Unwashed and Unruly

AI Hype and Its Discontents

Is artificial intelligence an inevitable leap toward superintelligence, or just a high-speed statistical guessing game backed by billions in venture capital? In Part 1, we peel back the marketing blitz to reveal how these hyped-up "God Machines" are merely software built on data theft and corporate speculation. We deconstruct the "booster" vs. "doomer" trap, arguing that they’re two sides of the same coin, each serving the myth that AI is an all-powerful force capable of either saving or destroying civilization. We look at what’s behind the AI bubble, and how the flood of investment money into the industry has inflated the U.S. stock market and artificially bolstered the economy for a tool that’s neither inherently valuable nor profitable. When the bubble bursts, the pain will be felt by the working class and the oppressed, who are footing the bill. We also pull back the curtain on the massive AI data centers destroying local communities, guzzling fresh water, and threatening power grids to keep this subsidized tech fantasy running. The billionaire tech overlords use AI hype to gaslight us, to fuel anxiety about layoffs, to justify surveillance, and to popularize their sociopathic goals for human obsolescence. The growing opposition to AI asks why this technology is being forced upon us, and what's the true cost to our labor, our creativity, the environment, and the future? Shoutout to Ed Zitron [https://www.wheresyoured.at/] for giving us tons of fuel and inspiration for this episode! Special thanks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna for their research in The AI Con [https://thecon.ai/]. Come on our show!

Planes, Profits, Peril (and Why Flying Sucks)

Why has flying become so crappy? Modern air travel has morphed into a high-altitude endurance test, cramming us into shrinking seats and nickel-and-diming us for every basic necessity. In this episode, we trace the airline industry’s descent from a regulated public utility to a monopoly-driven, irrational oligarchy in the wake of the 1978 Deregulation Act.  We look at the war against airline and airport workers, starting with the smashing of the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike. We discuss exhausted air traffic controllers and pilots struggling under massive debt, grueling work hours, and poverty wages. By examining several crashes and close calls, we look at how profit undermines safety, and how the outsourcing and cost-cutting of maintenance is a danger to the whole flying public. We examine how government agencies like the FAA gave a free pass to airline manufacturers like Boeing in pushing through shoddy engineering, like with the 737 Max.  For the airline industry, the “magic of the market” means that profits are privatized but losses are socialized, leading to one government bailout after another. The answer to the airline cartel’s war on its workers is industrialized unions and workers' control of safety.

Iran Needs Nukes

The "nuclear threat" narrative against Iran is a smokescreen for a decades-long campaign of imperialist aggression designed to crush Iranian sovereignty. In this episode, we strip away the mainstream propaganda and myths to examine how both wings of the U.S. ruling class, working alongside their Zionist partners in Israel, have used murderous sanctions, direct assassinations, and terror to maintain hegemony over the region’s oil-rich resources. Drawing on the history of colonial domination of Iran, from WWI to the 1953 coup that installed the Shah, to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and beyond, we show that the true madmen aren't in Tehran, but are the ones steering the American war machine. We also highlight how nuclear technology is a cornerstone of Iran’s national identity and scientific independence. We take a detour into the “U.S. or Israel: Who’s Daddy?" debate that framed our very first episode, challenging the notion that the U.S. is simply a victim of the Zionist lobby and was coerced into this losing war.  The U.S. remains the only power to have used nuclear weapons in combat, and Israel is the only country with a nuclear weapons arsenal in the region (and the insanity to use it). That’s why Iran needs nukes as a deterrent in a struggle for survival against the most destructive force on the planet.  Finally, we connect the carnage abroad to the crisis at home and rippling outward. The global working class is left to pay the bill for an economic crisis, with soaring energy and food costs, that has only barely begun.

It’s a Big Club: Epstein and the Ruling Class

The Epstein files offer a raw glimpse into how the U.S. rulers and the entire global capitalist class run society: through sexual and geopolitical violence, criminal exploitation, and legal impunity. The buying and selling of young women, the decadence, and the denigration of all who are not part of their club – this is the “morality” of those in power.  In this episode, we discuss how the Epstein scandal isn’t just about a corrupt sex trafficker, his victims, and a mysterious “suicide.” The real story is the entire financial and political infrastructure around Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, made up of billionaires, shell companies, “philanthropic” foundations, and a world of espionage and blackmail. From the gutter media to the highest echelons of government, they’re all behind a massive Epstein cover-up. The rest of us are told to move along. We talk about the insights of a handful of journalists who followed the money. Whitney Webb and Nick Bryant point to something far bigger than a trafficking ring: a system of dark money and surveillance linking Wall Street, organized crime, and intelligence. Epstein was a cog in the machine, set up as a fall guy. We’ve seen only a tiny fraction of what the ruling class does in secret, but what it gets away with in the open is far more sinister: marauding the globe, war against Iran, genocide in Gaza, eviscerating rights at home. The crimes and horrors in the Epstein files are not aberrations, but the very nature of a rotting capitalist system.  Clips included in this episode:  George Carlin: "It's a big club, and you ain't in it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0]" ⁠CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou on The Diary of a CEO⁠ [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Mzbvgprf3GgBmVGmQSDl2?si=9bm25SmwTTq6z3ahyDAqYg] ⁠Nick Bryant on The Chris Hedges Report⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK114NGCM8] ⁠Whitney Webb on The Nick Bryant Podcast⁠ [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7CHnfeMpoZ3EsPyE3GKuyJ?si=WNlo8n2YSOe3WxYKzvDI8A&nd=1&dlsi=9c8750f90c56446e]   “To the man of the bourgeois class, the woman of the working class is not a human being. She is either a beast of burden or a source of cheap pleasure.” – Alexandra Kollontai, 1909

ICE Nation and the War on Everyone

In this episode, we break down how anti-immigrant repression, which has been bipartisan for decades, has escalated into open paramilitary terror under Trump 2.0. We examine the daily raids and deportations by ICE and how they’re also an attack on citizenship and political dissent, acting as a warning shot against the entire working class.  We connect the dots between an empire in decline, domestic scapegoating, and authoritarian control, from the War on Terror to the dragnet targeting pro-Palestinian voices and leftist dissidents, to the killing of Rene Good, Alex Pretti, and countless others rotting in detention centers. The ruling parties have always conjured up an “enemy within” during moments of economic and social crisis to carry out a war on the population. We dismantle the myth of the US as a so-called welcoming melting pot, and trace the “whites only” history of citizenship, from before the 14th Amendment to today. Basic rights won through struggle are being clawed back in real time. The fight over who belongs is ultimately a fight over who holds power.