great headline, jones. yeesh.

and, i've been convinced you're a russian plant since climategate, along with the rest of the neo-birchites, including paul. there's really a lot of irony in the whole discussion, as alex jones is the guy that'll be orchestrating the marches for the kremlin should some state capitol get stormed maidan-like. and, his audience is every bit as white nationalist, too.

the russian leadership is very pragmatic and no doubt willing to work with poroshenko, but i'm not convinced it still controls the army.

deathokoalas
o'reilly is legitimately standing at the end of a long line of human thought, but it doesn't necessarily have to do with religion. the crux of what o'reilly is saying is that people won't behave properly unless they have a fear of consequence. because o'reilly also wants small government, he pushes it off to a higher power to enforce the threat of consequence. but, there's a lot of problems with the whole approach.

to begin with, just because bill wants the bad guys to believe they're going to have to deal with god doesn't mean they're going to. because religion is so counter-intuitive, in order for it to really work as a disincentive it needs to be enforced from the top - by government, maybe, as was done by various christian churches in the past and is still enforced in islamic theocracies, or maybe by media, as is done more viably in the united states. so, it's just a hobbesian argument, in the end - and nothing to do with religion, itself.

but, what's worse is that a really moral person doesn't require the consequence. if you're only behaving because of the threat of consequence, you're not truly moral. his ends really don't follow from his strategy.

dawkins seems to generally realize that he's often debating with social engineers, rather than legitimately religious people. whatever sort of self-constraints he imposes on himself tend to neutralize his arguments. i wish he'd engage his opponents on the level they truly exist on, rather than the level they pretend they exist on.

i lost a few days due to a nasty neck ache that required a lot of sleeping. i'm still not really clear on what happened, but i've narrowed it down to either:

a) i picked up a virus from not using soap to wash my hands while making eggs. we all do this, because we're all lazy. i need to be more careful.

b) multiple sclerosis. this isn't random. i've been hearing about being high risk since i was a toddler, and i do get weird facial tics and random muscle spasms rather regularly. where the pain is (where my spine meets my brain) could very well be a lesion. but, if true, existing medical science couldn't actually do anything about it except waste a lot of my time. so, whatever. it's mostly gone away. good enough for now....

i'm feeling alert enough at this point to get back to it tonight. i think i'm still on course to finish the track by the first.

you know, something else that happened right before my back went up in flames was that i switched from folgers to maxwell house. and i drink around a pot of extremely strong coffee a day, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. pot two is coming up, we'll have to see how that works out...

but, what i wanted to post was this:

<phil hartman>

MAXWELL HOUSE! COFFEE SO STRONG, IT WILL MAKE YOUR NECK HURT SO BADLY, THAT YOU'LL BE COMPLETELY CONVINCED YOU HAVE M.S.

</phil hartman>

also, why isn't there a "bill clinton killed phil hartman" conspiracy theory?

what i'd say about the video is that it's really, unbearably cheesy - and perhaps a little bit trivializing.

...and that producing controversial videos is a time-tested way to distract from the fact that your music is regurgitated, unoriginal garbage.

that being said, i'll give them a C for effort. i'd prefer to see this message articulated than it's opposite one.

mmhhmm.

coincidentally, as space-based weapons drive a new cold war and arms race, a number of "asteroids" that are "as powerful as nuclear bombs" have "appeared out of nowhere".

further, the presented solution is to spend more money on space-based weapons systems.

we have absolutely no idea what our governments are doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWIx4RZ0uRw

yeah. i'll be ok. hopefully it goes away soon, though.

it hasn't really improved, but i've gotten used to it. also, i'm developing a sore throat, which leads me to conclude that i've picked up a virus. this is pretty intense for the flu, though....

...and the truth is the only vector i can conceive of over the last week would be those eggs. so, bird flu? maybe....

i'll see what i feel like when the sun comes up.

my neck needs rest, but my brain is wide awake. so, read.

i'm finding myself in far greater agreement with hobbes than i ever thought i would be, and am actually seeing him produce a lot of the same sorts of arguments i'm always throwing at ancaps. hobbes would agree that a society based around markets and contracts would require a state to enforce those markets and contracts, rendering the vision of classical liberalism (today pushed by anarcho-capitalists) a sort of contradiction in terms - precisely agreeing with myself and other anarchists, who don't think anarchy and capitalism are compatible with each other.

of course, hobbes would not conclude that markets and contracts (and property and currency) should be abolished, as i would. instead, he'd argue in favour of a totalitarian state that forces actors to carry out their promises.

but i'm a little surprised how much i'm actually identifying with somebody that's always been presented to me as the exact opposite of everything i've ever believed in or stood for.

lol.

does friedman know what "inelastic demand" means?

ouch.

neck is very stiff. has me paranoid about paralysis. but i'm hoping i just leaned on it the wrong way. will give it a few hours to heal before i freak out.

i took a break from mixing this morning to make some eggs, which gave me some heartburn and forced me to lie down. i woke up a few hours later barely able to move, with difficulty swallowing & etc.

see, it's been suggested to me more than once that i'm high risk for developing MS. i've had these periodic facial tics for as long as i can remember, but it's on the other side of the neck. i'm a little worried that something "broke" on the other side.

for now, i'm going to try to breathe slowly and just basically not move for a few hours.

so, i've become convinced that i will eventually snap my own sternum in the process of stretching, the blood splinters will travel to my heart and i'll die on the floor in a pool of my own blood. things are constantly snapping in there. it's just a matter of time.

but i can't just not stretch. no, really. try it some time. nobody can accomplish this task.

so, i've resigned myself to my own frailty, and patiently await the outcome.

hey, i always said i wouldn't make it to 25.

i was shocked when i made it to 30.

i suppose my track record on this prediction is not good, but i consider it exceedingly unlikely that i'll get to 40.

in some imaginary state of nature that never actually existed, i would have been eaten by lions before i turned ten. no, really, i would have. so, i'm already way ahead, thanks to the technology.

better to quit when i'm ahead. wait.

there are a lot of positives to treating corporations like people. rather than fight against the idea, the focus should be on using it to the general public's advantage.

you may have seen something about the civil war, but it's nonsense. the idea is british in origin and older than that. stated simply, a corporation cannot appear as a defendant in a lawsuit unless it is legally treated as though it is a person. abolishing legal personhood would also make it impossible to sue corporations. you'd have to sue individual people that work at a corporation instead - and good luck demonstrating liability. that's the whole point in the first place - to make it easier to establish liability...

here's another example of the way the idea could be used to the general public's advantage: if corporations are people, should they not be taxed as though they are people? if you follow the logic through, it's really blatantly unconstitutional (in canada, at least) to give corporations specialized tax cuts. at the earnings levels they have, they should be putting 90%+ of their profits into public spending. so, why doesn't somebody force them to...?

