in fact, the likelihood of homosexuality increases with each older brother; a male born into a family with 3 brothers is more likely to be gay than a male born into a family with 2, and so forth as n approaches...well, it's not approaching infinity.

if i was freud, i'd think this is a call to write a complex!

but, given that this doesn't happen in women (who have different social conditioning when it comes to hugging and generally touching each other, and different arousal mechanisms), it strikes me as almost impossible that this is biological. if it was some kind of reaction, we'd expect the same thing for women born into families with many sisters.

what's interesting is that it seems to be agreed that birth order has a stronger correlation than any known genetic factor - meaning this is the strongest evidence we have as of yet.

and, it seems to me to be something based on conditioning. it suggests that the more time a young boy spends in intimate relationships with multiple male family members, the more likely they are to normalize, internalize and then crave it. there's the freudian complex, for you.

now, suppose you generalize this. i think you're getting closer to the right answer.

i would like to see a study that asks the question of if gay men are attracted to people that are similar to their older brothers.

human sexuality is not innate. it's not even fixed; it's fluid, and can change repeatedly over the course of a lifetime. the entire concept of "sexual orientation" is less than two hundred years old. for most of human history, this separation didn't exist - which is the reason why feudal institutions like the church spent so much time trying to convince people that attraction to the same gender was "wrong". you don't get more serfs that way, so it's not productive behaviour, from their perspective. if it were really true that 90% of people are innately heterosexual, you wouldn't need that kind of enforcement. you could just write the gays off and send them to war, like the spartans did.

what that means is that you're all bisexual, you're just pushed into one category or another through the power of social conditioning. it's a pretty complicated thing, but it's also a pretty simple thing.

if you're conditioned strongly enough, you can be attracted to anything. trees. rocks. imipolex g. it's all about pavlov; nothing to do with mendel.

package sent. now, i wait.

i should be able to get enough of a start on this project tonight to be able to get a feel as to how it's going to work itself out.

Sure There’s a Catch…

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. 

This is an interesting issue for me to approach, because the reality is somewhat circular. I’ve presented myself to several professionals looking for a longer term diagnosis (which is truly what I was seeking as I embarked on this path; please see the attached document, with my first write-up), and they’ve been unable to determine any symptoms. I’m left with no option but to agree that I am not demonstrating symptoms. However, there’s a catch – I am not demonstrating symptoms because ODSP has left me stable and happy, by allowing me to immerse myself in my art. If I’m not demonstrating symptoms, I should not qualify for ODSP; but if I lose the ODSP, I will again begin to demonstrate symptoms, and need to go back on ODSP.

See, the truth is that I truly am unstable – a glance at my unwritten biography would demonstrate that clearly. I have been without an address several times, and am prone to absurd behaviour when placed under stress. I’ve been fired repeatedly, and unable to find a job for many years. I really should be grounded. Yet, my concern for my safety appears rational to the professional observer. Hence, requests for diagnosis are misunderstood as evidence of stability.

Rather than try and obfuscate, I believe I should be honest: I am not just currently stable and happy. I am actually currently more stable and happier than I’ve ever been in my life. My prerogative to argue for stasis is consequently not merely a desire to prevent the inevitable collapse I will face should I be denied ODSP, but to actively argue for it as the best case scenario for me. It’s almost an appeal for benevolence.

I think that, when discussing an individual’s qualification for disability, there are three perspectives to analyze. The first is whether the applicant is able to work. The second is whether the applicant is able to find work. The third is whether the applicant desires work. I believe that these issues are not disconnected, but are very interrelated and that the causal forces acting between them can be very complex.

One way to see that this is true is to look at the results of my cra application in 2008. I wrote several tests for this application and did very well on the ones that were “competency” related. My GCT2 mark was actually exceedingly high; I earned a mark of 80/90 on this test, in a competition where the minimum pass was 51/90. When I went in to the interview, they told me it was the highest mark they’ve ever seen on that test. This would appear to indicate not just competence but possible excellence. Yet, my grade on the situational judgement test (a workplace behaviour test) was so poor that I was removed from the competition. I failed that test twice more over the next few years. Together, that indicates that I would have likely been capable of performing the task asked of me, and perhaps even of excelling at it, but that I would not have been able to adjust to the workplace environment – and consequently could not be hired. In fact, I actually agree with the combined results, as it fits my experience of frequent firings and infrequent attendance at school, even while my performance was strong and my grades were high. While other employers may be less rigorous in their hiring, they seem to be able to intuitively understand this about me and avoid me as a result of it. It does then follow that my anxiety is a block; when I’ve been forced to try and get around it because I have no other choice but to get around it in order to pay rent and bills it nonetheless continues to flag me as a problem and either make me an unviable candidate or a swiftly terminated employee. I consequently can’t work because I can’t find work because of the condition.

The gender dysphoria is not insignificant in piecing this together, as it is one of the dominant causes of the anxiety. This works on two levels – both on the level of unrealistic expectations and on the level of a self-consciousness that manifests itself as a lack of confidence, which is devastating in context. Even when I was living as a male, it was something that was easily “figured out”, which created some pretty bad attitudes and behind-the-back murmurings. I don’t feel there’s an answer to this. My gender/body combination remains at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

I claim I am happy and stable on ODSP, but did I ever seek labour? I have teenager memories of being excited about saving money up to get certain things. My first major purchase was a cd burner in 1998, back when such things were still novel. I worked two or three jobs at a time over the summers of 2002 and 2003, and while it was hectic I was happy to contribute to my education. I worked for Microsoft over 2006 and legitimately enjoyed it; I was able to take that money to get my own apartment and buy some recording gear. Employment provided me with financial independence and control over my means of production. So, the answer is an unambiguous yes: I have actively sought and enjoyed labour in the past.

However, in time, prejudicial attitudes began to sink in – and it’s a contribution to the anxiety. My interests have converged to things that are outside any kind of concept of wage labour. For many years, I’ve looked at employment very cynically, with the understanding that I’m wasting my time somewhere doing something I don’t care about with people that don’t respect me. Over 2007 and 2008 (the last time I was employed), I called in sick repeatedly – often because I just couldn’t get up to go in due to anxiety and depression. I would also leave work early due to depression, which tended to manifest itself in powerful headaches and short tempers. I have not experienced any of these problems over the last two years; I have been stable and happy. Alas, that catch-22…

Yet, do I not want to work, to contribute? Well, let’s reverse the question around. I think there are two reasons why people might want to work. The first is for the benefit of society - altruism. The second is for personal gain - individualism. But what is personal gain? A stock broker may argue that it is about capital accumulation, whereas an athlete may argue it’s about being the best. As an artist, I find these things actually overlap more than they contradict – the art is made both for me and for everybody else. Expression for the sake of expression is the most valuable form of personal gain, and asking challenging questions is the thing I’m most suited to do in society. If the goal is to maximize personal gain through contributing to society, I don’t think that work is the way to do that; I think that art is the way to do that.

Yet, how did I get there? How did I decide that expression is personal gain? Why not competition, or accumulation, or material wealth? Well, in all of these cases the root cause is the same: its sexual dominance. The use value of a car is hardly worth its price; nowadays I walk most places, but I’ve never had a ¬need for such a thing, between bicycles and city busses.  If anything, it puts the car owner into an impossible loop: they need to go to work to pay for a car that they only use to go to work. It’s running on a treadmill; except, it isn’t, because a car is a status symbol, and that status symbol is a tool to compete with peers for the sexual interests of others. Competition, accumulation and materialism are often blamed for the violence we experience in our society, but they are merely masking the sexual motives underlying their fetishization. As an individual who has undergone voluntary chemical castration, these motives are not valid to me. Rather, my motives for personal gain are largely intellectual – and no labour, at any salary, can appeal to me on this level. Nor can I hide this reality from interviewers – it is a part of the visible anxiety that sets in. So, I cannot work because I can’t find work because I don’t want to work because of the condition.

