time. once they were shifted back in sync, the tracks had to be equalized very carefully to try and isolate the constituent parts. for example, a track with a drum machine and a synth may have been split across a high and low shelf to isolate them in the mix. with the exception of this heavy equalization work (and amp simulation for the bass parts), these songs have not been modified from their original form - except to remove the vocals.
this release has rendered the previous inri009, inricycled b, as superfluous and consequently replaces it in the sequence. it has now been moved to inri022.
i am very happy to finally be able to present this material in a form that i would find listenable, today, as an adult. this has been a very long process. i hope you feel that the results were worth the effort put into it, periodically, over many years.
initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004. as always, please use headphones.
* download only
i decided that the best thing to do was to try and remaster them using izotope. the result was noticeably "better", and they were released in that form. i also released a compilation of shorts that focused on instrumental sections as inricycled b. however, i had to make a lot of compromises to get to that point. further, the fact that i couldn't remove the vocals continued to bother me.
i finally got around to digitizing the tapes in december of 2014, as an archival step. i did not expect to be able to do anything with this material, but i wanted it digitized to prevent the tapes from deteriorating further. what i learned through this process was that the masters were far more complete than i thought. samples and continuity were missing, but i seem to have dumped most of the sequencing and a lot of the digital noise generation. this forced me to rethink what i was able to present. i decided that if i was going to go through these tracks and recreate them then i was going to do it comprehensively, which would mean completely recreating a number of the tracks. i decided that this would be a project better left for a later date.
by june of 2015, i had made it through the discography to the end of the second period and began finalizing the aleph sequence of dvd and bd flac/mp3 compilations. i decided that the only cohesive way to present period one is as a single disc, which meant i needed to address reconstructing the tracks immediately in order to close it.
the material was digitized via the exact same tascam four-track it was recorded on to, sent out track by track. however, the material was bounced heavily when it was recorded, which means the digitized tracks generally have multiple parts. the four tracks generally exist as follows:
1) an electronics track. drum machines, synths, sequencers, loops, noises.
2) a guitars track. there are usually several guitar parts in this one track.
3) a bass track, or a synth bass track.
4) a vocal track.
unfortunately, digitizing the tracks one by one left them out of sync at a rate of around a half a second per minute, but there is no clear pattern in how they are out of sync. shifting them back in sync was a time consuming process done in cubase by importing the remastered tracks and trying to find markers in the wave files, then using a sort of "newton's method" to compress or decompress the files until they lined up with the master. this issue was compounded by the fact that the initial masters were sometimes subtly out of time. once they were shifted back in sync, the tracks had to be equalized very carefully to try and isolate the constituent parts. for example, a track with a drum machine and a synth may have been split across a high and low shelf to isolate them in the mix. with the exception of this heavy equalization work (and amp simulation for the bass parts), these songs have not been modified from their original form - except to remove the vocals.
this release has rendered the previous inri009, inricycled b, as superfluous and consequently replaces it in the sequence. it has now been moved to inri022.
i am very happy to finally be able to present this material in a form that i would find listenable, today, as an adult. this has been a very long process. i hope you feel that the results were worth the effort put into it, periodically, over many years.
initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004. as always, please use headphones.
* download only
credits
released January 29, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, synthesizers, sequencers, found sounds, noise generators, vocal relics, digital wave editing, sampling, production.
j - guitars, effects, bass, drum programming, synthesizers, sequencers, found sounds, noise generators, vocal relics, digital wave editing, sampling, production.
republishing inri023
when i sat
down in late 2013, my intent was just to collect all of the tracks that
were leftover. however, it became apparent quickly that i had a pile of
these weird, glitchy remixes that i meant to do something with, but
just never did anything with. they seemed to form an idea of their own,
so i split them off into this inrimixed ep.
i feel that this decision was a good one, and that this collection has now become an important part of the discography - so much so that i am adding some tracks to it that were initially overlooked and then promoting it to 'remix lp'.
i need to be clear that this is a remix lp full of damaged, glitchy mixes. these tracks were left unscathed by the great remastering of 2013-2016. many of them are sourced from 112 kbps mp3 files, or worse. some are sourced from mono. i'm presenting the artifacts in the compression as a part of the glitch aesthetic. but, these are truly sad excuses for waveforms.
example: the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental. waveforms like that do not bear any resemblance to any physical reality whatsoever. they fail, as waveforms. yet, these are the waveforms we have before us, and these are the sounds that such absurd waveforms make.
i suppose that the reason i have all of these glitchy mixes from the period is that i was planning on making a glitch lp. it's not that i specifically recall that as being wrong, so much as it is that my memories of it being right are not of clear strength. i sort of remember wanting to make a glitch record. the evidence exists that i wanted to make a glitch record. now i have the glitch record that it seems like i always wanted to make. at the least, my current self very much likes the idea that i released a glitch record in 1999.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
i feel that this decision was a good one, and that this collection has now become an important part of the discography - so much so that i am adding some tracks to it that were initially overlooked and then promoting it to 'remix lp'.
i need to be clear that this is a remix lp full of damaged, glitchy mixes. these tracks were left unscathed by the great remastering of 2013-2016. many of them are sourced from 112 kbps mp3 files, or worse. some are sourced from mono. i'm presenting the artifacts in the compression as a part of the glitch aesthetic. but, these are truly sad excuses for waveforms.
example: the cover art is actually the waveform for track 2; similarities to the mirror reflection of the cover of any seminal eponymous records from the late 60s are purely coincidental. waveforms like that do not bear any resemblance to any physical reality whatsoever. they fail, as waveforms. yet, these are the waveforms we have before us, and these are the sounds that such absurd waveforms make.
i suppose that the reason i have all of these glitchy mixes from the period is that i was planning on making a glitch lp. it's not that i specifically recall that as being wrong, so much as it is that my memories of it being right are not of clear strength. i sort of remember wanting to make a glitch record. the evidence exists that i wanted to make a glitch record. now i have the glitch record that it seems like i always wanted to make. at the least, my current self very much likes the idea that i released a glitch record in 1999.
constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
credits
released January 28, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, piano, drum programming, sequencing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, noise generators, found sounds, sampling, loops, sound design, digital wave editing, digital effects processing, noise reduction, a broken tape deck, production.