---- 

BrotherWoody1
Do you think the Holocaust survivors or even the Weisenthal Institute could look into both Ford + IBM for their active support of the Third Reich & their active participation in the Holocaust itself. It's entirely natural to Ford & IBM to move from one Nazified state to another Nazified state. I hope that the Court also makes them accountable for their actions before 1945 as well as after.

deathtokoalas
it's known that ibm & ford were both actively involved in the third reich. however, the biggest criminal enterprise in the holocaust was the standard oil, through it's agreements with ig farben. ig farben was the company that made the gas. it was interlocked with the rockefeller concerns, at the time.

you have to understand that the united states did not enter world war two until 1941, and was not particularly hostile to german plans to attack the soviet union. if you look at the situation carefully, it becomes clear that the american concern was damage control to reverse hitler's botched invasion (which they seemed to support until it failed) and save western europe from stalinism.

ig farben was dismantled after the war. it's major successor company was bayer. smaller successors include hoechst, agfa-ansco and basf.

to an extent, he's right - it's about class. but, what nader is missing is that his idea of "left" is pretty right-wing. what he's describing is a process of moderate right-wingers in the two parties coming together and (representing a dominant popular consensus) working against the existing political consensus, which is to the extreme right. and, these are absolutely exciting developments if you're a reformist liberal (that is, a centrist on any non-american political spectrum) that wants to focus on incrementally fixing little aspects of the system, rather than tearing it all down.

it follows that what he's describing is a resurgence of the center. and, i'll take it. but, that's not the same thing as left & right coming together.

if you actually take the time to hang out at some street protests in north america, you might be shocked to find out that the people that call themselves leftists are mostly actually center-right liberals that react violently to most left-wing ideas. the spectrum has just shifted so violently that mills is considered far left nowadays.

there really isn't a left to speak of to begin with.

google > raytheon.

i mean, if it's one or the other i'd rather the former.

i think this video is confusing correlation with causality in several places, and in the end trying to pull a valid point out of a giant mess of meaningless correlations. religious societies are generally less free, because you get killed when you disobey the book in the most trivial way. i don't doubt the correlation, but is the lower level of crime a result of a higher level of morality, a more stringent level of enforcement or even a lack of proper statistics brought on by a conspiracy of silence stemming from the fact that virtually everybody could be taken behind the mosque and shot in the forehead?

& etc.

to answer the question, which is what baited me into watching it: not all religious people are stupid, but most stupid people are religious.

uploading first movement (demo) to soundcloud

this is the guitar run through of the first movement of the proverbs symphony, as it was initially written (and demoed in early 2007). note that this version is less than seven minutes and is written to be performed live, whereas the completed movement is over seventeen minutes and would be impossible to reproduce without an orchestra of guitarists.

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/proverbs-symphony-movement-1-winter-2007

uploading the lost symphony to soundcloud

when finally completed, the trivial group sequence will consist of a 2-cd arranged in four thematically linked "symphonies", of which two are currently complete and one is partly complete. this is a live play through of the second half of the third piece and the entirety of the fourth.

this was written over 2004 and yet has not been recorded in any significant form. i went through a long period from '04 to '07 where i was convinced this piece (and some others i was writing at the time) required a drummer and refused to record until i could find one. i couldn't find one, which put me into a fit of depression and led to writers block & etc. eventually, i just bought an electronic kit with the goal of playing it myself.

however, i then skipped over it because i was bored with the relationship it was a relic of and decided it was time to move on. i'll be recording this (finally) over the upcoming months. for now, here's an unfinished demo of it.

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/the-lost-symphony

i just watched a little report on the national about how the robocall scandal never happened, and it was just blown out of proportion by the media. this was filmed after the government came out with a report indicating that they couldn't find evidence of the claims.

well, that's government investigating government, and i have reason to believe it's being covered up. how much of an effect it actually had is a more complicated question that i can't begin to try and answer.

however, i was working for one of the robocall firms on election day. it was a small office out of a tall building on elgin street in ottawa. i initially started working there doing opinion surveys as a student, but i found myself going back there between jobs because they were happy to have me back. i happen to have been rather good at getting people to answer the surveys (i guess it's a combination of being interesting enough to not hang up on and being a good troll), which is an obscure and sought after talent.

anyways, the nature of the firm changed over the five or so years i was in and out of it. they were initially doing overflow for ekos or doing a lot of government of canada surveys. over time, they started doing more and more surveys for conservative political candidates. for the last several months leading up to the election, they were pretty much campaigning for the conservative party.

some of the polls were pretty straight forward - which candidate in your riding do you support, followed by some demographics about age and income. some of them were a little less straight forward, and i had caught on that something was not right by the end of it.

for example, they were polling in helena guergis' riding, but they weren't refreshing the numbers. so, you'd have people calling the same numbers over and over again, supposedly on behalf of helena guergis. that's a good way to piss people off so that they don't want to vote for helena guergis, which is what the cpc wanted at the time.

i was taken off the phone on election day to do data entry, but i do distinctly recall the *owner* of the firm periodically repeating - and it was of the utmost importance to him - to NOT tell people there was a change in the riding, because the information was false. i didn't put it together at the time, but it seems like he was actually NOT wanting to commit voter fraud, no doubt to try and protect his business' reputation.

holinshed closed it's doors almost immediately after the election and has not resurfaced since.

the people on the phone were not robots, although they may have sounded like robots from time to time.

ontarians are generally pretty no-bullshit when it comes to elections. we're also generally pretty down to earth when it comes to politics. we had a red tory government in place for something like 30 years, and the truth is that the province has never really moved away from those values. sure, it's a good idea to be reasonable with spending, but not at a cost to social services, which are more important in the end.

so, that works against both the turkeys running against her. horwath is just too transparent, and it's nice to see people turn on her for the power grab. and, the kind of conservatism that hudak represents is just not popular here, outside of the rural heartland. the 905ers want some moderate tax cuts, not an unregulated market-based society (or, worse, having the system sold off to the party's wealthy buddies).

so, this was obvious. and, there's not going to be a change of power here unless:

a) the conservatives go back to their red tory roots, and actually try and outspend the liberals. which will revolt that rural base, as it does everywhere.

or

b) the ndp cut out the transparent power politics, which means a drastic change in leadership. the reality is that the ontario ndp can't even rely on union support, so they end up competing with conservatives for low information voters.

but, it also helps that hudak is a cartoon character. a million jobs, tim? by government policy? is that a four year plan or a five year plan?

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/22/ontario-election-2014-wynne-liberal-poll_n_5372594.html

it bothers me that i tend to align with the right on speech issues, and not because i feel a conservative twinge within me but because of the motives i end up forced to align with, due to the left being so authoritarian. i don't want to be supporting people that want the right to publish hate literature, but i can't be supporting this type of authoritarian statism that wants to police people's thoughts, either.

the reason to oppose these laws is that they don't work. rather, they provide fresh fuel for stale hate propaganda. if you shut down the nazi newspaper, don't be surprised when they use it as evidence to prove that the jews control the media - and when people are dumb enough to believe it.

further, when you attach consequences to opinions, what you do is just drive them underground. people learn what they can say in public and can't, but they don't actually change what they think. this fuels the resentment. it leads to groups of people yelling "i can't say what i want because of THEM". one would have to expect a long term policy of this sort to eventually lead to a violent backlash, as it isn't eliminating the hate but bottling it up for eventual explosive release.

there are various approaches to dealing with racism, but they generally have to do with working it out through integration and dialogue, not threatening people to shut up or else.

that doesn't mean i think hate speech should be without consequence, but i think it should be treated as a tort and come with some very heavy burden on the person launching the suit. it's ultimately a type of defamation when you work it out; if i say something disparaging about all people of a certain characteristic, the crux of the problem is ultimately that it simply isn't true. yet, the law doesn't challenge just any false statement, it challenges false statements that are shown to cause harm. if somebody's racist tirade has a demonstrable consequence, the person that wrote it should be held responsible for it and forced to make the situation whole.

otherwise, they're just a moron running their mouth off and should be treated as such - which generally means just ignoring them.

uploading proverbs demos to soundcloud

this is a very early (july 31, 2005), no effects demo of the second & third movements (reversed). there are a few flourishes, both gained & lost.