I believe that humans are malleable creatures and that I could no doubt be conditioned out of this, but to what end? Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect…

So, what happens if I get this renewed? Well, I have a lot of art to work on, and would continue to apply myself to it over thirty hour work days of happy, strenuous and productive labour. Its value is perhaps unclear, but I think I can make a bigger difference to society through my opinions than I ever can through wage labour, and I’m certain I’ll be happier and more stable that way. What happens if this is denied? It is exceedingly unlikely that I will be able to find employment, and if I do I will no doubt be very unhappy. I will likely become very depressed and completely unstable; a suicide attempt is not unlikely, which will generate further documents which will get me back on odsp - until I’m stable again, no doubt.

Rather than forcing me to continue to rebuild these sandcastles on the beach after every tide, I propose that you allow me to rebuild further from shore by granting me the longest disability term that you can. For me, this is really the only workable solution to my problems, and removing the solution will accomplish nothing but bring them all back again.

wow, look at that botfly infect that human! like a boss!

can we stop with this "like a boss" bullshit? absolute class hierarchical nonsense. bosses don't actually do things, they just sit in air-conditioned offices and steal your money - and they usually get their status from their personal connections (like being born into a family of bosses), rather than any kind of merit. how about "like a trained professional." ?

(deleted)

not in areas where there are large predatory felids, we're not. this is a misunderstanding that i think it's very important to get our heads around. in africa and india, we're just a different type of monkey - felids are apex predators. some theories suggest that escaping lion (or proto-lion) predation is even a part of the reason we ended up so smart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNUY-EheK8Q

the footage seems sped up at points, and the rabbit seems pretty distracted in the way it hops out and then back. i know rabbits aren't normally known as vicious predators, despite having big, sharp, pointy teeth, and they may not really have the instincts to fight rationally, but it still seems to me like this is spliced together footage.

i have to say, though, that that's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent i've ever set my eyes on!

i don't want to come off as an apologist for the bank, i'm really not, but it's frustrating to see the left pick up right-wing populism. i've been trying to get these points across for years....

the government loaned the financial sector a lot of money, and it was spent in ways that could conceivably upset people. however, it was generally a relatively safe - and in fact profitable - investment for the state. the ones that were determined unsafe were shut down or merged into other companies. in the end, the state got back everything they lent out and made a very hefty profit on top of it - profit that could have been applied to setting up single payer, and perhaps might have been with a better president.

so, it's easy to see why that doesn't apply to homeowners. if the state were to step in, they'd merely be taking over a loan, at what would may, in the end, turn out to be a loss.

i don't like any of this. but, it's the actual truth of the situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2RX2kC5Keg

it's maybe a little ironic, given the content of the speech - because the lender of last resort was another new deal provision, designed to prevent the collapse of assets held in the bank.

let's say you have a modest nest egg of $20,000 in the bank. the bank defaults. that $20,000 is gone. up in air. and you don't get it back. ever.

that's why we need a lender of last resort. it's designed to prevent things like predatory institutions coming in and stealing your house.

gotta love the look on the reporter's face when he ran off that nonsense about anonymous sources.

"it is my opinion that you ought to ask informers to identify themselves, to increase their credibility - and also so we know who they are, and can go beat them over the head with a stick. you shalt identify the informers amongst you due to the bandages on their skulls."

'cause, you know. politicians speaking in official capacities are trustworthy. they don't spin things. and they never bluntly lie to your face. those anonymous sources are not in line with the official narrative, so they shouldn't be trusted as much as those who state the narrative.

that's just josh' opinion, of course. it's not a subtle threat, or anything.

right. so you've gotta understand that the israelis are perfectly willing - and in some sense eager - to recognize gaza as a palestinian state, or otherwise get rid of it, because it's outside of historical israel - it's the homeland of the philistines, who are israel's biblical enemies.

the west bank, on the other hand, is considered to be "judaea and samaria", which is actually at the core of historical israel. hence the colonization through settlers. so long as israel is a "jewish state", it will never cede it's claim to the west bank.

it follows that they can't accept a unity government, because they fully intend to exterminate the palestinians from the west bank (perhaps by deporting many of them to gaza...), whereas they really don't want sovereignty over gaza. to israel, these are separate areas with very different futures, and they will do whatever they can to keep it that way.

it follows that they were probably less concerned about fatah influencing hamas and more concerned about hamas influencing fatah. despite the western rhetoric, the israeli perspective is that the government in gaza is legitimate and the government in ramallah is not. they consequently can't have what they see as sovereign leaders in gaza integrating with what they see as a province in the west bank, as it would give gaza rights to a territory that israel thinks it has no rights to.

the western propaganda is designed for internal consumption. it rarely has any remote connection to reality.

Sydney K
is there a reason they're not married?

Jay Pathak
It's quite simple to avoid "DIVORCE SETTLEMENT MONEY"

deathtokoalas
if that's the reason, it's not thought through well - common law sets in after a few years, and comes with the same liabilities as marriage. if there's a desire to get married, and concern on that level, it would be better to do it and sign a pre-nub.

in fact, i'd expect she'd have a very strong claim for unjust enrichment, considering she's an integral part of these videos. i've read cases where common law "wives" get large settlements just for taking care of the kids - which is fair, in some way, but isn't directly related to the income source. from what i've seen, she's very well entitled to at least a third of the profits he's getting from the videos. at this point, a pre-nub might not even make sense, as she's surely entitled to a portion of it, anyways.

man, i just got holla'd at by what looked to me to be 12 year-old boys. had to repress the urge to weggie and dunk them...

well, what else do you do? little brats.

it's distressing, though. maybe i ought to be thinking about weggying and dunking their fathers.

during the occupy moment, a number of activists got together to put together a "food not bombs" in downtown ottawa. during the winter months, it was cold out, so the idea of "serving" in city hall came up. i'll be blunt about my motives for looking into this: i was under the strong impression that there were undercover intelligence people involved in scoping out the remains of the occupy gathering, and i wanted to check the actual legality about gathering in such a space. i suspected we were being tricked into something with naive language about "reclaiming public space".

it turns out that ontario law actually explicitly specifies that the charter rights do not apply on city property or around provincial infrastructure, which includes things like electricity generating plants and some rail lines. for example, the right to not be searched is not recognized. one can be arrested without probable cause. this is actually under provincial anti-terror legislation that dates back to the bill davis era.

now, these laws are obviously unconstitutional. i suppose they've simply never been applied, because i couldn't imagine them withstanding a court challenge in the charter era - they're written as almost a direct refutation of the applicable charter rights. but, they're not as unheard of as mulcair is suggesting. they just harken back to an era before the charter. in some sense, i might actually like to see this bill passed and struck down to remove the looming spectre from the horizon.

personally, i tend to lean traditionally liberal on these issues. one would expect a liberal to react to legitimate short-term threats with a system of judicial review and a sunrise clause set forward. now, whether these specific threats are enough to justify legislative action is not something i can really comment on; despite my tendency to reject statist control, i have to recognize that there's not really a decentralized alternative at this point, and that even if we have our own foreign policy to blame for aggression against us then that doesn't in any way justify the death of civilians at a mall. it's less extreme than spanish anarchists supporting the republicans, but it's the same basic idea - if there's a legitimate threat of people blowing things up, there's no alternative but to work together. again: i'm not sure that's clear. but, if we allow it is true, then what's really important is that there's an endpoint - that these are temporary powers, subject to review and termination, rather than a carte blanche for a police state.

one would expect the conservatives to reject this argument, under the argument that threats are perpetual. in some sense, that's no doubt true, but this is where the subtlety of liberalism asserts itself - it necessitates the existence of a clear and present danger, not some abstraction that can't be pinned down.

on one hand, trudeau has said what he's supposed to say. on the other hand, he voted for it anyways. this has been the great problem with the liberals for many years. they say the right things, but their voting record is atrocious.

mulcair is doing something important here - he's presenting himself as the heir to the liberal tradition. and, in truth, the man is a liberal - in an actual, ideological sense, rather than having been born into something he's maybe a little unclear on. canadian liberalism is a purer breed of liberalism than exists anywhere else in the world. and, whether most of us are able to really formulate it when challenged or not, it's pretty culturally rooted - enough that we get it, intuitively. it's what we were raised into and what we want, whether we really realize it or not.

