On March 30th, 2020—as COVID-19 locked millions of panicked Americans in their homes—the homeless in Las Vegas were forced to sleep in white-chalked parking lots as the city’s gleaming and empty casino-castles loomed above them and whose closed windows hid empty beds that could have provided warmth and safety. On April 11th, ten thousand cars lined up for a San Antonio Food Bank—the aerial photos of which became viral online, spreading to each digital device as rapidly as the virus had taken over our lives. We need a new human rights more than ever. For this episode, Matt & Jesse discuss the COVID-19 Pandemic and the collapse of our Old Bad World as the New Badder, Sadder World floods its diseased blood into our digital igloos. The co-hosts will talk about how the COVID-19 chaos not only deepens the contradictions of capitalism but also makes the rights to a dignified life all the more urgent, as people struggle with food insecurity (or abject hunger), unpaid rent and mortgages, the mass loss of healthcare access due to millions of Americans joining the outcaste status of the unemployed, and the incalculable cruelty of student debt piling up, impossible to pay. While these attacks on human dignity have been increasing under the Age of Bio-death that is Neoliberalism, COVID-19 makes clear a momentous tactical urgency to demand The Golden Square: the full emancipation from want by creating a global guarantee for the universal rights to food, shelter, healthcare and education. Jesse & Matt will briefly chart the carcass of Covid Capitalism while spending more time mapping the way from the storm to reach the shoreline of a dignified world: one we can still achieve through bold tactics, strategies and collective will.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Peter Baker in The New York Times: “‘Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV’ Didn’t Mean What Trump Hoped It Did”
“Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: The Movie” from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Amy Goodman from Democracy Now: “‘Man. Woman. Camera. Person. TV.’: Noam Chomsky Responds to Trump Bragging He Aced a Dementia Test”
A Series of Bleak, Abject & Gruesome Statistics of the Covid Collapse:
As of July 28, 2020: 16.5M+ Confirmed Covid-19 Cases; 655K+ Deaths Worldwide / 4.3M+ Confirmed Covid-19 Cases; 150K+ Deaths in US
July 21: “U.S. reports more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a day for first time since early June”
"Jobless claims hit 50 million nationwide as Florida layoffs decline"
"23 million Americans could face eviction in coming months"
"32% of U.S. households missed their July housing payments"
"30% of Americans missed their housing payments in June"
"‘People can’t ignore it anymore’: Across the country, minorities hit hardest by pandemic"
Kelsey Snell in National Public Radio (NPR): “What's Inside The Senate's $2 Trillion Coronavirus Aid Package”
What do Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump all have in common? "$1,200 and Fuck Off!" . . . At least Donald The Dumpster Fire is honest about his detachment at the pain of others, the crassness of which is lit by his own desire for self-glorification: As Witnessed in Lisa Rein’s Article in The Washington Post: “In Unprecedented move, Treasury Orders Trump’s Name Printed on Stimulus Checks.”
Jacob Pramuck in CNBC: “Bernie Sanders Threatens to Hold Up Coronavirus Bill After 4 GOP Senators Push to Cut Unemployment Aid.”
Jonnelle Marte in Reuters: “Americans on COVID-19 Jobless Benefits Spent More Than When Working, Study Shows”
Nancy Marshall-Genzer in Marketplace: “Extra Unemployment Benefits During the Pandemic Boosts Spending”
Doug Henwood in Jacobin: “Unemployment Benefits Have Saved the U.S. From Economic Calamity. They Expire at the End of the Month”
Extended Unemployment Benefits Function as a Subsidy to Landlords: As Seen in the Urban Institute: “Don’t Overlook the Importance of Unemployment Benefits for Renters”
The State of Being “Housing Burdened” Starts at 30% of Income spent on Housing as Explained in More Detail in PD&R Edge: “Defining Housing Affordability”
Bryce Covert in The Nation: “The Deep, Uniquely American Roots of Our Affordable-Housing Crisis”
George Lakey’s Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right-and How We Can, Too. Published by Melville House (2017).
Jessica Menton in USA Today: “Are Trump and the GOP Right that the $600 Unemployment Bonus Is Discouraging Work?”
Zack Friedman in Forbes: “Stimulus Update: $600 A Week Unemployment Benefits End Today”
Jacob Jarvis in Newsweek: “Stimulus Checks Were Passed by the House Two Months Ago. Where Are They?”
