RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 322 A War On Two, Three, Many Fronts
Ep 322 of RevolutionZ addresses our necessary battle against harmful policies and the structural changes that are meant to empower them under the Trump administration. How do we recognize the role of societal structures in policy implementation to effectively resist both? How do we develop a proactive stance to fight against fascistic behavior that aims to install dictatorial rule. How do we address the aggressive policy agenda that threatens immigrants and civil rights? How do we thwart the structural shifts in governance that Trump seeks? How do we develop active resistance and non-compliance rather than succumbing to fear and intimidation to do Trump's work for him? And finally, as a kind of addendum, how do we understand the recent emergence of Chinese AI and its implications?
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. The title for this episode is A War on Two Fronts, and I may even raise it up to three fronts by the time we finish. What do the two fronts refer to? Panama and Greenland? No, I have in mind a war that you and I are in, whether we like it or not. Okay, you get that even without further explanation.
Speaker 1:But why two fronts? One is obvious us against Trump's policies Immigration, deportations, taxes, education, medical care, environmental protections, international relations, foreign aid, war, trans rights, federal agencies, unraveling abortion rights, unraveling cultural and community rights, unraveling labor rights, imposing fear, hate and so on. So okay, that much is evident. It is policies. We are at war with a new administration Trump's that has a great many policy agenda items let's call it which are contrary to our well-being. In fact, they're contrary to virtually everybody's well-being except for Donald Trump's and his buddies. But what's the second front? This is actually not so evident. Maybe it is even different than most people are highlighting. Rather than us against Trump's policies, maga policies the second front is about structure. Most new administrations come in and have a bunch of policies that they want to implement. That's sort of how they see their job Engage in political chicanery to try and pass various policies which they have either promised or they haven't promised, but they want to pursue. Trump's agenda includes doing that for a great many more policies than any other agenda I can remember and policies that are of much greater damage impact than any I can remember. But Trump learned from the first time around. So this is serious. All the noise about him being an idiot or juvenile or incompetent you better set that aside. I have, because he's doing something much greater, much larger Than we're used to from administrations.
Speaker 1:And it's ironic because imagine if Sanders had won eight years ago and suppose he tried to implement major policy changes and he was largely blocked. I mean, he got some of them through, but there were many things that he hoped to do in his case on behalf of the population, but he wasn't able to because elements of the government impeded his ability to get what he wanted. So then he loses in this hypothetical scenario and rallies and comes back for another shot, sort of like Trump. What does he change about his approach? He wants to remove the obstacles that got in his way last time. The second time he has his eyes not just on policy. He has his eyes as well on the structure of government, on the apparatuses itself, on apparatuses within society that could impede his getting what he wants. That's what Trump is doing.
Speaker 1:Trump has on his mind not just the policies, like the first time, but the situation, the context in which he's trying to implement those policies. That's why he has among his focus departments of government agencies, employees, inspectors, judges. What's he doing? Employees, inspectors, judges, what's he doing? His goal is to remold government in such a way that the president, him, can do basically whatever he wants. It is to remove the obstacles to dictatorial implementations. That's the goal. That's the structural goal. The policy goal is to implement the various policies that he's been pursuing.
Speaker 1:So is that madness, is that insanity? No, not really. Actually, it's pretty smart. It's what one would hope a left-leaning, a far-left-leaning, somebody who was serious about having government serve the population, would do Restructure government, restructure the polity so that it serves the constituencies that are advocated by the new administration. In our case, that would be one thing In Trump's case, that is, make Trump the boss, the top boss. So Trump's agenda is policies, but also more. He wants structure. And so there is a second front. We have to confront him. We have to battle with him, not only about his policies, but about literally the definition of being an administration, the definition of our polity, of the government. Trump and Coe are disgusting, but they aren't the morons that people take them for. Trump learned Not everybody learns and now he has structures on his mind.