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/proverbs-symphony-movements-3-2-summer-2005 

chances are you missed the joke from pat sajak.

i'm hoping he keeps it going, by calling his detractors jewish nazi pedophiles.

i have to admit it would be fun to storm a police station and make the pigs squeal. yet, that's just a twisted fantasy.

it's not clear to me where the people in between stand, but these are police state tactics that have the potential to completely undermine the government in kiev. it doesn't really matter what the law says.

....and that remains the only message that vice is succeeding in getting across: the conversion of ukraine from a failed democracy to a militarized police state.

this is so anti-american. how are they supposed to celebrate their culture without showdowns and other gun fights? this isn't america any more it's fascist communism! the big money elitist globalist corporate scum must be stopped.....!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/15/gay-gene-dangers-research-homophobia

and remember....

if you're not able to understand something, it's because the person explaining it to you is too stupid to conform to your preconceptions.

basically, no.

there were repeated iranian invasions of greece over thousands of years from the area now called ukraine, where anachronistic buddhist statues have been found. the buddhist beliefs are, of course, of ultimate iranian origin in central asia, and not of indian origin in the south of the subcontinent. pythagoreanism was actually mostly derived from orphism, which was connected to the indigenous religions of the remnants of these iranian invasions in the areas around thrace and up the side of the black sea.

the similarities between greek and indian religion are consequently derived from the same common root of derivation as the similarities between greek and indian language - a common origin in the iranian tribes of central asia and southern russia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F46QRtrQK4

it's overly simplistic to point entirely at climate change. and, in fact this is a revisionist understanding of things with a huge political motive underlying it. certain academics find the idea of tribes fighting each other to extinction to be distasteful - despite overwhelming evidence in the historical period.

i predict that a thousand years from now the same sort of academics will argue that the native americans were destroyed by climate change because they don't like the idea of genocide. it's too divisive. racist, even.

the reality is that genocide is a constant in recorded history, and to deny it existed in pre-history is nothing short of delusional.

further, climate change often works better together with genocide than it does as a contrary hypothesis to it. the southern movements of tribes in the historical period often had to do with the weather changing. there are clear destruction horizons in the indus valley that almost certainly had to do with iranian tribes moving southward, which brought their language and their religion into india and iran. this seems to have to do with the temperatures decreasing around the caspian.

the civilizations of the fertile crescent sucked at doing irrigation, and that remains a gigantic problem in the region to this day.

there are documented migrations from central asia into greece during the period that the minoans disappeared, including the replacement of the indigenous language with the greek one.

greenland is a good example, but it also had to do with the country's extreme isolation.

but the takeaway is the climate change leads to migration, rather than collapse, and that migration has historically had incredibly disruptive consequences. we may like to think we're beyond that, or that our guns are big enough to counteract it. but maybe that's a little naive, too.

http://energyskeptic.com/2013/climate-change-has-destroyed-many-civilizations-in-the-past/

what a lot of the studies you'll see about this will do is build up this strawman about race, knock it down and then claim it proves something.

you don't need to talk about prehistoric migrations to get an understanding of gene flow between the middle east and central asia, or between india and china. there have been huge trade networks across these region for as long as time has existed, and slave trades working in all directions. it only makes sense to say "we didn't find evidence of a racial marker" if you begin with the argument that races exist in the first place; if you acknowledge that races actually don't exist, and almost all markers exist in almost all populations at different frequencies, none of the evidence is relevant to the question.

what follows is that you cannot use genetic evidence to demonstrate anything other than that there's no such thing as race in the first place.

now, as for various mutations, finding high frequencies indicates migration paths, yes. but it's beyond specious to try and connect those ideas to this archaic fabrication of a concept that is race.

that means that it's entirely consistent to pull most genetic diversity in india from an indigenous root AND accept the invasion hypothesis, and that proving the local nature of that diversity does NOT disprove the idea of a southern invasion.

if you look at the historical period, we can see invasions that have had dominant effects on the genetic and cultural make-up of the population (arab invasion of north africa), that have led to mixed peoples with mixed cultures (turkish invasion of anatolia) or that have left a culture with little genetic influence (bolivia is a good example, as would be most of colonized africa).

i mean, do you take a genetic sample of french-speaking, christian central africans and use it to disprove french colonialism?

i'd hazard an educated guess that there's more african dna in europe than there is european dna in africa.

this hippie whitewashing of history will be reversed, along with everything else they've fucked up. it's just unfortunate to have to live in this period, where truth is a constant casualty to orwell.

the alley cats on my porch have spawned themselves into alley kittens.

they still keep their distance, although they've mostly stopped scattering. it's weird, because i'm generally a magnet for house pets. alley cats aren't house pets, of course. but alley cats aren't usually porch cats, either.

i don't want to freak the mother out, but maybe the kitties will be more friendly if i hang out outside from time to time.

uploading me, myself & the time i thought this was a good idea (acoustic demo) to soundcloud

so, here's today's track.

=============

this was never meant to be released as it is, although i had some ideas about putting together an acoustic ep of tour material. neither touring nor the accompanying ep followed. but this is hanging out on the old hard drive, and it has some fucking charm to it, if i might say so myself. so, it gets to be the first up to my little lo-fi side site.

at the time (early 2002), i was working on some psychedelic pop demos with a friend of mine. i was loading the tracks up with all kinds of overdubs and effects and other fun things, but the possibility of performing the material live with just the two of us (without stooping to the level of backing tapes or, worse, those fucking horrid loop pedals that make everything sound like steve reich after a fucking lobotomy), was pretty much completely impossible. these songs were solid - they could hold their own on an acoustic. i also realized that acoustic music was on it's way up, so doing a little tour as a two-person harmonized folk duo was the way to go. this track, however, was written in a bit of a post-punk style and needed to be rearranged for acoustic guitar in order to have that idea work itself out.

so, i just demoed this up for the other guy (the vocals are just there to drive the track along; the other guy wrote them, not me) to get the point across. he didn't like any of this - not the touring as an acoustic folk duo idea, not the rearrangement on the track, nothing. in 2002. oops? it's the story of my musical career....

the track is full of messy playing, because i'm trying to sing at the same time and the vocals are rhythmically contrasted against the guitars - but mostly because nobody was supposed to hear this. i'll be re-recording this over the next few months, as i clean up my writing from the period.

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/me-myself-and-the-time-i-tried-to-convince-the-other-guy-it-was-a-good-idea

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/kerry-says-raw-data-indicate-recent-use-of-chemical-weapons-by-syrian-government/2014/05/15/7ca7d3fa-dc50-11e3-a837-8835df6c12c4_story.html

now that the russians are occupied in ukraine, they're ramping up the syria rhetoric again.

and this isn't going to be a quick bomb-and-invade operation. to begin with, they've got hezbollah on the ground. second, the russians have been selling anti-aircraft for years. third, the iranians are a real question mark, as russia and the united states are in a pretty open multi-theatre proxy war at this point. which has the possibility for further escalation in iraq, as well.

i just watched the rest of this (i'm a little behind).

it's true that the situation in syria doesn't really allow for a serious election (but apparently the situation in ukraine does). the thing is that's not an accident. the saudi-american aim is to prevent democracy in syria. the rhetoric is one thing, but the anglo-american imperial policy (which the saudis have supported for a long time) has always been to do everything possible to prevent any kind of self-determination across the region. assad wanted to be a doctor, and only inherited his position by accident. he's been trying to step down since he became president, but wants to do so in a way that is a responsible shift of power. the saudis are trying to prevent that...

the only reason he's not a sanctioned dictator is that he's not our guy, he's in cahoots with the russians. the saudis have other motives, but that's what's driving the state department.

