The Antisocial Socialist

 Today's featured episode is from Bad Hasbara. "Scar Tours With Noy Katsman" is an interview with a student and activist whose brother, Hayim, was murdered in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. It probably goes without saying why I think this is important to listen to. For all the rhetoric about returning the hostages, obviously the current tactic of genociding the entire Gaza Strip is not working well to that end. But of course, it's not about the hostages, nor about people like Hayim, who would not have wanted 30,000 people and counting murdered in his name. Noy is clear-eyed and admirable in turning their own very personal and visceral tragedy into a cogent call for peace and justice.

I should add, if you haven't heard of scar tours, it's nothing new. When I was in my early 20s, there was a "suicide bus" that some of my extended family were involved in transporting to Canada—basically the bombed-out wreckage of a bus that a suicide bomber had attacked, and you could go in and see how horrific the damage was and imagine the dead bodies and so on. I thought this was ghoulish at the time*, just as I see now tours of a kibbutz where massacres took place on Oct. 7 advertised to teachers to visit on March Break (yes, really) are not only about dispossession of the living, but desecrations of the dead. 

Anyway, everyone should hear what Noy has to say.


* See also: Why my mother and I are not invited to family events anymore.

 I'm sick* and everything is garbage so have a fun one from me today. As a treat.

I'd heard a little bit about the predictive programming conspiracy theory. It's the idea that (((They))) put secret messages in films and TV to soften up the populace for events that they wouldn't otherwise swallow, like 9/11 or Sandy Hook, or to induce people to commit mass shootings, like the Aurora theatre shooting. This week on It Could Happen Here, Garrison explored the roots of the theory (which, weirdly, aren't particularly anti-semitic or even harmful, though of course these days it's both) and what people who believe this actually think.

Part 1 | Part 2 

I find this conspiracy theory interesting for two reasons. First, because it has a grain of truth to it. Creators do put messaging in their work, and that messaging is often related to things that are happening in the real world, and it's interesting to debate whether pop culture influences reality (see Frankfurt School, Nick Land, Ben Shapiro, that stupid ending to Game of Thrones) or simply reflects it (Marx, Plato), or, I don't know, these things kind of reinforce each other (this is actually the correct answer if you want art to mean anything at all and you don't have a grossly inflated sense of your own importance as an artist). So it's interesting to analyze media in terms of how intentional the messaging was and what ideology it's in the trash bin of (*sniff*) and I can absolutely see how people get carried away with it.

The second reason is that I genuinely think media literacy is an important skill and that we do a piss-poor job of teaching it in schools, and so as a result you get people who crave a deep-dive into media but have no idea how to do it. Accordingly, you get a dude who is convinced that all of the symbolism in The Hunger Games has to do with Saturn and is foreshadowing a revolution/police state in the US that will reorganize society into 15-minute cities or something like that, and completely misses that the symbolism in The Hunger Games is meant to reflect very real present-day concerns, albeit in kind of an obvious, workmanlike way. It makes me think that obsessing over stories is something inherent to the human condition whether we teach people to do it intelligently or not, and if these people just found a fandom or read Slacktivist's Left Behind reviews or I dunno, got an English degree, they would be happy and normal. There's a real "there but for fortune" feel about this particular conspiracy and it's interesting to learn about.

Also ngl I want to see that Civil War movie. It looks fun as hell. Sorry/not sorry.



* Probably not covid? At least 5 RATs say it's not. Plus it feels exactly like the time I got food poisoning last year so hopefully it's just that.

 Welcome to Podcast Friday. Unusually for me, awash in excellent content, I come today not to praise but to condemn. Not the podcast itself, but the ways in which alternative and independent media occasionally has the same blind spots as mainstream media when it comes to critical analysis.

Yeah yeah I know Canadaland has sucked lately and this is not actually about Jesse's stance on Israel and Palestine (or lack thereof). Though hoo-boy maybe we can talk about yesterday's bizarro episode as well. No, the one I want to highlight is "The Conservative Decade Ahead."

