i just want to clarify a point.
it's easy to look at what i've written here and say "she's calling for solidarity with trans activism, but she won't, herself, stand in solidarity with muslims or gamers. hypocrite!".
and, as always, what that means is that you're a conservative, and i'm not. allow me to explain.
what you're doing is creating a false equivalency by throwing all of these different minorities into a box and standing up for "minority rights". so, to you, these are all the same thing, and i'm clearly contradicting myself. but, that is a textbook classical conservative position that is usually attributed to de tocqueville. it's a right-wing approach to the scenario.
i reject this - i don't want to put everybody into this big box, and i don't think that standing up for "minority rights" is the fundamental issue, at all. rather, i'm going to pick and choose which minorities i'm going to stand with, based on whether they reflect the values i have or not. and, while trans activists reflect my values, muslims and gamers (with caveats in both scenarios) most certainly do not.
rather, if i were to stand up for muslims just because they're minorities, then i'd be being a hypocrite, as well as dishonest and inconsistent, because i have absolutely no common cause with them whatsoever.
it essentially goes back to the basic difference between the left and the right, once again. the right believes in a world of harmony, where everybody gets along in shared diversity because they know their place and they keep to themselves. the left, on the other hand, believes in a world that is defined by perpetual conflict between interests and classes, where people need to align against each other in order to advance their own causes.
the simple answer is that i'm on the side of people arguing for equal access to services, and i'm not on the side of people using religion as an excuse to deny it. and, this is actually a good example of the growing contradiction evolving in front of us between real leftist equality and this kind of phony neo-liberalism that thinks "diversity" is a worthwhile excuse to deny it.
Friday, August 9, 2019
no, seriously.
if democrats are smart, then they'll actually build a bridge to nowhere. make work projects for all. dig ditches, and fill them back in. that way, when the republicans get elected, they can fight like to hell to keep funding for the bridge to nowhere (it's the jobs), while things like healthcare spending and social security are left off the radar.
like i say: they're going to govern, and when they govern they're going to cut. so, you set up a decoy for them to attack...
if democrats are smart, then they'll actually build a bridge to nowhere. make work projects for all. dig ditches, and fill them back in. that way, when the republicans get elected, they can fight like to hell to keep funding for the bridge to nowhere (it's the jobs), while things like healthcare spending and social security are left off the radar.
like i say: they're going to govern, and when they govern they're going to cut. so, you set up a decoy for them to attack...
i also watched a bit more of the debate, and i want to make a general comment about financing and universality.
in the long run, somebody like klobuchar is probably right: if you're going to have private universities, and wealthy people are going to spend a lot of money to go to them, then it doesn't actually make sense to bail them out when they get into huge amounts of debt. that's trickle-up economics, it's a backwards transfer of wealth.
but, this is a very long war, and sensible issues around financing should be left to the republicans, not the democrats. and, i'll tell you why...
supposing that the democrats win and bring in universal health care and wipe out student debt, they will eventually lose office, and almost certainly be replaced by the republicans when they do. if the republicans come into office and inherit a sound fiscal situation, they're still going to have to push through cuts to satiate the blood lust in their base. remember: republicans don't really care about deficits, what they care about is demonizing groups of people and then attacking them when they get into office. so, they have to carry out the public execution - they have to feed the captives to the lions. so, all that democrats are really going to accomplish by being fiscally responsible is forcing the republicans to make deeper cuts. the base needs it's blood.
if, on the other hand, the democrats pile up their legislation with excessive spending, then they're giving the republicans something to cut out when they win the office back, whatever office it is.
and, of course they will win the office back. and, no, you can't convince "moderates" to vote against them. nor will democratic voters punish their own for overspending. this is all relative, so it's just a question of where you place the scales.
so, democrats should really, seriously be pushing for and trying to legislate the most expensive, bloated plans they can come up with. that is, they should earmark areas that can be cut by future republican administrations by overspending in their own bills. as the party of spending, the democrats are in control, here: they determine what gets cut in the future, by what they legislate in the present.
liberals in canada can learn a similar lesson by observing the ford government. they're literally eliminating disability. well, the previous government was too fiscally responsible - there wasn't an easy target to attack. if the wynne-mcguinty government had focused less on deficits and spent more recklessly on frivolous projects, ford would have been able to make easier cuts.
and, if obama had pushed through more extensive spending when he had control of both houses, trump wouldn't be cutting food stamps. he'd be cutting programs for pet insurance, or something.
in the long run, somebody like klobuchar is probably right: if you're going to have private universities, and wealthy people are going to spend a lot of money to go to them, then it doesn't actually make sense to bail them out when they get into huge amounts of debt. that's trickle-up economics, it's a backwards transfer of wealth.
but, this is a very long war, and sensible issues around financing should be left to the republicans, not the democrats. and, i'll tell you why...
supposing that the democrats win and bring in universal health care and wipe out student debt, they will eventually lose office, and almost certainly be replaced by the republicans when they do. if the republicans come into office and inherit a sound fiscal situation, they're still going to have to push through cuts to satiate the blood lust in their base. remember: republicans don't really care about deficits, what they care about is demonizing groups of people and then attacking them when they get into office. so, they have to carry out the public execution - they have to feed the captives to the lions. so, all that democrats are really going to accomplish by being fiscally responsible is forcing the republicans to make deeper cuts. the base needs it's blood.
if, on the other hand, the democrats pile up their legislation with excessive spending, then they're giving the republicans something to cut out when they win the office back, whatever office it is.
and, of course they will win the office back. and, no, you can't convince "moderates" to vote against them. nor will democratic voters punish their own for overspending. this is all relative, so it's just a question of where you place the scales.
so, democrats should really, seriously be pushing for and trying to legislate the most expensive, bloated plans they can come up with. that is, they should earmark areas that can be cut by future republican administrations by overspending in their own bills. as the party of spending, the democrats are in control, here: they determine what gets cut in the future, by what they legislate in the present.
liberals in canada can learn a similar lesson by observing the ford government. they're literally eliminating disability. well, the previous government was too fiscally responsible - there wasn't an easy target to attack. if the wynne-mcguinty government had focused less on deficits and spent more recklessly on frivolous projects, ford would have been able to make easier cuts.
and, if obama had pushed through more extensive spending when he had control of both houses, trump wouldn't be cutting food stamps. he'd be cutting programs for pet insurance, or something.
and, i just want to have it recorded somewhere that it is obvious that a gun buy back program is a way better idea, if you are concerned about results, than gun control legislation. bernie's ideas on guns seem to lack the overwrought kneejerkism that has become fashionable in the democratic centre.
there are more guns than people. so, if you institute a serious crackdown on sales, you're just opening up a black market where supply greatly outstrips demand. removing the regulatory/oversight process might even have the result of depressing the prices.
there are sane and reasonable things to do around sales, but you have to accept that their effects will be minimal on actually preventing real crime. a policy to actually get the existing guns off the streets is a way better idea, and something nobody else is talking about (to my knowledge) in their collective rush to get to the podium first to blame the nra.
there are more guns than people. so, if you institute a serious crackdown on sales, you're just opening up a black market where supply greatly outstrips demand. removing the regulatory/oversight process might even have the result of depressing the prices.
there are sane and reasonable things to do around sales, but you have to accept that their effects will be minimal on actually preventing real crime. a policy to actually get the existing guns off the streets is a way better idea, and something nobody else is talking about (to my knowledge) in their collective rush to get to the podium first to blame the nra.
so, i watched the rogan interview, and bernie was actually pretty snappy with him when he asked stupid questions.
listen, at the end of the day you need to be able to face your critics. it's even a fundamental principle of justice that you be able to face your accusers. so, there's some value in bernie showing up and saying "hey. you say that shit to my face.". i think rogan gets that, maybe even better than most.
and, bernie is not a cloistered member of congress, either. he will reach out and work with people he broadly disagrees with in order to get things done. that's his record, it's more pragmatic than idealistic, and it's a a mindframe that will help the country in the end. if you want good trade policies and you want lower prescription costs, at least, it's probably going to be necessary to work with some subset of republicans. they may even be more willing to sign on then some democrats.
and, it's a good opportunity to catch him in a slip, too, right. i mean, that's probably the actual reason warren won't do a fox town hall - there's a fear they might catch her agreeing with them on economic policy, on the record.
so, i don't even want to throw the argument out that you have to do it to reach categories of voters. that's true enough, but it's not really addressing the concern. what i'd rather suggest is that, if you're afraid of your candidate having a tete-a-tete with joe rogan, you may want to look deeper into yourself and ask why that really is.
listen, at the end of the day you need to be able to face your critics. it's even a fundamental principle of justice that you be able to face your accusers. so, there's some value in bernie showing up and saying "hey. you say that shit to my face.". i think rogan gets that, maybe even better than most.
and, bernie is not a cloistered member of congress, either. he will reach out and work with people he broadly disagrees with in order to get things done. that's his record, it's more pragmatic than idealistic, and it's a a mindframe that will help the country in the end. if you want good trade policies and you want lower prescription costs, at least, it's probably going to be necessary to work with some subset of republicans. they may even be more willing to sign on then some democrats.
and, it's a good opportunity to catch him in a slip, too, right. i mean, that's probably the actual reason warren won't do a fox town hall - there's a fear they might catch her agreeing with them on economic policy, on the record.
so, i don't even want to throw the argument out that you have to do it to reach categories of voters. that's true enough, but it's not really addressing the concern. what i'd rather suggest is that, if you're afraid of your candidate having a tete-a-tete with joe rogan, you may want to look deeper into yourself and ask why that really is.
and, if i'm going to have a long weekend, i need to force myself to sleep in until the late morning, at least. my schedule is cycled around the other way, right now.
i'm past my cut-off, so i should be able to eat a nice meal when i wake up. and, with that, i've successfully removed a week's worth of calories. am i feeling ok?
well, i was trying to lose about 5-10 pounds, but i'm not measuring myself. i don't have a scale. i look like i've lost that extra bit of belly fat, which was the difference between flat (i.e. normal) and almost bulged (i.e. a scary change). and, lying flat on my back, i'm back to concave, which is normal. if i went from in the 140s to in the 130s, that gets my bmi back down to 20ish, as well, which is closer to where i want it.
yes, i'll be drinking this weekend, but i'll try to keep it (mostly) to beer. and, i'll be biking. and dancing. this was a blip, i expect.
but, i mean, if i wake up on monday and there's an issue, i'll just do it again.
i'm past my cut-off, so i should be able to eat a nice meal when i wake up. and, with that, i've successfully removed a week's worth of calories. am i feeling ok?
well, i was trying to lose about 5-10 pounds, but i'm not measuring myself. i don't have a scale. i look like i've lost that extra bit of belly fat, which was the difference between flat (i.e. normal) and almost bulged (i.e. a scary change). and, lying flat on my back, i'm back to concave, which is normal. if i went from in the 140s to in the 130s, that gets my bmi back down to 20ish, as well, which is closer to where i want it.
yes, i'll be drinking this weekend, but i'll try to keep it (mostly) to beer. and, i'll be biking. and dancing. this was a blip, i expect.
but, i mean, if i wake up on monday and there's an issue, i'll just do it again.
so, this is the response i got from the oiprd on july 17th:
I am sending this email to let you know, the investigator has completed your review and it will be sent to our legal counsel next week for the finalization.
that would suggest to me that a report is on the way, and i did indicate at the time that it seemed strange that it didn't go to a panel.
this is the response i got on august 8th:
Last I can see in our file, this went to our panel just yesterday. So now we wait for the drafted decision.
so, which is it?
i know that it sounds paranoid to suggest that i'm being fucked around by the police oversight committee, but i'm just looking at the evidence in front of me and coming to clear deductions around it. they've been entirely inconsistent and totally dishonest from the very start.
i don't know when to expect the report at this point, but there's not much that i can do so long as they keep stringing me along, except sit tight and wait it out. the only thing with a meaningful statute on it was the human rights complaint, and it's been filed; there are no statutory time restraints on filing a charter challenge, and if the delay is due to the oiprd then the judge should accept that without much push back.
if i'm right, and they're just dragging their feet, then it will just help my cause, in the end.
I am sending this email to let you know, the investigator has completed your review and it will be sent to our legal counsel next week for the finalization.
that would suggest to me that a report is on the way, and i did indicate at the time that it seemed strange that it didn't go to a panel.
this is the response i got on august 8th:
Last I can see in our file, this went to our panel just yesterday. So now we wait for the drafted decision.
so, which is it?
i know that it sounds paranoid to suggest that i'm being fucked around by the police oversight committee, but i'm just looking at the evidence in front of me and coming to clear deductions around it. they've been entirely inconsistent and totally dishonest from the very start.
i don't know when to expect the report at this point, but there's not much that i can do so long as they keep stringing me along, except sit tight and wait it out. the only thing with a meaningful statute on it was the human rights complaint, and it's been filed; there are no statutory time restraints on filing a charter challenge, and if the delay is due to the oiprd then the judge should accept that without much push back.
if i'm right, and they're just dragging their feet, then it will just help my cause, in the end.
so, i've been trying to avoid commenting on the jessica yaniv case, but i think the situation has gotten out of hand.
in ontario, which is not bc, the human rights code prohibits discrimination in five specific areas: employment, housing, services, unions and vocational associations and contracts. her claim is that, by being denied a brazilian wax (which i am only foggy on the actual details of) due to the existence of her male genitals, she is being discriminated against by a number of businesses on the grounds of her gender identity. further, she seems to believe that the root cause of the discrimination is religious observation, and she's probably absolutely right about it.
i think she has a strong case in principle, but it's less clear what the proper remedy is. the defense is trying to argue that she's trying to force specific employees into waxing her balls, but this is a disingenuous position. rather, what the law says in context is that the business has a duty to accommodate, which probably means that they'd have to hire employees willing to perform the service. that said, it's not particularly clear to me why a business doesn't exist to cater to the queer market, as you'd think waxing services for testicles isn't such a particularly obscure request within a particular community.
you have to pull back the layers of complexity and specificity, here, to get to the meaningful point. so, one of the things the court is going to ask is whether she had other options or not. the issue with the cake in detroit comes up, where maybe the owner was technically discriminating against the queer couple but the correct answer was to just go to another store, because there are lots of places that make cakes and you'll find one eventually. there's lots of pro-queer spaces in detroit, trust me. then, you can go on the internet and attack the business for being transphobic and hope it hurts their business. that's what i did with the works in detroit, and i won the argument at the end of the day - they've since disappeared, and i haven't had any problems since. it was a terrible place that the city got into a rut around, and the city is better off now that it's gone.
so, you should expect the court to rule that a violation occurred, but that's not the same thing as expecting them to come up with a clear solution. if she's asking for monetary compensation, it would have to be in the form of emotional damages, and it's not clear how that is defined. and, the only way they're going to order a company to hire somebody to perform the service is if there isn't another company on the market that already performs the service, which i think is doubtful. so, she might be right in principle, but her legal action is nonetheless probably ill-advised and winning the case may not come with any concrete benefits.
but, these are legal questions and the court will figure them out.
what is more concerning to me right now is that jessica appears to be being targeted by the religious right in her community, which is what she said was the root cause in the first place, and who are predictably using the police to carry out their oppression. whether you agree with her lawsuit or not, she needs solidarity and support from the broader community, right now.
in ontario, which is not bc, the human rights code prohibits discrimination in five specific areas: employment, housing, services, unions and vocational associations and contracts. her claim is that, by being denied a brazilian wax (which i am only foggy on the actual details of) due to the existence of her male genitals, she is being discriminated against by a number of businesses on the grounds of her gender identity. further, she seems to believe that the root cause of the discrimination is religious observation, and she's probably absolutely right about it.
i think she has a strong case in principle, but it's less clear what the proper remedy is. the defense is trying to argue that she's trying to force specific employees into waxing her balls, but this is a disingenuous position. rather, what the law says in context is that the business has a duty to accommodate, which probably means that they'd have to hire employees willing to perform the service. that said, it's not particularly clear to me why a business doesn't exist to cater to the queer market, as you'd think waxing services for testicles isn't such a particularly obscure request within a particular community.
you have to pull back the layers of complexity and specificity, here, to get to the meaningful point. so, one of the things the court is going to ask is whether she had other options or not. the issue with the cake in detroit comes up, where maybe the owner was technically discriminating against the queer couple but the correct answer was to just go to another store, because there are lots of places that make cakes and you'll find one eventually. there's lots of pro-queer spaces in detroit, trust me. then, you can go on the internet and attack the business for being transphobic and hope it hurts their business. that's what i did with the works in detroit, and i won the argument at the end of the day - they've since disappeared, and i haven't had any problems since. it was a terrible place that the city got into a rut around, and the city is better off now that it's gone.
so, you should expect the court to rule that a violation occurred, but that's not the same thing as expecting them to come up with a clear solution. if she's asking for monetary compensation, it would have to be in the form of emotional damages, and it's not clear how that is defined. and, the only way they're going to order a company to hire somebody to perform the service is if there isn't another company on the market that already performs the service, which i think is doubtful. so, she might be right in principle, but her legal action is nonetheless probably ill-advised and winning the case may not come with any concrete benefits.
but, these are legal questions and the court will figure them out.
what is more concerning to me right now is that jessica appears to be being targeted by the religious right in her community, which is what she said was the root cause in the first place, and who are predictably using the police to carry out their oppression. whether you agree with her lawsuit or not, she needs solidarity and support from the broader community, right now.
