i seem to be being carefully tugged back to google+ through redirects, the implication being to chill out and just leave my rants here.

the whole point of this is a reaction to separating google+ from youtube, which i'm still pissed off about. what i want is reintegration.

as it is, i don't want to rant over a social media network. if i was going to do that, i wouldn't use google+. nobody uses google+. i'd use facebook. you know - a social network that people actually read.

the whole point of this is that i need to convert my comments into videos for two reasons:

1) there is no longer any feed for youtube comments (that was the sole purpose of google+ - a feed for youtube).
2) youtube comments are now too volatile to be useful.

if your solution is "use google plus", that's basically equivalent to telling me to talk to the wall. i want to use youtube, for the precise reason that it is not a social network, meaning there are not privacy settings.

i'm trying to create a character for public consumption to sell music, not talk over the internet with friends in a way that the government can archive.

i don't see google+ as comparable to facebook, or in any way in competition to it. a better way to compute the way i'd interpret google+ is as comparable to disqus - it was a way that people can find the comments i've left in various spaces, and interact with the author of those comments.

that's actually a decent solution that will let the google+ douchebags maintain their snowflake status, while opening up youtube: just integrate with disqus. that's really what i'm looking for. not a social front end, exactly, just a home base.

i mean, don't misunderstand me too deeply. i've been transparent for years and years: this is marketing. that's my goal. i'm marketing my music, first and foremost. does that mean i'm being disingenuous? well, not at all. but, if you're actually listening to what i'm saying, you might guess that i'm a little bit less than optimistic about the possibilities for serious revolutionary change in my lifetime.

if there's any ambiguity, let me be clear: north america has precisely zero revolutionary potential. none. nada. zilch. and, i've stated this a few times, already: being an anarchist is a fucking lonely reality in a staunchly neo-liberal society. the social revolution comes first, sure, but we're not even at the point where we can talk about a social revolution. we're at the point where we have to teach people how to spell revolution, and then carefully explain what that means.

when we have social movements here - and elsewhere in the world - the way those social movements manifest themselves is as sitting in the public square and loudly chanting for government to solve our problems. we don't have a clue. and, it's not some accident, either. we're absolutely reliant on the state. even those who want to push back think that what revolution means is "force the government to fix things that are broken".

nobody is talking about seizing means of production or redistributing surplus value. the narrative is just foreign, and when you try and have the discussion all you get is confused stares. what people want is equal opportunity to compete over a free market, and welfare for those that fall through the cracks. go talk to them. have you? because i have. there's no imagination, no forward thinking. you'll walk away thinking that it really is the end of  history.

even the ones that call themselves "anarchists" sound like calvinist fundamentalists when you push them on it. the kids drawing circled as think anarchism means social darwinism and the abolition of redistributive mechanisms, rather than the abolition of private property. they get their concept of anarchism out of the dictionary; they think council democracy is statist.

so, sure: i'd like to be a threat to the status quo. i'd love it. i can't do it by myself. and, i'm aware that there's not even the most basic beginnings of a social revolution anywhere at all. i don't know if there ever was, but i don't think we're anywhere close to it.

i think the best hope the left has is for mechanization to take over and force us into communes by necessity. i'm basically waiting for this. i give it thirty years, max. but i'll probably be dead by then.

so, what i have left to care about while i'm waiting for the economic determinism to determine itself is art. that's it.

if you think i'm some kind of threat to the status quo, you should pull your head out of your ass.

and, i'm just not keen on banging my head against the wall until i die of brain damage. fuck that. give me a guitar.

so, you know - take me seriously in the sense of believing that i believe what i'm saying. i do. usually. it's hard to tell when i'm trolling sometimes, sure, but not that hard. but, realize that i know my ideas have no possibility of traction.

maybe i'm ahead of my time. maybe i'm just fucked. who knows....