Like every mainstream media source including the, presumably, soon-to-be-defunded-and-turned-into-single-family-housing CBC, this episode assumes that Pierre Poilievre will be Canada's next Prime Minister. Literally everyone I know thinks this as well. I don't know why we bother having elections in this country—everyone seems to be sick of them anyway—we might as well go with the guy appointed by a handful of radicals and endorsed by the kind of people who answer the phone for a call from an unknown number. Definitely the kind of people we want deciding the fate of this country. It goes a step farther, though, and assumes that not only will Poilievre have the top job, but like his ideological predecessor Stephen Harper, he will be in a majority government for a decade.

Now, I don't think that this is a particularly far-fetched assumption. We have been told for years that we're all sick of Trudeau (personally I was sick of him before he got elected the first time) and that it's time for a change, and this is certainly A Change. Canadians are, as a people, deeply stupid. The Conservatives are a big tent party consisting of everyone from first-generation bourgeois immigrants who don't want their taxes raised to neo-Nazis who want the former group deported at best, put into a concentration camp at worst. Among the leadership, though, they're very united by how they work—defund all public institutions until they break, then transfer that money into the pockets of their bestest friends. Every Conservative government in living memory has the same strategy, which is to steal and defraud the public, enshittifying and making you pay more for things you should get for free, and then handing you like $200, patting you on the shoulder, and telling you that they're the friend of the working class, the little guy, just like you. Because we are a nation of placid, stupid little toddlers, we fall for it every time.

So okay why does this annoy me so much? For a number of reasons—first, it is maybe the job of journalists who are not far-right (whatever else you can say about Jesse Brown, he's not an extremist) to suggest pathways through which we might avoid the worst possible outcome. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Or at least to expose the truth of these fuckers, which doesn't really happen here either. Definitely it's not to suggest that eh, we'll probably still be okay and things will be pretty much the same. Maybe it might be nice to revisit what happened under Stephen Harper's regime, how the bloody scientists had to get out and protest with placards and everything to be allowed to present a modicum of truthful information to the public.

Certainly it is not responsible journalism to gloss over the people who will be most screwed. Refugees, including the ones we are directly responsible for creating, such as the many people forced into desperate flight by our policies throughout the Global South. Homeless people. Jesse and his guests correctly identify the fact that Poilievre's housing strategy will definitely not work, and that he will be forced to do what every other politician does—bulldoze the unsightly tent cities that exist everywhere now in the name of law and order, and eliminate the safe injection sites that are the only thing slightly blunting the edge of the opioid epidemic. What happens next though? These people have to go somewhere, and obviously a lot of them will die, but at least a few minutes of air time ought to be devoted to whether we think they'll go to already overcrowded prisons or forced into camps or what? The environment: Canadaland has always been a bit weak on that beat, but the consequences for the entire planet if Canada continues its dependance on oil and gas are obviously dire. Disabled people, whose numbers are already on the rise due to covid let 'er rip policies, and we can expect that no support or research or financial aid will be available to the millions of people who will be thrown out of work and public life by long covid.

And of course, queer folks. There's a lot of time devoted to this idea that everyone is sick of "woke" policies, which is baffling to me as hardly anyone is actually materially affected by "woke" policies, if there even is such a thing. Trudeau has been shamefully weak as three provincial governments have now undermined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to murder more trans kids. Poilievre has declared that he will be even more extreme to ensure that no trans kids make it to adulthood. So...can we talk about the consequences of that? Because I don't think "woke" is the problem here. I actually don't think that most people here care about "woke." I think people hate Trudeau because he, like every other politician, is corrupt as hell, and because people imagine some kind of fantasy world where no one made them wear masks or stay home and it was somehow better than what we ended up with. And of course inflation, but a cursory look around at the rest of the world suggest that this is a problem everywhere.

One thing that's not mentioned much, given that Poilievre campaigns on housing and affordability, is the fact that his whole plan was bitcoin and this guy should in no way be trusted with the national economy. I feel like that's an important thing to point out, that had he been elected last tie, he'd have gambled on fake money and we'd be even more screwed.

There's a chilling bit near the end where they play a bit of a Poilievre speech. I usually read what politicians say rather than listen to them, because I'm more interested in policy than verbal flourishes. So this is the first time I've had to listen to the guy in awhile, and it's terrifying. Obviously the guy is a straight-up fascist, in the RETVRN TO TRADITION sense of the word, but...it's compelling, this lullaby that your life could be better with magical access to home ownership and small businesses on Main St. and clean, safe streets. It's not really my thing but it sounds nice, even to me, and I don't think the fact that he's a far-right demagogue ought to go uncommented on. It's a very soothing vision: Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to be concerned about climate catastrophe and plague and economic policy and all these new changes around you and your mom never told you when to go to bed and you just got to live in a Norman Rockwell* painting all the time?