Thursday, August 8, 2019
i remember reading an article back in 2000 that claimed to have evidence that there were enough seniors that cluelessly voted for george hw bush (and i mean out of genuine confusion) to swing the state and therefore the election.
i agree with kinsella: this is absurd. it's more like we never got rid of harper, really. but, how many voters (of a certain age) are there that aren't entirely sure which trudeau they're actually voting for?
canada's senile population is growing at a pretty fast rate. you have to wonder.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/warren-trudeau-ad-actually-a-load-of-hooey
i agree with kinsella: this is absurd. it's more like we never got rid of harper, really. but, how many voters (of a certain age) are there that aren't entirely sure which trudeau they're actually voting for?
canada's senile population is growing at a pretty fast rate. you have to wonder.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/warren-trudeau-ad-actually-a-load-of-hooey
windsor, which is just south of detroit, is the southernmost city in canada, and has the second warmest average temperatures (behind victoria, bc). this weekend appears to be a concrete example of how those averages work out.
according to the forecast, i'm like 20 km south of where the jet stream is dipping to. so, i'm just south of the returning cold front and will just barely miss it. it's going to be much cooler this weekend in other major canadian cities, like toronto and ottawa and montreal. sudbury, which is about as far north as minneapolis, may even dip below ten degrees.
the nice graphic in the forecast doesn't measure the uncertainty, which i suspect is high. if that jet dips a little lower, we could be in for a nasty surprise; if it stays a little higher, those overnights could be better than forecast.
who programmed nice overnights on sunday and monday, though, instead of friday and saturday? da fuck? i guess if i get stuck on sunday...
there's not a drop of rain in the forecast, so i'm very tempted to have a very long weekend.
according to the forecast, i'm like 20 km south of where the jet stream is dipping to. so, i'm just south of the returning cold front and will just barely miss it. it's going to be much cooler this weekend in other major canadian cities, like toronto and ottawa and montreal. sudbury, which is about as far north as minneapolis, may even dip below ten degrees.
the nice graphic in the forecast doesn't measure the uncertainty, which i suspect is high. if that jet dips a little lower, we could be in for a nasty surprise; if it stays a little higher, those overnights could be better than forecast.
who programmed nice overnights on sunday and monday, though, instead of friday and saturday? da fuck? i guess if i get stuck on sunday...
there's not a drop of rain in the forecast, so i'm very tempted to have a very long weekend.
i am familiar with sam & leo and am not surprised to see them offer a more diplomatic, if essentially identical, analysis of the text.
no, really. it's the same reaction, almost point-by-point, just using far less flamboyant language. and, i swear i didn't read this, first.
https://socialistproject.ca/2017/01/b1353/
no, really. it's the same reaction, almost point-by-point, just using far less flamboyant language. and, i swear i didn't read this, first.
https://socialistproject.ca/2017/01/b1353/
so, an ideological leftist would actually argue in favour of automating the service sector as much as possible, insofar as we should have one at all, in order to emancipate the workers from that kind of dehumanizing and pointless labour.
nobody should spend their life behind a cash register, or locked away in a kitchen.
nobody should spend their life behind a cash register, or locked away in a kitchen.
i'm going to bring you back to the plot for a minute, though.
why, exactly, don't we have service sector unions?
well, to begin with, we actually do. in fact, they're some of the biggest unions still standing, it's just that they're a function of the employment environment. so, for example, the janitors and food workers at carleton university are absolutely unionized, and i watched them strike more than once at my lengthy stay there. but, you have to understand that this is somewhere where the higher paid workers - the profs - build relationships with the serving staff, and that's probably key to the whole thing.
why, though, don't we have more unionization in the service sector? why don't we have a fast food workers union the way we have an electrical workers union?
well, stop for a minute and ask yourself what socialism actually is. is it just a tactic to raise wages and living conditions? or is it a way to place property in common, under the argument that you can't provide for a proper accounting of labor?
i've made this point before: it doesn't make sense to collectivize the mcdonalds and redistribute the hamburgers. rather, it makes sense to smash the fast food industry altogether. and, that is your actual answer: socialists will broadly argue that we won't have fast food after the revolution, and there's consequently nothing of any tactical value in seizing worker control of the restaurants. now, the farms on the other hand...
so, don't misinterpret me. i'm not calling for a movement to organize the service sector; what i'm calling for is a movement to abolish the service sector.
one of the best things we can do at this point is provide alternate living arrangements. i've never been so desperate as to work a full time fast food job; i've always been lucky enough and resourceful enough to find a way out. but, if given the choice, i'd certainly rather live on a kibbutz. i would imagine that i'd be more interested in a way out than in a way up.
a real revolutionary movement should be able to see these kinds of industries as what they are, which is complete capitalist excess, and try to help people out of them. then, we can build an army with the people we emancipate.
but, i have a lot of art to do make, first.
and, i suspect i'll spend sunday morning quietly enjoying a coffee, if i show up there at all.
why, exactly, don't we have service sector unions?
well, to begin with, we actually do. in fact, they're some of the biggest unions still standing, it's just that they're a function of the employment environment. so, for example, the janitors and food workers at carleton university are absolutely unionized, and i watched them strike more than once at my lengthy stay there. but, you have to understand that this is somewhere where the higher paid workers - the profs - build relationships with the serving staff, and that's probably key to the whole thing.
why, though, don't we have more unionization in the service sector? why don't we have a fast food workers union the way we have an electrical workers union?
well, stop for a minute and ask yourself what socialism actually is. is it just a tactic to raise wages and living conditions? or is it a way to place property in common, under the argument that you can't provide for a proper accounting of labor?
i've made this point before: it doesn't make sense to collectivize the mcdonalds and redistribute the hamburgers. rather, it makes sense to smash the fast food industry altogether. and, that is your actual answer: socialists will broadly argue that we won't have fast food after the revolution, and there's consequently nothing of any tactical value in seizing worker control of the restaurants. now, the farms on the other hand...
so, don't misinterpret me. i'm not calling for a movement to organize the service sector; what i'm calling for is a movement to abolish the service sector.
one of the best things we can do at this point is provide alternate living arrangements. i've never been so desperate as to work a full time fast food job; i've always been lucky enough and resourceful enough to find a way out. but, if given the choice, i'd certainly rather live on a kibbutz. i would imagine that i'd be more interested in a way out than in a way up.
a real revolutionary movement should be able to see these kinds of industries as what they are, which is complete capitalist excess, and try to help people out of them. then, we can build an army with the people we emancipate.
but, i have a lot of art to do make, first.
and, i suspect i'll spend sunday morning quietly enjoying a coffee, if i show up there at all.
yeah, so i'm really not going to get into the specific examples about specific unions fighting for specific things; it's all very reactionary, politically, and none of the case studies provide for much of anything useful when it comes to building a real, revolutionary movement outside of the constraints of the workforce. it's just all about workers fighting for benefits within the context of existing capitalism. if anything, her interest appears to be in trying to take ideas from revolutionary politics and apply them to labour organizing, which is pretty much the definition of being a reactionary.
she basically just sets up this false dichotomy between mobilizing and organizing, then runs through a series of what are really rather frivolous discussions about it. it consequently has this kind of academic aesthetic to it, but it's too silly on it's face to be serious scholarship. i could spend a lot of time trying to disentangle the nonsense and word salads and working out and correcting the underlying logic, but it would essentially be a waste of time; at the end of the day, nobody is really going to disagree with observations such as that a successful revolutionary movement has to be run by workers itself (that is, in fact, a tautological statement.), or that the social revolution has to come first or much of anything else that she has to say. but, a lot of her analysis is ridiculous, in the sense that she assigns causes to personalities rather than systemic pressures. in one baffling section, she talks about how smashing the communists in the ctu was a great accomplishment, then fails to tie doing so to the loss of militancy in the union.
her discussion of power in the introduction was not meaningfully extrapolated upon, so my hypothesis was not borne out. there is not any kind of interesting theory of power explored within the text, at all.
rather, the text is a reformist analysis by what appears to be a textbook progressive/conservative. there's no meaningful socialist analysis in the text at all. there's almost no discussion of class. and, i think i'm mostly interested in observing how these people that organize under the socialist label can explain away wasting their time with such an obviously anti-revolutionary text.
but, i've been through this before, and i've learned my lesson: just because the group calls itself socialist doesn't mean that it actually is. but, i can wait and talk to people and judge them as individuals, like they should be judged.
it seems obvious that they picked this text to try and expand their movement. i can imagine that i'm going to walk into a group of people that have been organizing together for a long time and can't figure out how to attract new recruits to the cause, so they picked this up thinking it might help. are they doing too much mobilizing and not enough organizing? well, drop the attempt to redefine the terms for a second and just read that in english and tell me if you think it's coherent or not. in the end, a group like this needs to ask the question: why aren't any actual union members showing up at their meetings? why is it just a bunch of students and unemployed people? where are the rank and file?
and, the answer is as obvious as is possible: the decline of the revolutionary left is a function of the success of the union movement. somebody making $60,000+/yr with good benefits doesn't need to be helped out of their oppression by a benevolent arts student.
these groups need to focus on what is in front of them. america has a major housing problem, and i see it every time i go over there. social benefits are far too low. people don't have access to health care or education, and they're stuck working dead-end jobs that don't pay the rent. these are your foot soldiers for the revolution - not the union rank and file, who are too busy watching tv to organize or mobilize or, really, do anything else at all.
i might not even make it there. we're looking at a long weekend.
she basically just sets up this false dichotomy between mobilizing and organizing, then runs through a series of what are really rather frivolous discussions about it. it consequently has this kind of academic aesthetic to it, but it's too silly on it's face to be serious scholarship. i could spend a lot of time trying to disentangle the nonsense and word salads and working out and correcting the underlying logic, but it would essentially be a waste of time; at the end of the day, nobody is really going to disagree with observations such as that a successful revolutionary movement has to be run by workers itself (that is, in fact, a tautological statement.), or that the social revolution has to come first or much of anything else that she has to say. but, a lot of her analysis is ridiculous, in the sense that she assigns causes to personalities rather than systemic pressures. in one baffling section, she talks about how smashing the communists in the ctu was a great accomplishment, then fails to tie doing so to the loss of militancy in the union.
her discussion of power in the introduction was not meaningfully extrapolated upon, so my hypothesis was not borne out. there is not any kind of interesting theory of power explored within the text, at all.
rather, the text is a reformist analysis by what appears to be a textbook progressive/conservative. there's no meaningful socialist analysis in the text at all. there's almost no discussion of class. and, i think i'm mostly interested in observing how these people that organize under the socialist label can explain away wasting their time with such an obviously anti-revolutionary text.
but, i've been through this before, and i've learned my lesson: just because the group calls itself socialist doesn't mean that it actually is. but, i can wait and talk to people and judge them as individuals, like they should be judged.
it seems obvious that they picked this text to try and expand their movement. i can imagine that i'm going to walk into a group of people that have been organizing together for a long time and can't figure out how to attract new recruits to the cause, so they picked this up thinking it might help. are they doing too much mobilizing and not enough organizing? well, drop the attempt to redefine the terms for a second and just read that in english and tell me if you think it's coherent or not. in the end, a group like this needs to ask the question: why aren't any actual union members showing up at their meetings? why is it just a bunch of students and unemployed people? where are the rank and file?
and, the answer is as obvious as is possible: the decline of the revolutionary left is a function of the success of the union movement. somebody making $60,000+/yr with good benefits doesn't need to be helped out of their oppression by a benevolent arts student.
these groups need to focus on what is in front of them. america has a major housing problem, and i see it every time i go over there. social benefits are far too low. people don't have access to health care or education, and they're stuck working dead-end jobs that don't pay the rent. these are your foot soldiers for the revolution - not the union rank and file, who are too busy watching tv to organize or mobilize or, really, do anything else at all.
i might not even make it there. we're looking at a long weekend.
she seems keen on going after this "saul alinsky" character, instead of foucault. but, as far as i can tell, she's tearing down a strawman.
....because in all of my years of organizing and agitating out here on the radical left, i've actually never heard anybody talk about saul alinsky. we talk about foucault, we talk about chomsky, we talk about davis, we talk about the black panthers, etc, but alinsky is just not an influence, anywhere, at all. i've never read anything he's written, and i've never seen him cited by anybody except the news papers trying to smear obama with him.
maybe it's a problem of distance, a problem of degrees to the left; maybe saul alinsky is the opponent to the right of my opponents on the right and so i'm firewalled from him in a realistic sense, but, whatever it is, this is a discussion that isn't real to me.
i'm also beginning to realize that the text is being written almost solely from a reformist perspective, and that "progressive reformist" would not be considered an insult by the author, but rather an acceptable identity. see, i guess we'll have to see what the democratic socialists of america think about this, but maybe i'm operating on a misunderstanding: i would assume that people walking into a dsa meeting would consider themselves a good distance to the left of anybody calling themselves a progressive, and that they would consequently consider somebody identifying as a "progressive reformist" to be more of an opponent than an, at best, temporary ally. i could be wrong on that point. i guess we'll see the reaction.
....because in all of my years of organizing and agitating out here on the radical left, i've actually never heard anybody talk about saul alinsky. we talk about foucault, we talk about chomsky, we talk about davis, we talk about the black panthers, etc, but alinsky is just not an influence, anywhere, at all. i've never read anything he's written, and i've never seen him cited by anybody except the news papers trying to smear obama with him.
maybe it's a problem of distance, a problem of degrees to the left; maybe saul alinsky is the opponent to the right of my opponents on the right and so i'm firewalled from him in a realistic sense, but, whatever it is, this is a discussion that isn't real to me.
i'm also beginning to realize that the text is being written almost solely from a reformist perspective, and that "progressive reformist" would not be considered an insult by the author, but rather an acceptable identity. see, i guess we'll have to see what the democratic socialists of america think about this, but maybe i'm operating on a misunderstanding: i would assume that people walking into a dsa meeting would consider themselves a good distance to the left of anybody calling themselves a progressive, and that they would consequently consider somebody identifying as a "progressive reformist" to be more of an opponent than an, at best, temporary ally. i could be wrong on that point. i guess we'll see the reaction.