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, piano, drum programming, sequencing, vocals, cool edit synthesis, noise generators, found sounds, sampling, loops, sound design, digital wave editing, digital effects processing, noise reduction, a broken tape deck, production.
merging inri022 with inricycled b and closing inri022
this is a collection of rejected tracks from the inri/inriched period. it's just chronologically sequenced. download only.
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized on december 16, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized on december 16, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
this release will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
credits
released January 27, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, vocoders, octavers, drum programming, sequencers, noise generators, sound design, vocals, found sounds, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing, loops, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, production.
j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, vocoders, octavers, drum programming, sequencers, noise generators, sound design, vocals, found sounds, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing, loops, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, production.
Friday, December 16, 2016
the second
record was always a...second record. see, the phenomenon of the
underperforming second record is actually well-established. i just think
it's worth thinking about what a second record actually is, in order to
understand this.
a second record is necessarily the tracks that did not make it on to the first record.
i actually tried to resist this, but i was swayed by the argument (with myself) that the tracks would otherwise be lost because i was shifting in a direction away from the electro-grunge sound, and i would eventually go back and compile them anyways. i had enough raw sound for a full record, so i released a full record.
something that is common of second records is that they are uneven because the tracks are recorded at differing levels of attention. demos that were forgotten tend to get promoted without cause, while the tracks that show evidence of attention tend to seem overproduced, in comparison. in recompleting this record, i've paid attention to the uneven nature that the tracks initially existed in and taken an effort to close the gap where it was needed.
i've also removed two tracks from the initial recording due to a combination of technical and artistic incompatibilities.
while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles, or behind altogether. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.
written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. this is my second official record; as always, please use headphones.
the original, unaltered files are also available (along with the original 1999 cd sequence, the failed 2013 remasters and the final reconstructions) as 56-112 kbps mp3s, as i found them, on inriℵ2:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
...& inriℵ4:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
a second record is necessarily the tracks that did not make it on to the first record.
i actually tried to resist this, but i was swayed by the argument (with myself) that the tracks would otherwise be lost because i was shifting in a direction away from the electro-grunge sound, and i would eventually go back and compile them anyways. i had enough raw sound for a full record, so i released a full record.
something that is common of second records is that they are uneven because the tracks are recorded at differing levels of attention. demos that were forgotten tend to get promoted without cause, while the tracks that show evidence of attention tend to seem overproduced, in comparison. in recompleting this record, i've paid attention to the uneven nature that the tracks initially existed in and taken an effort to close the gap where it was needed.
i've also removed two tracks from the initial recording due to a combination of technical and artistic incompatibilities.
while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles, or behind altogether. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.
written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. this is my second official record; as always, please use headphones.
the original, unaltered files are also available (along with the original 1999 cd sequence, the failed 2013 remasters and the final reconstructions) as 56-112 kbps mp3s, as i found them, on inriℵ2:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
...& inriℵ4:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
credits
released January 25, 1999
j - guitar, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, piano, octavers, drum programming, sequencing, found sound (paper crumpling), noise generators, sound design, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, mic noises, digital wave editing, loops, a broken tape deck, chance, production.
j - guitar, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, piano, octavers, drum programming, sequencing, found sound (paper crumpling), noise generators, sound design, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, mic noises, digital wave editing, loops, a broken tape deck, chance, production.
publishing inri021
the second record was always a...second record. see, the phenomenon of the underperforming second record is actually well-established. i just think it's worth thinking about what a second record actually is, in order to understand this.
a second record is necessarily the tracks that did not make it on to the first record.
i actually tried to resist this, but i was swayed by the argument (with myself) that the tracks would otherwise be lost because i was shifting in a direction away from the electro-grunge sound, and i would eventually go back and compile them anyways. i had enough raw sound for a full record, so i released a full record.
something that is common of second records is that they are uneven because the tracks are recorded at differing levels of attention. demos that were forgotten tend to get promoted without cause, while the tracks that show evidence of attention tend to seem overproduced, in comparison. in recompleting this record, i've paid attention to the uneven nature that the tracks initially existed in and taken an effort to close the gap where it was needed.
i've also removed two tracks from the initial recording due to a combination of technical and artistic incompatibilities.
while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles, or behind altogether. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.
written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. this is my second official record; as always, please use headphones.
the original, unaltered files are also available (along with the original 1999 cd sequence, the failed 2013 remasters and the final reconstructions) as 56-112 kbps mp3s, as i found them, on inriℵ2:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
...& inriℵ4:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
a second record is necessarily the tracks that did not make it on to the first record.
i actually tried to resist this, but i was swayed by the argument (with myself) that the tracks would otherwise be lost because i was shifting in a direction away from the electro-grunge sound, and i would eventually go back and compile them anyways. i had enough raw sound for a full record, so i released a full record.
something that is common of second records is that they are uneven because the tracks are recorded at differing levels of attention. demos that were forgotten tend to get promoted without cause, while the tracks that show evidence of attention tend to seem overproduced, in comparison. in recompleting this record, i've paid attention to the uneven nature that the tracks initially existed in and taken an effort to close the gap where it was needed.
i've also removed two tracks from the initial recording due to a combination of technical and artistic incompatibilities.
while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles, or behind altogether. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.
written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. this is my second official record; as always, please use headphones.
