Robert Stark talks to Paul Bingham about his in-production documentary chronicling the economic and social despair of the American Heartland. Paul Bingham is the author of Down Where the Devil Don’t Go and Black House Rocked. You can contact Paul at [email protected].
Topics:
Paul’s footage and interviews conducted across the South and Midwest
The concept of non-essential jobs exposing the reality that most of the workforce will become obsolete
Long term economic consequences of the pandemic including permanent job loss, foreclosure of small banks and businesses, and more automation and streamlining
Trump’s failure to bring back manufacturing
The conglomeration of farmland and real estate
Why Paul predicts America will serve as the breadbasket of the world
Paul’s speculation that elites support mass immigration in the short term but population reduction in the long term
Stratification of elites, hiding of assets, and effectiveness of an asset tax
Crisis of addiction and deaths of despair (highest rates among Whites and Native Americans)
The foreign policy motive behind foreign owned cash businesses
The benefits of economic specialization and family based businesses
America’s nomadic nature
Why certain groups of Americans are better adapted to thrive in the future
Why the general public is only educated to be a consumer and not a rational political actor
Failure of past political movements from Ron Paul to Bernie Sanders
How the documentary will record the heartland’s decline rather than explicitly make political predictions
Paul’s upcoming poetry book, Strip Club Poetry
Robert Stark and Matthew Pegas talk about their recent trip to San Diego and their observations on cultural and urbanist trends.
Topics:
San Diego’s reputation as a smaller, cleaner, nicer version of LA and its unique attributes
The layout of the city with a centralized downtown near the waterfront surrounded by suburban sprawl
San Diego and Orange County among the largest areas of upper middle class sprawl in the nation Politics of San Diego as a historically Republican stronghold that has trended Democratic in recent years Demographics of San Diego and how they relate to overall CA trends
The most stereotypical American City located in CA while the State is culturally drifting apart from the rest of the Country After decades of suburban sprawl, San Diego eyes big shift to dense development
The historic Gaslamp Quarter which is the one section that feels truly urban
Horton Plaza: Will this PoMo wonderland in San Diego be saved?
Architect Jon Jerde’s inspiration for Horton Plaza from Ray Bradbury’s “The Aesthetic of Lostness” extolling the virtues of getting “safely lost”
Wealthy beach community La Jolla and it’s village layout
The importance of investing in communal places that the public can enjoy, particularly in wealthy areas TorreyPinesState Natural Reserve
The Victorian Hotel del Coronado FriendshipPark at the US/Mexico Border and political symbolism of the border wall
The InlandEmpire Heavenly Action by Erasure, the soundtrack of the trip with a message that friendship, love, and positivity can conquer anything