"When the structure is the workplace, the official leader of that structure, the company’s chief executive, declares war on the employees at the first hint of a unionization effort"
no.
the class war always exists. management declares war on labour the moment that they're hired, and organization is required to protect them from these perpetual attacks by management.
the management class exists and survives solely by stealing labour from it's employees, in the terms of underpaying them. that is the definition of capitalism. it will always seek, by any means that are allowed to it, to increase the quantity of this theft, and to further enforce as much inequality as is possible. it is not reacting to employees, it is constantly acting aggressively against them, and there is nothing that employees can do to stop this aggression besides organizing into unions so that they can defend themselves.
a minor point in context? no. it lets out a capitalist bias, and a naivete about power.
you can imagine the meme, right?
no.
the class war always exists. management declares war on labour the moment that they're hired, and organization is required to protect them from these perpetual attacks by management.
the management class exists and survives solely by stealing labour from it's employees, in the terms of underpaying them. that is the definition of capitalism. it will always seek, by any means that are allowed to it, to increase the quantity of this theft, and to further enforce as much inequality as is possible. it is not reacting to employees, it is constantly acting aggressively against them, and there is nothing that employees can do to stop this aggression besides organizing into unions so that they can defend themselves.
a minor point in context? no. it lets out a capitalist bias, and a naivete about power.
you can imagine the meme, right?
writes book about how activists don't understand power.
doesn't understand power.
i want to wheel myself back, though, and point out that there's a difference between trying to mobilize in the context of bourgeois politics (where you have to pay attention to things like demographic majorities in geographic riding boundaries) and trying to mobilize in the context of revolutionary politics (where these borders don't meaningfully exist). and, that is itself a difference between how a union operates and how a social movement works.
so, the march to birmingham, for example, attracted people from everywhere - it didn't matter where you were from, it mattered only that you were there. then, when everybody went home, they elected some more racists in these districts. so, where the movement was able to make a difference at a higher level of government, it utterly failed to enact meaningful change at a local level.
so, you have to ask yourself what you're doing, too. if you're trying to take control of the house of representatives, you're going to need union support, and you're going to need to adjust to their privilege, kind of whether you like it or not. but, if you're trying to act independently of the existing system and enact actual revolutionary change outside of it, you have to come face to face with the realities of how class exists inside of labour politics in the twenty-first century.
so, the march to birmingham, for example, attracted people from everywhere - it didn't matter where you were from, it mattered only that you were there. then, when everybody went home, they elected some more racists in these districts. so, where the movement was able to make a difference at a higher level of government, it utterly failed to enact meaningful change at a local level.
so, you have to ask yourself what you're doing, too. if you're trying to take control of the house of representatives, you're going to need union support, and you're going to need to adjust to their privilege, kind of whether you like it or not. but, if you're trying to act independently of the existing system and enact actual revolutionary change outside of it, you have to come face to face with the realities of how class exists inside of labour politics in the twenty-first century.
the next thing she does is try to define mobilizing differently from organizing, as though we can snap our fingers and an organized movement will appear.
i take the point that she's making: often times left-wing agitators end up as this group of people that are essentially walled off from society. the movement really only exists in their own minds. i know this well because i've been there. the occupy kids were the same thing as the iww kids were the same thing as the idle no more kids were the same thing as the student strike kids, with minimal differences. these weren't different groups, but rather a way for a single group to organize it's own thoughts. but, it's not like we didn't know that, and it's not like that was something that we decided upon or even wanted.
what is more real is to point out that what we wanted to do was what she calls "organize", but what we had no other choice to do was what she called "mobilize", and the reason that we had no choice was that we didn't have enough support. we didn't have the people and we didn't have the resources because we didn't have the interest.
so, it doesn't make sense to argue that mobilizing is a failed strategy. when mobilizing is effective, it becomes organizing merely by expanding the number of people involved. and, that's really what the difference between mobilizing and organizing is, as she defines it - the question of how many people you can actually rally to the cause, which is the question of how effectively you're actually mobilizing.
a more productive thing to do here consequently wouldn't be to define organizing and mobilizing as different ideas, and then say that mobilizing is the wrong thing to do and organizing is the right thing to do. rather, the crux of the problem is in realizing that we're just not actually getting through to people and/or that the people we're getting through to don't have the time or ability to agitate. in order to substantively organize, we have to more effectively mobilize.
so, that is the meaningful question in front of us: how do we more effectively mobilize?
and, i know people are going to look at me blankly and state "social media", but i'm not sure that that's really the right answer. what we need to do is look at this idea of power, and ask whether mobilizing well paid union workers even actually even makes any sense or not. if the question is "how do we mobilize a worker that already owns a house due to victories won through previous generations of struggle?", maybe we're not asking the right question.
maybe we're not even mobilizing the right people, and maybe that's why our organizing isn't getting us anywhere.
i take the point that she's making: often times left-wing agitators end up as this group of people that are essentially walled off from society. the movement really only exists in their own minds. i know this well because i've been there. the occupy kids were the same thing as the iww kids were the same thing as the idle no more kids were the same thing as the student strike kids, with minimal differences. these weren't different groups, but rather a way for a single group to organize it's own thoughts. but, it's not like we didn't know that, and it's not like that was something that we decided upon or even wanted.
what is more real is to point out that what we wanted to do was what she calls "organize", but what we had no other choice to do was what she called "mobilize", and the reason that we had no choice was that we didn't have enough support. we didn't have the people and we didn't have the resources because we didn't have the interest.
so, it doesn't make sense to argue that mobilizing is a failed strategy. when mobilizing is effective, it becomes organizing merely by expanding the number of people involved. and, that's really what the difference between mobilizing and organizing is, as she defines it - the question of how many people you can actually rally to the cause, which is the question of how effectively you're actually mobilizing.
a more productive thing to do here consequently wouldn't be to define organizing and mobilizing as different ideas, and then say that mobilizing is the wrong thing to do and organizing is the right thing to do. rather, the crux of the problem is in realizing that we're just not actually getting through to people and/or that the people we're getting through to don't have the time or ability to agitate. in order to substantively organize, we have to more effectively mobilize.
so, that is the meaningful question in front of us: how do we more effectively mobilize?
and, i know people are going to look at me blankly and state "social media", but i'm not sure that that's really the right answer. what we need to do is look at this idea of power, and ask whether mobilizing well paid union workers even actually even makes any sense or not. if the question is "how do we mobilize a worker that already owns a house due to victories won through previous generations of struggle?", maybe we're not asking the right question.
maybe we're not even mobilizing the right people, and maybe that's why our organizing isn't getting us anywhere.
i do want to point out that she starts the book by talking about how liberals don't understand power, which i think is a kind of a red herring, but, more importantly, that she then neither cites foucault nor angela davis even once.
how do you write a book about activists not understanding power in 2016 and manage to not even cite foucault once? i mean, you'd think you'd at least tear him down, which is what i would do. how can you completely ignore him? he's the source for understanding power on the left.
unless i've answered my own question, right?
i should read it first, but i suspect that this is going to essentially be a regurgitation of foucault, and that's why you start your book off like that. "you've never read foucault. let me sell his ideas to you.".
that's a hypothesis, not an accusation. let's see how accurate it is.
how do you write a book about activists not understanding power in 2016 and manage to not even cite foucault once? i mean, you'd think you'd at least tear him down, which is what i would do. how can you completely ignore him? he's the source for understanding power on the left.
unless i've answered my own question, right?
i should read it first, but i suspect that this is going to essentially be a regurgitation of foucault, and that's why you start your book off like that. "you've never read foucault. let me sell his ideas to you.".
that's a hypothesis, not an accusation. let's see how accurate it is.
so, the reading at the socialist book club - which i've never been to - is Jane McAlevey's "No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age".
it's not even 200 pages, so i should be able to give it a good read this morning. and, this is actually kind of what this blog is actually for, so i'll post some comments about it as they come up....
i haven't read this or heard about it previously, but a quick google search indicates that it's not presenting any new ideas, and i'll have to see how it's summarizing old ones. to begin with, i'm reminded of the famous response to the pharoah that there is "no royal road to geometry", something that the internet currently wants to apocryphally attribute to euclid, but that i remember being attributed to heron. there's a subtle point, here, that i should explain more fully: the point that the mathematician, be it heron or euclid, was trying to get across to the greco-egyptian pharoah, ptolemy, was that his privilege and status and wealth and power was not going to help him understand better, he has to work it out like everybody else. this is a sentiment, fwiw, that was not extended to napoleon, who was granted a theorem by the academy to demonstrate his superior abilities in the field of reason. you really can't underestimate the importance that these values of equality played in greek's indigenous democratic culture, can you?
the point that the geometer, be it euclid or heron, was getting across to the pharoah should perhaps not be lost on middle or upper class organizers that i know from experience think they are intellectually and at times even morally superior to these rank and file workers. and, it's a point that is perhaps at the center of the catastrophe that is the contemporary democratic party in the united states - everybody needs to work together, and everybody needs to work hard, if we want to get something substantive done.
but, somebody with an anarchist background isn't going to find much insight in these arguments that vertical organizing practices are at the centre of the problems the labour movement has been having, or that there seems to be a discerning lack of revolutionary potential in the union rank and file. i've been making these arguments in this space for almost a decade now, even if much of it is yet to be reposted, and i'm really just taking notes on malatesta, and to a lesser extent on gramsci. a contemporary socialist thinker that will be remembered in the future and that has been making these arguments forever is richard wolff. so, is this going to be worth reading, or is it just a summary of existing points?
we'll find out, i guess.
but, i'm more interested in the discussion, obviously. i'm a little bit apprehensive in involving myself in american party politics - i cannot vote in the united states, and do not even live there - but something like the dsa should have an internationalist character to it that transcends that kind of thing. i'm happy to be the anarchist in the room, if it comes to it.
but, let's see what the book actually says.
it's not even 200 pages, so i should be able to give it a good read this morning. and, this is actually kind of what this blog is actually for, so i'll post some comments about it as they come up....
i haven't read this or heard about it previously, but a quick google search indicates that it's not presenting any new ideas, and i'll have to see how it's summarizing old ones. to begin with, i'm reminded of the famous response to the pharoah that there is "no royal road to geometry", something that the internet currently wants to apocryphally attribute to euclid, but that i remember being attributed to heron. there's a subtle point, here, that i should explain more fully: the point that the mathematician, be it heron or euclid, was trying to get across to the greco-egyptian pharoah, ptolemy, was that his privilege and status and wealth and power was not going to help him understand better, he has to work it out like everybody else. this is a sentiment, fwiw, that was not extended to napoleon, who was granted a theorem by the academy to demonstrate his superior abilities in the field of reason. you really can't underestimate the importance that these values of equality played in greek's indigenous democratic culture, can you?
the point that the geometer, be it euclid or heron, was getting across to the pharoah should perhaps not be lost on middle or upper class organizers that i know from experience think they are intellectually and at times even morally superior to these rank and file workers. and, it's a point that is perhaps at the center of the catastrophe that is the contemporary democratic party in the united states - everybody needs to work together, and everybody needs to work hard, if we want to get something substantive done.
but, somebody with an anarchist background isn't going to find much insight in these arguments that vertical organizing practices are at the centre of the problems the labour movement has been having, or that there seems to be a discerning lack of revolutionary potential in the union rank and file. i've been making these arguments in this space for almost a decade now, even if much of it is yet to be reposted, and i'm really just taking notes on malatesta, and to a lesser extent on gramsci. a contemporary socialist thinker that will be remembered in the future and that has been making these arguments forever is richard wolff. so, is this going to be worth reading, or is it just a summary of existing points?
we'll find out, i guess.
but, i'm more interested in the discussion, obviously. i'm a little bit apprehensive in involving myself in american party politics - i cannot vote in the united states, and do not even live there - but something like the dsa should have an internationalist character to it that transcends that kind of thing. i'm happy to be the anarchist in the room, if it comes to it.
but, let's see what the book actually says.
one more crazy weekend, then?
i need to check the weather, carefully.
so, i can't promise i'll show up to all of it, but these are my picks.
fri:
17:00-20:00 - trey priest @ detroit shipping company. midtown. $0 + beer costs.
19:30-22:00 - my brightest diamond + marcus elliot @ dso courtyard. midtown. $0.
22:30-02:00 - another dimension @ tangent gallery. newtown. $15 pre-sale + beer costs.
02:00-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #1 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $10?
if i stay, i'll then eat, and i'll pay around $10.
sat
10:00-12:00 - august dsa meeting @ ant hall. hamtramck. $0.
14:00-20:00 - punk rock bbq @ kelly's. hamtramck. $7 + beer costs.
20:00-01:00 - saajtak record release @ ghost light. hamtramck. $10.
01:30-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #2 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $15?
if i stay, i'll then eat again, and i'll pay around $10.
sun:
12:00-14:00 - opera 101 @ voigt park. boston-edison. $0.
15:00-17:00+ - socialist book club meeting @ 2283 holbrook. hamtramck. $0 + coffee.
19:30-00:00 - cherubs + child bite @ small's. hamtramck. $13 + beer costs.
i need to check the weather, carefully.
so, i can't promise i'll show up to all of it, but these are my picks.
fri:
17:00-20:00 - trey priest @ detroit shipping company. midtown. $0 + beer costs.
19:30-22:00 - my brightest diamond + marcus elliot @ dso courtyard. midtown. $0.
22:30-02:00 - another dimension @ tangent gallery. newtown. $15 pre-sale + beer costs.
02:00-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #1 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $10?
if i stay, i'll then eat, and i'll pay around $10.
sat
10:00-12:00 - august dsa meeting @ ant hall. hamtramck. $0.
14:00-20:00 - punk rock bbq @ kelly's. hamtramck. $7 + beer costs.
20:00-01:00 - saajtak record release @ ghost light. hamtramck. $10.
01:30-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #2 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $15?
if i stay, i'll then eat again, and i'll pay around $10.
sun:
12:00-14:00 - opera 101 @ voigt park. boston-edison. $0.
15:00-17:00+ - socialist book club meeting @ 2283 holbrook. hamtramck. $0 + coffee.