the second thing is that when he talks about not wanting aid to go through damascus, it's a political thing. people living through this kind of nightmare are going to put their political aspirations and sympathies aside and align with the force that feeds them, whatever it is - dictatorial state, looney jihadists, alien life, whatever. so, if the government is getting the aid in, people will support the government. but, for fuck's sake, isn't that what a government does? sitting there in washington and trying to scheme ways up that are going to get the aid distributed by looney jihadists instead of the legitimate state power overseeing the area isn't going to go over anybody's heads in the country. if the government isn't doing what the government ought to do, people are going to ask what's stopping them. when it gets explained that the imperial power is using the aid as a ploy to try and turn them against the government.....that's when these things start blowing back....

i mean, i'm all for realpolitik if it's smart and careful, but that's just boneheaded in it's lack of basic respect for the intelligence of the average syrian.

sadly, hrw and other organizations of the sort are fronts for the state department. it's pretty documented.

now that the russians are occupied in ukraine, they're ramping up the syria rhetoric again.

and this isn't going to be a quick bomb-and-invade operation. to begin with, they've got hezbollah on the ground. second, the russians have been selling anti-aircraft for years. third, the iranians are a real question mark, as russia and the united states are in a pretty open multi-theatre proxy war at this point. which has the possibility for further escalation in iraq, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnyjzgh4lQ0

i want to get it out front that i think you get the logic right, but that it only really applies starkly to the hyperfeminine extreme of the transfemale spectrum. if you begin with the grey area part of this and extrapolate it, i think you'll see that it sort of contradicts what you're getting at. if you acknowledge that a lot of transwomen are a little more in the centre in the sense that they have bigendered and androgynous traits, you'll have to conclude that they may have a few traits that may be attractive to some gay men. i mean, what you're saying is true, but only in that limited range of transwomen. so, you should have stuck with the whole grey area theme :)

personally? i'm the super shy, dresses down, tanktop 'n' jeans, bookish-librarian type rather than the big hair, stiletto heels & makeup everywhere type (no judging, it's just not me). while i don't get much attention from gay men for the reasons you're suggesting, and others, i do get a little bit, and i think there's some good reasons for it. a gay male may notice that we might share some tastes in art, for example, especially music, and think that this is something to build a relationship on top of. and, because i have a small-breasted, thin and athletic type of physique rather than a really curvy one, he may see something sufficiently sexy in it. conversely, a lot of straight men will interpret me as overly challenging or "unfeminine" for the same reasons they're afraid of assertive feminists. the ones that are attracted to me are attracted to me for the same reasons they're attracted to tomboys - or to challenging feminists.

it's about breaking down those media strereotypes of hyperfeminity in transgendered women, but it's also about those grey areas. transgendered people inhabit a lot of them, and because of that they're going to generate a lot of interest within them as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8EpCEoRfcA

looks like somebody fell for the propaganda. you repeat it so many times....

they're privatizing everything. education. social security. even welfare is being offloaded to the church. and it has nothing to do with government revenue streams and everything to do with increasing profit.

i think one had to always look at affirmative action as a temporary solution, until some of the root causes could be addressed. have they been addressed? no. but, maybe the position was becoming too entrenched and the more substantial reforms were being ignored. maybe turning the focus back to the root causes is the enlightened way to respond.

if you accept all (or some) of the reasons that states are inherently corrupt and driven by the interests of those that control them (capital, today), how can you be so naive as to think that international law will ever be upheld for any reason?

fucking liberals.

can somebody give me ONE example where an empire said "gee, we shouldn't invade this area and steal it's resources. it's written here in international law."

one?

no?

didn't think so.

law requires enforcement. that's how it is. and who polices the police?

so, instead of flailing around these worthless pieces of paper, i propose that we collectively grasp the situation, realize this order has failed us, throw the laws nobody follows out the window and start building a new order instead.

"it may seem strange to some man...that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade and destroy one another...but neither of us accuse man's nature in it."

well, he's right. but the second option is the good option. it's 2014, and we're still supporting unitary, ethno-religious nation states that are opposed to pluralism? two of 'em, even. across the peninsula from each other.

salmons to the head of all of them.

from now on? lol. what year is it? 1997?

stop analyzing and be deterred.

BE DETERRED.

even if the indignation is sincere, it's just politics. you can expect the same thing from the next republican administration. this is a cia tactic that goes back decades.

he's not lying. it legitimately is in russia's interests to do what the americans tell them to. sort of like how it's in the interests of a hostage to do what their assailant tells them. and it's really not in russia's interests to take this independent stand outside of the international community.

nothing funny about the statement, it's just that, as usual, you're just not getting the context.

who is he even talking to? the israeli right knows he's full of shit as much as the global left does. american-israeli donors are educated people. it's an act without an audience. he should just come out with a rocket launcher on his shoulder, arnold style, and drop the fucking bullshit.

NPR IS FREE MARKET RUSSIAN COMMUNIST SPIES.

but, dammit russia, can you realize you're being decoyed?

yup. now that the russians are distracted in ukraine...

#glitterbomb

that's a lot of optimism for syriza that isn't shared by a lot of other sources i keep up with, which have them pegged as establishment lackeys. we've seen this over and over again in europe recently, where socialists act like fascists on election.

i simply don't know how they think they're going to get out of this while sticking with the euro gold standard. none of the solutions here are possible without having sovereignty over their money supply.

"what we're really trying to do is co-opt the environmental movement to vote for the democratic party in the next presidential election, while the party continues to support anti-environmental policies. i know it sounds outlandish and insulting, but it worked in the last cycle with the anti-war movement so why not try it again? the kind of soft-lefty liberal centrists that go for the democrats are PERFECT for doublethink! they've been trained for it their whole lives! so, we're focusing on building a feel-good community where people can get together and smoke giant blunts (next cycle? they've been saying that for forty years...), rather than on building a counter-economy that may actually reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. and, who would criticize the solution? in the end, everybody is happy. self-censorship leading to ignorance is truly bliss."

deathtokoalas
it's really pretty sad just what level of effort people perceive is being put into this. the writing in this profile is largely stream of consciousness. i'll go back to correct spelling or modify sentence structures to eliminate underlying assumptions in the writing that only make sense to me, but what you're reading here is otherwise completely raw.

so, how do you approach somebody accusing you of using a thesaurus? this is shit i'm pumping out in a few minutes per post. so,  when the false assumptions are stripped out, that must be a suggestion that i have an advanced vocabulary, which i actually think is not at all true - i think it's obvious that i graduated high school and have read a few books since but i wouldn't suggest that much beyond that stands out in what i'm presenting here. nor would i want it to. i fucking hate pretentious blowhards. here's a startling fact: over the approximately ten years that i spent in university i went to zero parties and made zero friends that i stayed in contact with outside of the scholastic context. the hate was really mutual, actually. it wasn't somewhere i fit into. at all.

for the first few years, i greatly preferred hanging out in the projects near my parents house, with dropouts and hustlers. then i spent a few years hanging out with street artists and ravers, followed by a few years of complete lonerism and then a few years with occupy kids before i went back to being a complete loner. i've never been or ever wanted to be the elitist educated kid. that's really a very bad way to interpret this. yet, it is also unfortunately a very bad reflection of the public education system when somebody of no meaningfully advanced education that is just scrawling out thoughts as they come up is viewed as writing carefully presented essays and agonizing over every word in them...

i always knew i would be fucking miserable in the life of an academic, but i was balancing it off against other ways to be fucking miserable. in hindsight? i regret wasting my time with it. but, i can't say i ever had a lot of choice: the alternative that was presented to me was pretty shitty, too.

there were several years when taking student loan money was literally the only way that i could pay my rent, because i wasn't able to get a job in a coffee shop or fast food restaurant.