Claudia Grisales in NPR: “After Delays, Republicans Rolled Out A New Pandemic Relief Bill. Democrats Balked”
U.N. Policy Brief: The World of Work and COVID-19:
"...there is a risk that massive unemployment and loss of income from COVID-19 could further erode social cohesion and destabilize countries in both the North and the South, socially, politically and economically."
AND MEANWHILE . . .
Rupert Neate in The Guardian: “Jeff Bezos, the World's Richest Man, Added £10bn to His Fortune in Just One Day”
Inequality.org’s The Billionaire Bonanza 2020 Updates: "July 23, 2020 Update: US Billionaire Wealth surges by $755 billion after four months into the pandemic."
Tyler Sonnemaker in Business Insider: “Jeff Bezos Is on Track to Become a Trillionaire by 2026 — Despite an Economy-Killing Pandemic and Losing $38 Billion in His Recent Divorce”
The US Congress Now Exists Primarily to Facilitate Corporate Bailouts:
"The Senate Has Passed the Largest Corporate Bailout in US History"
"How the COVID-19 Bailout Gave Wall Street a No-Lose Casino"
"Millionaires to Reap 80% of Benefits from Tax Change in US Coronavirus Stimulus"
"Wall Street Wins, Again: Bailouts in the Time of Coronavirus"
"The U.S. Has Thrown More Than $6 Trillion at the Coronavirus Crisis. That Number Could Grow."
Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post: “Here’s The Medicare-for-All Study That Bernie Keeps Bringing Up” {Correction: Medicare for All Would Actually Cost $3 Trillion, Not $1 Trillion as Matt Incorrectly Stated in the Podcast}
Haley Byrd in CNN: “House Passes $740 Billion Funding Bill That Would Remove Confederate Names from Military Bases”
Donald Shaw and David Moore in Sludge: “Dems Voting Against Pentagon Cuts Got 3.4x More Money From the Defense Industry”
Tara Golshan in Vox: “Exclusive: Bernie Sanders Explains His Plan to Cut Military Spending”
The New York Times: 15 to 26 million people participated in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests (as of late June) in the United States, making it one of the largest movements in U.S. history.
Colleen Long and Jill Colvin in Associated Press News: “Trump Deploys More Federal Agents Under ‘Law-And-Order’ Push”
A. Pawlowski in Today: “Why We Hate Being Told What to Do: Psychologists Explain the Battle Over Masks”
Julia Marcus in The Atlantic: “The Dudes Who Won’t Wear Masks”
Monika Evstatieva in NPR: “Anatomy of a Covid Conspiracy”
Tales of Scamdemic: Hailey Branson-Potts in The Los Angeles Times: “A Face Mask Is Part of the ‘Scamdemic,’ They Say. But They’ll Be Happy to Sell You One”
Tales of Plandemic: John Cook, Sander Van Der Linden, Stephen Lewandowsky and Ulrich Ecker Explain Explain in The Conversation: “Coronavirus, ‘Plandemic’ and the Seven Traits of Conspiratorial Thinking”
Tales of Bill Gates Secret 5G Network Chip Implantation: Simon Sharwood in The Register: “Bill Gates Debunks 'Coronavirus Vaccine Is My 5G Mind Control Microchip Implant' Conspiracy Theory”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: “Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories”
Liberals Have a Problem With Their Own Conspiracy Theories: As Seen in Glenn Greenwald’s Essay on “RussiaGate” in The Intercept: “Robert Mueller Did Not Merely Reject the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories. He Obliterated Them.”
How and Why COVID-19 Was Classified as Pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020
A Wikipedia breakdown of Francis Fukuyama’s notion of “The End of History” & the book itself: The End of History and the Last Man (1992).
Louis Menand in The New Yorker: “Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History”
The Defining Principle of Capitalism:
“Extraction of Value for Personal Wealth based on Exclusive Claims to Resources.”
Capitalism’s core belief is centered on a devotion and worship of “Private Property” - “Private property rights are fundamental to capitalism.”
“Private Property” rights are always morally illegitimate. For more on why, go to the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on what this truly means in a deeper sense: “What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government”
According to the Right-Libertarian, Milton Friedman, his most celebrated & controversial book, Capitalism & Freedom (1962), argues that capitalism and democracy go together like butter and bread; when capitalism grows, “freedom” grows right alongside it. Friedman’s notion of freedom, not surprisingly, fetishizes property over human rights.