the original, unaltered files are also available (along with the original 1999 cd sequence, the failed 2013 remasters and the final reconstructions) as 56-112 kbps mp3s, as i found them, on inriℵ2:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
...& inriℵ4:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
credits
released January 25, 1999
j - guitar, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, piano, octavers, drum programming, sequencing, found sound (paper crumpling), noise generators, sound design, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, mic noises, digital wave editing, loops, a broken tape deck, chance, production.
j - guitar, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, piano, octavers, drum programming, sequencing, found sound (paper crumpling), noise generators, sound design, cool edit synthesis, light-wave synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, mic noises, digital wave editing, loops, a broken tape deck, chance, production.
you know what i think that the truly sad part about people that continue to follow an end-times interpretation of the messianic religions is? it's that the predictions were actually largely accurate. the events unfolded thousands of years ago...
if you existed in the middle east at really any point in it's history, you had to see that you were at a conflict point where east meets west. it had happened. the persians marched west, and the greeks and romans marched east. and, before that the assyrians marched into egypt, and before that the egyptians marched into asia. there would have to be a point of cataclysm, eventually, where east and west met into a single, epic struggle.
and, it happened. it happened at the end of the long war between rome and persia, which finally broke down in the seventh century. rome finally defeated persia. but, that defeat took so much out of itself that it was a casualty of it's own victory. when the epic struggle between east and west did finally happen, neither survived the pyrrhic victory: the arabs, instead, took advantage of the power vacuum and aggressively conquered the near east.
so, what do you gain by taking an insightful geopolitical analysis of the near east from thousands of years ago and applying it to a different culture on a different continent? i mean, at least be a mormon. no. really. being a mormon makes more sense because at least it's local.
here's an interesting fact: moscow is actually to the west of jerusalem. and the russians are actually the cultural heirs to constantinople, meaning they're actually the greeks - the west - in the biblical narrative. and america is impossible to even imagine in any relevant context, except maybe as a mythical atlantis.
these texts have historical value. sure. and deciphering them in the context of real history is actually quite fascinating. they show real insight. but, to take them entirely out of context and then hold to them as predictive documents for a future they could have never imagined? nobody that wrote these texts wanted you to do that. that's madness.
if you existed in the middle east at really any point in it's history, you had to see that you were at a conflict point where east meets west. it had happened. the persians marched west, and the greeks and romans marched east. and, before that the assyrians marched into egypt, and before that the egyptians marched into asia. there would have to be a point of cataclysm, eventually, where east and west met into a single, epic struggle.
and, it happened. it happened at the end of the long war between rome and persia, which finally broke down in the seventh century. rome finally defeated persia. but, that defeat took so much out of itself that it was a casualty of it's own victory. when the epic struggle between east and west did finally happen, neither survived the pyrrhic victory: the arabs, instead, took advantage of the power vacuum and aggressively conquered the near east.
so, what do you gain by taking an insightful geopolitical analysis of the near east from thousands of years ago and applying it to a different culture on a different continent? i mean, at least be a mormon. no. really. being a mormon makes more sense because at least it's local.
here's an interesting fact: moscow is actually to the west of jerusalem. and the russians are actually the cultural heirs to constantinople, meaning they're actually the greeks - the west - in the biblical narrative. and america is impossible to even imagine in any relevant context, except maybe as a mythical atlantis.
these texts have historical value. sure. and deciphering them in the context of real history is actually quite fascinating. they show real insight. but, to take them entirely out of context and then hold to them as predictive documents for a future they could have never imagined? nobody that wrote these texts wanted you to do that. that's madness.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
it's really amazing to watch all these brainwashed democrats instantly
warm to cia news outlets once they started broadcasting propaganda they
agree with.
when you find yourself in agreement with shep smith, you might want to take a step back and wonder if you're being played. because that guy just reads memos straight from head office.
when you find yourself in agreement with shep smith, you might want to take a step back and wonder if you're being played. because that guy just reads memos straight from head office.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
some nerds actually prefer the company of jocks to the company of geeks. i might categorize myself that way, although i don't really enjoy the company of either. i mean, it depends. some (most?) jocks are just impossibly stupid. but, your average geek is fucking shallow and flaky. on average, i think that the negative qualities of jocks are easier to deal with than the negative qualities of geeks.
of course, nerds are preferable. but there aren't a lot of us out there.
trump will find a nerd or two that will hang out with him.
of course, nerds are preferable. but there aren't a lot of us out there.
trump will find a nerd or two that will hang out with him.
i intended
this release to be a short single to house a vocal mix of this track,
the reconstructed album mix and all of the historical versions. but, it
really came back to life on me when i started mixing it. as i was mixing
the track, i was cognizant of the fact that it is both the last release
in this string of reconstructed singles and the oldest song that i have
a recording of. i felt myself coming full circle.
something that i think is actually unique to this track is that i wrote it while i was still living with my mom. that dates the track to when i was in grade 7, that is to 1993 or 1994. i was twelve or thirteen years old at the time and the lyrics very much reflect it. above all else, i felt it imperative that i maintain the innocence of the track.
the track documents a routine that was actually very formative on how i perceive the world around me. when i was even younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...
mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!
so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.
i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.
the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.
the fear was very real; i can still feel it, if i remember back to it. it would not begin to rise until i exited the living room, but would then escalate slowly until i got to the door - at which point it would suddenly spike. this would give me an extra boost of adrenaline to get back into the living room with. it was *always* the run back into the living room that was the scariest, because you never knew if they beat you to the door, and were just waiting for you to lock yourself in and then jump on you when you're cornered.
i think that this daily experience probably underlies my heightened level of caution towards risk. i don't reject risk; i've taken a lot of risks over my life. but, i assess it pretty brutally. i seek out worst case scenarios; i plan around assumptions of failure, to ensure necessities are never interrupted for. what it taught me is that risk must be a consequence of security, and not in antagonism with it.
