Category: politics

mary, mary, quite contrary

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I’m a contrarian. I don’t do it on purpose. There’s just something in my brain that hears an opinion or a thing accepted as fact and can’t help but play devil’s advocate and ask: what if it wasn’t?

It’s an absurd desire to see the other, that I can’t quite avoid. I used to call it opening worlds, and that’s a good an explanation as any, but it comes down to this. Whatever the view is, I want to see the other one.

Or another one. There’s rarely just two. It means constant growth, and it avoids dogma, but it does tend to put one on the outs with everyone else.

Always asking the question: what are the other ways to look at this? What if it’s not?

What if there’s another way?

What if there’s a hundred?

What about a thousand?

What if it’s infinite?

It’s taken me a long time to get used to the idea that this will never end, that there can be no end to perspective and questions.

And if puts me at odds with humanity, well, so fucking be it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1026 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear (finally, enjoyed it, but too much interference)
Comics: The Sacrificers 6, The Holy Roller 2-4
Music: Wasting Light, Foo Fighters

introspective return

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Being up north, as frustrating as it can be at times (family, am I right?), always leaves me introspective, and as we wound back down highway 11 toward home, I could help but think:

Has chastising someone for saying something politically incorrect ever actually worked?

My mom said Indian; my sister-in-law barked INDIGENOUS at her, with vitriol, like my mother was some raging bigot who wasn’t just stuck in the habit of saying Indian for over seventy years.

I see this all the time online and every time, I think, and you wonder why people radicalize away from you?

One could say, “I think they go by indigenous now,” in a nice, non-condescending tone, thereby sparking a conversation and education that ends amicably with at least one party elevated with an updated viewpoint, to hopefully, do better the next time around. If that party still resists at that point, and won’t listen to an updated viewpoint, well, then, yeah, okay. Maybe you got a bigot.

But most people aren’t that bad, and by escalating so quickly, and implying that they are horrible people right off the hop, well, you’re invalidating everything they are in favour of a label of bigot, fascist, whatever other horrible thing you’d like to use, over something that more often than not, is more micro than macro-aggression.

Think of it like this: you probably don’t think you’re a bad person. You likely don’t think you’re perfect, you might even think of yourself as being flawed or broken or screwed-up, but you probably don’t think you’re evil. You might think you make everyone’s lives worse, but that’s because you’re a fuck-up who can’t get their shit together, and not because you’re, you know, Hitler.

But let’s say one day that you use the word (and let’s keep it kind of ridiculous here) “ginger”.

And maybe a family member immediately turns to you and escalates, labelling you an absolute bigot, and telling that they go by “rouged” now, and that using ginger makes you a horrible racist and probably supportive of all the anti-trans, homophobic, sexist nonsense out there, and a Republican while you’re at it.

Now, you, even thinking you’re kind of a loser, probably don’t think that of yourself. And so, how do you respond?

Like pretty well everyone does when they feel they’ve been unjustly accused – defensively.

You get your back up. You get defensive because this person is trying to invalidate all the good parts of you, that no matter how screwed up you are, at your core, you know you’re not that, not EVIL, and reduce you down to this one thing – rougephobic.

And with that, all the other nonsense that gets conflated with one level of bigotry. If you’re transphobic, you must be anti-gay as well. You must hate lesbians and black people and Latinos and women. If you’re a women, you must be a TERF and probably pro-life as well.

Of course, you know you’re not that, so even if you don’t say it out loud, you push back. You internalize your indignation and all of a sudden, all these disingenuous assholes talking about the elitist left looking down their nose at you, start making a bit more sense. And you’re sucked in, a little more each time it happens, until you’re a full blown Trumper (I mean, hopefully not that far, but imagine this isn’t just one person doing this to you – it’s a million people, a literal million, in some cases, online, constantly, without cease. How far down the rabbit hole might you go in your anger at being unjustly labelled Evil).

And all this is knowing that if they’d just said, “I think they go by rouged now” in an informative and non-judgmental way, sparking a brief, but important conversation, you might have avoided any of that, avoided the defensive trigger response and even possibly, gained an ally.

Education, not condemnation. These are the keys to winning back those on the edge, those that just maybe need a little bit of knowledge, rather than vilification.

These are the things I think about as I drive.