Media, including Canadaland, consistently predicted Conservative victories (or at least stronger showings) under O'Toole and Scheer, and were wrong. It's not impossible that they're wrong this time, given the polling problems I mentioned earlier. It's also probable that they're right (given that Boomers who pick up the phone are also more likely to vote) but. Look. I'm not a liberal. I don't actually believe that representative electoral democracy is all that good. But maybe we should think a little harder about replacing it with fascism before we just throw our hands up and say welp and let this absolute maniac take over.

* Never mind that Rockwell was cool, actually, and would have hated these guys.

If you don't want me to gleefully shitpost about your death, maybe don't send the army into Kanehsatà:ke.

Congrats to Brian Mulroney to be the first person on my 2024 death pool to kick it!

 Just finished: Red Enlightenment by Graham Jones. This wasn't quite the book I thought it was going to be from the description (which is not so much the author/book's fault as it is the marketing of it)—it was a lot more high-concept and philosophical for an undereducated prole like me to parse. It was a compelling thesis, though. I'd have preferred a bit more specificity and decisiveness in the Obligatory What Is To Be Done chapter at the end.

Is it me or does anyone else's eyes glaze over when they see the word "body" too much in academic writing?

Anyway, I thought it was good and I'd like to see more of this kind of thing.

Currently reading: The Meaning Wars by Michelle Brown. #4 in the omnibus, where the various plot threads and characters in the previous novellas and short stories come together. Crystal is struggling with Jai, who she got together with in the last book, and her job building wormholes in a relatively open, cosmopolitan setting, while Sarah is out of prison, living with her cousin and working in a bar, and haunted by the trauma of her imprisonment. She's drawn to a revolutionary leader, Patience, who has a tie back to my favourite of the short stories. The depiction of trauma and chronic pain is particularly skillfully done—it's intrusive in a way that, let's put it this way, I can really relate to.

Crow Winter by Karen McBride. A wild plot has emerged! Hazel's late father was, apparently, conspiring with a local scumbag (who himself is the descendant of another local scumbag appearing in the archival documents Hazel is working on) to sell the family's quarry to a mining interest. Nanabush, in crow form, shows her various visions of the recent past, leading her to conclude that her beloved family may not be all it appears to be.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. We get another metal chapter where the Pequod meets another ship. This crew has encountered Moby Dick, and you can tell because...the captain has a missing arm! His prosthesis is also made out of whalebone, and he and Ahab clink whalebone prothesis in a greeting, which is cute. Weird, but cute. Anyway, Ahab's like, "you going after Moby Dick" and the other captain is like, "BY NO MEANS isn't losing one limb enough for you???" but Ahab is determined to storm heaven and punch God in the face, as one does.

Just finished: And the Stars Will Sing and The Stolen by Michelle Patricia Browne. Did you know that when you read the omnibus edition of something, you can break it up into its composite books to not only give the author more reviews, but up your book count on Goodreads? Not that I'm doing that. :)

Anyway, the first one is great; the second one levels up in both quality and weirdness. The last story in the book is a tribute to Orwell, about an English grad who can only get a job bowlderizing Shakespeare into compliance with a new dominant religious movement that prioritizes harmony and placidity over conflict. Not that this feels familiar or anything like that. I'm excited to see where this series goes (there are two more books) but I'm taking a break because I got a paper hold come in from the library.

Currently reading: Crow Winter by Karen McBride. This is an odd one in that while it's quite good, I'm not sure who it's for. The pace and storyline is feels litfic—while, halfway through, there is a mystery and conflict of sorts, a leisurely amount of time is spent on slice of life and exploring the quiet melancholy of the main character and her mother dealing with her father's death a year on. But the writing feels almost YA. I'm enjoying it, but it's impossible for me to tell what kind of book it is.