the original demo version, recorded in 1996, is really the only track from the first cassette that can be salvaged without alteration, however accidentally. i was trying to create an eerie lullabye, a kind of banshee song. through the cumulative process of endless modifications over many months, it ended up sounding like an unfinished progressive rock song - or perhaps a campfire song for existential nihilists. but, what i captured without realizing it at the time was that i sound like the child that i was. for that reason, i consider this version of the track to capture it's essence more accurately than the 1998 or 1999 versions did. i wanted to recapture that essence and re-apply it to the final version.
perhaps what happened with the initial recreation is understandable, in the context of what i've discovered about the track, in hindsight. at the end of 1997, i got a new four-track recorder for christmas. i had spent the entire fall programming on an ry30 that i was given to compensate for the loss of the drum kit. when you get new gear, it's first use is always experimental; i used this track as my training wheels in breaking in the new setup, and largely discarded the outcome.
the track got dropped because i'd come to hate it because i thought of it as cutesy and childish. isn't that what happens when we enter our late teens? if i look back on the initial recording and claim it's essence is intrinsically connected with my age at the time of it's recording, does it not follow that i must have despised it as i sought to define myself in opposition to my child-self?
indeed, it specifically was the vocals that i hated. so, i resolved to ruin them through deadpan and atonality and guitar effects. but, once i had done so, i did not like the outcome and rejected the track for the first record. when i recorded the vocals a second time in early 1999 to complete it for my second record, i merely toned down the concept of annihilating the cutesiness in the vocal delivery, leaving a result that is no more engaged and only arguably preferable.
i may have been experimenting with the gear when i recorded the parts, but the tapes digitized very well for the reconstruction project in 2015. there's enough space in the track to allow the modern guitar & bass & synth plugins to function almost on a clean recording. the remix process allowed me to rediscover the eerie, psychedelic nature of the track and take it closer to it's intended conclusion of constructing a feeling of empty dread and uncertainty.
on sequencing the instrumental remaster of the second record in late 2016, i decided that there was an excess of silence at the beginning of the track that needed to be cut off in order to place it into the proper flow of the record. so, i opened it up in cubase and cut the appropriate section of silence out. i was then distracted by something, and returned to the project unable to remember if i had actually cut the silence or not. in order to check, i re-imported the file. the logic is that if they are out of phase then the cut was made. this was the case, but i immediately made the connection, on playback, to the echo being representative of coming footsteps and sought to expand the idea further.
this resulted in a series of remixes that take the track increasingly out of phase, along with increasing adornments, and then climax in manipulating the speed of the tape as a supplementary effect to increase the disorientation. these were arranged into a sequence of increasing, and then decreasing, complexity.
before i went off on this tangent, i was planning on reconstructing a vocal mix with the reconstruction from tape as the base soundscape. but, all of a sudden, i now had a dozen versions to pick from. i decided that the best thing to do was to experiment. this led to me mixing several of the remixes together, which is the final instrumental out for the record.
the vocal recordings i had from 1997 were unusable, so i had to redo them. but, this was an opportunity to regain the essence of the track by reintroducing a sense of innocence to the oppressive electronics and elusive guitars. my initial plan was to use a solitary voice, but i found that it did not mix well into the same frequency range as the interlock of stereo-spectrum guitars, so i instead recorded the track multiple times and set each recording to a different space in the spectrum. this creates a natural "chorus" effect on playback that blurs the frequency and better allows the vocals to compete with the guitars. i then thickened the chorus further by pitch-shifting it up an octave, which brought in the child-like innocence that i sought for the vocals.
as i was redoing the vocal part, i rejected the track a final time. at 35, why was i singing vocals i wrote when i was 12? is this clinical? but, i followed through with it to close the circle. inri is forever done.
initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched
this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1999, 2013, 2015, 2016).
*download only
something that i think is actually unique to this track is that i wrote it while i was still living with my mom. that dates the track to when i was in grade 7, that is to 1993 or 1994. i was twelve or thirteen years old at the time and the lyrics very much reflect it. above all else, i felt it imperative that i maintain the innocence of the track.
the track documents a routine that was actually very formative on how i perceive the world around me. when i was even younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...
mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!
so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.
i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.
the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.
the fear was very real; i can still feel it, if i remember back to it. it would not begin to rise until i exited the living room, but would then escalate slowly until i got to the door - at which point it would suddenly spike. this would give me an extra boost of adrenaline to get back into the living room with. it was *always* the run back into the living room that was the scariest, because you never knew if they beat you to the door, and were just waiting for you to lock yourself in and then jump on you when you're cornered.
i think that this daily experience probably underlies my heightened level of caution towards risk. i don't reject risk; i've taken a lot of risks over my life. but, i assess it pretty brutally. i seek out worst case scenarios; i plan around assumptions of failure, to ensure necessities are never interrupted for. what it taught me is that risk must be a consequence of security, and not in antagonism with it.
the original demo version, recorded in 1996, is really the only track from the first cassette that can be salvaged without alteration, however accidentally. i was trying to create an eerie lullabye, a kind of banshee song. through the cumulative process of endless modifications over many months, it ended up sounding like an unfinished progressive rock song - or perhaps a campfire song for existential nihilists. but, what i captured without realizing it at the time was that i sound like the child that i was. for that reason, i consider this version of the track to capture it's essence more accurately than the 1998 or 1999 versions did. i wanted to recapture that essence and re-apply it to the final version.
perhaps what happened with the initial recreation is understandable, in the context of what i've discovered about the track, in hindsight. at the end of 1997, i got a new four-track recorder for christmas. i had spent the entire fall programming on an ry30 that i was given to compensate for the loss of the drum kit. when you get new gear, it's first use is always experimental; i used this track as my training wheels in breaking in the new setup, and largely discarded the outcome.