19:30-00:00 - cherubs + child bite @ small's. hamtramck. $13 + beer costs.
on second thought, i found exactly what i was looking for. and, i bet bono is jealous. i'm not this edgy in real life, though. i could keep going, but i don't want to turn your ears to clay. and, you're mullin' over why i'm doing this, too.
i'm sorry. really.
i am almost certainly not going to go out on friday afternoon and come back on sunday night. but, at this point, i have enough planned that i could.
we'll see what feels right.
and, i'll wait until next week before i do groceries.
i'm sorry. really.
i am almost certainly not going to go out on friday afternoon and come back on sunday night. but, at this point, i have enough planned that i could.
we'll see what feels right.
and, i'll wait until next week before i do groceries.
when you haven't eaten in a while, pictures of greasy food start to look particularly appetizing. mmmm.
actually, i've had some fruit salad and i've been drinking coffee (with chocolate soy) all week. so, i'm not fasting. atheists don't fast, they at most toy with bulimia. i'll hit my target on friday morning, but i actually want to avoid having a giant plate of spaghetti when i do.
i stopped this morning to clean, and in turn stopped cleaning to do a grocery list, and then stopped the grocery list to research shows this weekend, because i didn't want to buy food and then go away for the weekend. if the very hot weather here is being pushed away by the return of that low winter jet stream, the issue should resolve itself, but my fridge here is a little bit low on power and doesn't keep fruit as well as i'd like it to in the humidity. everything's in tupperware, but it's only a half answer. and, no, i'm not turning the fucking a/c on. if i'm going to be away all weekend, it will make sense to wait to get groceries....
i'm iffy on a show on saturday night, but would kind of like to get to small's for a show on sunday evening. i don't expect that i'll actually go all the way to small's just for a few hours, though. and, i can't find a saturday overnight...
i'm leaning towards a no, but we'll see how it goes.
in the mean time, i'm struggling with a stench in this apartment that i can't trace. first of all, i don't know what the smell is. i'm down to three possibilities. the first is that the guy upstairs is storing garbage in his house, and i think that's unlikely - but if he is, then i'm smelling it rotting. the second is that.....he has a black lab. black labs are going to poop, and it's not their fault. so, he has a giant pail of dogshit around somewhere or other, and that's what i'm smelling. and, the third is that i'm smelling him, through some combination of garlic-y food and poor hygiene.
if i could figure out where it's actually coming from, i could begin to react, but it's the same as it was when i was smelling him smoking - i can't figure out how it's actually getting in.
i crashed around 17:00 or so while ruling out a show at the tangent gallery on friday. you can imagine that electronic music with live guitars is fundamentally intriguing to me, but you can't fix bad dubstep with tasty guitar licks. i could maybe see myself getting into some of this "bass music" as idm if it's orchestrated properly, but you just can't dance to it, and it's not fun when it's stripped down. i had this discussion last week about dubstep: in theory, dubstep for 100-piece orchestra would be phenomenal, but the talent just doesn't exist in the genre. these brostep dudes just don't know shit. if they did....but they just don't. i might change my mind if the weather is nicer than forecast. but, for now, i'm going to finish my run through seeking sunday options to see if i can construct a saturday aft---->sunday eve fun day, and then adjust my grocery list as required.
i should be back to finalizing the sept rebuild, one way or the other, by the afternoon.
actually, i've had some fruit salad and i've been drinking coffee (with chocolate soy) all week. so, i'm not fasting. atheists don't fast, they at most toy with bulimia. i'll hit my target on friday morning, but i actually want to avoid having a giant plate of spaghetti when i do.
i stopped this morning to clean, and in turn stopped cleaning to do a grocery list, and then stopped the grocery list to research shows this weekend, because i didn't want to buy food and then go away for the weekend. if the very hot weather here is being pushed away by the return of that low winter jet stream, the issue should resolve itself, but my fridge here is a little bit low on power and doesn't keep fruit as well as i'd like it to in the humidity. everything's in tupperware, but it's only a half answer. and, no, i'm not turning the fucking a/c on. if i'm going to be away all weekend, it will make sense to wait to get groceries....
i'm iffy on a show on saturday night, but would kind of like to get to small's for a show on sunday evening. i don't expect that i'll actually go all the way to small's just for a few hours, though. and, i can't find a saturday overnight...
i'm leaning towards a no, but we'll see how it goes.
in the mean time, i'm struggling with a stench in this apartment that i can't trace. first of all, i don't know what the smell is. i'm down to three possibilities. the first is that the guy upstairs is storing garbage in his house, and i think that's unlikely - but if he is, then i'm smelling it rotting. the second is that.....he has a black lab. black labs are going to poop, and it's not their fault. so, he has a giant pail of dogshit around somewhere or other, and that's what i'm smelling. and, the third is that i'm smelling him, through some combination of garlic-y food and poor hygiene.
if i could figure out where it's actually coming from, i could begin to react, but it's the same as it was when i was smelling him smoking - i can't figure out how it's actually getting in.
i crashed around 17:00 or so while ruling out a show at the tangent gallery on friday. you can imagine that electronic music with live guitars is fundamentally intriguing to me, but you can't fix bad dubstep with tasty guitar licks. i could maybe see myself getting into some of this "bass music" as idm if it's orchestrated properly, but you just can't dance to it, and it's not fun when it's stripped down. i had this discussion last week about dubstep: in theory, dubstep for 100-piece orchestra would be phenomenal, but the talent just doesn't exist in the genre. these brostep dudes just don't know shit. if they did....but they just don't. i might change my mind if the weather is nicer than forecast. but, for now, i'm going to finish my run through seeking sunday options to see if i can construct a saturday aft---->sunday eve fun day, and then adjust my grocery list as required.
i should be back to finalizing the sept rebuild, one way or the other, by the afternoon.
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
i've actually been kind of clear on this point, over and over again. but, the internet operates on memes, and people get judged by how they look.
that's why i withdrew to this space - i was becoming representative of something i wasn't, because people picked up on a fantasy that wasn't rooted in reality.
i identify as a punk, but it's a philosophical thing, and what i'm referencing are bands like dead kennedys, black flag and bad religion, and to a lesser extent bands like the clash, the sex pistols and the more fringe-y stuff like crass. i understand the thing about the ramones touring england, and i know the ramones got their sound from detroit, but, to me, punk started in the uk and became fully formed in california before branching back out to places like seattle and new york. so, when i talk about punk rock, i mostly understand it as a west coast phenomenon. i would use the term hardcore, but i think converge and the nyhc scene are fucking terrible, and i'd just be misleading people about it (although, i love sonic youth). so, when i say 'punk', what i mean is an attitude that exalts individualism and reason over the collective herd mind and is massively skeptical of authority and power; what i don't mean is this kind of bad attitude that you associate with the kids that like to skip school, eat pizza and get drunk on weekdays. i know the terms are not as clear as they were in my day, but that latter kind of nihilism is what i would associate with the term metal. it's fallen away from that, to the point that the term has been co-opted, but punk was in many ways initially a very real reaction to the nihilism and excess of glam and hair metal, despite it currently being largely subsumed by that excess and nihilism. so, you won't see me at these kinds of drinking parties, because the way i understand the term punk is as more or less the anti-thesis of that. and, i'm not going to get along with people with bad attitudes, like that. i'd actually rather go to a dance club, because i'll get along with the people there, and their positive hippie vibes, way better than i'm going to get along with a bunch of depressed, angry, hateful nihilists.
and, i'll state this yet again: i am too young to be truly gen x, and too old to be truly gen y. i would prefer to identify as gen x, but i don't have the life experiences. and, i've spent my whole life trying to avoid millennial attitudes and millennial people.
if i was a little older, i would have moved on the one hand from punk to grunge and on the other hand from industrial to rave music. and, while i insist i would not have gone to woodstock, i probably would have gone to lollapalooza (back when it was actually run by janes addiction); it's really alternative rock as an extension of punk rock that i can meaningfully identify with, rather than punk itself. but, i'm still too young for that, as i'm too young to remember the free parties in the uk.
my first concert was the smashing pumpkins in a hockey arena in 1996, when i was 15. but, my first real concert was gybe and labradford at the babylon in ottawa on the slow riot.. tour in 1999, when i was 18, and that is my actual scene. this was an eclectic scene that went by various terms such as post-rock, math rock, psychedelic rock and, at times, was even just referred to as prog. but, it came out of the punk scene in terms of ideology, even as it reached elsewhere for musical ideas.
post-rock, as a genre, was in truth heavily influenced by the first wave of emo bands in the 80s and 90s. and, i had records by bands like sunny day real estate in the 90s, too. but, by the time "emo" hit it big as a co-opted corporate rock term for a bunch of bands that looked like poison and sounded like silverchair, i was way too old to have any interest in it. one simply doesn't get into "emo" in their early to mid 20s, which is how old i was when it came out. i thought it was a childish and stupid trend, a complete destruction of punk rock, and i've been vocal about the point for fucking ever.
and, since then, it's been a constant struggle to sort through mountains of crap to try to find a decent rock band here and there - one i've actually often abandoned.
so, that's what it's like to exist in the cusp, and i guess that all i can do is repeat myself: i was too young for grunge and too old for emo, but just right for post-rock, which is a different kind of animal in it's abstraction. and, what that means is that when i do go looking for a rock band, the sound i'm looking for is older rather than younger, because that's where i'm actually coming from.
that's why i withdrew to this space - i was becoming representative of something i wasn't, because people picked up on a fantasy that wasn't rooted in reality.
i identify as a punk, but it's a philosophical thing, and what i'm referencing are bands like dead kennedys, black flag and bad religion, and to a lesser extent bands like the clash, the sex pistols and the more fringe-y stuff like crass. i understand the thing about the ramones touring england, and i know the ramones got their sound from detroit, but, to me, punk started in the uk and became fully formed in california before branching back out to places like seattle and new york. so, when i talk about punk rock, i mostly understand it as a west coast phenomenon. i would use the term hardcore, but i think converge and the nyhc scene are fucking terrible, and i'd just be misleading people about it (although, i love sonic youth). so, when i say 'punk', what i mean is an attitude that exalts individualism and reason over the collective herd mind and is massively skeptical of authority and power; what i don't mean is this kind of bad attitude that you associate with the kids that like to skip school, eat pizza and get drunk on weekdays. i know the terms are not as clear as they were in my day, but that latter kind of nihilism is what i would associate with the term metal. it's fallen away from that, to the point that the term has been co-opted, but punk was in many ways initially a very real reaction to the nihilism and excess of glam and hair metal, despite it currently being largely subsumed by that excess and nihilism. so, you won't see me at these kinds of drinking parties, because the way i understand the term punk is as more or less the anti-thesis of that. and, i'm not going to get along with people with bad attitudes, like that. i'd actually rather go to a dance club, because i'll get along with the people there, and their positive hippie vibes, way better than i'm going to get along with a bunch of depressed, angry, hateful nihilists.
and, i'll state this yet again: i am too young to be truly gen x, and too old to be truly gen y. i would prefer to identify as gen x, but i don't have the life experiences. and, i've spent my whole life trying to avoid millennial attitudes and millennial people.
if i was a little older, i would have moved on the one hand from punk to grunge and on the other hand from industrial to rave music. and, while i insist i would not have gone to woodstock, i probably would have gone to lollapalooza (back when it was actually run by janes addiction); it's really alternative rock as an extension of punk rock that i can meaningfully identify with, rather than punk itself. but, i'm still too young for that, as i'm too young to remember the free parties in the uk.
my first concert was the smashing pumpkins in a hockey arena in 1996, when i was 15. but, my first real concert was gybe and labradford at the babylon in ottawa on the slow riot.. tour in 1999, when i was 18, and that is my actual scene. this was an eclectic scene that went by various terms such as post-rock, math rock, psychedelic rock and, at times, was even just referred to as prog. but, it came out of the punk scene in terms of ideology, even as it reached elsewhere for musical ideas.
post-rock, as a genre, was in truth heavily influenced by the first wave of emo bands in the 80s and 90s. and, i had records by bands like sunny day real estate in the 90s, too. but, by the time "emo" hit it big as a co-opted corporate rock term for a bunch of bands that looked like poison and sounded like silverchair, i was way too old to have any interest in it. one simply doesn't get into "emo" in their early to mid 20s, which is how old i was when it came out. i thought it was a childish and stupid trend, a complete destruction of punk rock, and i've been vocal about the point for fucking ever.
and, since then, it's been a constant struggle to sort through mountains of crap to try to find a decent rock band here and there - one i've actually often abandoned.
so, that's what it's like to exist in the cusp, and i guess that all i can do is repeat myself: i was too young for grunge and too old for emo, but just right for post-rock, which is a different kind of animal in it's abstraction. and, what that means is that when i do go looking for a rock band, the sound i'm looking for is older rather than younger, because that's where i'm actually coming from.
it's just important to recognize that the threat to queer communities does not explicitly come from "christians" or "republicans" or "conservatives" or "the right", but that these are rather different ways to articulate the real threat, which is patriarchy.
and, we don't protect ourselves from patriarchy by aligning ourselves with groups that continue to uphold it.
and, we don't protect ourselves from patriarchy by aligning ourselves with groups that continue to uphold it.
i don't pretend that i'm on trump's side when it comes to many things, and i fully grasp that he'd be happy to toss me off a cliff to get a sandwich. i mean nothing to him.
but, i'm not going to make false allies with muslims and gamers, groups that i do not like any more than i like christian fundamentalists or nihilist republicans, and that i recognize would offer me no more solidarity than trump would. the muslims would kill me on the spot, and the bros would mostly like to beat the shit out of me. these are not allies, not even temporary ones - they are opponents, and not even hidden ones.
rather, i have to look at the situation relatively and try and figure out where my best interests are, and they're really not in this growing conservative movement that passes itself off as a "progressive" movement. this is a coalition of people with deeply socially conservative attitudes that poses a serious threat to a liberal order. you have to understand that america does not have a left, it has a choice between the nihilists in the republican party and the conservatives in the democratic party, which is why the "right" often seems more open to free expression. if i have to, i will align with nihilists before i align with conservatives, all the while realizing that it's a terrible choice.
where the muslims and bros want me dead (literally or figuratively), trump just wants to turn me into an election foil. it's a shitty choice, but it's a big difference.
obviously, i want to support a genuine leftist movement. but, as this window closes in front of me, i'll need to make the choice i need to make to survive.
but, i'm not going to make false allies with muslims and gamers, groups that i do not like any more than i like christian fundamentalists or nihilist republicans, and that i recognize would offer me no more solidarity than trump would. the muslims would kill me on the spot, and the bros would mostly like to beat the shit out of me. these are not allies, not even temporary ones - they are opponents, and not even hidden ones.
rather, i have to look at the situation relatively and try and figure out where my best interests are, and they're really not in this growing conservative movement that passes itself off as a "progressive" movement. this is a coalition of people with deeply socially conservative attitudes that poses a serious threat to a liberal order. you have to understand that america does not have a left, it has a choice between the nihilists in the republican party and the conservatives in the democratic party, which is why the "right" often seems more open to free expression. if i have to, i will align with nihilists before i align with conservatives, all the while realizing that it's a terrible choice.
where the muslims and bros want me dead (literally or figuratively), trump just wants to turn me into an election foil. it's a shitty choice, but it's a big difference.
obviously, i want to support a genuine leftist movement. but, as this window closes in front of me, i'll need to make the choice i need to make to survive.
it's not that dissimilar to how i view marriage.
i suppose that if we're going to have marriage as a state institution, then it should be open to anybody who applies. it's only fair, really.
but, i'd actually argue for the abolition of marriage altogether. so, marriage equality just strikes me as a way to break up the radical edge on the queer movement.
i suppose that if we're going to have marriage as a state institution, then it should be open to anybody who applies. it's only fair, really.
but, i'd actually argue for the abolition of marriage altogether. so, marriage equality just strikes me as a way to break up the radical edge on the queer movement.
i'm going to state this as simply and succinctly as possible.
i actually think that queer people should be carrying out a permanent, unconditional boycott of anything to do with the military-industrial complex. that is, i would argue for a total, voluntary withdrawal of all queer people from the army. and, i do believe that that there is something inconsistent about holding to a queer identity, and joining the army.
i would consequently have little concern about somebody telling me i can't join the military. yes, please?
that is all.
i actually think that queer people should be carrying out a permanent, unconditional boycott of anything to do with the military-industrial complex. that is, i would argue for a total, voluntary withdrawal of all queer people from the army. and, i do believe that that there is something inconsistent about holding to a queer identity, and joining the army.
i would consequently have little concern about somebody telling me i can't join the military. yes, please?
that is all.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
i don't have kids, so i understand that i'm missing context.
would i take the games away from my own kids? what i want to say is that i'd raise kids that wouldn't want to play them. i mean, i never wanted to play; i was often around them, but i never had any real interest in them. i know it's not that easy...
i guess what i can honestly state is that i can be fairly confident that i wouldn't buy them games, no matter how much they'd ask. i just wouldn't do that to them, i'd consider it negligent. and, they could cry and yell and scream, and i wouldn't give a fuck - i have good headphones. this point i'm confident on: i would not give the games to them, so i would not have to confiscate them. and, to the extent that i could screen gifts from relatives, i'd screen any kind of video games out.
beyond that, i'd have to recognize and acknowledge a deficit of control. i think i'd have the right to decide what i give to the kid as a gift as that is my own will, and the right to opt to give them other things, but i wouldn't have the right to interfere at too great a level beyond that. and, if i were to end up with a kid that wants to live in some other person's house and rot their brains out with game systems all day, i'd have to accept it and let the kid go.