"so, why did you go to graduate school?"

"because mcdonald's wouldn't call me back. white, unfortunately."

"oh."

"the rent just keeps coming, y'know? every fucking month. never stops. the student loans are a steady pay check for somebody that can't find work."

"why not just try welfare?"

"well, that would be better. i could do what i want instead of studying shit i don't care about. but, welfare is something like half of student loan money. it's not enough to pay the bastards. if it was, i'd go for it."

"oh. disability?"

"well, i don't have one, far as i can tell."

today, i do live on disability. but the diagnosis is pretty weak. it's something i have to do this summer, actually - get a better diagnosis. i don't know what fits best. schizophrenia. bi polar. something like that....

TheVanillatech

Why? I know 4 months but why?

deathtokoalas

this post was to google, rather than youtube. it's just all cross-posted.

TheVanillatech

Still, why..... XD

deathtokoalas

i've been posting a lot to google over the last few months. i guess i have an internet addiction; before i was posting to google, i was posting to facebook, and before that i was all over the cbc (canadian state run media), and before that i was all over mailing lists and newsgroups...

but i've moved to youtube in an attempt to promote the music i've been spending more time with over the last few months.

i'm constantly being accused of being one of them no good book lerners. i've had dozens of people accuse me of sitting in front of my laptop with thesaurus.com open.

it's ridiculous. and false. but interesting. just reflecting.

deathtokoalas
so tired.

enough of this. been going on too long, now. need a manic episode, please. five, six days without sleeping. that's the good stuff....

patriarchy.

it might at first seem rather remarkable that the word appears nowhere in the show, but then why would it in a panel on sexism composed of four men and one completely drowned out woman?

(although i should add that there is an attractive european woman invited to every panel i've ever seen this show put on, and she is always ignored and belittled by the host, so that's very much expected on the stream)

the mansplainers collectively display great difficulty grappling with why women are presented one way and men are not, unable to parse it through their concepts of egalitarianism. the sole female was given a brief chance to get to it, but was cut off before she could finish her thought.

to be fair, it's more reasonable to speak of the remnants of patriarchy. but, the remnants of patriarchy is the answer nonetheless. where women were once sold by their fathers to their husbands with little say in the matter, today they are given almost full autonomy over the process. yet, the market relationship between buyer and seller has not been abolished. the idea we have in our head is objectification, but the more accurate idea is commodification. the market is designed so that men are buyers and women are sellers. buyers do not need to advertise a product that they do not sell; sellers must advertise to be successful.

this is clearly an unequal situation, but it's roots are not in the media. what the marketing guy was trying to explain is that it's all about tapping into desire. the media may uphold the status quo, but it's the underlying culture that enforces the market relation.

true egalitarianism will not come when women stop selling, it will come when women start buying, which will be a function of their economic power.

so, be patient with this.

why do so many people have so much difficulty in confusing maturity with conformity?

i suspect it's a lack of maturity, actually.

but there's a lot of pressures coming down from the top, too.

i don't really want to come down particularly hard on conformists, whether it's genuine or strategic. i recognize the value of conformity as a survival tactic. i always have...

...but let's not confuse that with maturity. k?

"while generally regarded as a text on political philosophy, leviathan is also a treatise on the natural sciences that was written before newton, einstein, freud, jung, darwin and gauss. further, while hobbes may have been friends with bacon, he shows no interest in the scientific method, preferring to emulate the synthetic philosophy of geometers past. worse, he builds his politics out of his understanding of the natural sciences using a method then referred to as materialism (which is related to but quite different than what we think of as materialism today). the result can only be described as a lot of nonsense, written from a point of extreme ignorance."

from time to time, hobbes surprises but these surprises are a function of my own ignorance rather than hobbes' insight. the most important thing i've learned reading hobbes is that a number of ideas that i thought were attributable to newton are in fact older (and mostly attributable to galileo).

they need to stop interviewing kissinger. he's completely out of touch. clinton bombed him into history.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/10/kissinger-putin-likely-didnt-plan-to-bring-ukraine-situation-to-a-head/

and people wonder why i just don't bother engaging with western media. it's a waste of time...

http://rt.com/news/158252-ukraine-pakistan-cnn-mistake/

what i've been saying.

unfortunately, i suspect the rebels are pulling out to facilitate an air attack.

i'm very staunchly pro-choice, but this is not smart politics. the issue splits strongly along urban/rural lines, meaning it's an issue in currently liberal-held ridings where the ndp is often uncompetitive.

if he stays strict on it, it could be as much as +10 for the conservatives. if he's serious, it's more important to get back in power and regain an influence over the courts.

good. hopefully it gets demand down.

i just don't know why you're playing off globalization against hegemony. that's the same logic that argues that markets work because entities seek to compete for the common good. as integration does not negate nationalism, it does not negate conquest, either. i mean, it's sort of hilarious to me how often you hear this idea from leftists. it's really just a restatement of the end of history. if you really think capitalism is inherently unstable, you shouldn't be shocked by the failure of globalized markets to bring peace and stability to the world.

yup. shooting on the remembrance day ceremony is an absolutely splendid way to polarize the population, to usher in a civil war that will bog the russians down for the next decade.

what? you thought they were trying to do something else?

good. get that price through the roof, and watch the economic infrastructure adjust for the better.

tactical? mmmhmmm. unfortunately, i suspect this is to facilitate an upcoming air onslaught by nato forces.

i think it's reasonable to take farage at face value. he claims he's not geert wilders or marie le pen, and i think the evidence justifies mostly believing him.

but, what of his political support?

street protestors that call themselves leftists nowadays have a lot of views that don't make a lot of sense within traditional leftist thinking. the person briefly interviewed in this clip was presenting a libertarian or even objectivist argument that most leftists would ridicule as laissez-faire liberalism.

marx spoke of something called the "industrial reserve army". it's a simple market argument. if there are more people that want jobs than there are jobs, wages decrease and profits increase. it is consequently within the interests of capital to ensure that unemployment remains high. this is the reason that bourgeois states demand so much control over immigration - they need to ensure that unemployment does not fall below a certain level, or wages will go up.

that's not to blame the issue on the immigrants themselves, as they're merely tools in a government policy. to look the white trash protester in the eye and say "it's your fault you're poor and unemployed" is as grossly ignorant and uneducated as the white trash' argument that it's all the immigrants' fault in the first place.

these so-called leftists should be out trying to explain the economics of the situation to the working class, so that they support revolutionary movements. instead, they look down their noses at them.

fools, the lot of them. but so long as the system remains in tact, the ukip will not reverse bourgeois policies. this is neither resolvable with racism nor electoral politics.

why do people do this?

although, i have to admit it'd be fun to stumble around pretending to be napoleon for a few days, snapping dry self-deprecating wisecracks at anybody that comes near.

neither force nor authority has ever succeeded in eliminating religious superstition, which is a truth that the russian state knows very well. yet, the teacher's role is not irrelevant. the bible is full of false information, and she has an obligation to explain that to the student. what she should have done was engaged with the student in discussion and provided some other suggestions that would correct the false information he was consuming. that would have addressed the actual concern, rather than turn it into an empty clash of egos and a confused misrepresentation of otherwise meaningless "civil rights".

they should nationalize the vatican.

i don't really care if these paid murderers get their memories back or not. i'd rather see them deported to antarctica...

but, this has greater implications in the quest for immortality by peaceful, law-abiding peoples. my understanding of the situation over the last few years has been that the question of storing and restoring memories is one that belongs to the era of quantum computers, and serious applications would have to be put on hold for the next several decades as a result of that.