the track got dropped because i'd come to hate it because i thought of it as cutesy and childish. isn't that what happens when we enter our late teens? if i look back on the initial recording and claim it's essence is intrinsically connected with my age at the time of it's recording, does it not follow that i must have despised it as i sought to define myself in opposition to my child-self?
indeed, it specifically was the vocals that i hated. so, i resolved to ruin them through deadpan and atonality and guitar effects. but, once i had done so, i did not like the outcome and rejected the track for the first record. when i recorded the vocals a second time in early 1999 to complete it for my second record, i merely toned down the concept of annihilating the cutesiness in the vocal delivery, leaving a result that is no more engaged and only arguably preferable.
i may have been experimenting with the gear when i recorded the parts, but the tapes digitized very well for the reconstruction project in 2015. there's enough space in the track to allow the modern guitar & bass & synth plugins to function almost on a clean recording. the remix process allowed me to rediscover the eerie, psychedelic nature of the track and take it closer to it's intended conclusion of constructing a feeling of empty dread and uncertainty.
on sequencing the instrumental remaster of the second record in late 2016, i decided that there was an excess of silence at the beginning of the track that needed to be cut off in order to place it into the proper flow of the record. so, i opened it up in cubase and cut the appropriate section of silence out. i was then distracted by something, and returned to the project unable to remember if i had actually cut the silence or not. in order to check, i re-imported the file. the logic is that if they are out of phase then the cut was made. this was the case, but i immediately made the connection, on playback, to the echo being representative of coming footsteps and sought to expand the idea further.
this resulted in a series of remixes that take the track increasingly out of phase, along with increasing adornments, and then climax in manipulating the speed of the tape as a supplementary effect to increase the disorientation. these were arranged into a sequence of increasing, and then decreasing, complexity.
before i went off on this tangent, i was planning on reconstructing a vocal mix with the reconstruction from tape as the base soundscape. but, all of a sudden, i now had a dozen versions to pick from. i decided that the best thing to do was to experiment. this led to me mixing several of the remixes together, which is the final instrumental out for the record.
the vocal recordings i had from 1997 were unusable, so i had to redo them. but, this was an opportunity to regain the essence of the track by reintroducing a sense of innocence to the oppressive electronics and elusive guitars. my initial plan was to use a solitary voice, but i found that it did not mix well into the same frequency range as the interlock of stereo-spectrum guitars, so i instead recorded the track multiple times and set each recording to a different space in the spectrum. this creates a natural "chorus" effect on playback that blurs the frequency and better allows the vocals to compete with the guitars. i then thickened the chorus further by pitch-shifting it up an octave, which brought in the child-like innocence that i sought for the vocals.
as i was redoing the vocal part, i rejected the track a final time. at 35, why was i singing vocals i wrote when i was 12? is this clinical? but, i followed through with it to close the circle. inri is forever done.
initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched
this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1999, 2013, 2015, 2016).
*download only
credits
released January 15, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, pick scrapes, drum kit, drum programming, digital wave editing, vocals, vocal relics, production
j - guitars, effects, bass, pick scrapes, drum kit, drum programming, digital wave editing, vocals, vocal relics, production
publishing inri020
i intended this release to be a short single to house a vocal mix of this track, the reconstructed album mix and all of the historical versions. but, it really came back to life on me when i started mixing it. as i was mixing the track, i was cognizant of the fact that it is both the last release in this string of reconstructed singles and the oldest song that i have a recording of. i felt myself coming full circle.
something that i think is actually unique to this track is that i wrote it while i was still living with my mom. that dates the track to when i was in grade 7, that is to 1993 or 1994. i was twelve or thirteen years old at the time and the lyrics very much reflect it. above all else, i felt it imperative that i maintain the innocence of the track.
the track documents a routine that was actually very formative on how i perceive the world around me. when i was even younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...
mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!
so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.
i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.
the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.
the fear was very real; i can still feel it, if i remember back to it. it would not begin to rise until i exited the living room, but would then escalate slowly until i got to the door - at which point it would suddenly spike. this would give me an extra boost of adrenaline to get back into the living room with. it was *always* the run back into the living room that was the scariest, because you never knew if they beat you to the door, and were just waiting for you to lock yourself in and then jump on you when you're cornered.
i think that this daily experience probably underlies my heightened level of caution towards risk. i don't reject risk; i've taken a lot of risks over my life. but, i assess it pretty brutally. i seek out worst case scenarios; i plan around assumptions of failure, to ensure necessities are never interrupted for. what it taught me is that risk must be a consequence of security, and not in antagonism with it.
the original demo version, recorded in 1996, is really the only track from the first cassette that can be salvaged without alteration, however accidentally. i was trying to create an eerie lullabye, a kind of banshee song. through the cumulative process of endless modifications over many months, it ended up sounding like an unfinished progressive rock song - or perhaps a campfire song for existential nihilists. but, what i captured without realizing it at the time was that i sound like the child that i was. for that reason, i consider this version of the track to capture it's essence more accurately than the 1998 or 1999 versions did. i wanted to recapture that essence and re-apply it to the final version.
perhaps what happened with the initial recreation is understandable, in the context of what i've discovered about the track, in hindsight. at the end of 1997, i got a new four-track recorder for christmas. i had spent the entire fall programming on an ry30 that i was given to compensate for the loss of the drum kit. when you get new gear, it's first use is always experimental; i used this track as my training wheels in breaking in the new setup, and largely discarded the outcome.
the track got dropped because i'd come to hate it because i thought of it as cutesy and childish. isn't that what happens when we enter our late teens? if i look back on the initial recording and claim it's essence is intrinsically connected with my age at the time of it's recording, does it not follow that i must have despised it as i sought to define myself in opposition to my child-self?