a lot of people are pointing this particular issue out as a vote changer. it might be. but if it is, it's people pining for a return to liberalism that the younger trudeau might not have the self-awareness to provide.

this power of positive thinking thing is truly strange to hear from a trudeau. it's almost like it's a ptsd reaction to his father's absolute assholery. pet didn't win elections with smiley faces and happy thoughts, he won them by bloodying the opposition. kind of more like harper, actually. and, this high road stuff is....well...

for years, i argued that the liberals were focusing too hard on winning the right, at the expense of the ndp's growing dominance on the left. i think what's happened is that the barrier has broken, and the ndp are reaching right across. that is to say that i think that mulcair is actually appealing more to right-wing liberals (both in style and substance) than trudeau is at this point, and trudeau is being pushed into second place across the board. from the bay street executive right across to the street protest anarchist willing to vote, mulcair is preferable.

an explanation for this is that he wasn't really appealing to the center-right in the first place, he was appealing to a combination of industry and what he imagined the center-right ought to think. right-wing liberals are going to be older, wealthy and focused on responsibility; mulcair's a far better fit, as these are the types that understand government's role in social policy as a means of pacification - a way to keep peace in society.

we haven't seen anybody command that kind of consensus (from the soft right to the moderate left) since chretien.

i was initially expecting harper to split them yet again, but it relied on trudeau holding the center.  i'm starting to lean towards a mulcair sweep, and the liberals coming out of the election with a small and very left-leaning rump.

also, he should have never cut his hair.

i mean, let's take a look at these people, and what they did before running for prime minister.

pearson - un envoy, amongst other things.
trudeau - cabinet minister, amongst other things
chretien - is there a portfolio he didn't have?
martin - finance minister
dion - many cabinet positions

now, let's look at these two:
ignatieff - read cue cards on tv
trudeau v 2.0 - umm...

now, look at mulcair:
- multiple cabinet portfolios in quebec, considered for leadership of quebec liberal party.

if you're a liberal that likes people like pearson & trudeau & chretien, who is more in their image - justin or mulcair? who are you honestly going to be more likely to support?

if that coalesces, if it gets into people's heads, if it sinks in, if it actualizes...

mulcair could win 200+ seats.

so, justin is against rage & slice control.

he is right on the terrorism legislation, though. the liberals are very subtle on this stuff - subtle enough that most people don't understand the clauses and rights logic. it's ideological liberalism of a sort that just doesn't exist anywhere else, but would be appealing to most if they could find a way to explain it.
empiricism? reason before passion, huh. hrmmn.

it's gotta happen, though.

you have to keep in mind that israel interprets gaza as a province of egypt because it's not a part of historical israel (it's where the "philistines", who were probably greek settlers, lived). their ideal solution is to convince egypt to annex the region. but, egypt just sees an expensive problem.

this insistence of israel to negotiate with egypt is more than an anti-hamas thing, or a convenient way to generate pretexts.

also, vijay, i think you want to look into israeli arms sales to china. the americans don't like this, of course. but it happens. and the russians help keep it a little under the radar.

on top of that, bringing israel into the syrian conflict would be a headache for everybody - including israel.

i need to be clear: i really don't like guns. people get angry, they get emotional, they stop thinking, they operate on impulse - i don't want one in the house, or want to be anywhere where they're present. but, is the argument that it's ok to be hateful at this level, so long as you don't have a weapon? so long as you keep it to your klan meetings? it's very cynical. i'd like to think that most of us can handle guns (even if i don't like being around them...) without turning into genocidal maniacs.

i don't have an answer. not to this. but, let's not lose focus. the issue is the hate, not the guns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwRPJUlUh5M

yeah, you can't just let a bear hunt in your back yard. it's just as bad as feeding it. it will come back to where it knows food is - and you might be on the menu.

you're basically left with the option of killing the bear or moving to a different house.

the more people question her relevancy, the more she's going to attempt to demonstrate otherwise. it's the nature of conquering the world - you can't just take that away. like any revolution, any generational overturn, there's going to be a struggle. she seems to have her minions in check, but you'll notice a glaring cameo absence.

this is pretty much everything she could have possibly done to reassert relevance, from cameos with multiple young pop stars to kids for kids to identify with to heavy, heavy video editing. people commenting on her appearance should realize they're commenting on a computer-generated image.

i'm not the first person to speculate that we may very well get madonna videos until the energy crisis comes to a peak, by converting her into a computer program. madonna might be the first person into the matrix. and, there may not be an end point, where we are no longer subjected to this.

running through some files on my other page, i've determined the precise point where the strange characters appeared. it was the post right after i indicated i was going to london, ontario. the totality of evidence suggests that i'm probably under suspicion for being a terrorist, because i happen to have a concept of morality, and am consequently critical of american foreign policy. indicating that i was leaving the city probably set something off..

listen, cia, we need to talk...

first, i'm from canada. so, take off, eh?

second, i was going to london for a doctor's appointment. you can check my facebook messages over nov, 2014 to verify that. it's all very transparent. and everybody understands that you're incompetent. but, now that i'm pointing it out, go ahead and look and see.

so, if you can get rid of those annoying characters, now, that'd be nice. i don't even care if you continue surveillance - it's the internet. it's facebook. surveillance is the purpose of the internet. privacy on the internet is impossible. i get it. i'm not utopian on he point. so, if i'm ever going to plan a terrorist attack, i'm going to do it without using the internet. it'd just be nice if you did it silently.

alright?

i don't know how many people that i deleted are still following me...as can be seen, this page is a very different place than it was a few years ago.

it was as clear as day, to me, that trudeau was not likely to win - or was likely to have a short run if he did. the reality is that half the country hated his father at a truly primal and violent level, and the half that liked him are fully aware that the younger trudeau is not in his league - or, to be blunt, are actually dead. i'm not exactly the youth vote any more, but everything i know about trudeau has come to me via a history book. you'd have to be at least 50 to have any real recollection of him. in truth, it's been clear from day one that justin trudeau is really, truly a puppet of the party, and that it's a party that has been thoroughly purged of what it once was. martin's knife cut deep - so deep that the wound was mortal. they had a brief chance at reasserting themselves for a few months with dion, but it was of course a disaster...

so, his collapse is not surprising. however, i was expecting the vote to actually partition around trudeau, and split more or less in half. that would once again let harper split - but it would leave the ndp with a long term upper hand.

perhaps it's mulcair's tendency to lean right that is reassuring a segment of liberal voters. and, i would fully expect a mulcair government to be a centre-right government - to the point that we may be talking coalition to start, but see a lot of movement out of the liberal party during the term. that's likely to leave a liberal rump on the *left* of the party. and, frankly, that's what both it and the country actually need. it seems like this is likely to stabilize the same way as britain, with the liberals generally to the left of "labour".

but, can this actually happen? even as a centre-right party, can the ndp actually form a government?

it's nice to see this issue brought up to a large, mainstream audience but the crux of the issue wasn't discussed.

the thirteenth amendment did not abolish slavery, it abolished slavery except as punishment for crimes. what that actually did was nationalize slavery to a state institution, enforced by prison systems. the jim crow era followed, where blacks were arrested for trivialities. in line with the neo-liberal agenda, this is being spun back off onto the market - not because it saves taxpayer money (this is also propaganda) but because it privatizes profit for investors. the privatization of the prison system is the recreation of the plantation system.

the idea that prisoners have all day to think things up is very wrong. rather, prisoners spend most of their time on assembly lines. want an astonishing fact? the united states prison system has a monopoly on paint products in the united states.

as the prison population enlarges, it broadens the potential for use. some prisoners in california already work as farm labourers. the trend is moving towards an increase in this kind of slave labour. and, the possibilities are really limited only by visibility. it's not likely to be long before a company like nike decides it can save costs by using slave labour at home.

the strength of the prison-industrial complex has strengthened and fallen depending on diverse conditions, but it has continued to thrive for the reason that it hasn't been dismantled. it's logic demands that it takes over as much industry as it possibly can. that means these companies have a strong profit motive to enslave as many people as they can, based on whatever justification they can get away with.

the only remedy is a constitutional amendment to ban prison labour altogether. until that happens, we will fight and win and lose in bursts and spurts, and they will continue to expand while we're not paying attention - until that breaking point is reached where they can no longer be stopped.