but, i would hope that the issue just wouldn't arise, that i'd raise a kid that is inquisitive and thoughtful enough to think that video games are boring......because they are boring, and the fact is that the smart kids will get that on their own without being forced away from them.
would i take the games away from my own kids? what i want to say is that i'd raise kids that wouldn't want to play them. i mean, i never wanted to play; i was often around them, but i never had any real interest in them. i know it's not that easy...
i guess what i can honestly state is that i can be fairly confident that i wouldn't buy them games, no matter how much they'd ask. i just wouldn't do that to them, i'd consider it negligent. and, they could cry and yell and scream, and i wouldn't give a fuck - i have good headphones. this point i'm confident on: i would not give the games to them, so i would not have to confiscate them. and, to the extent that i could screen gifts from relatives, i'd screen any kind of video games out.
beyond that, i'd have to recognize and acknowledge a deficit of control. i think i'd have the right to decide what i give to the kid as a gift as that is my own will, and the right to opt to give them other things, but i wouldn't have the right to interfere at too great a level beyond that. and, if i were to end up with a kid that wants to live in some other person's house and rot their brains out with game systems all day, i'd have to accept it and let the kid go.
but, i would hope that the issue just wouldn't arise, that i'd raise a kid that is inquisitive and thoughtful enough to think that video games are boring......because they are boring, and the fact is that the smart kids will get that on their own without being forced away from them.
would i support a ban on video games?
i would consider it to be about as effective as banning guns, namely not very. but, it may have a more net positive cultural effect. the gaming industry is really, truly a scourge on society and, whether it's responsible for mass shootings or not, it's not having a very positive effect on young men. i'd be happy to see the whole thing evaporate.
as mentioned over and over again, i don't believe in banning things. but, if a movement were to arise to ban gaming, i wouldn't be likely to stand in solidarity with the people opposed to it, either. i'd be more likely to stand back and let it happen, sort of thing.
nor would i consider a proposed ban on video games to be something that i'd vote against, if i otherwise liked a candidate's positions on other issues.
to be clear: i don't think that the gaming industry is the cause of anything, but i think it's popularity is a symptom of a fundamentally sick culture and a fundamentally broken society. i want to get at root causes.
but, i actually wouldn't want to interfere with an anti-gaming movement, at all. good riddance, if it comes to it...
i would consider it to be about as effective as banning guns, namely not very. but, it may have a more net positive cultural effect. the gaming industry is really, truly a scourge on society and, whether it's responsible for mass shootings or not, it's not having a very positive effect on young men. i'd be happy to see the whole thing evaporate.
as mentioned over and over again, i don't believe in banning things. but, if a movement were to arise to ban gaming, i wouldn't be likely to stand in solidarity with the people opposed to it, either. i'd be more likely to stand back and let it happen, sort of thing.
nor would i consider a proposed ban on video games to be something that i'd vote against, if i otherwise liked a candidate's positions on other issues.
to be clear: i don't think that the gaming industry is the cause of anything, but i think it's popularity is a symptom of a fundamentally sick culture and a fundamentally broken society. i want to get at root causes.
but, i actually wouldn't want to interfere with an anti-gaming movement, at all. good riddance, if it comes to it...
what was osx86?
when i first bought the new recording pc back in early 2007, i wanted to cover all of my bases, so i initially intended a four-way boot process: xp-32, vista-64, debian and osx86. i built the machine with this goal in mind, explicitly.
it didn't take long for me to scratch vista off the list. i didn't have drivers for my older hardware, and it just didn't seem worth the effort. xp was faster and more stable and i could nlite it, whereas i was stuck with a buggy vista that i knew wasn't tested right (because i worked vista tech support, at the time). but, i hung on to debian for a while, until i needed the extra hard drive space.
osx86 was the last to get dropped on a machine that still runs an nlited xp-32 and, at this point, probably always will. the logic was that i might run across some music software that was mac only, and i would consequently need some way to get to at least a unix-like environment to run it.
but, it never actually happened, and, by mid-2013, i'd decided that it was never going to happen. so, i wiped the drive to get some extra space.
running the apple os on a pc isn't so strange anymore, since they started shipping on x86 architecture. the problem nowadays is not the processor, but a proprietary bios chip that you need to get around. but, at the time, there was a small community dedicated to figuring this out, and i was able to get relatively far on what i had.
you can read about that here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackintosh
when i first bought the new recording pc back in early 2007, i wanted to cover all of my bases, so i initially intended a four-way boot process: xp-32, vista-64, debian and osx86. i built the machine with this goal in mind, explicitly.
it didn't take long for me to scratch vista off the list. i didn't have drivers for my older hardware, and it just didn't seem worth the effort. xp was faster and more stable and i could nlite it, whereas i was stuck with a buggy vista that i knew wasn't tested right (because i worked vista tech support, at the time). but, i hung on to debian for a while, until i needed the extra hard drive space.
osx86 was the last to get dropped on a machine that still runs an nlited xp-32 and, at this point, probably always will. the logic was that i might run across some music software that was mac only, and i would consequently need some way to get to at least a unix-like environment to run it.
but, it never actually happened, and, by mid-2013, i'd decided that it was never going to happen. so, i wiped the drive to get some extra space.
running the apple os on a pc isn't so strange anymore, since they started shipping on x86 architecture. the problem nowadays is not the processor, but a proprietary bios chip that you need to get around. but, at the time, there was a small community dedicated to figuring this out, and i was able to get relatively far on what i had.
you can read about that here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackintosh
or, if you want economic language, which you might falsely think is more rigorous (economics is not a science. sorry.), the way to describe what i just said in economese is to point out that the health care industry is a classic example of what is called a market failure.
first, let's make sure we understand what a market failure is:
https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/MarketFailures.html
and, here's your google search:
https://www.google.ca/search?newwindow=1&ei=qx1JXfiFKYnu_QbO-YH4CA&q=health+care+market+failure
so, that's why you can't do that.
first, let's make sure we understand what a market failure is:
https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/HighSchool/MarketFailures.html
and, here's your google search:
https://www.google.ca/search?newwindow=1&ei=qx1JXfiFKYnu_QbO-YH4CA&q=health+care+market+failure
so, that's why you can't do that.
so, what's with this idea that you can just put single payer healthcare and private insurance on the table and have them compete with each other? isn't that reasonable? won't the best option work out?
this is an idea being pushed by buttigieg mostly, by i think also by o'rourke.
in canada, as well as other countries like the uk, we call this a two-tier health care system. and, we call it that for a reason - because we know the private insurance packages will provide better choice. see, and i think this is the cultural difference that probably explains why americans don't have a public system in the first place....
if you tell canadians or brits or most other europeans that a two-tier system will offer greater health care in the private sector, we'll react by saying that's unfair. so, we will reject the two-tier system because it offers an inequality of outcome, and we believe to our core that this is something we should all have equal access to. i haven't seen a study, but i'm not convinced americans will have the same reaction. rather, i might expect americans will prefer the option that gives them greater access over their fellow citizens, because they care more about maximizing their own self-interest. fuck your neighbour, right? that's the american way.
i consequently realize that i need to be a little bit careful about the language that i'm using, if i'm addressing a mostly american audience.
we have a case study, namely quebec. quebec was a french colony that was conquered by the british in the french & indian war, aka the seven years war, a mere couple of years before the american revolution. in a sense, it's kind of like texas or california - an area that was initially settled by a more latin culture, in our case french and your case spanish, before it was absorbed by the anglo-american empire. i don't know what kind of lingering influence that latin civil law has had in the southwest (or southeast, including florida....or, i guess just south including louisiana), although i can say i've never heard of a case in texas or florida or california being adjudicated over civil law, but the british largely let the french keep their language and laws upon the conquest. it's tricky, and i don't want to present myself as an expert in the topic. i'm a loud, forceful advocate of the common law system as fundamental to the existence of the freedoms that we enjoy in the west; i don't think we'd have this thing called western civilization if it was left solely to the civil law. but, the point i'm getting at is that quebec has a parallel system of law to the rest of the country, so sometimes things are determined a little bit differently there.
and, a few years ago, the highest court of jurisdiction in quebec, specifically, actually declared the single payer healthcare system (which is, by definition, a monopoly on health insurance) "unconstitutional" under the quebec bill of rights. so, it's unconstitutional in quebec, but not in all of canada. and, the reason they did that was that the complainant successfully argued that it prevented people from accessing health care through parallel channels, when forced to wait in line for care through the official channels. what the court actually did (and this is based on the precedent in our abortion jurisprudence, r. v. morgantaler) was give the state a choice: increase funding to cut wait times, or give people the choice to buy their way around it. see, the reason it was deemed a human rights violation is that the monopoly on insurance, in conjunction with the wait times, amounted to a denial of service (which was the same argument they used to strike down the abortion laws). so, they'd either need to cut the wait times down or give the patient an ability to buy around it, to alleviate the human rights violation. many, many observers believe the intention of the court was to increase funding (and while judges are powerful in canada, they don't have power over the purse, that's up to parliament), and that the parliament took it as an attack on their own powers, and suspended the law out of spite.
so, in quebec, and in quebec only, you have a two-tier system. and, that means we have data. and, you know i like data.
it's pretty brutal, actually. average wait times in quebec, which are what the ruling was supposed to address, are now, by far, the highest in canada. there are doctor shortages. it's a catastrophe. and, that is all happening while the private industry is posting shorter wait times and more comprehensive care.
again: would an american see that as a problem? that's not clear to me. but, canadians recognize that the two-tier system separates care by ability to pay. it essentially allows people to buy their way into the front of the line. so, you have one system for the rich which is very fast and exclusive because it siphons resources out of the public system, and another system for everybody else that is underfunded and slow as fuck.
so, can you set private and public insurance against each other and expect them to compete on a market and determine which is better? it sounds like something nixon would say to khruschev, and it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what competition is, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of how the health care industry works.
it sounds reasonable at first, i get that. but, please do your research on outcomes of a two-tier system, including comparing quebec to the other provinces in canada. and, ask yourself that question: do you want a system with equality of outcome, like the rest of the developed world? or do you want a system that you can buy yourself a special place in, if you can afford to do it?
this is an idea being pushed by buttigieg mostly, by i think also by o'rourke.
in canada, as well as other countries like the uk, we call this a two-tier health care system. and, we call it that for a reason - because we know the private insurance packages will provide better choice. see, and i think this is the cultural difference that probably explains why americans don't have a public system in the first place....
if you tell canadians or brits or most other europeans that a two-tier system will offer greater health care in the private sector, we'll react by saying that's unfair. so, we will reject the two-tier system because it offers an inequality of outcome, and we believe to our core that this is something we should all have equal access to. i haven't seen a study, but i'm not convinced americans will have the same reaction. rather, i might expect americans will prefer the option that gives them greater access over their fellow citizens, because they care more about maximizing their own self-interest. fuck your neighbour, right? that's the american way.
i consequently realize that i need to be a little bit careful about the language that i'm using, if i'm addressing a mostly american audience.
we have a case study, namely quebec. quebec was a french colony that was conquered by the british in the french & indian war, aka the seven years war, a mere couple of years before the american revolution. in a sense, it's kind of like texas or california - an area that was initially settled by a more latin culture, in our case french and your case spanish, before it was absorbed by the anglo-american empire. i don't know what kind of lingering influence that latin civil law has had in the southwest (or southeast, including florida....or, i guess just south including louisiana), although i can say i've never heard of a case in texas or florida or california being adjudicated over civil law, but the british largely let the french keep their language and laws upon the conquest. it's tricky, and i don't want to present myself as an expert in the topic. i'm a loud, forceful advocate of the common law system as fundamental to the existence of the freedoms that we enjoy in the west; i don't think we'd have this thing called western civilization if it was left solely to the civil law. but, the point i'm getting at is that quebec has a parallel system of law to the rest of the country, so sometimes things are determined a little bit differently there.
and, a few years ago, the highest court of jurisdiction in quebec, specifically, actually declared the single payer healthcare system (which is, by definition, a monopoly on health insurance) "unconstitutional" under the quebec bill of rights. so, it's unconstitutional in quebec, but not in all of canada. and, the reason they did that was that the complainant successfully argued that it prevented people from accessing health care through parallel channels, when forced to wait in line for care through the official channels. what the court actually did (and this is based on the precedent in our abortion jurisprudence, r. v. morgantaler) was give the state a choice: increase funding to cut wait times, or give people the choice to buy their way around it. see, the reason it was deemed a human rights violation is that the monopoly on insurance, in conjunction with the wait times, amounted to a denial of service (which was the same argument they used to strike down the abortion laws). so, they'd either need to cut the wait times down or give the patient an ability to buy around it, to alleviate the human rights violation. many, many observers believe the intention of the court was to increase funding (and while judges are powerful in canada, they don't have power over the purse, that's up to parliament), and that the parliament took it as an attack on their own powers, and suspended the law out of spite.
so, in quebec, and in quebec only, you have a two-tier system. and, that means we have data. and, you know i like data.
it's pretty brutal, actually. average wait times in quebec, which are what the ruling was supposed to address, are now, by far, the highest in canada. there are doctor shortages. it's a catastrophe. and, that is all happening while the private industry is posting shorter wait times and more comprehensive care.
again: would an american see that as a problem? that's not clear to me. but, canadians recognize that the two-tier system separates care by ability to pay. it essentially allows people to buy their way into the front of the line. so, you have one system for the rich which is very fast and exclusive because it siphons resources out of the public system, and another system for everybody else that is underfunded and slow as fuck.
so, can you set private and public insurance against each other and expect them to compete on a market and determine which is better? it sounds like something nixon would say to khruschev, and it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what competition is, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of how the health care industry works.
it sounds reasonable at first, i get that. but, please do your research on outcomes of a two-tier system, including comparing quebec to the other provinces in canada. and, ask yourself that question: do you want a system with equality of outcome, like the rest of the developed world? or do you want a system that you can buy yourself a special place in, if you can afford to do it?
when john mccain or donald trump or al gore or hillary clinton or whatever other politician or talking head goes on tv and threatens to bomb iran or iraq or whatever other country is disobeying american dictates this week in order to fuel endless expansionism, imperialism and genocide, that is a real, concrete expression of the roots of gun violence in your country.
we know the romans were barbaric. but, we don't ask why, because we know why - the romans could not have been the romans, any other way. they were a violent, warlike people that experienced aggression as a fundamental extension of who they were, as a civilization. so it is with america.
but, the country is completely blind to these truths. so it goes.
we know the romans were barbaric. but, we don't ask why, because we know why - the romans could not have been the romans, any other way. they were a violent, warlike people that experienced aggression as a fundamental extension of who they were, as a civilization. so it is with america.
but, the country is completely blind to these truths. so it goes.
coercing people to choose between "the people" or "the nra" is disingenuous and stupid. we are not with you or against you; public policy is not a binary choice. i will not be manipulated like that, and i'll tell anybody that tries to to fuck right off.
i am on the side of science, data and reason and this is all very clear from an analytical perspective rather than a contrived, emotional or politically-driven one: the united states does not have a gun control problem, the united states has a gun culture problem, part of which is reflected in the existence of the nra and, yes, part of which is reflected in the popularity of violent video games and violent movies. banning games will not work any more than banning guns will; you're missing the point. banning things never works in any context at all. you can't ban guns any more than you can ban drugs or sex or immigration, you have to look at the root causes, and the hyper-capitalistic imperialist bloodlust that the country was founded on, in genocide and slavery.
that is why you have a gun problem, and you won't address it until you stop denying it.
right now, you don't even seem to understand how to understand it. and, you are consequently doomed to continue on in failure.
i am on the side of science, data and reason and this is all very clear from an analytical perspective rather than a contrived, emotional or politically-driven one: the united states does not have a gun control problem, the united states has a gun culture problem, part of which is reflected in the existence of the nra and, yes, part of which is reflected in the popularity of violent video games and violent movies. banning games will not work any more than banning guns will; you're missing the point. banning things never works in any context at all. you can't ban guns any more than you can ban drugs or sex or immigration, you have to look at the root causes, and the hyper-capitalistic imperialist bloodlust that the country was founded on, in genocide and slavery.
that is why you have a gun problem, and you won't address it until you stop denying it.
right now, you don't even seem to understand how to understand it. and, you are consequently doomed to continue on in failure.