Speaker 1:This is Project 2025. What is the goal? Removing obstacles to Trump, implementing whatever the hell he wants to implement, which means enlarging and ensuring elite power. And how's he doing at that? Well, you know, we laugh at him. According to the news, the world apparently laughs at him, but the truth is he is doing rather well. He is doing fantastically well. He is, in a very short time, restructuring Washington, restructuring the mechanisms of rule, of decision-making and implementation. He's changing decision-making, so it's by him. He's changing implementation, so it's by people who are totally beholden to and afraid of him.
Speaker 1:Oligarchy, and that's what it's been called largely in the mainstream, which in and of itself, is quite remarkable. I mean, the mainstream is basically now admitting what we have here is an attempt to institute rule by the rich. But the thing is, in our case, I think this is fascism, almost as a tactic to get unimpeded rule by Trump and co. And it isn't by the rich and the large, because I think large sectors, large parts of the richest elements in the United States, of the owning class in the United States, are not on board with dictatorship. They're not on board with the dangers, the instabilities that would accompany Trump actually attaining his structural goal. That might be, at least to a degree, to our advantage.
Speaker 1:Musk might be a real heartfelt fascist. We don't know for sure, but it does seem to be the case, but I suspect that's not true of Trump. But it does seem to be the case, but I suspect that's not true of Trump. Even if Trump starts waving around Nazi salutes, I don't think he's really an ideologue in any sense. He's just a self-centered schmuck, a person who wants to rule, to have absolute power. It just so happens that that plays into the hands of and is supported by, and therefore he caters to fascistic mindsets. Vance has been the chosen successor to Trump and Trump doesn't have forever. Not Musk, I think, because Vance isn't a billionaire. He's an emissary of billionaires, handpicked to further their interests but mediating also between their interests. Musk may be too rich and too powerful and too driven by his own personal interests to be allowed to stick around. We'll see.
Speaker 1:So what's our task? Our task is partly to address the policies. Why? Because the policies that Trump is seeking to implement has already begun to implement will hurt people. They will hurt huge numbers of people who don't deserve to be hurt, who in fact, deserve to be assisted, help to escape the hurt of the past, help to attain a degree of freedom and self-management and control over their lives. But that's not what Trump's about. Trump's about elevating himself, elevating people like himself around himself, the four or five richest people in the country, even in the world, and and. And. So we have to oppose his policies because we care about people and those policies hurt people. Why does our task include structure? Because policies don't in fact float in the abstract, unconnected to structures that exist. They're abetted or they can be obstructed by structures, and Trump is trying to change it so that the enacting of policies of the sort he wants is made simpler, is made almost inevitable, by the changes in structure. So we have to fight about that also. We have to wage war on two fronts policies and structure.
Speaker 1:All right, is there some attitude, some stance, some mood that is essential, for that needs to underlie battling on these two fronts. The first thing that comes to mind is self-defense, yes, but is that enough? We do need, with him trying to implement grotesque policies and enabling structure? We do need to defend ourselves, and to defend others for that matter. So defense is part of it, but is it sufficient? Is it sufficient that we have our eyes on protecting ourselves? All right, offense, that's another mindset, another mood. What about that? What does that look like? I think it looks like noncompliance, it looks like saying no, it looks like not going along. Not going along out of fear, not going along, out of protecting self, not going along. So offense involves that sort of of attitude, a rejection, a dismissal, a noncompliance, a no. It isn't just about figuring out techniques that might protect us, rooting for judicial intervention that might protect us. Nothing like that is going to protect us and, in any event, it isn't enough. It's not going to protect us because the time is going to come when Trump is going to say to the courts okay, fine, you say I can't do this Now, let's see you implement that. And then what? If the structure's changed and if he has enough support, it won't get implemented.
Speaker 1:I mentioned a possible third front. It is to battle against declaring victory and going home. What? That seems ridiculous. If we fight really well on the two fronts, if we impede, obstruct, slow down, stop the policy changes and do the same for the structural changes, why can't we declare victory and go home? The reason is because we're not trying or at least I believe we should not be trying just to stop devolving backward. That's what Trump is about Rolling back civil rights, rolling back labor rights, rolling back elements of participation by the public, and on and on. So we want to prevent that.