it's imperative for the continued existence of a free society. there should be a mass movement pushing for this. the abolition of prison labour would pull the rug out from under a swath of social problems.

yet, i've heard almost nobody even consider it.

constitutional bans on prison labour

To: chomsky@mit.edu

hi noam chomsky,

in some sense i feel it would be silly to lay out the argument, but i feel that this is a solution to several of the problems you've drawn attention to over the years. it seems obvious to me that there should be wide, grassroots movements pushing for this...but it's in truth just not something i hear *anybody* saying. so, it would really be nice to hear somebody with a microphone saying it. it's certainly not a radical position, on a global level. so, i'm left to conclude that it's just that so few people seem to understand just how much prison labour is at the core of so many serious social issues. a little light shed on this could maybe light a long overdue, and very necessary, spark.

j

"pew is the most respected polling firm"

i hear this all the time, but every time i've looked at their questions, it's just a lot of propaganda. i've consequently concluded that the idea that pew is reliable is itself propaganda, and that it's a part of the cia-ngo complex. i'd really like to see this line retired. it's nonsense.

it's about as accurate as "cnn is the most respected name in news".

i'm always astounded by right-wing idiots that don't realize that this is a sarcastic diatribe. it's just remarkable.

you see it every year up here in canada on canada day, where neil is somewhat of a future saint in certain broad circles. stumbling, drunk, through the streets, clad in nationalist paraphernalia - flags on sticks, on shirts...

none of them seem to know any of the lyrics, though. well, beside the chorus.

wait. this is a significant cut. no wonder. you know. i'm not old enough to remember hearing this on the radio. was it always cut like this? does that explain it? have most people not even heard the full song?

the bridge is really key.

blake
+ deathtokoalas It may be sarcasm and parody of blind nationalism but who really cares. Every one has there own interpretation of what a song means. Me myself as a conservative like to view it at face value only noticing the good parts about America. If you wanna get deep into music go right ahead but like I said every song has a different meaning to every person.


deathtokoalas
+blake it's more than sarcasm. how do you interpret a line like:

"that's one more kid that will never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool"

in any remotely positive way? you can't. you've just never paid attention.


it's not like it's a shift in politics, or that neil young was unknown, either. he'd been successfully singing songs like this for 20 years at the point of this release.

but, i've met people that think "southern man" is pro-confederate, too.

trev
+deathtokoalas Just the same with Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. It seems America doesn't do irony.

fwiw, bernie sanders is the only sane candidate. but years of hoping kucinich is going to break through have left me pretty cynical about his chances.

this one's for rick perry...

this seems good for rand paul.

what the pauls say sounds good - if you don't know anything about economics. the only outcome of their policies is precisely what they claim their policies are out to reverse.

the only thing that's clear to me is that bush is the shoe-in republican candidate. seriously. he's actually the only serious candidate.

this is the ideal tune for hillary.

i do like hillary, broadly. i supported her over obama pretty much to the end - largely on health care. but, she has this self-righteous streak in her that is very concerning to me.

the establishment will not let her win. ever. she's "too liberal". the bank has not announced it's candidate yet, but whomever it is will beat her.

so, trump wants to use "keep on rockin' in the free world". it's actually totally fitting in an ironic way. and i think we can have some fun with this.

the donald is a man of the people. really.

bbc v. rt is a terrible comparison. bbc has a mandate to publicly educate, and it's for internal consumption. it has satellite stations, but it's all old colonies, and still for internal commonwealth consumption. rt is an international broadcaster that exists to present a russian perspective to the outside world.

bbc needs to be compared to russian language media, and my understanding is that russian language media can be quite critical. westerners may be a little offset by the nature of it (putin has taken a hit in the media for not invading ukraine and letting the russians there be harmed), but it's relatively open. not perfect, but relatively open.

rt needs to be compared to something like voice of america (dare i say radio free europe), which is completely uncritical pro-american hogwash.

i don't watch rt because i'm looking for stable analysis. i watch rt to get the different perspective to balance out the brainwashing. it seems kind of nihilistic, and not particularly up to utopian british press values, but the truth is that oksana is correct.

nobody but your own conscience - except the boss that is taking 95% of your labour. total independence and no male companionship - except the boss on the harness, whipping for more and more product.

"imagine working 18 hours a day for a fraction of what could have been considered a fair minimum wage, and being so trapped in it that there is no time for art, literature or any of the other things that define humans as free. imagine, imagine....imagine being a wage slave."

that's negative freedom, for you. the freedom to be exploited by market forces, and be tricked into thinking it's somehow "liberating".

i'll stick with positive concepts of freedom, thanks - the freedom to exist outside the slavery of the factory, the market and the dollar.

i've been saying this for years: at the core, you're all calvinists.

this is a total straw man argument. this is why we throw around words like cis - because we have no desire whatsoever to infringe on your identity, no matter how much you want to fantasize about us raping you. which is why we chemically castrate ourselves, right?

hear that, guys? best way to get the chicks into you is to castrate yourself. they love that. that's right: bitches love castration.

here's the thing: try being born with a penis and showing up to work just with hair. forget the rest of it. the dominant society can't even get beyond hair length. i have to be a macho idiot in order to get a job in a fucking call center, whether i like it or not. and, you want to talk about being a fake? it's not for my benefit. honestly. it's to get the rest of the world to not place expectations on me that i am entirely incapable of living up to - and completely disinterested in trying to, and failing at.

and, frankly, i don't care about some hypothetical future two hundred years from now, after my corpse has been picked clean by insects and my bones are starting to break down under the weight of massive flooding from carbon emissions. if we were immortal, you'd have a valid argument. in infinite time, we'll get it right! unfortunately, we're all going to live our entire lives within a dominant patriarchal reality, and we're all going to have to find a way to learn to live with it, somehow. your critique is consequently about as relevant to reality as a discussion of jumping into the matrix, travelling through time (although this has been pretty much ruled out, anyways) or quantum computing. i'm going to live in the here and now, thanks, and it means adjusting to the reality that exists, not fantasizing about one that is generations and generations away from any realistic thought of application. you're completely failing the is/ought problem.

"just a sober reading of that seems like it's just a call for genocide."

exactly.

it's difficult. nobody wants to accept it. but, it shouldn't even be surprising any more at this point. the israeli state has really made it's intentions crystal clear. and, the necessary first point - before we can even talk about un sanctions - is that this has to be entirely understood, because it remains this contentious and difficult to grapple with point.

but, my honest and realistic assessment? this isn't a conflict any more, it's an escalating slaughter. the humanitarian focus at this point really needs to be finding ways to get the palestinians out. i don't know what that means. maybe saudi oil money can build them a city on the coast or something. but, there's really not a realistic way to stop israel from slowly regressing to the point of mass slaughter - and it's an inevitability.

something else to point out is that israeli expansionism is generally exaggerated, especially in the conspiracy press. they talk about israel expanding into syria, for example. and this overlaps with the idea of israel as a settler-colonial state - which is broadly true in practice, if not in theory. but, i think we need to be clear about the contradictions here, and why it sets borders around israeli expansionism.

israel wants control of the areas that it believes were granted to it by god. it's crazy, but it's actually true and it seriously drives their policy. if you look at a biblical map of the region, what we today call the gaza strip was where the "philistines" lived. we're not sure who the philistines were, exactly, but they appear to have invaded from greece, and, considering the egyptian name (peleset) may have been the same people as the pelasgians. they're certainly not the same people as the palestinians (who are culturally arabic and actually largely genetically hebrew), but that biblical parallel is a large part of what's fuelling this. every good jew knows that fighting their enemies, the phillistines, is an integral part of being jewish. and, this is why the israeli state allowed gaza to be split out. it's outside of biblical israel.

now, consider a future where israel has all of this promised land under control, and it seeks to expand further. it would require a different justification, which would present two problems: it would need the state to move away from the state religion, and it would create a backlash from religious scholars. god did not promise israel the world. religious thinking is a strange thing for the rational mind to get it's head around, but just understand this: killing philistines is ok. settling historical israel is ok. but expanding beyond that is arrogance, and will no doubt produce prophets warning the chosen people not to disobey god - lest they bring upon themselves the repercussions that their ancestors suffered. so, the state can't get away with this, unless it secularizes. and, if it secularizes, it loses it's base.