it'll be interesting to me to see if this research confirms or contradicts this, or if it sheds any light on possible civilian application.

this is another centuries old conflict. there's a bit of a contradiction in the liberal assault on papal totalitarianism, which is this idea of "religious freedom", which they should really understand as an oxymoron. post-liberal leftists used to understand this better, although post-leftists have returned to this liberal confusion (unfortunately).

every time they have the chance to really stamp the church out, they get trapped in their confused ideals and show it mercy. yet, when they start showing signs of rejuvenation they go into containment policy. so, it's this pointless loop that just wastes resources - and, worse, keeps a dangerous institution in existence.

they should just put the vatican out of it's misery. one approach would be to nationalize the holy see and redistribute the wealth.

yeah, it's a joke. but latvia is smaller than most american states and has an economy smaller than most major cities. it can't sustain any kind of meaningful independence in the 21st century.

that was a pretty self-deprecated laugh.

hillary's such a shell of her former self. there used to be talk of her needing to "sound tough", and it was all written off as politics. maybe there was some truth to this. i have to admit that my major concern in '08 was that she was going to warp into an extreme liberal interventionist, and blow up half of africa to protect minority rights. it was a question of somebody that seemed to actually believe the rhetoric, rather than somebody using it as an excuse to advance an empire, as is usually the case. i mean, her foreign policy resume used to consist of helping to negotiate the good friday peace accords, and little else. but, nowadays she's just another member of the neo-con cabal. totally brainwashed. but, sadly, a willing participant. to "advance her career".

but, she also tends to speak from a position of knowledge. this is arrogant and pompous (rather than 'tough'), but it's not bullshit. the consequences of russia's insolence are being seen right now in ukraine...

the one thing the americans cannot tolerate is insubordination. they'll allow debate, and large amounts of autonomy, but actively disobeying them is always punished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E1aZlADRQU

separating between the demos and the ethnos is absolutely the most imperative step, and must be the beginning point in creating meaningful local governance. and, from that realization two further points are necessary to point out.

1) nothing that's happening right now would be possible if such a separation were axiomatic to the general population, which is why all of the states involved work so hard to infuse these ideas together into a single, inseparable concept of nation-state. the states of the world want you to believe that you are a member of a nationality, and that that nationality defines who you are as an individual. a mere moment's reflection realizes the contradiction in the idea that individuality is defined by collective identity, but that kind of clarity of thought is very effectively repressed. it is only when you identify as a member of the collective that you can be manipulated into behaving the way people are behaving in ukraine.

2) the ethnos does not exist. the science is now clear on the point that any random sample of self-identifying ethnic russians is going to contain backgrounds from pretty much everywhere in the world. you can identify mutations, but they make up fractions of the population. the fact that russians and ukrainians are ethnically indistinguishable does not imply that ukrainians should not have local governance. an educated populace would go beyond the point of rejecting a tyranny of the majority to acknowledging that the majority is itself actually a fabrication and move beyond. i'd like to be optimistic about that, i would like to declare nationalism dead, but i don't have any good ideas about getting there.

so, you have these two things in contradiction to each other: the nationalism that the state enforces as a means of ownership and the biology that discards it as nonsense. as is so often the case, this is a battle between information and authority.

but, the sooner that we collectively realize that the ethnos is a myth means the sooner that we break free from statist control, and avoid the particularly profound idiocy of ethnic violence between genetically indistinguishable people - be it in ukraine or in palestine or in ireland.

so, posting here has decreased dramatically. i'm mostly only paying attention to news when i'm eating, which means i'm interacting with youtube more than facebook. i just don't have the interest to sort through rss feeds right now. i've got a large watch later playlist that i'm several weeks behind on. it's also a better way to draw traffic to my music, as the site is wide open.

this is a trend that is likely to continue. i'm not abandoning this page (it's still where i'll rant about articles) but if you're looking to follow my analysis with any real intent you're going to have to follow me on youtube.

you can also subscribe to me on youtube if you'd like, but all you're going to get in the feed is original music uploads. i have no desire or plans to be a video blogger; it's far faster and easier to type than it is to make videos, and it keeps the illiterates out of the audience.

the music is my actual passion. but it's not news analysis.

https://www.youtube.com/user/deathtokoalas

the way to actually follow the youtube postings is to add me in google+. i don't use google+ as a social network, and don't plan to, but it's a useful way to archive the youtube posts. that is, it's a one-way flow of information. but it's where this page is being slowly moved to.

you'll have to tolerate some music rants...

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/115697117379871673298/

hey mozilla firefox...

if i wanted chrome, i'd run chrome. guess why i don't run chrome? yeah, that's right.

i hope it gets forked, 'cause the ui in chrome is just disgusting.

i hate buying abridged texts.

didn't think to look at the front cover. my fault...

...but you have to wonder what kind of editor thinks they're that fucking important.

just had a good laugh at myself for realizing that i'm back to carrying around the ol' blankie...

well, i know enough now not to take it out of the house. but i actually think i always knew enough not to take it out of the house. at least i have no memories of taking it out of the house.

but, whatever i'm doing in here - reading, typing, watching, playing, recording - is all wrapped up in this blanket. and you're likely to get hit with a frying pan if you think you're taking it away from me.

*disheveled glare*

don't touch ma blankie. fuggin gumamint, stealing blankies. they came right in on some kid in florida, assault rifles, pried the blankie out at gunpoint.

i guess old habits die hard

yeah, there's that pandora's box, again.

if putin was ever in charge, he isn't anymore. the army is calling the shots now. that's how you interpret this apparent paradox.

and if this whole "destroy russia" thing is being driven by a segment of the american establishment that was never properly deconditioned to the end of the cold war, it's complement no doubt exists in russia.

once set in motion, this trajectory cannot be altered.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-john-kerry-warns-moscow-against-splitting-country-in-two-ahead-of-donetsk-referendum-9331279.html

terrorist training.

if putin was ever in charge, he isn't anymore. the army is calling the shots now. that's how you interpret this apparent paradox.

and if this whole "destroy russia" thing is being driven by a segment of the american establishment that was never properly deconditioned to the end of the cold war, it's complement no doubt exists in russia.

once set in motion, this trajectory cannot be altered.

dogs don't have a maternal instinct to sit on their pups. conversely, dogs are known to smother their pups to death. there's various theories about that, from reducing the stress on the dog to killing off the runts of the litter.

judging from that reaction of sitting on top of him, i'd suspect that the dog is being teased by this child rather badly and that this needs to be corrected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLCoTP2vf44

but, what about the fear of the underclass not producing enough slaves? it's amazing when you look at the history of homophobia. a consistent narrative jumps out:

1) in the early days, it was often used as a 'gotcha' type thing by the church. so, if you're a philosopher that's talking about all kinds of crazy things like atheism, and you happen to be gay, they could get you on that when they can't get you otherwise. it was often used as a pretext to shut down opposition.

2) during various phases when the empire was weak, it was attacked because it was viewed as hindering population replacement. so, if there was a famine or a plague or a disastrous war, they'd go after the gays for not doing their job in helping to produce more workers and soldiers.

3) under feudalism and slavery, it was attacked because it hindered the ability for the serf or slave's owner to produce further offspring (which would produce more wealth, or be sold).

4) then bondage became replaced by debt, but the prohibition continued for the same reason.

oddly, now that population control (rather than population replacement) is the dominant goal of the elite, the oppression has mostly slowed down, except religious opposition - which is the same basic idea as we've seen throughout history: gay people don't create a new generation of donating church goers.

well, and also in russia. where the population is declining.

i know that's grim.

here's a document that explains this in more detail:
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=310

just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.