George Orwell quote from The Road To Wigan Pier (1937):
“Indeed, from one point of view, Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed it has not established itself already. The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all co-operate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions, seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that nobody could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system.”
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: A Wikipedia Definition.
THE FUTURE IS A MIXTAPE: THE GOLDEN SQUARE:
FOOD: As Explored in Episode 007: Grammars of the Palate
SHELTER: As Explored in Episode 008: Gimme Shelter
HEALTHCARE: As Explored in Episode 009: An Apple a Day
EDUCATION: As Explored in Episode 010: Squaring The Golden Square: Education
The Mother of The Golden Square: The Ancient & Ever Relevant Idea of The Golden Rule
The Defining Principle of The Golden Square:
“Collective Responsibility to Provide All People with the Material Means to Live a Dignified Life.”
A Wikipedia Definition of “The Golden Age of Capitalism” -
Peter N. Stearns in The Harvard Business Review: “The History of Happiness”Happiness Studies: As Seen in The Happiness Institute - Why don’t social scientists & designers of this study use “The Golden Square”? Why wouldn’t this be a fundamental measuring device rather than something as abstract and tenuous as “happiness,” which ignores the material rights justly deserved to every person on the planet?
CANCEL RENT!: It’s a Movement Whose Time Has Come
Reminder That Should Be Whispered Each Day in Our Lives and in Our Media: We Have a 10-year Window (IPCC Report) to Prevent Utter Climate Chaos & the End of Mass Civilization
UN Environment Programme: Preventing the next pandemic - Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission
Thomson Reuters in CBC: “Curb Climate change, Protect Environment to Prevent Future Pandemics, Countries Told”
Mike Davis on H5N1: The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. Published by The New Press in 2005.
Morgan Rodgers Gibson in New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry (2019: Vol. 10, No. 1): “The Failure Of The State And The Rise Of Anarchism In Contemporary Anti-Systemic Praxis”
The Golden Square has never existed on the entirety of Earth: As seen in Rosa Freedman’s Article in The Independent: “The Lack of Basic Rights Around the World: A Harrowing Reality”
Vincent Navarro in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI): The Consequences of Neoliberalism in the Current Pandemic
Welcome to the Covid Clown Brigade: With COVID-19, the Most Neoliberal Countries—Not Coincidentally—Are Run by Vicious Buffoons, Who’ve Provided the Worst Results, While Also Pretending to Do the Best in Their Response. Not Only Do They Get COVID (see Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsanaro), but they tried to sell bad ideas about Hydroxychlorine through comical presentations (see Trump) or actually sell that shit for their own private profit (see Bolsanaro).
June 8, 2020: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (The Earth’s Real Orb Mother) Announces That There Are 0 Cases in New Zealand: As Seen in BBC’s Reporting: “New Zealand Lifts All Covid Restrictions, Declaring the Nation Virus-Free”
Katherine Acquavella in CBS Sports: “New Zealand Welcomes Back Rugby with Packed Stadiums After Country Eradicates Coronavirus”
There is an astonishing 40% difference between Republicans and Democrats over the actions of wearing masks: “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are about twice as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners to say that masks should be worn always (63% vs. 29%).”
Bernie Sanders’ Most Remarkable and Legendary Quote from His Failed 2020 Campaign: “Are You Willing to Fight for Someone You Don’t Know?”
Sinthia Hernandez - from COVID’s Hidden Toll, a FRONTLINE Documentary: As Seen in Patrice Taddonio’s Article in PBS: “She Has Cancer and Is High-Risk for COVID Complications. But Like Many Essential Farmworkers, She Can’t Stay Home”
Brian Jones in The Telegram: Supermarket Workers Are the New Superheroes
The Immoral Logic of (Right-)Libertarians: “How Can Something Be a Right If It Requires the Labor of Others?” - As Seen in Adam Weinstein’s Op-Ed: “I Used to Be a Libertarian Then the U.S. Healthcare System Taught Me How Wrong I Was”
Let’s face it, pumpkins: 30-40% of all jobs are Bullshit Jobs (2017)- “37% of British Workers Think Their Jobs Are Meaningless”
Cory Doctorow in Locus Magazine: "Full Employment," in which I forswear "Fully Automated Luxury Communism" as totally incompatible with the climate emergency, which will consume 100%+ of all human labor for centuries to come.