that doesn't mean this can't happen, but a secularist and expansionist israel is a very different animal with a very different support structure.

so, it does seem safe to move them to the red sea - even if it leads to israel and egypt squabbling over who gets stuck with a parcel of land that neither of them want to administrate.

let me begin by saying that i prefer hedges' politics, but have to lean towards harris' view on religion - so long as nobody gives him a stick to beat it into people with.

christians have given themselves credit for almost everything we hold value to in society, often with rather warped arguments. ask galileo about christianity laying the foundations of an open society. it's a seemingly laughable assertion - along with the idea that christianity was the "keeper of knowledge" through the middle ages, or that it's the source of the anglo-american legal tradition (which is, in truth, deeply pagan in origin).

it's a fun argument to point to the reformation as the point where things began to change. and, in truth it is certainly true; liberalism as we know it is very much rooted in the protestant rebellion against the catholic church that happened at that time. you don't need to be a christian to realize this. marx and engels made the argument as well.

but, it's very telling to be clear as to what they rebelled against. it wasn't the foundations of the religion, it was human abuses. rather than reject the entire system, which was keeping them chained to the land, they argued for a return to a purer state. even in rebellion, they were unable to unshackle their thoughts from the system imposed upon them by their oppressors. worldly ambitions of various despots aside, it merely demonstrates the depth of their brainwashing.

then, a few hundred years later their descendants were out burning people for "non-comformity". and, when the non-comformists took power on their own, they launched a genocide against catholics. that's not to mention the groupthink dominant in the colonies. this is the basis of the open society? perhaps we may want to look a little closer at the changes that happened during the reformation, and seek another source for the roots of liberalism.

i'm not sure which 2nd year professor that hedges is basing his presentation on, but it might do him some good to assert a little more individual thought into it, rather than repeat these stale (and debunked) arguments.

i was just thinking about this when i was sitting outside. my upstairs neighbour is turning my basement apartment into an ice box with his a/c, and it hasn't been consistently warm enough to even get the winter air out yet. ugh. anyways. a lot of people like harris claim the muslim world needs a reformation (i think i remember him saying that, i'm not going to look it up - but it's a commonly stated thing). i have to disagree. if anything, it's a good case study on the marxist analysis of the reformation. what the arab world needs is socialism. and, to their credit, that's something they figured out - and quite a while ago. but, we stamped it out. and, the ruling class in the region has since reasserted religion. see, it's interesting because this is the marxist analysis of the reformation: you had these people looking to abolish feudalism (for good reason...) and assert a concept of common ownership, and the ruling classes stepped in and pushed down a modified form of christianity, which left the system mostly in place. it collapsed in the end. but, when the dust of the reformation settled, the truth is that feudalism remained in most places. and, it kind of makes you wonder a little.

it is, in fact, clear that ancient greek geometers understood non-euclidean concepts, and it would be difficult to think they couldn't. greece was a maritime culture. there's plenty of comments pointing out the curvature of the horizon, and even a few explicit discussions of the geometry of it.

we can also state today that it is not possible to prove the fifth from the other four. this is a consequence of godel.

but, are the other four postulates truly obvious? i think the first, third and fourth are pretty clear. the second one causes me some pause.

2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.

later commentators tried to redefine the concept of a "straight line" to something inherent to the surface. and it's important to point out that indefinite does not mean infinite. but, i think this assumes parallelism in the plane in the first place.

perhaps a better approach is to define the space you're working in in the first place. mathematicians do this regularly when they discuss algebraic structures, so it's kind of weird that they don't when they discuss geometry. this is in fact the necessary adjustment that's come out of the acceptance of non-euclidean geometries, and how mathematicians approach things in practice, it just strangely hasn't been formalized. to be clear: mathematicians don't pretend a geometry applies to reality any more, they just treat them like abstractions and then let physicists deal with the applications. once you've set the actual characteristics of a plane (defined by intersecting right angles), you actually only need three postulates: 1, 3 and 4. two and five follow rather trivially, by the nature of the surface. further, the non-euclidean geometries become extensions of the surface.

it's easy to accuse me of missing the point, but i'm not - i'm actually getting the point, which is that there isn't a universal geometry. the geometry is specific to the surface. it really ought to be formalized that way, by setting down the characteristics of the surface first and then setting axioms as to what you can draw on it.

c'mon. you don't think it takes a pair to shoot up a police station?

re-publishing ambient works vol 0 (inri035)

i've split this off from inri048 into it's own release, inri017. this required shifting the previous inri017 down to inri016, and so forth, to inri001 - which is now inri000.

==

when i sat down to make the ambient works, i wanted a "mix tape" style cd-r of ambient fragments that ran from 1996-2003 as a volume 0. but, when i sat down to actually make it, i ended up with a 90 minute actual mix tape of material from 1996-1999. it actually split itself fairly cleanly into an inri period release, but a number of factors made it a pain in the ass to actually place it there.

i've decided to flip-flop on this, mostly due to the desire to keep the period 1 disc self-contained. i couldn't release something like that without this on it.

what i'm going to have to do is rename the first 17 releases by taking them down a number - so, inri001 becomes inri000, all the way up to inri017, which will allow me to insert the ambient works into that space.

that's going to require a lot of typing this evening which will slow me down another day, but i think it's the right choice.

so, here is the new inri017.

initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed between 2013-2015. initially released as part zero of a three volume set on may 21, 2015. split into it's own release on june 14, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, pick scrapes, tapes, metronome, synth, electric piano, drum & other programming, sound design, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, loops, sampling, sequencing, sound raider, digital wave editing, production, composition

released december 31, 1999

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0

i agree that this is carefully cut up propaganda. but, adults aren't supposed to look to children for wisdom on complicated issues. adult issues. it's kind of a dumb premise to think that somebody is going to be convinced by an eight year old's reaction, when they've already rejected more informed arguments. it's insulting to the audience it's trying to reach, to the point that it's counter-productive. on one side, it's a circle jerk. and, on the other it hardens attitudes through a backlash at the attempted emotional manipulation.

i'd prefer to see videos of these sort focus on intellectual arguments. what we need is a public discussion. this isn't really able to spark one.

spearofconquest
How many kids did they start off interviewing? We only see positive because they just cherry picked the good reactions. where is the blonde boy who asked a how a man becomes a woman? he probably got freaked out and said things that weren't compatible with the two gay guys agenda and yes the men in this video are gay. so obvious.

Brian Mendez
+spearofconquest ofc there is...there isnt any community who everyone gets along, thats impossible....but im saying that they are a huge community, most of them dont hate eachother...

deathtokoalas
+Brian Mendez that's not accurate. there's giant divisions. there's two broad schools of thought on the subject, but, broadly speaking, feminist lesbians tend to reject transwomen. there's been some pretty nasty and pretty ignorant literature written on the topic. an idea that is pretty fastened to lesbian feminist academic literature is that transwomen are driven by the desire to rape women - a claim that doesn't pass the most obvious test, due to the chemical castration involved in the process. like, i haven't had an erection in something like five years - i'm hormonally incapable of it. i couldn't rape somebody if i wanted to (not that i'd want to...). there's also some pretty nasty levels of misogyny in the gay male community, who seem to see the idea as some kind of threat to their own identity. and, while this is wrong, it's not hard to construct the logic - you just need to look at what the british government did to alan turing to see how the issue could be constructed to erase gay male identity. but, i mean, it's not right to blame it on us. trans people tend to have their own issues (i find queeny men to be incredibly irritating, and i find butch women to be broadly misogynist when you scratch the surface on their viewpoints), which aren't limited to push back on the exclusion.

political organizations like to try and umbrella us as "queer", because solidarity produces greater political power. we can all agree that this makes sense. and, the divisions are certainly not absolute. but, "out in the wild", random surveys are going to produce more division than solidarity. it's a nasty reality.