Red Enlightenment by Graham Jones. I guess I'm on a theme this year, which is questioning my own atheism??? in a political and cultural sense, at least, not a theological sense. I'm still theologically an atheist, which doesn't mean that I don't think religion is useful sometimes. Jones agrees. This is a strange book, heavy on building up the philosophical concepts that allow him to marry Marx to spirituality to the Enlightenment. I will admit that anything to do with metaphysics vs. process goes right over my head (I am just barely able to grasp materialism vs. idealism as a debate that affects my life in any way at all). But I do find it compelling in a sense that if you're talking about mass movements, you have to reconcile with the idea that for most of said masses, spirituality plays some role in their lives. And Jones is one of a very few number of Marxists I've read to actually interrogate the implications of that.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Nothing this week. We are adrift in a heartless ocean and I've had to resort to shitposting whale pictures on Tumblr.

 Yeah yeah yeah I know the last thing we need to talk about is Marlaina Smith's anti-trans laws in Alberta but like. We still need to talk about Marlaina Smith's anti-trans laws in Alberta. It's obviously a horrible precedent in any number of ways for trans people and also any number of groups besides trans people (given that now any provincial government feels free to violate the rights of any protected group on a whim—the Notwithstanding Clause gives dictatorial powers to any majority government, and you could be next). Marlaina herself is an interesting figure, beyond the fact that she goes by a name that is not the first name listed on her birth certificate, even though she thinks that little James shouldn't be allowed to go by Jimmy, let alone Jane, unless their parents file a novel's worth of paperwork with the school. She was elected as a small government libertarian. Like, that's obviously a bad thing to be, as they're generally for murdering homeless people and crashing the economy and the like, but they're also a "screw everyone equally" kind of ideology. So why is she suddenly so interested in having the state examine children's genitals?

And how popular is this really? Will the public actually get on board?

Mattea Roach, who is nonbinary themselves, interviews Hannah Hodson, the Tories' first ever trans candidate, and Mel Woods, senior editor at Xtra Magazine in the Backbench episode "Why Are Conservatives Obsessed With Trans People?" Hannah is a particularly interesting person, because if you, like me, wondered "why would a trans woman ever be a Tory???," it means you're basically not from Alberta. Alberta conservatism is a particularly complicated set of conflicting ideologies, and it's not always what you would expect.

But more interesting than Hannah's beliefs and background is her inside look into party politics, and just how few people are involved in making major decisions. I've experienced this a bit with the NDP riding association, which I was sort of peripherally involved in for a bit—it's just not a lot of people determining policy??? and they're not really representative of the population as a whole. It's even more extreme with the Tories. They tend to dominate Canadian politics, and the media has already appointed Pierre Poilievre as the next prime minister (an interesting thing, as the Canadian public hasn't had a chance to vote about it yet), but it's actually a very small number of people who get to decide who runs and what the platform will be. 

This is why, while the vast majority of Canadians could give zero shits about trans issues, we both export and import culture war bullshit (similar to what we do with oil and gas, come to think of it). Basically one or two guys, primarily Torontonian zombie-lobster JPete, get to decide that we all have to make a big deal about trans kids, and now we're going to be stuck with a bitcoin-obsessed debate club nerd as PM doing to Canada's environment and economy what Marlaina has done to Alberta's. Which is both horrifying, and kind of inspiring, because a tiny group of fanatics is much easier to deal with than a nation of sociopaths.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that's the lesson I'm mean to take from it, but it is quite fascinating in a trainwrecky way.

TW: transphobia, misogyny

I know there are even worse things happening elsewhere in the world, including where some of you live. But I am RIGHT PISSED OFF about Danielle Marlaina Smith, the least competent person to be premier of Alberta, which is saying a lot, who is doing her best to turn the province into Florida with much worse weather.

What is happening in Alberta, you might ask? Alberta is plagued by drought, which is only likely to worsen as climate change, fuelled by its dependance on a doomed industry whose value wildly fluctuates, so of course Smith decided to go after the real problem: trans children. The problem I guess is ( trigger warning ) so she has brought in a bunch of sweeping changes to ensure that Alberta is the leader in the race between reactionary provinces Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and my own hellscape, Ontario, to be the absolute shittiest place in Canada.