"these anarchists, they think they can just do what they want, and it's not ok." - cop speaking into walky talky as i walked by, and was seemingly followed into the grocery store, and then home.

it's a good thing i'm completely boring and have no possible leads whatsoever towards anything of any interest or consequence. otherwise, they might not be wasting their time.

unless they want to have a heated debate, i guess. imagine the nerve of me, thinking i can just say what i want wherever i want to say it.

i'm pretty sure i've been through this before, and it's just basically like "whatever". the only thing they could prove is that whoever's in charge deserves a demotion.

great day to go for a walk. it went up from 10 to 20 as i was walking. and the high today is a nice 28. yay . best of all, it seems like the basement is retaining heat well. finally...

got stuck outside the music store (i needed strings) for a half hour before they opened, so i went across the street to the salvation army. i know. but, why not sort through the books while i'm waiting? i was looking specifically for an old text by thomas hobbes, which i think is actually on the banned books list. yes, there's still a banned books list. seriously.

danielle steel. wall to wall. i kid not. i burst out laughing, actually. says a lot about christian repression, doesn't it?

there's a used store down the street with literally everything. snagged my leviathan on the way back for $5.

also, i found a market that sells local tomatoes for a quarter of the cost of the imported mexican ones at the grocery store. happy about that.....

bad news: up to 12 more weeks before i hear back on my border papers. fuckers. i'm missing mt. zion this week and at this rate will probably also miss swans next month. fuck.

i have one more walking trip to make, and then i've got a nice comfy week of reading and recording.

it couldn't be that difficult to genetically engineer coffee so it doesn't stain your teeth.

https://news.vice.com/article/eastern-ukraine-is-on-the-cusp-of-descending-into-brutal-street-warfare

deathtokoalas
yup. the russians took the bait. and now they're fucked. as this drags on for years, the americans will focus on completing their dismantling of the russian empire.

there's going to be a brief period of instability, but unless the russian army figures out how to massively multitask - and fast - this is potentially every bit as damaging to moscow as afghanistan was.

next stage is an invasion of syria.

SVGuss
US is dying and trying to bring as many to the grave as possible. In vain. And when Russia is fucked, asses are sore with some other people. 1612, 1812, 1945 to name a few biggest.

Mindaugas V
US is not dying and never will

deathtokoalas
i think these rumours of america's demise are much exaggerated. there's not a lot that has really changed, other than that they've expanded their sphere of influence. there's many decades before china or india can pose a real threat. and these arguments about debt are mostly coming from right-wing idiots that don't actually understand what money even is.

i think it remains to be seen how much of a bite the russians can take out of them on their way to the history books. that will have consequences. but, the russians are really their only serious competitor at the moment, and they're really doing a precision job on them.

lighthouse500
All empires die. 

Geehad
America's not really dying, I mean if America does all of a sudden "die" you do realize it's economic collapse would bring a severe blow to the World's Economy and severely damage foreign economies as well

Jesus TheDestroyer
You think too much.

Murphy82nd
America is not going to help Ukraine.  America has a laundry list of domestic issues and a populace that has become so sick of foreign intervention that I fear they'd even sit by as true atrocities are committed (Syria is already evidence of this).  America is waning and Russia is waxing.  Power is cyclical.  In some decades down the road this may change.

deathtokoalas
it makes me laugh, continually realizing just how bad reading comprehension is out there. helping ukraine is about the last thing on america's mind, but it's more than happy to incinerate it to distract russia so it can kick them out of the middle east.

americans helping somebody. lol.

.....well, unless you mean "help", in which case they already are, they just have to be hush-hush about it due to those pesky international laws.

Murphy82nd
It makes me laugh continually reading your comments.  How will intervention in Ukraine kick the Russian Federation out of the Middle East?

deathtokoalas
where did i suggest intervention? that's crazy talk, from right-wing news media. there's not going to be any armies moving around across countries in eastern europe. it's going to be a propaganda war that's going to work itself out through internal organizations clashing with each other.

you're more likely to see marine le pen seize offices in france than the russians actually invade ukraine. and, likewise, the americans have ngos operating in russia.

but, obama was just prevented from attacking syria (which is a russian protectorate, basically) a few months ago by some kind of threat from vladimir putin. we're not clear on what that was. it wasn't leaked. but it must have been naughty, 'cause it almost resulted in american destroyers docking at sevastopol.

now that vladimir is distracted, his threats are likely neutralized, or perhaps even countered. and the americans can get back to invading iran (of which syria is the second stage of, iraq being the first).

Murphy82nd
When I said intervention I was referring to Russian intervention.  You're clearly stating that Russian intervention in Ukraine will somehow lead to the Russians getting "kicked out" of the middle east.  How?  And how would America taking Iran kick Russia out of the middle east?  There is no support for any war with Iran in America, and with recent talks with President Rouhani there is less reason than ever.  I seriously don't know where you're getting these conspiracy theories from.

deathtokoalas
these aren't conspiracy theories, they're published american strategic statements. i explain to you what's happening, and i get a kneejerk and ignorant response. which i'm used to. but you'll see that this is correct over time, so take the few moments to understand. it's not even particularly complicated. and it's not a question of me being right, because i'm just explaining to you what the elite have published themselves (albeit not through popular media, which is designed for mass consumption by idiots). probably the most famous is the project for a new american century letter, but it's not the only place that the establishment has explained the long war it's currently orchestrating.

since clinton's attack on yugoslavia, the goal has been to dismantle the russian empire piece by piece. that's not a conspiracy. that's stated american imperial policy. you might not know that, but that's your ignorance. all of the invasions of the region since then have been a slow process of expunging lingering russian influence from their former satellite states in afghanistan, iraq, libya and syria. that is to say that they're "cleaning up the pieces of the collapsed soviet empire". there are other dimensions driving the alliances (the saudis are opposed to all secular rule), but (despite what some conspiracy theorists might say) the americans are the hegemonic power and it's their interests - dismantling what they see as a weak competitor - that are pushing the operation.

the expansion of nato in eastern europe has also happened within this policy of dismantling the russian state. for whatever reason, probably mostly pressure from european allies but also simply due to how willing the participants have been, the americans have been mostly (excluding yugoslavia) willing to forge a peaceful path in the region. but, the ukrainian government refused to do what it was told (in rejecting the eu package) and got taken over by force instead - like several countries in the middle east have, for the same reason. but, you have to look at the wider picture to understand the timing.

just to be clear: the american government doesn't care about popular support for the wars that they launch. i'm really sick of that argument being presented, like it means something. it tacitly legitimizes the scam that is american "democracy". the united states is a military dictatorship headed by a ceremonial commander-in-chief that is increasingly controlled directly by the army, not a functioning democracy. it doesn't even call itself a democracy, it calls itself a republic. and it was designed around the idea of being headed by a strong, charismatic military leader. the closest america has ever come to democracy has been various stages of plutocracy and oligarchy. america does what the generals say, not what the american people want. and it's been that way throughout history.

pick a war. it was unpopular. it happened anyways, because it advanced the interests of the elite. that's how america works.

now, your question didn't grasp the context well. i read it the way it should have been interpreted. the russians are already intervening in ukraine. it's not direct occupation. because it's not the twentieth century. that's not how major powers operate anymore. they have to orchestrate democratic legitimacy, but people are easily malleable sheep so this is easy. the americans do this too - they just did in ukraine. and it wouldn't be particularly difficult to stage an uprising in france or the uk or the united states, either. the useful idiots don't need to know that they're advancing russian strategic interests, they just need to be worked up into a frenzy over taxes or grazing rights or whatever other stupid thing makes them angry.