that said, i do agree that this is carefully cut up propaganda. but, i mean, adults aren't supposed to look to children for wisdom on complicated issues. adult issues. it's kind of a dumb premise to think that somebody is going to be convinced by an eight year old's reaction, when they've already rejected more informed arguments. it's insulting to the audience it's trying to reach, to the point that it's counter-productive. on one side, it's a circle jerk. and, on the other it hardens attitudes through a backlash at the attempted emotional manipulation.

i'd prefer to see videos of these sort focus on intellectual arguments. what we need is a public discussion. this isn't really able to spark one.

freshair3451
+spearofconquest  I'm sure they cherry picked the good reactions. It's those that help make the world a better place. The bad reactions can go back to hell where they came from.

deathtokoalas
+freshair3451 well, there's that approach, too. and, when you have roughly the same level of strength as your opponent, it can sometimes be a rational one. but when you're at the bottom of a hierarchy, you need to be a little more careful than that.

at the end of the day, i don't care what religious groups or radical feminists or just plain out assfaces think of me. but, i think it's imperative that some kind of understanding is reached where we can decide to agree to disagree without needing to get oppressive about it.

like, i don't seek active approval. but i do seek mutual respect. and the mutual part enforces on all of us.

damned hiccups.

i am not an amphibian.

or am i?

listen, if there's really shape-shifting lizards out there controlling the world, you'd think they'd have hybridized with regular ape-derived humans, and have half-lizard/half-ape hybrids running around that don't realize it. i don't care if you're a reptilian overlord, you still have a sex drive, and "no sex with ape-humans" has gotta be a helluva taboo in their hidden culture, enough to ensure it does happen.

maybe i'll go to the doctor and ask for a dna test..

"listen. i just need you to check if i'm a reptilian hybrid. it's a perfectly reasonable request. how do we know if we don't test?"

see, this is why we all need sex education taught in grade school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAJ_dupJr7U

fools...

the correct way to make spaghetti is to forget about useless tomato-based sauces altogether and instead put it in the microwave with a half a container of zesty caesar dressing and a half a block of marbled cheese on top of it. optional additions include green peppers, mushrooms, crumpled zesty cheese doritos, fresh pineapple, hot sauce, broccoli and crumpled salami.

two questions.

1) can you all take a shot at defining rape culture? no google searches. just tell me what you think it means. and i won't interject until we've got a good sample.

2) the consent issue had to do with stopping halfway, which was what was happening. the video had not aired. she had the ability to stop. the activist was right; lauren was presenting an irrelevant comparison and didn't seem to understand the correct one.

this channel is run by a well known media personality from canada that is famous for his intellectual dishonesty (he's like a canadian glenn beck, but worse), and you can see his fingerprints in the editing: cutting people off before they respond, provoking violence and then blaming it on the provoked, the use of warped logic and false analogies, baseless accusations (and flat out lies), etc. what he loses in subtlety, he makes up for in bias. entirely predictable. there's no value in pointing out the obvious, as he knows he's full of shit and the audience is just circle-jerking.

i'm more interested in seeing what people think "rape culture" means. so, go for it..

again: it's as clear as day. but, not even the most sympathetic coverage can bring itself to acknowledge the obvious. it is too ghastly to contemplate; yet, it remains blatantly clear.

israel is carrying out a conscious genocide against the palestinian people

you can't handle the truth.

it's a false choice. they can support imperialism, and desire themselves at the top of the hierarchy...

i've seen this come up with panitch in the past: he seems convinced that this idea that open markets creates stability is a real thing, by combining it with a class analysis and globalization. then he gets this idea of a global capitalist class that's all in kahoots with itself. he's not the first leftist i've seen buy into this. it's actually a cross-spectrum status quo at this point, to the extreme that you're likely to get ridiculed if you argue otherwise. but that's a type of enforcement of something that is really just propaganda. what's underlying his argument is buying into this "open markets equal peace and prosperity" thing, even if he's glossing over it with left-wing language.

hudson (who is a little naive, in general) is closer to the right idea in pointing out the globalization is not really globalization but american hegemony. there's a capitalist class in russia, and one in china, and another in india. but the american globalization policy is not to work with them so much as it's to move in. that actually creates a power struggle. in reality, open markets fuel international struggles by pitting one ruling class against another. that's the contradiction of neo-liberalism that hudson gets, and panitch is upholding, and the root crux of their disagreement. it follows that the capitalist classes in russia and china don't have the motives that panitch is suggesting.

and, hudson is consequently making good sense when he argues that this is about circumventing american capitalism, but misses the corollary - to compete and eventually replace it. now, apologists will instantly write this off as impossible. but, the containment strategies exist for a reason. the combined economic power of almost all of asia - and potentially most of africa and south america - is a significant threat to american power, especially if it can pull the germans in. and, if the new system generates enough success, it could very well do that. it's worth remembering that when it comes to unshakable allies, america has none. the closest are canada, britain and israel - but adherence to american dictates depends solely on the projection of american power.

will the third world see a difference? they might get some nicer rates in the short term, as the new system competes with the old one for influence. but, of course, it's not some coincidence that china is looking to fund a development bank in africa. it's colonialism - same old same old. it will give the brics countries more leverage in a wide range of contexts; it will very likely also spark some proxy wars.

but, the idea that globalization has led to a monolithic system of centralized global capital is called the "new world order conspiracy theory", and is john birch society propaganda. the idea that open markets lead to peace and stability is neo-liberal propaganda. the fact is that competition over resources between sovereign states that are hostile to each other continues as it always has, and has no apparent end point in sight.

i don't see a racial motivation here so much as i see a grown ass man fondling a teenage girl in a bikini. i think the proper charge against this officer is sexual assault.

when you have issues like this, they're rarely singular. i would encourage any other women that have been assaulted by this officer to come forward in whatever way they feel comfortable.

dammit, this is so predictable and the entire country is clueless. it's the most obvious thing in the world: obama is a republican operative.

i'm sitting here watching this and thinking "well, yeah. they don't want a long term solution because they want privatized infrastructure. it's a part of the neo-liberal project. so, they're giving you the least they can so they can rip it apart when they get control."

and, lo and behold, what does obama announce? privatized infrastructure.

we saw this with the government shutdown. we saw it with health care. we've seen it over and over again. congress refuses to act on basic and routine legislation, which forces obama into an executive order. he then signs into law what the republicans actually want to do, but could never get through congress. then he spins it as stopping republican obfuscation - when it is, in fact, fast tracking republican legislation.

i don't know if y'all are ever going to figure this out...

jessica murray
the comments on this blog seem to completely ignore the third wave criticism of agency involved with accepting "patriarchal" norms of femininity, or the female power that comes with accepting them. instead, they view women as this monolithic entity that all thinks the same way and has the same opinions. what that does is erases identity in favour of a different kind of oppressive paradigm - one where women are merely chained to a different collectivist ideal. it's no solution, it's just a new type of oppression.

now, certainly a lot of women profess a lot of discomfort at being unable or unwilling to uphold these expectations, and a truly free society would acknowledge that and lift those requirements. i'm going to skip over my anarchistic opposition to a portion of this thinking; if the argument is about how to climb the hierarchy, i need to interject that we ought not have a hierarchy at all. but, this is in some ways "next level" and beyond any kind of immediate concern.

what needs to be addressed is why so many women *don't* feel such a violent reaction. and, on a base level, it has to be acknowledged that it couldn't continue without mass consent. at some point, you need to concede that the reason that so many women are so ok with this is that they are really ok with this. not due to biological determinism, and only partly due to conditioning - mostly due to conscious, individual choice. that doesn't negate your own personal reaction, or delegitimize your own desire to get out of it, but it does necessitate a level of mutual respect for the opinions and desires of others.

when you get to that point, it's no longer such a jump to see how some people born with penises can identify with some concepts of traditional femininity. it's a social construct, disconnected from biology. if people born with vaginas can identify with it, it follows that people born with penises can, too - and that is base, egalitarian logic. it doesn't all come bundled together, of course. i don't make any sense when pushed into a male role, but that doesn't mean i'm going to let myself get chained to a kitchen counter and make sandwiches on command. rather, i'm going to uphold the same concepts of female empowerment that my third wave allies uphold - i'm an individual person with individual opinions and individual aspirations. it just happens to be that, when compiled together, those opinions and aspirations fit into one arbitrary binary partition far better than the other one.

none of this applies to drag queens, who tend not to transition for this precise reason - they don't find themselves on that side of the arbitrarily constructed binary, they just like to put on a costume from time to time and pretend they're somebody they aren't.

www.feministcurrent.com/2014/04/25/why-has-drag-escaped-critique-from-feminists-and-the-lgbtq-community/

Anna
This whole comment makes me sad. I bothered to type out a response that points out the glaring inaccuracies and erasure, but then I realized: this person doesn't care. If they cared, they would never have posted such an ignorant, offensive comment in a feminist space. They would have read the words of the women here, and analyzed their own position. But they didn't do that. Instead, they either ignored the words of the women here, or they read them but disregarded them. And then they gave us paragraphs that others before them have written here, paragraphs that have been disproved and refuted.