And they’re the things that are killing the left – why we get smaller every day, while the lunatics swell in size.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1256 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
Comics: A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 10, Deadly Class 54-55, The Scumbag 14
Music: The Warrior's Code, Dropkick Murphys

i’m probably going to take some heat for that

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Yesterday’s post, but I truly believe that innocent until proven guilty is the way to go. I don’t know the reality of what happened that night but what was presented in court (and I’ll fully admit to reading only the final verdict, because I always like to withhold judgment until I know enough facts to make a decision), but I do know that those boys were convicted in the court of public opinion way before there was even a trial.

Before anyone even knew anything beyond the broadest strokes of the allegations rendered.

And that’s not right. If they were guilty, fuck ’em, but as a society, we are beholden to be better than this. We need to be better toward the victims, less instantly assumptive about the presumption of guilt.

An accusation does not equal guilt. It doesn’t guarantee innocence.

It’s a statement, like a hypothesis in science. We believe this is what happened; now let’s check the facts and parse the logic to see if that adds up.

The law must be dispassionate; I know we’re all into victimhood these days, and certainly, underserved communities and minorities are due a major review and reconstruction of the social contract.

But innocent until proven guilty is not one of them.

If you don’t understand that, if you would rather presume guilt and refuse to change your mind, no matter the evidence against, well, then, I’m sorry. We are going to disagree.

And for that, I will be crucified.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1838 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Odds On, John Crichton (Michael Lange)
Comics: Black Science 42-43, Deadly Class 40-41
Music: War On The Blvd, Sublime

woo, doggie

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I’m playing in the land of metaphor this morning, detailing exactly where the left coincides with the right and the metaphors that bind them, in the context of Bad Neighbours.

Ironically, it ended being filtered through the judge’s verdict on the Hockey Canada sexual assault case acquittal, in which she posited that while we are all on the train of believing victims, doing so without examination essentially means applying the doctrine of guilty until proven innocent, when our system runs on innocent until proven guilty. There was enough conflicts, contradictions and assertions that didn’t agree with established facts in the case for the judge to reasonably decide that she could not say there was a crime committed, beyond doubt.

Reading the specifics of her verdict, I would probably make the same choice.

And it’s important, the distinction of innocent until proven guilty versus guilty until proven innocent. How many of us had listened to someone make assertions about the behaviour of their ex, or a coworker, or a friend or enemy that had no actual bearing in reality, even if we didn’t know it at the time? How many of us have had someone assert that their significant other was mistreating them, or playing the role of victim, or rationalizing away bad or regrettable behaviour on their part, because they didn’t actually want to take responsibility for what happened?

Most people don’t want to be responsible for their own actions. They live in denial. They falsely equivocate, they exaggerate, they outright lie, often to the point of deluding themselves as to what’s actually real, in order to avoid accountability for what’s ultimately on them.

You say you want freedom? You want truth?

You have to accept two things then: understand that total freedom comes with total responsibility – these are inseparable – and secondly, that reality is not what you want it to be, it’s what is, and if you want truth, you have to be willing to suspend your beliefs and the little fictions you tell yourself about yourself, or about the way things “should” be, and surrender your open, empty mind to what is, no matter the consequences.

Freedom is responsibility. Freedom is accepting consequence. Truth is what is, it’s not what you’d like to to be, or how you want to frame it. It’s what is.

So, innocent until proven guilty is the better way to go, because believing the accuser means automatically accepting their version of the truth, which we all know can be a highly creative, even self-deluding fiction at times. It can also be true, but that’s what the process is meant to find out (and admittedly, that depends on the competence and relative framework of the process, whether truly fair, fact-finding mission or kangaroo court). But guilty until proven innocent It’s not about what is; it’s about what’s asserted; it’s hypothesis without testing. You claim donkeys can fly, you have to prove that they can. The people you’re telling they can don’t.

That’s the way it works.

And that’s infinitely better than someone shouting, “Donkeys can fly!” and then having everyone that heard them run around scrambling to build wings for mules to make it true.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2749 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Odds On, Michael Lange (John Crichton)
Comics: Low 22, Black Science 40-41, Deadly Class 39
Music: War On Errorism, NOFX (legit one of the best punk albums ever written)

martyrs and charlatans

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I once saw a chart that showed someone who worked super hard but made no connections versus someone who didn’t work, but made nothing but connections, and basically, it stuck them in two categories.

