Folks have been asking me about this Ryan McBeth video for ages now. He claims that the Military Industrial Complex doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s surprising that I’d disagree. At a little more length that was perhaps necessary.
The United States is on the verge of making a catastrophically bad decision on Israel and Iran. The question currently posed is inadequate. People are warring over whether we should go whole hog and help Israel destroy Iran entirely, or if we should merely continue to pay billions to defend Israel from the consequences of its actions. This is a very limited conversation. With this un-produced video, I attempt to expand the conversation a bit more, by looking at what Israel is doing in Syria. A lot more is at stake than the exchange of missiles between a couple of really unattractive governments.
I can’t believe we’re here again. Most believe the United States is within hours of launching our own attack on Iran, if we haven’t already. It’s a catastrophic return to the evils of the Bush administration. It’s pretty clear we’ve learned nothing. Today’s video is an attempt to help people learn something. Though on a day like today, it’s hard to see why I bother.
I’m very worried about war with Iran. But even I am getting sick of hearing myself say it. If you ask me today, I tend to think that the Trump administration is too busy with other stuff to manage an attack on Iran. But all it takes is a single stray missile landing in one of the US’s way-too-many bases across the Middle East. The worst thing can always happen. One selfish old man, Joe Biden, inflicted a completely unnecessary second Trump term on us. Nothing that strange has to occur to drop us into our next trillion dollar war. Join us as we talk through what that might look like, and how horrifically absurd it is that it’s a real prospect.
Wow, I guess I’ve been doing this a little while. Ten years ago this month, this channel had an early success with a video entitled “3 Reasons China Will Never Rule The World”. A lot has happened over the past ten years. In a discord chat earlier this month, MFF’s social media manager Loga suggested I update that decade old video. Today’s video is my attempt to do exactly that. Am I still as skeptical of claims of Chinese power in the age of Trump? Check out today’s video to find out.
I love it when I can use a “YouTube Drama” video to talk about an important topic. So imagine my delight when Johnny Harris, a YouTube star I’ve critiqued once before, dropped a half-learned video on nationalism. It wasn’t THAT bad a video. There were some fairly egregious errors, that I addressed, but what bugged me most was the general attitude. According to Harris, all that matters about nationalism is its potential for disaster. That’s an important part of the story, but there’s a lot more to nationalism than just that. Like the independence of almost every country on the planet, as just one example. It was fun to make “What Johnny Harris Gets Wrong About Nationalism” and I hope you enjoy watching it.
Syria’s fall took me by surprise. I had become so used to the status quo, I didn’t think there was any way it could change. But at the end of the day, that status quo was unacceptable to too many people, and it had to end. Today’s video includes some unproduced reflections on the promise and peril of this development, and some speculation on why I missed just how shaky the regime was.
Well, I didn’t expect that to take three years! With today’s video, “How Yemen Beat Saudi Arabia” I have completed my most epic video project ever, the “Yemen vs. Empire” series. Initially planned as a trilogy, the series ballooned up to six episodes. And the episodes got longer every time. The first episode, covering the conflict with the Ottomans from the 1500s to the early 20th century, was fifteen minutes long. This final episode is 57 minutes long, well over twice as long as any other video I have ever produced. As is the case with most projects, the closer I get to the present day, the more unsettled the story is, and the more I feel compelled to include.
Throughout this series, I’ve been touched to hear from Yemenis who find the information provided unbiased, and even useful for their own understanding. I wonder if that will continue as I bring the story down to the present day, with its very live controversies? Can’t wait to find out. I am so happy to have put this whole project out into the world, and deeply grateful to the patrons who have made it possible.
Well, I was wrong, and Trump won. Joe Biden is the man most responsible for this catastrophe. It may seem a little self-indulgent, but with today’s video I’m going back to a list of suggestions I made for Biden in early 2021. Was I right about what would help stop Trump? Would it have helped if Biden had followed my suggestions? I don’t know. I won’t be charging anyone for this public working out of my own thoughts & feelings. I hope it’s watchable.
I’m delighted to present the fifth episode in my “Yemen vs. Empire” trilogy(?)! And we’re not done quite yet. In attempting to document the war in Yemen we’ve all been looking at for the past decade, I realized there was no way I could fit it all into one video. So with today’s video we’re covering the final fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh, from 2011-2017. The next, and final, for sure this time, Yemen vs. Empire video will cover the conflict from the Saudi-Emirati invasion in 2015, down to the war’s end in 2022.