Algorithmically Inconvenient CheyBoyArmando Productions

"It is a system based on an incredible level of what psychologists call: denial. We don't have to have rising interest rates. We don't have to have rising prices. Why do we give three percent of our people, the employers, the ability to raise the prices whenever they feel like, for their profit, at our expense. That's not democracy it's the opposite."

Inflation Explained
20:25-3:40:16

What is inflation? Why does it happen?
3:31

Greedflation explained:
6:06:02 - 9:56:10

President Roosevelt response to WW2 inflation
15:39

What pressure do rising interest rates place on working people in the developed world? 16:48

What are the consequences for developing countries?
24:50

"It is a system based on an incredible level of what psychologists call: denial. We don't have to have rising interest rates. We don't have to have rising prices. Why do we give three percent of our people, the employers, the ability to raise the prices whenever they feel like, for their profit, at our expense. That's not democracy it's the opposite."
26:50

How does Dr. Richard Wolff view United States empire collapse?
28:47

"As of 2023 the G7 total economic output fell to 29%. The BRICS countries total economic output has risen to 33%. China and its allies are a bigger economic force, richer in terms of total output of goods and services than the United States and its allies"
33:52

The economic collapse of the United States
38:15

How does a global economic empire collapse look like in a world with nuclear weapons?
47:52

"In England when they had a civil war there weren't have nuclear weapons. In England when they had a civil war they had muskets and swords and stuff; awful ways to die. War is an awful crime. My concern today is... now nuclear weapons are in play."
48:38

"We are already fully engaged in that part of a decline of a system that involves the hysterical scapegoating period".
53:20

How to fight fascism & capitalism
59:18

Richard Wolff Commendation
1:02:32


Dr. Richard Wolff is a Marxist economist at the New School in New York City. He's been building the movement for justice for working people for over 50 years. He founded the organization, Democracy at Work.

I'm grateful that he sat down with me to talk about the *real* impact of the Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Right wing libertarians swear that the Federal Reserve's manipulation of interest rates is merely interference from government that causes the immiseration of working people.

As Dr. Wolff correctly points out, it is the employer class that manipulates prices across the globe, but especially here in the United States where there are virtually no limitations on prices. This manipulation of prices is for nothing more than profit.

Richard Wolff:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/profwolff
Website: https://www.rdwolff.com/
Democracy at Work: https://www.democracyatwork.info/

America has never experienced a fall in power, influence, or wealth. We've only ever grown & ascended. First across the continent, then the hemisphere, the globe, & into space.

The Pax Americana is known as the "long peace". The major world powers haven't directly waged war against each other since the end of WWII.


In 1945, the United States owned half of the world's wealth & one of every two dollars of investment. We fantasize about the "good ol' days" the way Reagan's "Morning In America" ad illustrates. When fair wages were as abundant as fair work. When the patriarchal family reached its zenith. When everyone could own a home. When everyone could afford a new car. When everyone could retire at a reasonable age. When the world made sense. We hope that in clinging to the America of yesterday, today's problems will just go away.

COVID destroyed the economy that Obama built of low wage, part time, precarious work. In order to cope with it, it sapped the last of the interest negative economy of easy money from the Fed that allowed the tech economy to thrive.

As Russian forces entered Ukraine in February 2022, it's largely considered that the Pax Americana has come to an end.

What was it like to live in an era where nuclear annihilation was a constant public panic?
What was it like to live under the thumb of American capitalism?
What's become of the United States?

This is Season 3 of Algorithmically Inconvenient.

One of the first areas attacked by Republicans & reactionaries in the wake of Nixon & the Southern Strategy is public education. Though not obvious at first, it is the first interaction with a commons that we have in America. Public schools and education allow for communities, students, teachers, counselors, administrators, & support staff to exist in a space where money (should) be no object. It is ground where communities can shape their future and set goals for what they want to become.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is committed to the privatization of education not only as a pillar of Republican ideology, but as a financial benefit for venture capital funds like the Carlyle Group that he belonged to before running for governor of Virginia. In privatizing education not only is the idea that public schools, and therefore government, is inherently unable to solve our problems normalized, from that point on money can be given to private institutions. In steps religious private schools. In Carson v Makin (20-1088), the Supreme Court ruled on a 6-3 line that private religious schools are entitled to public funds. This case stems from a voucher system for public schools in Maine. Maine, following the long understood meaning of “religious liberty” in the First Amendment, denied funds to private religious institutions as it would be the United States government effectively establishing a religion.

Due to the unserious nature of Democratic opposition to this reactionary and theocratic movement over the last 50 years, what would have once been considered anathema has become settled law. The implications of this decision are yet to be fully fleshed out, but rest assured the “separation of church and state” in the United States has fallen. Through a 6-3 majority, the reactionary and theocratic Supreme Court appointed by a party that hasn’t won the popular vote since 2004, is reshaping nearly the entirety of American life.