All work and no connection creates self-imposed martyrdom, while all connection and no work creates charlatans. Bullshitters versus drudge horses, with those that can find the balance (working hard and creating worthwhile things versus connecting with fans, with industry leaders and insiders, in a genuine, non-bullshit manner) as the true exceptions, the step above the rest. A martyr can find its work recognized and suddenly reach popularity, only to flame out over time (but still leaving behind good work).

A charlatan can become popular for nothing, and lose everything and be leave nothing behind.

I’m a martyr right now, that’s for sure.

May I never be a charlatan.

May I someday find the balance.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1114 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Odds On, John Lange (Michael Crichton)
Comics: Deadly Class 37-38, Black Science 39, Low 21
Music: War, U2

street names and the modern dichotomy

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I had originally named the street my bad neighbours lived on Sigmund Avenue, but now, given the material, I rather think I’d like to find a name that is more fitting of the analogy of dichotomy I’ve made with this book.

With that in mind, I’m trying to track down the father of modern political dichotomy, the man most responsible for creating the left-right “split” that we’ve got going. I’m not talking about someone who exploits it, like Trump or Reagan or Bush (Junior or Senior).

I want the philosopher. The modern political thinker.

I’d considered Descartes, but the hunt continues.

Who started all this shit? Jesus?

Who was originator of us versus them as viable political theory? It has always been such; someone must have codified as proper, and watched as all these murderous assholes latched on to it. Who created authoritarianism, in its current sense?

Who is the son of bitch that said there’s only two sides to every issue, and third party be damned!

Which founding father is responsible for this shit?

Should that be a theme, a running theme? Things named after founding fathers who turned out to be assholes?

Who thought putting guns in the Constitution was a good idea?

I bet they’re one and the same.

Our way or no way. Us or them. Till death do us part.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1413 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing
Comics: Seven To Eternity 6-7, Black Science 30, Deadly Class 29
Music: Extras: A Collection Of Rarities, The Jam

fuckin’ poilievre

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I see he’s all up in arms because he’s worried about Mark Carney’s ethics screening.

Gee, guy who refuses to get his security clearance, are you sure that’s the fight you want to pick?

Christ, I had to get one for my one step above mail room government job. You’re the purported leader of the official opposition (though why the Conservatives let you keep that job after losing what should have been a slam dunk election AND your own riding, I’ll never know).

Shouldn’t Poilievre, with access to far more sensitive material and influence, have to follow that same path? I, for one, would think that anyone who is unwilling to get a security check has a) no basis to complain about what other people might be hiding and b) no place in our political system.

So how about this, Pierre? Carney conducts a transparent ethics review the same day you get your security clearance, and let’s just see how that shakes out, shall we?

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1232 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: A Study In Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
Comics: Black Science 28, Low 16, Deadly Class 27, Seven To Eternity 5
Music: Exposure - The Best Of Gary Numan, Gary Numan

forty-eight

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My health fights my ambition.

My depression fights my motivation.

I’m not sure which is winning.

Happy goddamned birthday.

I’d like nothing more than to go back to being twelve, with the knowledge I have now, and do things the right fucking way.

Then again, would I have all this?

Or would I have opted for the easy way out that time?

Would I have followed Matt into heroin and other hard drugs?

Would I have done something even dumber than the things I already did?

It is hell to be at war, whether it’s with others or yourself.

The dichotomy must die.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1562 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Deadly Class 23-24, Seven To Eternity 3, Black Science 26
Music: Experience The Divine, Bette Midler (because I hate myself, apparently)

spic and span

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I had to look up the origin to this phrase earlier, because I left it in as a throwaway line on the last draft of Bad Neighbours (in relation to the main character worrying that the origin was racist), and I’m happy to report, it’s not.

It comes from a combination of the Norse and Dutch words for brand new.

Thank goodness.

I hate finding out things I’d taken for granted have terrible background stories (see Gaiman, Neil and the rule of thumb).

Dutch is a fucked up language, is it not?

Target: 1300 words
Written: 910 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Black Science 22-24, Low 15
Music: Experience, The Prodigy

everything is broken

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Seriously, our systems are down, I can do nothing, but sit through tedious mandatory training curriculum.

At least the Metis part was interesting.

Stewardship and privacy, on the other hand, I know all this.

Tedious As Fuck.

Also, happy Fourth of July to Americans who didn’t vote for Trump.

For Trump, fuck you.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1071 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Agent To The Stars, John Scalzi
Comics: Black Science 12-14, Deadly Class 12
Music: Evil Dead: Original Broadway Cast Album, Original Broadway Cast