indeed, it specifically was the vocals that i hated. so, i resolved to ruin them through deadpan and atonality and guitar effects. but, once i had done so, i did not like the outcome and rejected the track for the first record. when i recorded the vocals a second time in early 1999 to complete it for my second record, i merely toned down the concept of annihilating the cutesiness in the vocal delivery, leaving a result that is no more engaged and only arguably preferable.
i may have been experimenting with the gear when i recorded the parts, but the tapes digitized very well for the reconstruction project in 2015. there's enough space in the track to allow the modern guitar & bass & synth plugins to function almost on a clean recording. the remix process allowed me to rediscover the eerie, psychedelic nature of the track and take it closer to it's intended conclusion of constructing a feeling of empty dread and uncertainty.
on sequencing the instrumental remaster of the second record in late 2016, i decided that there was an excess of silence at the beginning of the track that needed to be cut off in order to place it into the proper flow of the record. so, i opened it up in cubase and cut the appropriate section of silence out. i was then distracted by something, and returned to the project unable to remember if i had actually cut the silence or not. in order to check, i re-imported the file. the logic is that if they are out of phase then the cut was made. this was the case, but i immediately made the connection, on playback, to the echo being representative of coming footsteps and sought to expand the idea further.
this resulted in a series of remixes that take the track increasingly out of phase, along with increasing adornments, and then climax in manipulating the speed of the tape as a supplementary effect to increase the disorientation. these were arranged into a sequence of increasing, and then decreasing, complexity.
before i went off on this tangent, i was planning on reconstructing a vocal mix with the reconstruction from tape as the base soundscape. but, all of a sudden, i now had a dozen versions to pick from. i decided that the best thing to do was to experiment. this led to me mixing several of the remixes together, which is the final instrumental out for the record.
the vocal recordings i had from 1997 were unusable, so i had to redo them. but, this was an opportunity to regain the essence of the track by reintroducing a sense of innocence to the oppressive electronics and elusive guitars. my initial plan was to use a solitary voice, but i found that it did not mix well into the same frequency range as the interlock of stereo-spectrum guitars, so i instead recorded the track multiple times and set each recording to a different space in the spectrum. this creates a natural "chorus" effect on playback that blurs the frequency and better allows the vocals to compete with the guitars. i then thickened the chorus further by pitch-shifting it up an octave, which brought in the child-like innocence that i sought for the vocals.
as i was redoing the vocal part, i rejected the track a final time. at 35, why was i singing vocals i wrote when i was 12? is this clinical? but, i followed through with it to close the circle. inri is forever done.
initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched
this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1999, 2013, 2015, 2016).
*download only
something that i think is actually unique to this track is that i wrote it while i was still living with my mom. that dates the track to when i was in grade 7, that is to 1993 or 1994. i was twelve or thirteen years old at the time and the lyrics very much reflect it. above all else, i felt it imperative that i maintain the innocence of the track.
the track documents a routine that was actually very formative on how i perceive the world around me. when i was even younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...
mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!
so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.
i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.
the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.
the fear was very real; i can still feel it, if i remember back to it. it would not begin to rise until i exited the living room, but would then escalate slowly until i got to the door - at which point it would suddenly spike. this would give me an extra boost of adrenaline to get back into the living room with. it was *always* the run back into the living room that was the scariest, because you never knew if they beat you to the door, and were just waiting for you to lock yourself in and then jump on you when you're cornered.
i think that this daily experience probably underlies my heightened level of caution towards risk. i don't reject risk; i've taken a lot of risks over my life. but, i assess it pretty brutally. i seek out worst case scenarios; i plan around assumptions of failure, to ensure necessities are never interrupted for. what it taught me is that risk must be a consequence of security, and not in antagonism with it.
the original demo version, recorded in 1996, is really the only track from the first cassette that can be salvaged without alteration, however accidentally. i was trying to create an eerie lullabye, a kind of banshee song. through the cumulative process of endless modifications over many months, it ended up sounding like an unfinished progressive rock song - or perhaps a campfire song for existential nihilists. but, what i captured without realizing it at the time was that i sound like the child that i was. for that reason, i consider this version of the track to capture it's essence more accurately than the 1998 or 1999 versions did. i wanted to recapture that essence and re-apply it to the final version.
perhaps what happened with the initial recreation is understandable, in the context of what i've discovered about the track, in hindsight. at the end of 1997, i got a new four-track recorder for christmas. i had spent the entire fall programming on an ry30 that i was given to compensate for the loss of the drum kit. when you get new gear, it's first use is always experimental; i used this track as my training wheels in breaking in the new setup, and largely discarded the outcome.
the track got dropped because i'd come to hate it because i thought of it as cutesy and childish. isn't that what happens when we enter our late teens? if i look back on the initial recording and claim it's essence is intrinsically connected with my age at the time of it's recording, does it not follow that i must have despised it as i sought to define myself in opposition to my child-self?
indeed, it specifically was the vocals that i hated. so, i resolved to ruin them through deadpan and atonality and guitar effects. but, once i had done so, i did not like the outcome and rejected the track for the first record. when i recorded the vocals a second time in early 1999 to complete it for my second record, i merely toned down the concept of annihilating the cutesiness in the vocal delivery, leaving a result that is no more engaged and only arguably preferable.
i may have been experimenting with the gear when i recorded the parts, but the tapes digitized very well for the reconstruction project in 2015. there's enough space in the track to allow the modern guitar & bass & synth plugins to function almost on a clean recording. the remix process allowed me to rediscover the eerie, psychedelic nature of the track and take it closer to it's intended conclusion of constructing a feeling of empty dread and uncertainty.
on sequencing the instrumental remaster of the second record in late 2016, i decided that there was an excess of silence at the beginning of the track that needed to be cut off in order to place it into the proper flow of the record. so, i opened it up in cubase and cut the appropriate section of silence out. i was then distracted by something, and returned to the project unable to remember if i had actually cut the silence or not. in order to check, i re-imported the file. the logic is that if they are out of phase then the cut was made. this was the case, but i immediately made the connection, on playback, to the echo being representative of coming footsteps and sought to expand the idea further.