In Virginia, Republicans have been salivating at the prospect of privatizing education as they believe it will work in the northern Virginia suburbs around DC along within the capital, seven cities, & the disparate rural western section of the state. This destruction of the last of the commons that exists within American society is what is necessary for the Republican project to take hold. In destroying our faith in our collective ability to educate ourselves, in deciding what’s true or even how to fund & organize such a mission as educating children, Republicans hope to steal away the liberty from ignorance that FDR spoke of in his second bill of rights.



In this episode, the first of the season, I sit down with Dr. James Fetterman, the President of the Virginia Education Association to discuss the role of education in all of our lives & communities. We break down Republican’s & Glenn Youngkin’s proposals in the 2022 budget for education. We also dissect the now infamous Education Report that was conducted on an executive order by Youngkin.

In Dobbs v Jackson, released June 24. 2022, the Supreme Court has decided to vacate not only Roe v. Wade, but the rights to privacy that provided its foundation in the, "First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, & Fourteenth Amendments". The Supreme Court has ruled that not only don't women have the right to choose how to plan a family or enable them to have life saving procedures, but that the fundamental idea of privacy in the concept of "ordered liberty" doesn't exist in the Constitution. In the 6-3 opinion, the court decided to repeal constitutional rights that the American people have been protected by for almost 50 years.

Don't let your genuine shock & horror at the idea of a single court dismantling constitutional rights fool you into believing the Democrats schtick. Democrats have had control of both Houses and the White House multiple times over the last 5 decades and have failed promises made to the American people of codifying Roe V Wade into federal law. Barack Obama was famous for his pledge to inscribe the fundamental human right into federal law in 2007 and infamous for walking it back in 2009. Joe Biden was an integral part in bringing this moment to fruition: the Biden Amendment, the Hyde Amendment, Antony Scalia, Clarence Thomas, & more. Nancy Pelosi inscribing in the Affordable Care Act a cut out for abortion coverage in insurance. The entirety of Democratic leadership Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, etc, endorsed anti choice Democrat Henry Cuellar against a progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros.

Democratic Leadership is complicit in this ruling and this Court. What's worse is that they agree with Republicans in that they *want* abortion to be "on the ballot" in November in order to gain more power & ever more donations. That game, however, is being turned off by the millions of people whose lives are going to be upended by this viscous attack on Constitutional rights by this court. People aren't demanding more Democrats, they're demanding *better* Democrats. People protesting are tuning out official party messaging and fundraising in favor of donating to abortion care networks. People are organizing amongst themselves and online not to boost the numbers of the Democratic Party, but to try and save their lives as they see no political party is interested in doing so.

Game time is up Democrats.


Sources:

Obama on Roe v Wade (2007 v. 2009)
https://twitter.com/Jawbone17422/status/1541891233131515905?s=20&t=55hXLZfSCpQ0p-VGoVZ1zQ

Democrats had multiple opportunities:
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1541045258594783235?s=20&t=sAL7PCn8XCC7dQixXNcFeA

"F**k Joe Biden, F**k Glenn Youngkin"
https://twitter.com/GoadGatsby/status/1540485688889589760?s=20&t=eX9jXVAIF2w6QA3JKQVDNA

God Bless America by House Democratic Caucus
https://twitter.com/FarnoushAmiri/status/1540370901803433984?s=20&t=OOnZkoqM1VTvZdE_6_DpoQ

Rachel Maddow 6.24.22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ_jKXcB87w

The G7 Meeting & the NATO Summit that took place over the last week set out "The West's" new mission: more investment and more saber-rattling. On the heels of Argentina & Iran asking to join the BRICS alliance, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, & South Africa) alongside the near cataclysmic impacts of Western sanctions on the global economy, the West has had a "come to Jesus" moment in recognizing that bullying, bombing, & deposing governments that you don't like or don't meet strategic goals is simply not going to work anymore.

Many have pointed to the invasion by Russia of Ukraine is in itself an indictment of how far the power of NATO & The United States has fallen. I would posit that it was the opening of an economic front in the war by "The West" in response to the Russian invasion that accomplished what the Soviet Union couldn't: isolate the United States, Europe, Japan, & Canada economic bloc from the rest of the world.

Nearly in an instant, the neoliberal economic order of "free" trade (having parts and materials from all corners of the globe be shipped to a few industrial centers) that was established as the Cold War ended, evaporated. Countries around the world, as explicitly as during the Cold War, are again being told by Great Britain, the United States, & the EU to pick the right side or what happened to Russia (sanctions so total & complete that it cut off their ability to do business transactions with western companies) could happen to them.