These new laws include:

• No bottom surgery for minors (this was already age-restricted).
• No top surgery either (this is mostly age-restricted with a few exceptions).
• No puberty blockers for anyone under 15 (ensuring that anyone who wants gender affirming care will suffer far more than necessary and have a harder time passing).
• Schools will out children under 15 who want to change their name or pronouns to their parents, regardless of whether this will get the child murdered.
• Children 16 and 17 will be "permitted" to change their name and pronouns, but will still be outed to their parents by schools, regardless of whether this will get the child murdered.
• Every time a teacher wants to teach about sex or gender, parents have to opt in, ensuring that ( trigger warning again )
• and also this will cause chaos in the school system.
• Further chaos will be caused by needing to approve any "third-party" material on sex or gender by the government censor.
• Trans women won't be allowed to compete in women's sports.

Wait. That last one is confusing! It says "women" not "girls." She is banning adult women from competing in adult women's sports. How does this protect vulnerable children exactly? Also, trans men are not banned from male sports, so it's almost as if she's saying that women are objectively worse at sports than men. Is that the example you're setting for the little girls of Alberta, Marlaina?

And all of this while claiming she's not making it political.

To their credit, lots of people in Alberta are resisting, including doctors, parents, and teachers, all of whom know that the result of these policies will be lots of dead kids. The primary driver appears to be Tucker Carlson, who was so racist that he got fired from FOX News, and disgraced former psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, who was last seen getting into a Twitter fight with Elmo. The little Muppet character, who I think is fictional but whatever.

I am enraged. I have lots of ideas for how to resist if you're a teacher or doctor. You can start small, like clogging up whatever approval system with requests that the Ministry of Education approve a photo that you have of a heterosexual spouse and child, since that can be construed as teaching about sex and gender, or forcing your administrator to call a kid's home because William wants to be known as Billy from now on. But this requires mass mobilization by the teachers' unions, medical professionals, and human rights lawyers, as this is a blatant violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the duty of doctors to provide lifesaving care to patients, and the duty of teachers to provide a safe environment for learning.

Anyway, I hope that Marlaina Smith gets painful hemorrhoids, but cannot get treatment for it because she's drained the healthcare system and the nurses are too busy for her, and then in order to get treatment for them the doctors announce the intimate details of her condition to everyone she knows and the media, and she is forced to live as a person who doesn't have hemorrhoids for a minimum of five years until she's allowed to access any care. I think it's only fair. Also I hope she's premier for less time than it takes a head of lettuce to wilt.

ETA: I have just been informed, courtesy of an Albertan friend, that Danielle Smith is not even her real name! Her real name is Marlaina. As far as I know she hasn't asked the people of this country to go by a different first name than the one on her birth certificate, so I think we should all deadname her until she asks us all permission and we've had a good think about it.

Just finished: The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada by Angele Alook, Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Joël Laforest, Crystal Lameman and Bronwen Tucker. Yup, loved this. 100% my thing. Might buy a copy to reference. It's the kind of book that includes a section called "But How Will We Pay For It?"

Currently reading: New Moon Magic: 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-Enchantment by Risa Dickens and Amy Torok. I'm kind of a hardcore atheist and non-woo person but. Lately I...haven't been? We can talk at some point about the reasons for that. Anyway, I was at a teacher thing and saw someone reading this and thought hey, research. And it's pretty great so far. Each chapter goes through a different astrological sign, talks about a theme (e.g., needles, potions, writing), tells a few stories about historical or contemporary witches or other powerful women related to that theme, and includes a ritual and incantation that you would do during the new moon for that sign. It's delightfully minimally woo—the authors don't claim magic is real, just that it's useful.

For a very simple example, if you're trying to make a decision, and you flip a coin, the results of that coin toss will not be the right decision. But how you react to that decision—with relief, disappointment, and so on—will help you make that decision.

It's also obviously focused towards activism, and the rituals are meant to help focus you so that you can do practical, real-world things. It's pretty non-judgmental about what those things should be.

The lengthy segment on Buffy St. Marie has not aged well, unfortunately.

Anyway, I'm almost done and finding it very useful, both for the intended research purposes and uh I actually might try some of this stuff??? like it's not as incompatible with my own belief system as I would assume.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. After the incredible Sperm Chapter and the incredible Whale Dick Raincoat Chapter, we're back to normal stuff, albeit some of the most stunning prose imaginable. Ishmael almost burns the ship down and there's a touch of the unnecessary racism, but we also have lines like "Smells like the left wing of the day of judgment"  and "once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body," which is just *chef's kiss*.