So, I'm not giving this person the benefits of my time and effort today, because it will be wasted. It's too bad they keep making the points for us: talk over women, ignore women's words, downplay/disregard women's experiences, tell women what's the correct way to do gender, etc. etc.

Poor thirdwavers, can't see the forest OR the trees, just the pretty branches.

jessica murray
see, i don't really consider you rad fems to really be "feminists", because you don't seem to understand equality - you just want to enforce your warped concepts of masculinity on women, and entirely erase femininity in the process. you seem to think women would behave exactly like men if they weren't brainwashed otherwise, that women exist in some kind of natural hobbessian state. i actually find this very misogynistic; it's typical right-wing bullshit, hidden in the typical foucaldian conservative disguise. you don't seem to want to liberate women, you seem to want to destroy femininity.

i've read your words and decided you're not just incorrect, but you need to be debated and ultimately held accountable for your oppression in denying and erasing my identity. you do not have a monopoly on womanhood because you were born with a vagina. rather than pretend you're beyond criticism, you need to open your mind and listen to what i'm telling you.

and, again: this princess complex you're demonstrating is not feminism. it's misogyny.

i should be more precise: who is the topic of conversation here? it's not you, it's me. that means you need to listen to me, not that i need to listen to you.

mary
" needs to be addressed is why so many women *don’t* feel such a violent reaction. and, on a base level, it has to be acknowledged that it couldn’t continue without mass consent. at some point, you need to concede that the reason that so many women are so ok with this is that they are really ok with this. not due to biological determinism, and only partly due to conditioning – mostly due to conscious, individual choice. that doesn’t negate your own personal reaction, or delegitimize your own desire to get out of it, but it does necessitate a level of mutual respect for the opinions and desires of others."

Chattel slavery was legal for thousands of years not solely because of brute force. Slaves were trained to think of their status as natural. We are facing the same dutiful obedience to capitalism. It's obvious and tragic that people can learn to accept their own subservience and even take pleasure in it.

Many opinions don't warrant respect because they condone structural inequality.

jessica murray
i don't think you understood what i typed. please try again.

Meghan Murphy
Perhaps if people are having trouble understanding what you typed, you might consider making your points more clear. I'm having trouble deciphering your arguments, as I mentioned earlier.

jessica murray
i think i dropped a few words from the initial post , but it was clear from context.

“the comments on this blog seem to completely ignore the third wave criticism of (how second wavers deny the) agency involved with accepting “patriarchal” norms of femininity, or the female power that comes with accepting them.”

if you're still not sure where i'm coming from, i'd suggest reading up a little on it. i can't outline the entire third wave criticism in this post. i meant to reference something that was already understood. but, i took your post as a facetious grammatical attack.

as for this post, i'm trying to get across the idea that you're erasing agency - and the response i'm getting is to erase agency. again: it's incredibly patronizing to tell people that their thoughts are not their own.

and i need to reiterate: this is a point that rad fems are going to have to eventually concede. you can't hold on to this forever, in the face of so many women pushing back on it. you're just isolating yourself.

what you can say is that *you* reject these concepts. what you can't say is that *women* reject them - or at least not all of them. we're all going to accept and reject different aspects. liberation is the ability to make those choices, and live freely within them. and, once you take that step, the trans issue clarifies itself...

Meghan Murphy
False consciousness is an unpopular concept in today's 'Agency is Everywhere!' neoliberal culture, but it's still a real thing. Plenty of oppressed people are seemingly content with their own oppression, women in particular.

jessica murray
i'm glad that you know what i want and should want, meghan. what should have i for breakfast tomorrow?

Meghan Murphy
I have no idea what you want. But that's not what is being debated here... Whether or not any individual 'wants' masculinity or femininity is irrelevant. Both remain part of an oppressive hierarchy that hurts women.

jessica murray
the oppression is the enforcement. would it shock you if the enforcement were removed and women made these choices anyways? woman telling women what to be, what to want, how to live, etc is not different. i'm not going to enforce that on you. i expect the same in return. i have agency. i make these choices. telling me (or other women) otherwise is doing exactly the same thing that you're criticizing.

and, it's why you have this cis distinction. i'm not going to pretend i was born with a uterus - i'm transgendered, i'm not schizophrenic. i'm not going to stand up and talk about contraception, or any of the other things that are inherently specific to the biological female sex.

but, excuse me for pushing back against the idea that my thoughts are not my own. it's pretty patronizing.

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jessica murray
all of your posts here are incoherent. if you agree that gender is a social construct (as i do) then you agree it can be arbitrarily assigned to people with either birth sex, because you realize it exists independently of biology. otherwise, you're merely contradicting yourself.

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(deleted post)

jessica murray
i'm a transwoman that wears (purple-pink) sneakers, (tight) jeans and tshirts and tank tops. most transwomen i've met are similar in terms of fashion decisions.

two things.

1) it's mostly a media stereotype.
2) perhaps you've met transwomen without realizing they're transwomen.

drag queens generally identify as gay men, not as transgendered. nothing is absolute, but it's the overwhelming trend. further, transwomen tend to prefer to fit in than stand out - that's the point.

i think the answer to this quandary is that, by becoming the patriarchal-enforced concept of "women", they're actually expressing an internalized perspective of their suppressed heterosexual feelings, and becoming the women they would desire. because strict heterosexuality and homosexuality are as socially constructed as masculinity and femininity, and they are in truth bisexual like everybody else, but can't deal with it.

is it degrading? well, it can be. i don't like these shows, either, and also tend to avoid them. but it's more complicated than that, because it's acting out a repressed heterosexual impulse - it's sexist on a pretty base level, which is *why* it's so accepted.

Anthony L
If Jenner decided he was a black man instead of a woman, painted his face black and made a play on all the stereotypes of what makes a person "black", would he be given this same worship, or would he be called a racist? Serious question, no straw man arguments.

deathtokoalas
with jenner, specifically, i'm not 100% comfortable making this argument - i think you have a mild point. but, more generally, the idea is that the personality already aligns with the effeminate, meaning the individual is actually functionally impersonating being male and the transition eliminates the fraud. you have to begin with the assumption that humans are variable, and the idea of "female" and "male" - on a psychological level - is actually a completely false human construct to begin with.

but, you actually don't generally see transwomen pushing stereotypes like this. you generally see drag queens pushing stereotypes like this. i'll get back to this.

now, is "being black" a similar false construct? i'd argue it mostly is. there's nothing more inherently "black" about hip-hop than there is inherently "female" about corsets. so, you have to look at context...

let's take a step back and actually look at the scenario of a drag performer, instead. is performing in drag different than back face? i'd have difficulty accepting that there's a difference between being a "female impersonator" and a "black impersonator" on the level of what's actually being done. but, there's a big difference in context. "blackface" isn't a problem on the level of the actual make-up, it's a problem on the level of it promoting negative racial attitudes. i don't really have a problem with a white guy being barack obama for halloween - i think this can be done tastefully and the pc reaction prohibiting it altogether is kneejerking and overreacting. in that sense, i may spin the issue around and argue from the opposite perspective - that, if done without implying something racist, impersonating a black person is not more offensive than performing in drag.