this resulted in a series of remixes that take the track increasingly out of phase, along with increasing adornments, and then climax in manipulating the speed of the tape as a supplementary effect to increase the disorientation. these were arranged into a sequence of increasing, and then decreasing, complexity.
before i went off on this tangent, i was planning on reconstructing a vocal mix with the reconstruction from tape as the base soundscape. but, all of a sudden, i now had a dozen versions to pick from. i decided that the best thing to do was to experiment. this led to me mixing several of the remixes together, which is the final instrumental out for the record.
the vocal recordings i had from 1997 were unusable, so i had to redo them. but, this was an opportunity to regain the essence of the track by reintroducing a sense of innocence to the oppressive electronics and elusive guitars. my initial plan was to use a solitary voice, but i found that it did not mix well into the same frequency range as the interlock of stereo-spectrum guitars, so i instead recorded the track multiple times and set each recording to a different space in the spectrum. this creates a natural "chorus" effect on playback that blurs the frequency and better allows the vocals to compete with the guitars. i then thickened the chorus further by pitch-shifting it up an octave, which brought in the child-like innocence that i sought for the vocals.
as i was redoing the vocal part, i rejected the track a final time. at 35, why was i singing vocals i wrote when i was 12? is this clinical? but, i followed through with it to close the circle. inri is forever done.
initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched
this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched-box-set
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set
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, 1999, 2013, 2015, 2016).
*download only
credits
released January 15, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, pick scrapes, drum kit, drum programming, digital wave editing, vocals, vocal relics, production
j - guitars, effects, bass, pick scrapes, drum kit, drum programming, digital wave editing, vocals, vocal relics, production
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
i was unaware of this event when i wrote my write-up on wynne's prospects in the next election. i see that her office had already made the same calculations, several weeks ago. that's reassuring. surprisingly so.
but, she's facing the need to make a choice. if she goes into the new year as leader, she's attaching herself to the party in 2018. do her and her team think that this is the most strategic choice? she is running out of time to step down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/19/wynne-calls-high-electricity-prices-her-mistake_n_13095776.html
but, she's facing the need to make a choice. if she goes into the new year as leader, she's attaching herself to the party in 2018. do her and her team think that this is the most strategic choice? she is running out of time to step down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/19/wynne-calls-high-electricity-prices-her-mistake_n_13095776.html
i don't usually pay attention to corruption scandals. i make the basic assumption that all parties are corrupt, and judge them by their policies and track records. some money will disappear. that's a given.
but, i just want to draw attention here to the scope of the issue. the issue was a very real concern in the most recent american cycle, where the most popular (however tenuously...) candidate for the entire election cycle had taken extremely large sums from banking institutions for no discernible reason. she took hundreds of thousands per speech, and one estimate suggests it added up to $22 million. that's a lot of cash, and a lot of cash buys access. it's blatant.
trudeau, here, is being accused of accepting a $1500 personal contribution after discussing an issue of some sort with that person. i'm sure the party appreciates it. but, that doesn't buy access.
or at least i hope it doesn't.
no, it doesn't. it doesn't. but what if...?
no. that's not enough. obviously.
you can never be sure.
but, then he'd have to have a meandering policy vision, that dodders about, unfocused, in every which way, which projects minimal confidence in any direction. hrmmn.
naw.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/13/trudeau-fundraisers-middle-class-ambrose-mulcair_n_13611432.html
but, i just want to draw attention here to the scope of the issue. the issue was a very real concern in the most recent american cycle, where the most popular (however tenuously...) candidate for the entire election cycle had taken extremely large sums from banking institutions for no discernible reason. she took hundreds of thousands per speech, and one estimate suggests it added up to $22 million. that's a lot of cash, and a lot of cash buys access. it's blatant.
trudeau, here, is being accused of accepting a $1500 personal contribution after discussing an issue of some sort with that person. i'm sure the party appreciates it. but, that doesn't buy access.
or at least i hope it doesn't.
no, it doesn't. it doesn't. but what if...?
no. that's not enough. obviously.
you can never be sure.
but, then he'd have to have a meandering policy vision, that dodders about, unfocused, in every which way, which projects minimal confidence in any direction. hrmmn.
naw.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/13/trudeau-fundraisers-middle-class-ambrose-mulcair_n_13611432.html
see, this is a smarter way to channel xenophobia, because this really is a practice that shouldn't be tolerated. i don't care if you wear a scarf. i do care if you perform surgical operations on your children by non-licensed practitioners in order to satisfy a superstition. if your rights scheme allows this, it stinks. these kids need protection. i don't want to hear it.
but, of course, it's really a policy for integration - and that appears to be necessary in the uk. the racism is at the point where it needs a social policy to address it. this is a way to acknowledge that without giving in to it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-38290888
but, of course, it's really a policy for integration - and that appears to be necessary in the uk. the racism is at the point where it needs a social policy to address it. this is a way to acknowledge that without giving in to it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-38290888
Monday, December 12, 2016
this would be epic.
"i come forward to represent the interests of rationality and science against the dark forces of magical thinking. i bring forth realism; i champion data. we shall always follow the evidence."
meanwhile, trump gets to play high school bully to his most advanced desires.
"look at him. he's a fucking loser. he's got four-eyes glasses. maybe we could hire him to run our email servers, or something? i hear he's good at that. loser. i bet i know what's microsoft about him."
he would then proceed to place an L over his head, and walk menacingly towards him.
and, you could imagine the speech you'd get from gates.
"i've been called a loser my whole life. and, yet look at what i've accomplished?"
i'm not sure the nerds will win, in the end. but, i'd still like to watch the game.