Monday, August 5, 2019
it's not that trudeau was ever a good option. he wasn't. and, i never said he was.
but, this was the so-called left....
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/line-9-shipping-tar-sands-crude-east/
but, this was the so-called left....
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/line-9-shipping-tar-sands-crude-east/
again: we can't know what would have happened.
but, mulcair was broadcasting that he was going to increase production, not reduce it - and there's little reason to think he wasn't being honest about it.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/jobs+here+leader+mulcair+says+during+calgary+foray/7543850/story.html
but, mulcair was broadcasting that he was going to increase production, not reduce it - and there's little reason to think he wasn't being honest about it.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/jobs+here+leader+mulcair+says+during+calgary+foray/7543850/story.html
really.
in 2015, naomi klein started pushing this idea called the leap manifesto, which was the "green new deal", except actually thought through properly by some actual smart people. if you didn't know, naomi klein is married to the son of a former provincial ndp leader and the grandson of a former federal ndp leader. so, she has access to the leadership.
they threw her out of the room and locked the door and told her to never come back. why? they said it was unelectable....
four years later, the idea is trending on twitter, and they're all of a sudden in favour of it. so, what's changed? the idea's perceived usefulness as a voter-buyer. that's it.
but, if these people were going to throw you out of the room four years ago for proposing this, you can be sure that they won't follow through with it if you elect them, now.
it's hard and difficult and dangerous, but we have to vote green, this time around. we have to send the fuckers a message.
in 2015, naomi klein started pushing this idea called the leap manifesto, which was the "green new deal", except actually thought through properly by some actual smart people. if you didn't know, naomi klein is married to the son of a former provincial ndp leader and the grandson of a former federal ndp leader. so, she has access to the leadership.
they threw her out of the room and locked the door and told her to never come back. why? they said it was unelectable....
four years later, the idea is trending on twitter, and they're all of a sudden in favour of it. so, what's changed? the idea's perceived usefulness as a voter-buyer. that's it.
but, if these people were going to throw you out of the room four years ago for proposing this, you can be sure that they won't follow through with it if you elect them, now.
it's hard and difficult and dangerous, but we have to vote green, this time around. we have to send the fuckers a message.
i know that the ndp are coming out with all this language about "green new deals", but what they say is essentially meaningless - they've never done anything they've said they were going to do, ever. it's just a cynical way to try to catch a trend. if the trend on the left was higher wages for oil workers, they'd be all over that, too.
and, no, the ndp didn't have a better idea.
what the ndp ran on was increasing taxes on oil exports, and redistributing it towards social systems like health care and child care. their policy was not only completely disinterested in reducing emissions, but explicitly focused on making the government even more reliant on the industry. this was coming out of the ndp winning government in alberta, and getting into bed with the oil industry.
if your primary concern was the environment, as mine was, the ndp was actually probably the worst choice in that election. while the conservatives just flat out don't care one way or the other, at least they weren't running on structurally tying the country's finances to oil revenue, like they do in venezuela. that would have been an utter disaster. the liberals were at least running on embracing environmentalism as a capitalist profit making venture, and while that's certainly not the ideal option, it's a step in the right direction. but, they haven't done it. at all.
in the end, we can only know what what actually happened. so, we know that the liberals broke all of their promises around meaningful environmental legislation and systemic change - that's empirical, we can measure it. we don't know what would have happened if the ndp would have won. would they have built all these refineries, like they were promising? how would they have reacted to the collapse in oil prices? we can't know.
but, despite being disappointed with the liberals, i still think the ndp were the less green option in that election. and, i'll argue the point every day for the next three months if you'd like, because i still think the ndp are the worse option for green voters.
what the ndp ran on was increasing taxes on oil exports, and redistributing it towards social systems like health care and child care. their policy was not only completely disinterested in reducing emissions, but explicitly focused on making the government even more reliant on the industry. this was coming out of the ndp winning government in alberta, and getting into bed with the oil industry.
if your primary concern was the environment, as mine was, the ndp was actually probably the worst choice in that election. while the conservatives just flat out don't care one way or the other, at least they weren't running on structurally tying the country's finances to oil revenue, like they do in venezuela. that would have been an utter disaster. the liberals were at least running on embracing environmentalism as a capitalist profit making venture, and while that's certainly not the ideal option, it's a step in the right direction. but, they haven't done it. at all.
in the end, we can only know what what actually happened. so, we know that the liberals broke all of their promises around meaningful environmental legislation and systemic change - that's empirical, we can measure it. we don't know what would have happened if the ndp would have won. would they have built all these refineries, like they were promising? how would they have reacted to the collapse in oil prices? we can't know.
but, despite being disappointed with the liberals, i still think the ndp were the less green option in that election. and, i'll argue the point every day for the next three months if you'd like, because i still think the ndp are the worse option for green voters.
this was supposed to be a green infrastructure bank, and it was supposed to be a subsidiary of the bank of canada that operated on printed money, much as previous infrastructure banks did in the country's history - all of them created by the liberals.
so, it was a reasonable election promise, in the context of the broad election theme of canada being "back". they were admittedly vague, but it was easy enough to fill in the blanks with the historical policy that previously existed.
in the early 70s, the elder trudeau dismantled this infrastructure system under international pressure to move to private borrowing as a part of the collapse of the bretton woods system (it was a local consequence of the nixon shock). frankly, i suspect that he would have reversed that choice when faced with the kind of inflation that mulroney walked into in the mid-80s. as it is, mulroney did not reverse that decision, but chose to let the debt balloon out of control, and then shift taxes from producers to consumers in order to compensate. and, both his career and his party were utterly destroyed as a consequence of this rather brutal fiscal mismanagement.
unfortunately, the new trudeau government has not been about making canada great again, but has rather been a full pivot to a type of neo-liberalism that we haven't seen here before. what was supposed to be a way to fund a fast transition ended up distorted into another way for the banks to make money from public interest.
it's funny how they spin it as a way to reduce public spending, though. that's priceless.
so, i would expect the conservatives to shut something like this down, but i would hope that the ndp would be focused more on converting it into it's stated goal, and it's disappointing that they're more interested in falling into right-wing populist rhetoric about big banks, instead. that won't win them votes, here.
but, this is certainly an issue where voters should punish the liberals for being not just dishonest and misleading but flatly hard-headed and kind of stupid. they ran on something quite specific that is really the only serious answer to the climate crisis, something that was believable to implement and would benefit the country dramatically, and then did almost the exact opposite of what they said they would in a way that will make the country more expensive and less livable. they should get hurt at the polls for that.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/infrastructure-bank-looks-to-avoid-distraction-from-election-talk-ceo-says-1.4535567
so, it was a reasonable election promise, in the context of the broad election theme of canada being "back". they were admittedly vague, but it was easy enough to fill in the blanks with the historical policy that previously existed.
in the early 70s, the elder trudeau dismantled this infrastructure system under international pressure to move to private borrowing as a part of the collapse of the bretton woods system (it was a local consequence of the nixon shock). frankly, i suspect that he would have reversed that choice when faced with the kind of inflation that mulroney walked into in the mid-80s. as it is, mulroney did not reverse that decision, but chose to let the debt balloon out of control, and then shift taxes from producers to consumers in order to compensate. and, both his career and his party were utterly destroyed as a consequence of this rather brutal fiscal mismanagement.
unfortunately, the new trudeau government has not been about making canada great again, but has rather been a full pivot to a type of neo-liberalism that we haven't seen here before. what was supposed to be a way to fund a fast transition ended up distorted into another way for the banks to make money from public interest.
it's funny how they spin it as a way to reduce public spending, though. that's priceless.
so, i would expect the conservatives to shut something like this down, but i would hope that the ndp would be focused more on converting it into it's stated goal, and it's disappointing that they're more interested in falling into right-wing populist rhetoric about big banks, instead. that won't win them votes, here.
but, this is certainly an issue where voters should punish the liberals for being not just dishonest and misleading but flatly hard-headed and kind of stupid. they ran on something quite specific that is really the only serious answer to the climate crisis, something that was believable to implement and would benefit the country dramatically, and then did almost the exact opposite of what they said they would in a way that will make the country more expensive and less livable. they should get hurt at the polls for that.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/infrastructure-bank-looks-to-avoid-distraction-from-election-talk-ceo-says-1.4535567
so, what am i doing?
there's nothing planned this week. i was considering taking a ride out to royal oak to see bad religion on wednesday, but that's the second show there this summer where the ticket prices are just ridiculous. belle & sebastien was like $80. bad religion is $60. really. bad religion. $60. is this strictly a ticketmaster thing? that venue isn't much bigger than the majestic or st. andrew's, and i've never seen a show at either of those places charging $60 for floor admission. those are prices more in line with day festivals than with concerts. fuck, i can see the symphony for $15 if i'm willing to sit at the top.
needless to say, i'm not paying that. in fact, i'm very rarely going to pay more than $30 for a show, that's kind of my max, so it's about twice what i'm willing to think about. sorry.
i'm really hoping to get the rebuild for september done in the next day or two. i'm then going to need to focus on cleaning a bit, and then on tracking down the oiprd report. again: if they want to drag this out and make themselves look bad, it's their choice. i at least got a response from the ohrc, and they're indicating that they're processing the claim and will get back to me on it.
i think i want to actually put down the goal of getting started on october for the end of the week.
and, i think i'm mostly going to avoid eating for the week, as well. how much did i drink on saturday night? well, i had a 700 ml bottle of mountain dew with two shots of vodka to start, then i split a 500 ml can of mike's for the ride in and the morning lull, i had two small can's of stroh's (355 ml) at outer limits, and i had five cans of various beer at marble. that's over 13 hours, btw. so, that's 355*7 + 500 + 700 = 3.685 L, but the beer isn't as bad, calorie wise, as what i was drinking last week. so, i don't think this week was that bad, calorie wise...
...but i didn't really finish the purge last week. i had a meal on saturday morning, and then i ate when i came back on sunday afternoon, and ate again last night. so, it was really only a three day purge. that means i'll have to hold off on a real meal until friday to cut out a full week worth of calories, which was the initial intent. and, i have two days worth of smoothies to tide myself over as it's happening.
again: i'm not running a marathon on no food, here. i'm sitting in my bed rebuilding a blog from 2013. so, i'm expending minimal energy. and, the logic is that i've drank at least an extra week's worth of calories in alcohol over the last month, so i'm going to cut out a week's worth of calories in food to compensate.
i know what i'm doing, but don't do this at home, kids.
there's nothing planned this week. i was considering taking a ride out to royal oak to see bad religion on wednesday, but that's the second show there this summer where the ticket prices are just ridiculous. belle & sebastien was like $80. bad religion is $60. really. bad religion. $60. is this strictly a ticketmaster thing? that venue isn't much bigger than the majestic or st. andrew's, and i've never seen a show at either of those places charging $60 for floor admission. those are prices more in line with day festivals than with concerts. fuck, i can see the symphony for $15 if i'm willing to sit at the top.
needless to say, i'm not paying that. in fact, i'm very rarely going to pay more than $30 for a show, that's kind of my max, so it's about twice what i'm willing to think about. sorry.
i'm really hoping to get the rebuild for september done in the next day or two. i'm then going to need to focus on cleaning a bit, and then on tracking down the oiprd report. again: if they want to drag this out and make themselves look bad, it's their choice. i at least got a response from the ohrc, and they're indicating that they're processing the claim and will get back to me on it.
i think i want to actually put down the goal of getting started on october for the end of the week.
and, i think i'm mostly going to avoid eating for the week, as well. how much did i drink on saturday night? well, i had a 700 ml bottle of mountain dew with two shots of vodka to start, then i split a 500 ml can of mike's for the ride in and the morning lull, i had two small can's of stroh's (355 ml) at outer limits, and i had five cans of various beer at marble. that's over 13 hours, btw. so, that's 355*7 + 500 + 700 = 3.685 L, but the beer isn't as bad, calorie wise, as what i was drinking last week. so, i don't think this week was that bad, calorie wise...
...but i didn't really finish the purge last week. i had a meal on saturday morning, and then i ate when i came back on sunday afternoon, and ate again last night. so, it was really only a three day purge. that means i'll have to hold off on a real meal until friday to cut out a full week worth of calories, which was the initial intent. and, i have two days worth of smoothies to tide myself over as it's happening.
again: i'm not running a marathon on no food, here. i'm sitting in my bed rebuilding a blog from 2013. so, i'm expending minimal energy. and, the logic is that i've drank at least an extra week's worth of calories in alcohol over the last month, so i'm going to cut out a week's worth of calories in food to compensate.
i know what i'm doing, but don't do this at home, kids.
i mostly remember lincoln fields for the small record store they had in it. i hope he found a new location. i also think i had doctor's or dentist appointments here when i was very little, because my dad worked in the ncr building around the corner, but it's pretty vague. otherwise, it was broadly out of the way for me for most of my life, and i only remember stopping in there when i had to use the washroom, or stop to get something to drink as i was bicycling by.
this isn't surprising. everybody's known for years that it's dying. but, that strip up carling is certainly going to be different without it.
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/end-is-near-for-lincoln-fields-shopping-centre-1.4535838
this isn't surprising. everybody's known for years that it's dying. but, that strip up carling is certainly going to be different without it.