the difference is that i've never met - or seen in print - any comparable reaction to drag performances, for the precise reason that they don't tend to be degrading. the closest is the (mostly accurate...) feminist argument that drag performers are interpreting the female through the male gaze in the first place; that is, that everybody in the room understands that this "female impersonator" is only impersonating the female in the context of a warped patriarchal concept of it. it's consequently actually an expression of masculinity.

but, this is a valid point to raise. and i'm interested in seeing what further reactions to it are.

that car

hi.

i acknowledge my memory is sketchy, but i have a memory of a car being given to me several years ago, i think as a birthday present. 2008-2009ish, i think. i was told that i could get the car if i got a license. i responded by saying that i didn't want a car (and i still don't...), and i'd rather see the money put towards paying down my debt. nothing further was ever spoken of it. i think it was blue; i don't even know the names of current car manufacturers.

it's many years later, and my debt is pushing $70,000. now, the blunt reality is that i should have never qualified for a loan in the first place. there's a student loan bubble building that is going to crash the economy, and the end result is going to have to be stricter lending practices. the idea that just anybody can take an interest-bearing loan of that size out is preposterous.

my father always promised to me that he was going to pay some of it down, and the reality is that the bulk of it is the result of going back to school - which i initially only agreed to on the condition that it wouldn't affect my loan, and which was reneged upon at the last minute.

had i taken that money at the time that was wasted on a stupid car and put it down, the debt wouldn't be growing out of control.

now, the chances of me paying this debt are zero. it's just going to keep growing, and there's nothing the state can do about it because my income is roughly half of the poverty line. my monthly minimum payment is twice my monthly income. it's an impossibility, and there's no use in pretending otherwise.

that said, they're threatening to hold a lien on my tax return if i don't address it, somehow. i think i can probably fight this, but then i'll have to go through the process again every year, while the interest spirals out of control. it's really just a stupid situation.

so, whatever happened to the car? and, is there any way i can gain access to it, in order to cut the debt down a little?

j

in fact, the israeli intent right now is genocide. netanyahu has recently admitted that israel is no longer interested in a multi-state solution, and the talks have no end point. palestinians have two choices: leave or die. and, not only the americans - but also the egyptians and the saudis - are entirely supportive of this policy.

chomsky was right to ignore him as a clown. on one hand, he needed to be taken down. on another....at some point, you're just giving a platform to a discredited imbecile that doesn't deserve one.

i was expecting some comments to respond to; i guess i'll have to start it off.

i'm a cultural relativist; i am not a moral relativist, because i am a moral nihilist. but, this does not fall under the category of cultural relativism because it is objectively wrong. cultural relativism refers to issues that are not clearly right or wrong, but take on different meanings in different contexts. it does not refer to things that are disproven, debunked or clearly absurd. let's look at some examples.

examples of cultural relativism:
- snakes and insects (or cows or pigs, or cats and dogs, as it may be) are disgusting and should not be eaten.
- god is a specific gender.
- the punishment for a crime should be whatever.
- circumcision.

examples of things that are wrong:
- creationism.
- caste systems.
- homosexuality is unnatural.
- patriarchy is natural.
- humans cause volcanoes by angering the volcano gods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyLque6D4xY

why wouldn't you wear gloves?

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

i don't think it's useful to look too deep into it as a precise metaphor - it's just general cultural propaganda, of life in a starkly hobbessian reality. as a viewer, you're meant to internalize that.

i mean, i get that hobbes is pretty widely misunderstood. he was actually some kind of proto-fascist, advocating total control in the hands of the state in order to stop people from getting at each other like they are in the show. his description of "human nature" was presented as an obstacle to overcome, rather than an ideal or even an unavoidable truth.

but, a certain misunderstanding of hobbes is very useful for the kind of casino capitalism that the elites in the united states desire, and want us to live by. what hobbes saw as a tragedy is their ideal order, and they've been actively seeking to influence public behaviour to align with this kind of social darwinism for quite a while now, as a reaction to the perceived threat of communalism that hobbes half advocated. i mean, trust me - nobody with good sense thinks hobbes had good solutions. but he at least realized that some kind of collective action was necessary to present a sustainable future.

what the elite have been saying for decades now is "we agree that hobbes was wrong, but we also agree that marx (and locke and rousseau...) was right. which means that our order is not a total failure, because people are malleable and programmable. so, through propaganda, we can create the hobbesian world that doesn't really exist. we can brainwash people into violent, if not always rational, self-interest. then, we can apply the social theories that have been debunked."

it would be insane, if it wasn't so diabolical.

does anybody know what the actual turnover in writers is expected to be?

i mean, fallon is just a bad imitation of leno, really. i was never a leno fan, but i have to give him points for improv that fallon just does not have. besides that, they're more or less interchangeable, and one needs to wonder if it's basically because the writing team stayed put.

it's an honest question, though. colbert made a big point about him leaving his character behind, and i can't help but think that also means leaving his writers behind. meaning, it seems like he's moving into a furnished apartment...

he might slowly get his own furniture over time. but i'm not sure it's wise to expect that much of a departure.

i see he's brought his writing team with him...

that's a positive.

FortyNineHudson
+deathtokoalas Since they're not constricted to writing for his "character", they might actually get to stretch out some more.

Jake Marsing
Colbert brought a number of his writers from the. "Report" including head writer Opus Moreschi. He's also brought on some new faces who're familiar with the format. One particularly promising hire is Brian Stack, who wrote for Conan from 1996 till this year and created some great characters like "The Interruptor," "The NBC Crooner," and "WikiBear." Colbert's hires tell me a lot about what he's planning. Expect if to follow the traditional 6 act Carson structure (monologue, comedy bit, guest 1, guest 1 again or another comedy bit, guest 2, music act or stand up comic, roll credits) it's an old format, but I still think it works. Colbert's show will feel like a more intellectual version of Conan. He'll do topical jones that Fallon can't, and he'll do stronger interviews. I really expect the show to push back against the prom king comedy we've seen in late night over the last two years.

deathtokoalas
+Jake Marsing i think you bring up a good point - colbert's not really competing against fallon. i couldn't imagine there's really much overlap in potential audience; it's almost a clean partition in the possible viewer demographic. colbert is really going to be competing with conan.

i haven't watched late night in a long time; i haven't had a tv in a long time. but, i always preferred conan to the other carson formula shows by a large margin. the reason was that conan was actually funny, and the two mainstays were just bland observationalists - seinfeld without the knack for the surreal, which both stewart and colbert have always had. for some reason, though, tv executives seem to hate him, and it kind of brings up some questions about how colbert is going to get along with head office kind of thing....

but, i mean, it's not like cbs didn't know who they were hiring, and their expectations had to be something a little edgier. i'm curious as to how this will work out...or, rather, how long it takes for colbert to get himself in trouble.

i'll be honest: my immediate thought was that the power structure was trying to shut him down before the next election by offering him a plush job, then canning him after a month. i hope that's conspiratorial logic. but, if it works out that way...well..

Jake Marsing
There are few things more fascinating to me than late night tv. It's the only genre in pop culture really about one person being funny. I think Colbert's got the chops to pull it off. But, you're right, he and Fallon will be doing different shows. Jimmy's will have mass appeal (like Leno's did) and Stephen will play to a more niche audience (like Letterman did). Colbert will be competitive, but I think his goal isn't to be #1. His goal is be a strong #2 with a young audience.

deathtokoalas
+Jake Marsing it's just that one of the things that killed conan was his refusal to pander to sarah palin. conan didn't want to alienate his liberal-leaning viewing base by doing the network's bidding in sucking up to a right-wing demagogue. it's hard to think that these situations aren't going to show up with colbert in this time slot - who is perpetually in an even worse quandary than conan could ever be in. there's all kinds of people that cbs is going to have to scratch off the list of potential guests, because they're not going to go anywhere near him. and, he's going to have to watch his mouth, which is going to upset long time viewers. i can't see how this isn't going to be an issue.

and i suspect it might be purposefully engineered as one.

schwarzeneggar. first week. wait for it.

argumentativeindian
+Jake Marsing Oh, is Brian Stack now writing for Colbert? That's wonderful! I used to love his segments, and was sad to see him leave Conan.