There’s
barely a profession that AI isn’t going to wind up taking over in
the next 10-20 years
Paul Jay
of the Real News
explains perfectly how the Russiagate hysteria is being used as a
useful tool by the elites to distract the American public from the
flood of rapid changes and challenges of the close future:
[Bernie
Sanders] is actually one of the few politicians and has a mainstream
stage who does focus on a lot of the issues of substance of the Trump
administration, and does focus on the real issues of the electoral
system. You know, gerrymandering and Citizens United, and the
unlimited corporate and billionaire money involved in the political
system. Sanders speaks way much more about that than he does about
the Russia stuff.
But
there’s a mood, and to some extent it’s affected Sanders and
others. It’s a McCarthyite mood that if you don’t get in on this,
denouncing the Russians’ interference here, you’re disloyal. You
know, back to this betrayal conversation. How many liberals had to
come out and denounce the Communist Party of the United States and
name names? People that were progressive in many ways. But they had
so much - I’m talking during McCarthyism in the House Un-American
Activities Committee.
People
had a fairly progressive views, but the pressure was just so enormous
that you didn’t come out against the communist conspiracy, you were
a traitor. And there’s that same kind of pressure coming on.
But the
bottom line here is we need to tell the whole truth. And the whole
truth does not prettify the Russian state. And it certainly doesn’t
prettify the American state. But we don’t succumb to this feeling
that Americans are all in the same boat. Like, Obama used to have
this line, no red states, no blue states, just the United States.
That’s a crock. This society has got very, very serious class
divisions.
Again to
his merit, Bernie Sanders often talks about the American oligarchy.
And he talks about the five individual men have more wealth than 50
percent of the American population. These are the real serious
divisions within the country. And just like McCarthyism, this current
Russiagate mania is a complete distraction from the very serious,
critical problems.
A
crisis, existential, even, starting with climate change. The renewal
of this kind of geopolitical rivalry that we saw lead to two world
wars in the 20th century. The expansion of America’s nuclear
arsenal. And underlying all this, a completely parasitical and
enormously powerful finance sector which is just sucking the wealth
out of the whole global economy, gambling in a crazy casino against
multimillionaires and billionaires betting against each other,
sucking wealth that should be put into more productive uses so the
economies grow in a real way.
The rich
essentially heading for the hills. They got their escape routes
ready, and they imagine a world where artificial intelligence does
most of what working people do. And these people protect themselves
from the climate crisis. But there’s no question that one of the
great threats that are coming in the next 10-15 years - it’s
already starting - is massive unemployment as robots, artificial
intelligence, start driving trucks and driving taxis and delivery
cars and flying airplanes. They’re even talking about AI being able
to do most of what doctors do. There’s barely a profession that AI
isn’t going to wind up taking over in the next 10-20 years.
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