"i come forward to represent the interests of rationality and science against the dark forces of magical thinking. i bring forth realism; i champion data. we shall always follow the evidence."
meanwhile, trump gets to play high school bully to his most advanced desires.
"look at him. he's a fucking loser. he's got four-eyes glasses. maybe we could hire him to run our email servers, or something? i hear he's good at that. loser. i bet i know what's microsoft about him."
he would then proceed to place an L over his head, and walk menacingly towards him.
and, you could imagine the speech you'd get from gates.
"i've been called a loser my whole life. and, yet look at what i've accomplished?"
i'm not sure the nerds will win, in the end. but, i'd still like to watch the game.
something's been brewing for a while, though: the fear propaganda about terrorism is being replaced by a return to what is essentially cold war propaganda. i think there's very valid concerns about putting the ceo of a fossil fuel company with deep intelligence connections in the united states in as secretary of state. maybe we should talk about this. but, instead the so-called liberal media is insisting on branding him as a red. it appears that they'll have a senate committee on unamerican hearings to investigate, too.
see, it's not some accident; it's not some rash act. the supposed war on terrorism has been converted into a proxy war between major powers, and making way for a dangerous conflict with russia and china. it initially collapsed into a series of complex, overlapping proxy wars. but, order generated. alliances formed into a hierarchy, and the most meta struggles took over: iran v greece, rome v persia, catholic v orthodox, britain v russia - the cold war. the ancient, ancient cold war. it always dominates.
and, in the long run, that was just a minor uprising. to be forgotten. we're back to the ancient struggle. east v west.
see, it's not some accident; it's not some rash act. the supposed war on terrorism has been converted into a proxy war between major powers, and making way for a dangerous conflict with russia and china. it initially collapsed into a series of complex, overlapping proxy wars. but, order generated. alliances formed into a hierarchy, and the most meta struggles took over: iran v greece, rome v persia, catholic v orthodox, britain v russia - the cold war. the ancient, ancient cold war. it always dominates.
and, in the long run, that was just a minor uprising. to be forgotten. we're back to the ancient struggle. east v west.
so, the chinese claim this taiwan thing is a big deal. is this serious?
my understanding is that the chinese see this as a case of epic shit-disturbing by the taiwanese - but that they are also incredibly concerned by the flaws it exposes in donald trump's competency. it's serious, but not like you think.
let's begin with the following question: why hasn't this happened before? this one-china policy thing is almost fifty years old, now. is it the case that taiwanese leaders don't usually call? or is it the case that the calls aren't usually taken?
if the leaders don't normally call, then why did this one do so? is it because she realized that trump didn't know any better? because she was just curious as to what would happen? you can't escape the deduction that the taiwanese have a very poor regard for mr. trump's intelligence, if they thought they could play him off against the mainland so easily. is this a taste of the next four years: the president being mocked by the leaders of his own client states?
if the calls are usually made and not taken, what it broadcasts to beijing is the immense level of cluelessness in the incoming administration.
in both cases, we're left with the disturbing conclusion that he did not know not to do this and did not have anybody around him that did and could tell him. and, that is why the chinese are on high alert: a dangerous and aggressive buffoon is about to be given the launch codes.
my understanding is that the chinese see this as a case of epic shit-disturbing by the taiwanese - but that they are also incredibly concerned by the flaws it exposes in donald trump's competency. it's serious, but not like you think.
let's begin with the following question: why hasn't this happened before? this one-china policy thing is almost fifty years old, now. is it the case that taiwanese leaders don't usually call? or is it the case that the calls aren't usually taken?
if the leaders don't normally call, then why did this one do so? is it because she realized that trump didn't know any better? because she was just curious as to what would happen? you can't escape the deduction that the taiwanese have a very poor regard for mr. trump's intelligence, if they thought they could play him off against the mainland so easily. is this a taste of the next four years: the president being mocked by the leaders of his own client states?
if the calls are usually made and not taken, what it broadcasts to beijing is the immense level of cluelessness in the incoming administration.
in both cases, we're left with the disturbing conclusion that he did not know not to do this and did not have anybody around him that did and could tell him. and, that is why the chinese are on high alert: a dangerous and aggressive buffoon is about to be given the launch codes.
but, the keystone bit. yeah. i just said that.
canada is now credibly threatening to increase exports to china, so trump is trying to reroute south with the keystone. america needs to control the supply of oil. obama would have been pressured to do the same thing. and, note that trudeau's announcement was timed carefully to be between the election and inauguration, too.
you should always be suspicious when capital claims environmental reasons for policies, especially when they have geopolitical implications.
canada is now credibly threatening to increase exports to china, so trump is trying to reroute south with the keystone. america needs to control the supply of oil. obama would have been pressured to do the same thing. and, note that trudeau's announcement was timed carefully to be between the election and inauguration, too.
you should always be suspicious when capital claims environmental reasons for policies, especially when they have geopolitical implications.
"President-elect Donald Trump escalated a fight with the U.S.
intelligence community on Sunday by denouncing its findings of Russian
meddling in the U.S. election, setting up an extraordinary rupture between a soon-to-be president and his national-security establishment."
well, ok, then, wsj. gee, you're giving me this article for free? thanks. i appreciate your altruism.
what, am i writing the script, here?
they're jumping all over themselves, here, to convincingly explain that donald trump is not a front for the cia. i suppose i was merely mistaken. apologies.
now that i've been corrected on that point, i will no longer mention it. promise.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-blames-democrats-for-reports-of-russia-hacking-1481467907
well, ok, then, wsj. gee, you're giving me this article for free? thanks. i appreciate your altruism.
what, am i writing the script, here?
they're jumping all over themselves, here, to convincingly explain that donald trump is not a front for the cia. i suppose i was merely mistaken. apologies.
now that i've been corrected on that point, i will no longer mention it. promise.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-blames-democrats-for-reports-of-russia-hacking-1481467907
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