Speaker 1:Yes, we want to stop devolving backward, but don't we also want to move forward? Do we want to return to business as usual? Do we want to return to a situation that got us into the position we're now in in the first place, and even if we put some kind of a break on the situation, so it wouldn't lead right back where we are now? Do we want to be where we were for decades, in a situation in which society is organized in such a way that those who are rich get richer, those who are poor get poorer and those in the middle? Well, some of them do a little better, some of them do a little worse, but none of them have control over their lives. Along with those now below and against those now above that.
Speaker 1:My words here may seem like wishful thinking. Fight Trump's agenda, fight his policies, fight his structural desires, beat him, stop him. But the truth is, trump and co have been planning this for years now. They have amassed partners and plans. We are talking about the richest of the rich and the most powerful and most venal of political authorities, having planned out a scenario to elevate themselves to persistent power. So, yes, they are on a roll. Shock and awe indeed, and shock and awe to a point works. Yes, they have momentum. They're firing, they're curbing people, they're deporting people, they're even drilling. But to keep rolling, their plan requires our submission. That is its flaw. If we don't submit, if we say no, we can end Trump and Co's savage authoritarian vision and implement our own humane, participatory vision instead. That is not delusion and desire speaking. It is common sense. It is also necessity. They have the dollars, yes, but if we say no and we organize well and we outreach, we have the numbers.
Speaker 1:Where's all the detail? Where's the facts? Where's the discussion of each agenda item, of each policy? Where's the discussion of the agencies? He's cutting of the others, that he is repopulating. Where is all that in this episode? It isn't here. It isn't here because I honestly think you all know it all.
Speaker 1:Everybody listening to this is quite aware, has to be aware by this time of just how serious the situation is and just what is happening. They are doing what they said they were going to do and the result of that is going to be incredibly horrible. So I think the thing that is at stake, the thing that needs assessing, the thing that needs to be brought to the fore, is really our attitude. It's really our willingness to fight. It's really our willingness to step out and say no, to step out and call them for what they are, and to step out and try and reach wider and wider circles of people. It's not to detail the problems, that's okay. It's not bad to do, especially if it's done really well, better than I can do it but it no longer is critical. What's critical now is attaining the mood that we are not going to permit this. It's not even just we're going to say no, we're going to block it, we are going to disrupt it. We are going to do whatever is necessary in order to stop Trump's agenda from marching on order to stop Trump's agenda from marching on. So our topic this time, a two or three front war paramount as the topic is didn't take us too long. It didn't take too long because I no longer think it's very subtle. I no longer think that there's any mass of facts that have to be unearthed in order to realize what the task is. Anyway, since it didn't take so long, I think I'll add just a brief additional topic that has caught my eye that isn't about Trump.
Speaker 1:You've probably seen in the news recently actually just in the past few days I guess this won't go up until Sunday, so the past week, week and a half that a Chinese artificial intelligence, ai project has become the talk of the world. In those circles it's called DeepSeek and it's captured a tremendous level of attention. It went from nothing, not known, to the most downloaded app in the US overnight and it caused massive turmoil in the US stock exchange for AI-related listings. In fact, I think the corporation that has benefited the most from the AI surge lost I don't know hundreds of billions of dollars of valuation just because this thing came on the market. Okay, so what is it? Why is it news and why is it so impactful? Well, the first thing is it's not artificial general intelligence.
Speaker 1:The Chinese haven't generated something that is basically better than humans at everything. That's not what happened. What happened instead is that they generated something that's comparable to and not all of China. A company in China generated something that is comparable to, better in some respects, not quite as good in some other respects. On balance, I think, probably better from what I've seen, but I don't know. Which is to say, more powerful, faster at arriving at desirable answers than any of the systems that are in use and being distributed in the United States are in use and being distributed in the United States.