That stick has now been paired with a carrot in the form of the PGII (Partnership for Global Infrastructure & Investment) fund. The PGII is comprised of nearly $1 trillion of private and public funds to create economic relationships & investment opportunities between "The West" and "the global south" (developing countries). It's yet to be seen how this fund or promises by NATO & it's leaders will sway the "swing voters" of the "global south" away from China & the other BRICS countries.

Dave Decamp, News Editor at Antiwar.com, & Max Segal, an organizer for the Bernie Sanders campaign, join me to discuss "the Cost of Freedom" that "The West", & now the world, has to pay.


Dave Decamp
Website: Antiwar.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DecampDave

Max Segal:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mxsgl


Sources:

"The Cost of Freedom is always worth paying"
https://twitter.com/ChefBoyArmando/status/1542529051700502530?s=20&t=9fwdtpN0bKO-NicdRuujtQ

"Explode the Myth that sanctions are to blame for inflation"
https://twitter.com/ChefBoyArmando/status/1542507784482062337?s=20&t=9fwdtpN0bKO-NicdRuujtQ

Biden Admits Sanctions are to blame for inflation:
https://youtu.be/lCqXMbpG2ys?t=489

India's Russian Oil Imports Soar 50-Fold:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Indias-Russian-Oil-Imports-Soar-50-Fold.html



Correction:
An earlier version of this episode had in it that Kaliningrad was on the North Sea Coast, that is incorrect.
Kaliningrad is on the Baltic Coast.

Capitalism was nurtured & brought to maturity by human trafficking (i.e. slavery). Between 1444 & 1888, human trafficking established trade routes, the shipping & insurance industry, fueled innovation in the ship building industry, formed the backbone of the stock market, was the currency accepted for debt almost everywhere, & provided the labor force for cultivation, domestication, & settling of the vast area of native owned land in the Americas. In North America, Richmond, Virginia was the second busiest port for slaves for decades. In fact, there were so many slaves sold in Richmond that as construction of the East Marshall Street VCU medical school campus happened, in just three days some 44 individual remains were found in 1994.

Capitalism has cleared entire continents: North & South America, Australia, Africa, & much of Europe. It brought materials & products from all corners of the globe to centers of manufacturing & trade. In late capitalism, neoliberalism, it has expanded trade routes by having materials from all corners of the globe converge on Southeast Asia, North America, & Europe for manufacturing & sale. Coltan from the DRC, aluminum from Chile, gold from South Africa, semiconductors from Taiwan, & batteries from Japan, converge on Shenzhen to make our consumer electronics.

It may not be apparent at first, but the transportation of goods, services, & people is who we as a society want to invest in. America has a long history of virulent racism that plagues not only the genealogy of its victims, but the physical infrastructure that we see around us.

Neighborhoods, highways, to cars themselves (demonstrated clearly in their use as a weapon against protests for justice), are by-products of racism. White supremacy is based in the fear, paranoia, & suspicion of people who are not white or outside the definition of whiteness.

As African Americans converged on northern cities as a result of the terror campaign whites waged in the South during the late 19th & early 20th centuries ("The Great Migration") & black soldiers coming home after WWI & WWII settling in cities, white Americans fled & created suburbia.

Identical model homes sprang up all around the country. Work was still in the cities, necessitating transportation into cities. In keeping with the massive capital investments made in the United States at the time, one of the main avenues for the return on that capital were cars. It provided a personal mode of travel to & from work away from African Americans who often could not afford vehicles & depended on carpools, taxis, or public transportation. America changed its civil rights laws, but not it's mode of economic production or development. As George Romney, Mitt Romney's father would say, suburbia was a "high-income white noose" around black inner cities.

Cars are a way to distance ourselves from one another & remain suspicious fearful of those that live around us. They are a created need by capitalism that is reinforced by the idea that we should be scared of one another. It takes the form that oil refineries, distribution centers, chemical plants, power plants are almost exclusively near or in black neighborhoods. I-95 ran through Jackson Ward, a historic black community in Richmond, destroying the community. In not choosing public & social modes of transportation we perpetuate the disease of racism in it's personal and structural forms. It also pollutes the world we live in (disparately) & impoverishes us all.

Wyatt Gordon and I detail a way forward for transportation & our world.


Wyatt Gordon:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/yitgordon
Virginia Mercury: https://www.virginiamercury.com/author/wyatt-gordon/


Sources:

East Marshall Street Well Project:
https://emsw.vcu.edu/

Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law:
https://www.propublica.org/article/living-apart-how-the-government-betrayed-a-landmark-civil-rights-law