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/end-is-near-for-lincoln-fields-shopping-centre-1.4535838
i will repeat this.
the choice that america has on gun violence is between changing it's gun culture, or accepting it for what it is.
background checks are a reasonable policy that i have no opposition to. but, laws to restrict the sale and distribution of weapons will do absolutely nothing at all, so long as you continue to perpetuate the same gun culture across generations.
and, so long as you insist on maintaining your culture, you'll need to accept this as collateral.
the choice that america has on gun violence is between changing it's gun culture, or accepting it for what it is.
background checks are a reasonable policy that i have no opposition to. but, laws to restrict the sale and distribution of weapons will do absolutely nothing at all, so long as you continue to perpetuate the same gun culture across generations.
and, so long as you insist on maintaining your culture, you'll need to accept this as collateral.
again: i'm not actually opposed to background checks. and, i will at least concede that they may make a difference on a very small percentage of shootings, meaning the policy may have some positive effect, so i'd have to lean towards supporting them rather than being neutral towards them. but, i must insist that they are not a serious solution to gun violence. they're not even a band-aid, really. what they are is low-hanging fruit, and to hear politicians push them as an answer is a reflection of the cul-de-sac that the democratic party finds itself in on gun violence, caught between a small but vocal conservative minority that thinks that you solve complicated social problems by banning things and a fundamentally broken heartland culture that associates gun ownership with it's core nationalist identity.
that's the most aggressive policy you're going to get: background checks.
what the country needs in order to stop gun violence is a deep level of reflection about how it sees guns. politicians that seek to represent the perspective of rural identity voters need to begin to understand that it is the identity itself that is at the crux of the problem, and what needs to change in order to stop the violence. you hear them say this - this is not who we are. but, this is exactly the problem: you need to understand that this is who you are, and look very deep inside yourselves, collectively, in order to come to a solution. it is going to take a deep, critical examination of every aspect of american culture. it is going to require changing what it means to be an american.
or, you can accept that america is an inherently violent place built on a culture of violence, that america is a place where violence and mass murder has been the norm from day one; you can accept the status quo for what it is.
these are your real choices.
but, i will nonetheless ask the question, as people call for a return of the house to pass a bill on background checks: is there any evidence at this stage that either of these shooters would have failed one?
that's the most aggressive policy you're going to get: background checks.
what the country needs in order to stop gun violence is a deep level of reflection about how it sees guns. politicians that seek to represent the perspective of rural identity voters need to begin to understand that it is the identity itself that is at the crux of the problem, and what needs to change in order to stop the violence. you hear them say this - this is not who we are. but, this is exactly the problem: you need to understand that this is who you are, and look very deep inside yourselves, collectively, in order to come to a solution. it is going to take a deep, critical examination of every aspect of american culture. it is going to require changing what it means to be an american.
or, you can accept that america is an inherently violent place built on a culture of violence, that america is a place where violence and mass murder has been the norm from day one; you can accept the status quo for what it is.
these are your real choices.
but, i will nonetheless ask the question, as people call for a return of the house to pass a bill on background checks: is there any evidence at this stage that either of these shooters would have failed one?
this is a potentially tricky scenario for the british government. i think that all decent people are going to want them to grant the order, but dubai is a friendly state that is in a tactical position when it comes to conflict with iran, and a protection order of this sort may very well involve a need for round the clock security.
is this woman a british citizen? if so, the state will have certain obligations, and likely be forced to do the right thing.
if she's not, the outcome of this could be heartbreaking.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5702466/princess-haya-dubai-ruler-forced-marriage-protection-order/
is this woman a british citizen? if so, the state will have certain obligations, and likely be forced to do the right thing.
if she's not, the outcome of this could be heartbreaking.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5702466/princess-haya-dubai-ruler-forced-marriage-protection-order/
so, yeah, i went dancing last night. there was an overnight party as a
consequence of the mini-movement (charivari) festival, and it might be
the last really nice saturday overnight we get, unless we get some more
intense hurricanes, which i don't think anybody really wants. i'm happy
we got a summer in the end due to the ocean patterns dominating for a while, however short it ends up being; it didn't
really click in until the last week of june, and it looks like it's
going to fall off about mid-week. so, that's 5-6 weeks of actual summer.
we can have nice days lingering into october or sometimes even november
here, but the actual summer heat starts to lift at the start of
september, so if the long range is saying it's going to dip a little
cooler for the end of august then there's not much chance of a return to
seriously hot summer weather for the year. don't misunderstand me -
it's not going to snow this week. but, that might have been the last
late saturday / early sunday where the low is above 20 degrees celsius.
so, we got one more nice weekend in, and i decided not to waste it...
my plan was that i wanted to hit a space rock act early called brujas del sol, then head to the dance party (which ran until 9:00 am). but, i expected the space rock band to be on a little later, so i thought i might check something out down the street, then come back. so, i showed up at trixie's around 22:00, and was told they just finished, meaning they played first in a four bill act (despite being advertised as a co-headliner). this is why you should post set times, bar owners.
so, i went to the outer limits and caught the end of an early floyd style act called astral hand, and the entirety of a set by a band called midas, that was probably trying to sound like judas priest but i think actually sounded a bit more like hawkwind. while i'll take 70s or 80s metal over contemporary metal any day, the reality is that i'm not particularly knowledgeable about metal of any period, and while it wasn't something i'd take an initiative to listen to or check out further, they had a few moments and were entertaining to watch.
and, then i danced until 9:00 am.
hey, listen. there's two famous quotes.
1) "i want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.", often apocryphally attributed as "if i can't dance, this is not my revolution".
2) "'cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then they're no friends of mine."
so, we got one more nice weekend in, and i decided not to waste it...
my plan was that i wanted to hit a space rock act early called brujas del sol, then head to the dance party (which ran until 9:00 am). but, i expected the space rock band to be on a little later, so i thought i might check something out down the street, then come back. so, i showed up at trixie's around 22:00, and was told they just finished, meaning they played first in a four bill act (despite being advertised as a co-headliner). this is why you should post set times, bar owners.
so, i went to the outer limits and caught the end of an early floyd style act called astral hand, and the entirety of a set by a band called midas, that was probably trying to sound like judas priest but i think actually sounded a bit more like hawkwind. while i'll take 70s or 80s metal over contemporary metal any day, the reality is that i'm not particularly knowledgeable about metal of any period, and while it wasn't something i'd take an initiative to listen to or check out further, they had a few moments and were entertaining to watch.
and, then i danced until 9:00 am.
hey, listen. there's two famous quotes.
1) "i want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.", often apocryphally attributed as "if i can't dance, this is not my revolution".
2) "'cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then they're no friends of mine."
Saturday, August 3, 2019
so, i watched a small part of the debate. they're talking about immigration.
i indicated that i thought warren was going to come out swinging against sanders, and i don't think i was wrong, despite the msm coverage of the debate; she hasn't hit him directly yet, but she seems keen to interrupt him and inject herself as the replacement for him. i'm not sure if she's figured out yet that she's being used as a prop, but the moderators seemed to be suggesting that they were in the process of pivoting the coverage. and, the recent polls - however meaningless they are - have indicated she lost support after the debate, probably because she's being seen as bernie-lite. why vote for bernie-lite when bernie is running? given that this is coming from somebody that doesn't seem to understand regulatory capture, i should probably be less surprised by the poor tactical decision than i actually am.
but, i highly doubt that they came to a truce before hand; rather, it seems like her goal was to talk over him, rather than talk down to him. and, it seems to have backfired.
unsurprisingly, bernie slayed in the health care section. and, delaney offered himself up as a pinata; he walked right into it. that was what bernie needed, and it's easy to see how and why he got a bump from it.
i'm also still not sure if warren actually supports a single-payer plan or not; all she's really clarified is that she doesn't intend to tell us if she does or not.
on immigration, it's likewise not surprising to see them walk back the decriminalization thing, as that was really pretty much ridiculous. i have a no one is illegal meme on my page, and i believe that, but it's such a complicated debate with so many clauses. see, and this is what they're all doing wrong, here - they're trying to oversimplify a topic with legislation that is going to be full of complicated clauses and corollaries into a vacuous moral slogan, and then getting spun around in circles on it. they need to stand up and state this clearly: immigration is complicated. in the end, everybody stands in front of a judge, which will make a determination on a case-by-case basis. so, it's not about slogans, and it's not about values, and it's not about morals, it's about very detailed applications of a very large body of law. at least they're being more honest about it, but all they can accomplish by oversimplifying this complicated thing is coming off as demagogues, which is not appealing. at all.
so, if somebody is in detention, they should get healthcare. and, if somebody is awaiting a decision, they should get health care. but, no country on the planet extends health care to people that came into the country through improper channels. it's just not real, anywhere. they need to be specific, or at least explain that it's complicated, rather than falling back on these universals, and then getting spun around on them. because, i'll tell you what the truth is - these networks are setting them up.
i'll watch the rest later.
i indicated that i thought warren was going to come out swinging against sanders, and i don't think i was wrong, despite the msm coverage of the debate; she hasn't hit him directly yet, but she seems keen to interrupt him and inject herself as the replacement for him. i'm not sure if she's figured out yet that she's being used as a prop, but the moderators seemed to be suggesting that they were in the process of pivoting the coverage. and, the recent polls - however meaningless they are - have indicated she lost support after the debate, probably because she's being seen as bernie-lite. why vote for bernie-lite when bernie is running? given that this is coming from somebody that doesn't seem to understand regulatory capture, i should probably be less surprised by the poor tactical decision than i actually am.
but, i highly doubt that they came to a truce before hand; rather, it seems like her goal was to talk over him, rather than talk down to him. and, it seems to have backfired.
unsurprisingly, bernie slayed in the health care section. and, delaney offered himself up as a pinata; he walked right into it. that was what bernie needed, and it's easy to see how and why he got a bump from it.
i'm also still not sure if warren actually supports a single-payer plan or not; all she's really clarified is that she doesn't intend to tell us if she does or not.
on immigration, it's likewise not surprising to see them walk back the decriminalization thing, as that was really pretty much ridiculous. i have a no one is illegal meme on my page, and i believe that, but it's such a complicated debate with so many clauses. see, and this is what they're all doing wrong, here - they're trying to oversimplify a topic with legislation that is going to be full of complicated clauses and corollaries into a vacuous moral slogan, and then getting spun around in circles on it. they need to stand up and state this clearly: immigration is complicated. in the end, everybody stands in front of a judge, which will make a determination on a case-by-case basis. so, it's not about slogans, and it's not about values, and it's not about morals, it's about very detailed applications of a very large body of law. at least they're being more honest about it, but all they can accomplish by oversimplifying this complicated thing is coming off as demagogues, which is not appealing. at all.
so, if somebody is in detention, they should get healthcare. and, if somebody is awaiting a decision, they should get health care. but, no country on the planet extends health care to people that came into the country through improper channels. it's just not real, anywhere. they need to be specific, or at least explain that it's complicated, rather than falling back on these universals, and then getting spun around on them. because, i'll tell you what the truth is - these networks are setting them up.
i'll watch the rest later.
to my knowledge, i don't have ancestry from new york, but my dad's side of the family has both jewish and italian in it, so you can imagine that i'm used to everybody yelling at each other.
and, for all the shit that some people have always given me, and will probably always give me, there' s a flip side to it: when you meet other people that yell, you immediately bond. esa, for example, is also a yeller, and really appreciated that about me - i didn't flinch or freak out, i just yelled back.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35w3z/bernie-sanders-angry-accent-jewish-brooklyn
and, for all the shit that some people have always given me, and will probably always give me, there' s a flip side to it: when you meet other people that yell, you immediately bond. esa, for example, is also a yeller, and really appreciated that about me - i didn't flinch or freak out, i just yelled back.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35w3z/bernie-sanders-angry-accent-jewish-brooklyn
Friday, August 2, 2019
so, i actually haven't eaten all week; my diet list is stalled on tuesday. that's why i haven't watched the debates yet.
i drank five litres of syrupy malt liquor (mike's, smirnoff's) in the park last weekend, and i started to notice it on tuesday morning. i can work out the best diet in the world, with the best exercise routine on top of it, but if i then go and drink five litres of beer on top of it every weekend, i'm undoing it all. it's just a process of knowing when to stop, and this is converging with everything else: it's time to lay off the beer for a while, lest a beer belly begin to set in.
those calories just aren't budgeted....
i know that not eating for a week is not the best approach, but i've actually done this before, and it does what i need it to do, so long as i keep the exercise down. i mean, we're talking about five-ten pounds here, max. but it's that extra five-ten pounds that separates me from a body i recognize into one i don't. it needs to be brought under control.
i'm checking the event listings for the weekend, and don't expect to go out, at this point; i want to finish what i'm doing. if i find something, i'll change my mind - which will mean i'll need to eat. but, if i don't, i could find myself in bed and without food for the rest of the weekend.
in the long run, what's the right adjustment? i don't want to get into a habit where i'm putting on pounds via drinking, then losing it via starvation or exercise (see, i don't want to turn it into muscle, so i'm avoiding that just right now). i could just stop drinking altogether, which i would consider excessive - my politics are kind of extreme left in a lot of ways, but i'm a pretty moderate person, over all. i cut down on the smoking, but i didn't quit altogether; likewise, i don't have any particular drive to entirely quite drinking.
i think that easier access to marijuana is the better answer, in the long run. that won't stop me from drinking entirely, but it will cut it down substantively. right now, i buy alcohol and just sneak into joints as they get passed, because i really can't buy it - and it is legal to share your pot in michigan. when i can buy it, i think it will become the primary intoxicant, leaving alcohol to the inferior position. so, i could easily imagine myself heading to a concert or other sort of party and picking up two-three grams of pot instead of two-three litres of alcohol, then buying one beer all night instead of taking a few quick tokes here and there. that should bring me back closer to the energy budgeting process, as i've calculated it...
i don't want to start doing uppers. i avoid them for a reason. and, i don't actually even enjoy taking shots, it's too intense.
....but, i also keep saying that i'm getting older, and the generational gap is starting to assert itself. there is a small rock scene in detroit still, i'm just stuck between older people and younger people, both pushing styles i'm not really into. and, there's going to come a point where i'm uncomfortable showing up at a house party and trying to relate to people half my age; i'm maybe already there, even. you might not realize it from a distance, but the kind of techno parties i'm going to are actually a way out for me in that respect; i'm not going to edm shows full of kids, but am rather frequenting techno and house parties where the average age is close to mine, maybe even a tad older. these are 30-something or 40-something parties, not 20-something parties.
edibles will be legal in canada soon, but i still can't buy them anywhere around here. i should be able to buy in michigan at the beginning of next year.
in the mean time, i'll just need to be a little more conscious of the reality that (processed) alcohol is sugar, and sugar is calories. the fact is that it hasn't really been an issue for me for most of my life. but, i'm a little older now, my metabolism is a little slower, and i need to adjust.
if i go out, i'll need to eat first; if i stay in, i'll eat when i feel i need to.
i drank five litres of syrupy malt liquor (mike's, smirnoff's) in the park last weekend, and i started to notice it on tuesday morning. i can work out the best diet in the world, with the best exercise routine on top of it, but if i then go and drink five litres of beer on top of it every weekend, i'm undoing it all. it's just a process of knowing when to stop, and this is converging with everything else: it's time to lay off the beer for a while, lest a beer belly begin to set in.
those calories just aren't budgeted....
i know that not eating for a week is not the best approach, but i've actually done this before, and it does what i need it to do, so long as i keep the exercise down. i mean, we're talking about five-ten pounds here, max. but it's that extra five-ten pounds that separates me from a body i recognize into one i don't. it needs to be brought under control.
i'm checking the event listings for the weekend, and don't expect to go out, at this point; i want to finish what i'm doing. if i find something, i'll change my mind - which will mean i'll need to eat. but, if i don't, i could find myself in bed and without food for the rest of the weekend.
in the long run, what's the right adjustment? i don't want to get into a habit where i'm putting on pounds via drinking, then losing it via starvation or exercise (see, i don't want to turn it into muscle, so i'm avoiding that just right now). i could just stop drinking altogether, which i would consider excessive - my politics are kind of extreme left in a lot of ways, but i'm a pretty moderate person, over all. i cut down on the smoking, but i didn't quit altogether; likewise, i don't have any particular drive to entirely quite drinking.
i think that easier access to marijuana is the better answer, in the long run. that won't stop me from drinking entirely, but it will cut it down substantively. right now, i buy alcohol and just sneak into joints as they get passed, because i really can't buy it - and it is legal to share your pot in michigan. when i can buy it, i think it will become the primary intoxicant, leaving alcohol to the inferior position. so, i could easily imagine myself heading to a concert or other sort of party and picking up two-three grams of pot instead of two-three litres of alcohol, then buying one beer all night instead of taking a few quick tokes here and there. that should bring me back closer to the energy budgeting process, as i've calculated it...
i don't want to start doing uppers. i avoid them for a reason. and, i don't actually even enjoy taking shots, it's too intense.