Speaker 1:The United States has been at the forefront, at the top way, at the top of AI development since it became part of common vernacular with the arrival of ChatGPT, and now we're on ChatGPT4 and something beyond that, even the AO1 or something I don't know. So the Chinese AI emerged and competes with all of it, and it isn't because the Chinese company is big like Microsoft or Google or any of these monstrous firms in the United States. It's actually a relatively quite small firm in China. And it isn't because they've been spending the last four or five years developing it. No, they developed it in, if all is to be believed, a few months, and it isn't because they threw billions of dollars at it, as has been done in the United States. In the United States no again, if the information is to be believed and there are people who are high up in the field and don't really have any interest in saying that this is true. In fact, are embarrassed by the fact that it's true they spent $6 million let's call it $10 million instead of a billion to arrive where they have arrived Incredible. On top of that, it's open source. They're giving it away free. So the Chinese have thrown a monkey wrench into the entire AI industry. Not the Chinese per se, but a small Chinese firm. Not the Chinese per se, but a small Chinese firm.
Speaker 1:The United States had put an embargo on shipping the most advanced chips to China, with the precise motivation of holding back Chinese AI development. It didn't work. Apparently, what happened is yes, the Chinese were unable to get a hold of those incredibly powerful elements chips to use in their investigations and then in constructing a new project, a new entity in this case called DeepSeek. They instead used older, weaker chips. They found creative ways to get around that problem. They also found creative ways to get around the need for incredibly expensive it's called training. It's what takes time and money. Training it's what takes time and money. They got around all that.
Speaker 1:So how do we react to that? Well, this is a sort of a two-headed coin If you are rooting for artificial intelligence to get to artificial general intelligence and to just keep on growing and expanding and becoming more powerful. What the Chinese have done is taken a gigantic step in that direction, because one of the main impediments to accomplishing those ends was the cost, was the incredible cost of training the AIs and of maintaining the AIs up in the billions, maybe in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Chinese seem to have found an end run around all of that so that actually, by them sort of removed a major obstacle that might have prevented AI from becoming artificial general intelligence. So you would think that people in the industry okay, maybe they'd be a little bit annoyed that they didn't think of it, but excited about the fact that somebody managed to think of it.
Speaker 1:The thing is that wasn't the response. The response has had instead, maybe two parts. The first part, by far the most prevalent, was egad. The Chinese have surpassed us. They are doing something that we didn't do. They're making us look stupid, they're making us look inefficient. That was the first response, and then the second response was hell. We have to invest even more, we have to become more effective. We have to grab back the dominant position regarding AI. The dominant position regarding AI. So the context of the discussion notice had nothing to do with the technical reality, the scientific reality, the potentials. It had to do with which country looks most mighty. That's the sick world we live in.
Speaker 1:There's another side to the story, which I guess I would have to call my side in some sense, because I'm not a partisan of hoping that AI becomes AGI and keeps barreling along because the lid is off on controlling it.
Speaker 1:And so I was hoping, arguably, that the financial constraints, even the resource constraints, of continuing to grow AI models such that they would be ever more powerful, would put a lid on how far we went.
Speaker 1:That was something that I was actually hoping. I was hoping for the opposite of what's happened, because now the Chinese have removed the likelihood to the extent this is all true of that kind of a constraint preventing AI from proceeding. So now we have to put our hopes entirely in control, entirely in guardrails it's called, but not just guardrails, because I'm at least not only concerned about AI running wild and killing everyone or some other nonsense like that, but instead AI becoming so indispensable that it takes over many human functions, many of the functions that actually make humans most human, and leaves humans sort of the way oh, to make it dramatic, the image of opium dens left humans that is basically sleeping, drugged out, not doing anything productive, because productivity is now taken, taken over by AIs. Anyway, that's the deep-seek story of the week. The war on two fronts or three is the serious social story of the week. And this is Michael Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.