so, the timing (regarding ukraine) is important because they've reached an impasse in syria - russia's last remaining military outpost in the region (excluding their "ally", iran, which does not host or want to host russian troops). vlad flexed his muscles, and obama had to back down. but, any show of power is only true so long as the factors underlying it are. for obama (or obama's generals, let us not confuse ourselves in elevating the empty suit to the position of real decision maker) to remove putin as an obstacle, he needs to collapse the conditions that allowed his threats to be credible.

looking at the way the situation has played out, it seems like the goal was sevastopol and the threat consequently had something to do with something stationed there, or perhaps the ability to deploy from there. it stands to reason that, for the time being, that threat remains.

but as ukraine becomes a long and protracted conflict it is going to bog down resources, as it did in afghanistan (even if it's under the carpet). it's going to cost billions of dollars (even if those dollars are swept under the rug). it's going to distract the russian leadership. really, it's a textbook example of a decoy.

it may even force the russians to abandon tartus, at which point a russian occupation of syria (to counter an american invasion) is no longer a credible threat.

knowing exactly what putin's threat was would clarify some of these points. but knowing that there was a threat is enough to build the broad picture, which is that putin tossed a wrench in the plan to invade syria, and got a grenade thrown into his lap in retaliation.

infiltr80r
You have it all backwards.

Americans are focused on China entirely, that's why they were moving troops out of Europe as well.

This is Russia saying to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia etc. that "if you think you will leave our sphere of interest, we will come down and take it all".

deathtokoalas
interesting suggestion. what do you figure china's interests in central asia are?

infiltr80r
But what about the fact that China is Russia's quiet ally?

I'm from Estonia, are you familiar with the massive propaganda war towards the Baltics coming from Moscow?

Putin was also planning to do another invasion here, the only thing stopping him was the existence of NATO.

True, Americans don't do it to help anyone but in that sense they're exactly like every other country on the planet.

Do you think Russia does anything to help the people of Ukraine? It's all about securing resources which are controlled by a handful of people based in Moscow.

The average Russian could have a very good life if he had a fair share of oil profits but as it is, they're fighting for a system that is highly abusive (much more than in the west).

SugarTomAppleRoger
I disagree. The Russians are doing well here to my mind. The so called Ukraine government is being praised and supported by the English mainly, and the USA also. But they are being brutal, crushing demonstrations with tanks and rockets. Not a good publicity move.

deathtokoalas
the pr is irrelevant. the american military (who makes the real decisions) couldn't care less about public opinion. they can protest all they want, it makes no difference. don't like the democrats? well, your option is the republicans. and don't like them, either? well, then you can vote the democrats back in. it's a one-party state, with essentially no influence from the bottom up. and it's held together by police brutality.

what's important is that they're carrying out the strategic goal of draining away resources from the russians. and the hippies can march all they want, so long as they don't get too rowdy. then they got shot...

deathtokoalas
+infiltr80r
sorry about the late reply. google's spam filters are not very good, and i'm not aware of a place i can go to check what it thinks is spam. i just hope it's based on a learning algorithm and will get better. if not, it's going to slowly make the site unusable.

china has a long term policy of not being anybody's ally. it's maybe a little enigmatic, but that's how it is. further, china and russia actually have difficult relations over the last century. they have some mutual defense concerns, but they're rivals for resources in central asia.

you've got the cause and effect in "the baltics" backwards. i think russia should be trying to destabilize latvia and estonia and lithuania (estonia isn't really a baltic state, it's more historically aligned with finland), because the governments in these countries are incredibly hostile to russia. they're hosting american missile bases that are being pointed directly at moscow. the correct thing to say is that if it weren't for nato expansion, russia wouldn't be justified in collapsing these states in it's legitimate self-defense.

but, what i'm getting at in this post is that it is too late for the russians to react in a meaningful way - and putin is responsible for this due to his inaction. the bases are there, now.

the russians have a better social system. but, pitting the russian oligarchy against the imf doesn't produce a set of good guys, no. that's what a lot of the propaganda is about - getting people to pick a side. but, it's one group of vampires against another. no good guys. the right side to pick is the side of the people and these are not represented by statist interests.

infiltr80r
Not a problem.

First off I should say that I'm an estonian living in estonia at the moment. Estonia is classified "Baltic" in the military-geographic division.

Quite surprised you think Baltics are treating Russia badly. It's like the military occupation that lasted for 50 years never existed in your world. Do you also know the little fact that Russia has violated the treaty of Tartu and refused to sign a border agreement with Estonia. Only until Estonia gave in and lost areas that was historically Estonian to Russia, the treaty was signed (this year of all times).

Why do you think Estonia basically welcomed NATO and the US with open arms? Was it that the experience with Russia had been so good, that we wanted to try something different? Or was it due to the fact of 50 years of ruthless military rule?

I'm quite informed what the Russian mentality is and while I oppose American wars, NATO is an absolute necessity here. In 2007 Russia threatened to invade the country as some ethnic Russians were rioting as a war statue was moved to a military cemetery.

You claim that NATO is "aiming" for Russia but you ignore the fact that Russia has deployed nukes aimed as Estonia (and all neighbors) as well. Without NATO, Russia would be here right now, russifying the whole population and destroyed what's left of the local culture (as happened during the occupation). Estonia at one point was developmentally equal to Finland, that is until the Russian invasion. Do you see why people here would resent Russia for that?

Just curious, where are you from? You seem to have read a bit on the subject but have a very warped picture of what Russia is about. The idea that Russia would let any neighboring country (that's not under Russian influence) exist peacefully is laughable at this point. You only need to look a few hundred years back to see what their intentions are.

The Russian social system in comparison to the West does not exist. I have no idea where did you get that information from.

Indeed, it should be the people who rule. Yet I contend that under western influence, the people will have a higher quality of life. Personally, even though the EU is corrupt and bureaucratic, I wouldn't want to be in any union with Russia as that would set the country decades back in time.

deathtokoalas
i don't care about international agreements. they're imaginary rules in some liberal fantasy reality that has never existed. it's delusional to keep coming back to them as though they mean something. in reality, states do what they need to advance their interests. they have never been constrained by international law and never will be. it's a failed world order that should be abandoned as utopian claptrap.

further,  you're again trying to draw moral equivalences when i'm explicitly trying to reject them as propaganda. states are not moral actors and should not be analyzed as though they are. when i state that placing missiles in the region gives russia a valid pretext to invade that they should have taken advantage of in order to advance their interests, that says nothing of estonian nationals, who are (and ought to be) irrelevant in the calculation. this isn't a discussion of human rights, it's a discussion of russia's failure to secure it's own borders, which has thrust it into a desperate situation.

russia has socialized health care, to begin with. they have a better social security system, as well.

i reiterate: a smart post-yeltsin russian leadership would have realized the strategic necessity of reoccupying the baltics very early on, as a counter to their clear encirclement by american forces. at the very least, it should have been crystal clear after iraq. pointing missiles at the region is not enough to secure their borders. they must occupy the region to prevent the possibility of a ground invasion, under the cover of an sdi.

it is, however, too late. the nato bases in the region cannot be removed, and it's consequently a matter of time before the full invasion of moscow. all the russians can do is make some desperate movements that will be countered by the superior nato forces, technologies and strategies.

their focus on ukraine right now is at best a strategic blunder. a smart, strong russian leadership would be focusing on controlling poland.

if i thought states could or should be held to moral guidelines, i wouldn't be an anarchist.