....but, i also keep saying that i'm getting older, and the generational gap is starting to assert itself. there is a small rock scene in detroit still, i'm just stuck between older people and younger people, both pushing styles i'm not really into. and, there's going to come a point where i'm uncomfortable showing up at a house party and trying to relate to people half my age; i'm maybe already there, even. you might not realize it from a distance, but the kind of techno parties i'm going to are actually a way out for me in that respect; i'm not going to edm shows full of kids, but am rather frequenting techno and house parties where the average age is close to mine, maybe even a tad older. these are 30-something or 40-something parties, not 20-something parties.
edibles will be legal in canada soon, but i still can't buy them anywhere around here. i should be able to buy in michigan at the beginning of next year.
in the mean time, i'll just need to be a little more conscious of the reality that (processed) alcohol is sugar, and sugar is calories. the fact is that it hasn't really been an issue for me for most of my life. but, i'm a little older now, my metabolism is a little slower, and i need to adjust.
if i go out, i'll need to eat first; if i stay in, i'll eat when i feel i need to.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
on second thought, it was too cold to eat, so i just showered.
i'm going to put off eating until a little later, when the air's off.
it's not nearly as bad as the previous apartment, but it is unpleasant during the day, when we're in this middle point of around 26-28 degrees, which is what it's been the last few days. any cooler than that, and i don't really notice it; any warmer than that, and the outside air overpowers it. but, it can get shivery in here at that mid point, when it's on. if i sleep in the day under the covers, take a hot shower in the evening and then stay up all night, i think i can largely avoid it.
it should warm up on the weekend, and i don't know what i'm doing, yet.
i'm going to put off eating until a little later, when the air's off.
it's not nearly as bad as the previous apartment, but it is unpleasant during the day, when we're in this middle point of around 26-28 degrees, which is what it's been the last few days. any cooler than that, and i don't really notice it; any warmer than that, and the outside air overpowers it. but, it can get shivery in here at that mid point, when it's on. if i sleep in the day under the covers, take a hot shower in the evening and then stay up all night, i think i can largely avoid it.
it should warm up on the weekend, and i don't know what i'm doing, yet.
so, where am i on the rebuild?
i've posted all of the damaged cds. there's a few more days of setting the apartment up, but a lot of what is left is the scripts, so i think i should run through it a little quicker when i get back to it. i start reposting inri000 at the end of the month, so i should get some liner notes up for the october and november journals, and when that happens i hope you'll see what the actual point of this is.
as mentioned previously, i'm rebooting the alter-reality, so the notes that come up for now will just be for 2013-2018. it wasn't initially clear how i was going to do this, but it now makes sense for me to say that i can and will stop this process, for now, at the beginning of 2018, with the end of the fifth reconstruction phase. i guess i'll want to do a quick archive, but i can stop the rebuild there, until i get done the next phase.
i'm going to get through this before i start making more calls about the report, which should be in the mail.
for right now, i'm going to get something to eat, watch the debates when i'm eating and take a hot shower to warm the place up a little bit.
i've posted all of the damaged cds. there's a few more days of setting the apartment up, but a lot of what is left is the scripts, so i think i should run through it a little quicker when i get back to it. i start reposting inri000 at the end of the month, so i should get some liner notes up for the october and november journals, and when that happens i hope you'll see what the actual point of this is.
as mentioned previously, i'm rebooting the alter-reality, so the notes that come up for now will just be for 2013-2018. it wasn't initially clear how i was going to do this, but it now makes sense for me to say that i can and will stop this process, for now, at the beginning of 2018, with the end of the fifth reconstruction phase. i guess i'll want to do a quick archive, but i can stop the rebuild there, until i get done the next phase.
i'm going to get through this before i start making more calls about the report, which should be in the mail.
for right now, i'm going to get something to eat, watch the debates when i'm eating and take a hot shower to warm the place up a little bit.
you're not really pitting left v right here when it comes to this; there's not anything particularly left wing about "new families for all!", and there's not anything particularly right-wing about staying at home until you're 50.
what you're really pitting against each other is a concept of dour rationalism against the irrationality of consumer capitalism. it's logic vs impulse. and, in a way, it's consequently intelligence v stupidity.
my parents were not intelligent people, and i've suffered for that. i would hope other people take more benevolent approaches to their kin.
what you're really pitting against each other is a concept of dour rationalism against the irrationality of consumer capitalism. it's logic vs impulse. and, in a way, it's consequently intelligence v stupidity.
my parents were not intelligent people, and i've suffered for that. i would hope other people take more benevolent approaches to their kin.
this whole "leaving the nest" thing is a creation of bourgeois capitalism.
as we live in ubiquitous capitalism, it's easy to understand why self-identified leftists may not realize that they're propping up capitalist ideology by criticizing people who stay with their families past a certain age. but, a thorough deconstruction of capitalism would have to address this as an issue.
why do we insist that kids move away from their parents, using the model of birds? are we not primates, rather than birds? do primates not live in kin groups? do they not practice kin selection? and, what does the individual gain by moving away from their family?
the reason we insist that kids move away from their parents is that it drives the housing market and props up the rentier class; it's a way to maximize the extraction of rent, to the benefit of the property owners and the expense of workers. that's how capitalism works, kids. yet, we are certainly primates, and primates certainly practice kin selection, so this is acting against our nature and our evolutionary impulses. so, why do we buy into it?
it is the answer to the last question that the issue really pivots around, and it depends on whether the specific individual gets along with their family or not. somebody with a very strong, close-knit family relationship would probably not benefit from moving away from home at all, whereas somebody that sees the world substantively different from their parents potentially would. now, if we move very far into the leftist project, we get to the point where we collectivize housing outright, and the debate kind of evaporates. call it a kibbutz. cite plato. whatever. but, the family as a feudal concept breaks down when you eliminate the property relationship, and that does need to be the end goal. yet, even then, you don't necessarily physically move away from your family so much as you allow for people with more distant biological relationships to take on roles that we currently delegate to close family members; it's less a physical separation and more of an emotional separation. in the mean time, if somebody can get along with their family then it would clearly make financial sense for them to maximize their resources by staying at home as long as they can, pooling their resources into the existing family finances (house, car) rather than into a new one and eventually inheriting something that's been paid for rather than buying something new. that's not ideological; that's logical. and, that is of course the trick of the social coercion - don't inherit your folks' house. buy a new one. then, the bank wins and everybody else loses.
as an anarchist, i broadly reject the idea that i have any right to tell somebody how to live. as my interests lay in art, and i consider paying for shelter to be an annoying burden, i would have rather stayed with my parents until the end; my parents did not care about my art, but rather expected me to go to school and get a job and start a family, things i did not actually want, so i was forced to leave against my will and go out and carry through with this contrived exercise in capitalism that i consider to be a waste of existence. i ended up working part time jobs, just enough to pay the rent, mostly avoiding any kind of social life and focusing as much energy as i could into my art. there was a fundamental breakdown in understanding, there - they didn't understand why i didn't want a good job, why i didn't want a car, why i wasn't interested in starting a family and why i "wasted" so much of my time on art and writing, and i didn't understand why they didn't just fucking support me in what i told them i actually wanted. so, we made no sense to each other. but, if i could have found a kind of benefactor, which is how they did it in the enlightenment, i would have happily moved into their basement. in the end, that's kind of what happened - i live in somebody else's basement, and pay rent with government subsidies. and, i focus on what i care about, and spurn what i don't.
i would have rather just stayed home, and if i had just stayed home then i'd have a lot more work done, too.
if other people have families that they're able to get along with better, then power to them. they have something i don't. and, i have no interest in criticizing them for that or trying to coerce them back into capitalist orthodoxy.
as we live in ubiquitous capitalism, it's easy to understand why self-identified leftists may not realize that they're propping up capitalist ideology by criticizing people who stay with their families past a certain age. but, a thorough deconstruction of capitalism would have to address this as an issue.
why do we insist that kids move away from their parents, using the model of birds? are we not primates, rather than birds? do primates not live in kin groups? do they not practice kin selection? and, what does the individual gain by moving away from their family?
the reason we insist that kids move away from their parents is that it drives the housing market and props up the rentier class; it's a way to maximize the extraction of rent, to the benefit of the property owners and the expense of workers. that's how capitalism works, kids. yet, we are certainly primates, and primates certainly practice kin selection, so this is acting against our nature and our evolutionary impulses. so, why do we buy into it?
it is the answer to the last question that the issue really pivots around, and it depends on whether the specific individual gets along with their family or not. somebody with a very strong, close-knit family relationship would probably not benefit from moving away from home at all, whereas somebody that sees the world substantively different from their parents potentially would. now, if we move very far into the leftist project, we get to the point where we collectivize housing outright, and the debate kind of evaporates. call it a kibbutz. cite plato. whatever. but, the family as a feudal concept breaks down when you eliminate the property relationship, and that does need to be the end goal. yet, even then, you don't necessarily physically move away from your family so much as you allow for people with more distant biological relationships to take on roles that we currently delegate to close family members; it's less a physical separation and more of an emotional separation. in the mean time, if somebody can get along with their family then it would clearly make financial sense for them to maximize their resources by staying at home as long as they can, pooling their resources into the existing family finances (house, car) rather than into a new one and eventually inheriting something that's been paid for rather than buying something new. that's not ideological; that's logical. and, that is of course the trick of the social coercion - don't inherit your folks' house. buy a new one. then, the bank wins and everybody else loses.
as an anarchist, i broadly reject the idea that i have any right to tell somebody how to live. as my interests lay in art, and i consider paying for shelter to be an annoying burden, i would have rather stayed with my parents until the end; my parents did not care about my art, but rather expected me to go to school and get a job and start a family, things i did not actually want, so i was forced to leave against my will and go out and carry through with this contrived exercise in capitalism that i consider to be a waste of existence. i ended up working part time jobs, just enough to pay the rent, mostly avoiding any kind of social life and focusing as much energy as i could into my art. there was a fundamental breakdown in understanding, there - they didn't understand why i didn't want a good job, why i didn't want a car, why i wasn't interested in starting a family and why i "wasted" so much of my time on art and writing, and i didn't understand why they didn't just fucking support me in what i told them i actually wanted. so, we made no sense to each other. but, if i could have found a kind of benefactor, which is how they did it in the enlightenment, i would have happily moved into their basement. in the end, that's kind of what happened - i live in somebody else's basement, and pay rent with government subsidies. and, i focus on what i care about, and spurn what i don't.
i would have rather just stayed home, and if i had just stayed home then i'd have a lot more work done, too.
if other people have families that they're able to get along with better, then power to them. they have something i don't. and, i have no interest in criticizing them for that or trying to coerce them back into capitalist orthodoxy.
i want to say something about how i ended up in the wrong group of activists, though. it goes back to a kind of common error i've come up against over and over again, which is that i tend to base my primary means of learning on written material, and it often ends up contradicted by reality.
probably the first time i noticed this was when i realized i could spell words i couldn't pronounce correctly, and that this was kind of endemic, actually. i guess it was some time near the end of high school, when i found myself in a social group for really the first time in my life. in the midst of conversation, i would repeatedly pronounce things in ways that would get strange glances, or requests for repetition. "oh, you mean..." and then they would present the pronunciation that they'd heard. this often had the effect of challenging my credibility on the topic, because i was using all of these weird pronunciations. how well could i understand a concept if i couldn't enunciate it?
well, the truth is that these are things i'd been reading about in books and online for years, but that i hadn't actually heard anybody talk about before. my father was a jock, and my mother was a drunk - they didn't and don't have large vocabularies. i grew up desperately poor for the first ten years of my life; when my father remarried, he married into the middle class, but it was into a conservative section of the middle class, and it didn't meaningfully increase my exposure to people using larger words. so, i was reading at a university level when i was 10, i was in the 95th+ percentile on all of the standardized tests, but i had no exposure to anybody actually using any of these words. in english, spelling it out only goes so far, too - you can't just figure it out.
i often found myself explaining this, but it was rarely actually effective, because people are shallow idiots. i more often found myself written off, despite usually being the most knowledgeable person in the room. it's how people are.
likewise, i suspect most people probably end up in a political movement by meeting people, rather than by reading books. if there's much of any intellectual component to it, it's usually going to come after the fact, and have little meaningful effect. the normal way that people are going to do this is that they're going to go to a protest and ask the people there what's happening and determine if they like the people or not.
i did this the exact opposite way - i read up on a bunch of leftist writers, and then i went out looking for leftists, only to find that they didn't really uphold the ideals i'd previously read about. then, we get into this definitional debate: is the left this thing that exists in front of us all that calls itself the left, or is it this thing that exists in these books? and, i want to point to the books, and they want to point to themselves.
if you look at the literature closely enough, it does make some sense. what marx criticized as "utopian" came from conservative origins. in a sense, both marxism and conservatism are reactions to liberalism. and, it's not exactly easy to extricate yourself from capitalism, while existing smack in the middle of it.
but, that's not what you're thinking when you show up at one of these protests for the first time. you want them to be what you read about, and it takes some time to assert the empirical fact that they aren't, and try to figure out exactly why that is.
probably the first time i noticed this was when i realized i could spell words i couldn't pronounce correctly, and that this was kind of endemic, actually. i guess it was some time near the end of high school, when i found myself in a social group for really the first time in my life. in the midst of conversation, i would repeatedly pronounce things in ways that would get strange glances, or requests for repetition. "oh, you mean..." and then they would present the pronunciation that they'd heard. this often had the effect of challenging my credibility on the topic, because i was using all of these weird pronunciations. how well could i understand a concept if i couldn't enunciate it?
well, the truth is that these are things i'd been reading about in books and online for years, but that i hadn't actually heard anybody talk about before. my father was a jock, and my mother was a drunk - they didn't and don't have large vocabularies. i grew up desperately poor for the first ten years of my life; when my father remarried, he married into the middle class, but it was into a conservative section of the middle class, and it didn't meaningfully increase my exposure to people using larger words. so, i was reading at a university level when i was 10, i was in the 95th+ percentile on all of the standardized tests, but i had no exposure to anybody actually using any of these words. in english, spelling it out only goes so far, too - you can't just figure it out.
i often found myself explaining this, but it was rarely actually effective, because people are shallow idiots. i more often found myself written off, despite usually being the most knowledgeable person in the room. it's how people are.
likewise, i suspect most people probably end up in a political movement by meeting people, rather than by reading books. if there's much of any intellectual component to it, it's usually going to come after the fact, and have little meaningful effect. the normal way that people are going to do this is that they're going to go to a protest and ask the people there what's happening and determine if they like the people or not.
i did this the exact opposite way - i read up on a bunch of leftist writers, and then i went out looking for leftists, only to find that they didn't really uphold the ideals i'd previously read about. then, we get into this definitional debate: is the left this thing that exists in front of us all that calls itself the left, or is it this thing that exists in these books? and, i want to point to the books, and they want to point to themselves.
if you look at the literature closely enough, it does make some sense. what marx criticized as "utopian" came from conservative origins. in a sense, both marxism and conservatism are reactions to liberalism. and, it's not exactly easy to extricate yourself from capitalism, while existing smack in the middle of it.
but, that's not what you're thinking when you show up at one of these protests for the first time. you want them to be what you read about, and it takes some time to assert the empirical fact that they aren't, and try to figure out exactly why that is.
i would probably start an instagram account, even if it was purely trolly (like the twitter account), if you could log in with a browser on a regular windows computer. but, in order to use instagram, you need to have a phone and download an "app". i do actually have a phone at this point, but i'd have to flash it with a custom image before i felt safe actually using it, and i haven't gotten around to doing it, yet.
i want to be clear about a point.
in 2019, when you start pulling out words like "intersectionality", there's no predicting where you're going to actually go with it. it's a buzz word - it means everything and nothing at the same time. that wasn't yet the case in 2013.
so, i'm going to want to hear what you actually mean before i react. and, i'm ultimately going to want to see what your policy actually is, before i rip it apart as orwellian doublespeak - because i can't know beforehand if you're actually going down the rabbit hole, or if you're just being vacuous and trendy.
but, i will hold by my argument: any legitimate attempt at intersectional analysis that i've seen has in the end been a corollary of burkean conservatism, and has never made any sense in an actual socialist context. and, it's usually trotted out to uphold some kind of neo-liberal identity politics.
in 2019, when you start pulling out words like "intersectionality", there's no predicting where you're going to actually go with it. it's a buzz word - it means everything and nothing at the same time. that wasn't yet the case in 2013.
so, i'm going to want to hear what you actually mean before i react. and, i'm ultimately going to want to see what your policy actually is, before i rip it apart as orwellian doublespeak - because i can't know beforehand if you're actually going down the rabbit hole, or if you're just being vacuous and trendy.
but, i will hold by my argument: any legitimate attempt at intersectional analysis that i've seen has in the end been a corollary of burkean conservatism, and has never made any sense in an actual socialist context. and, it's usually trotted out to uphold some kind of neo-liberal identity politics.
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