Tag Archives: MoreFreedomFoundation

Kashmir, Xinjiang, El Paso | Our Concentration Camp Era | Globalism 3

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One of my favorite things about my YouTube Channel is the comments section. The MFF comments defy the stereotypes. It’s a really pleasant environment, where people actually deal with issues, and often add to my base of knowledge. We’ve got our share of racist trolls of course, it’s Youtube after all, but even they engage positively now and again, and nobody pays them much mind when they are trolling. I spend a lot of time in the comments, and I consider the experience very rewarding. The same, alas cannot be said, for the comments section to this video on our concentration camp era.

There were plenty of stand outs, but it was really sad to see a lot of people retreat to their foxholes. I think this video is pretty important, and I think the parallel it draws between the world’s three most important countries is worth thinking about. Unfortunately the comments are full of Americans, Chinese, and Indians bitterly denouncing the idea that their country could ever do wrong. It was especially sad to see folks who are delighted to engage with my critiques of the US shrink away from criticism of their own countries. Most of my regular commenters didn’t fall into this, but a few of them did. Makes me sad. Though actually I suppose it’s an indication of our common humanity too.

I put this video into my “We need a globalist party” playlist. The playlist is an old idea I need to revive. The fact is that our three 20th century titans will need some restraining, and as my comment section indicates, they are unlikely to do it to themselves. In the mid 20th century institutions like the United Nations had a real moral authority that they could use to motivate grass roots shaming of great power crimes. That ability to hold the great powers to account has faded away. We probably need it back.

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Saudi Arabia Did This To Itself | Abqaiq Attack | Yemen 19

I dislike reacting to events quickly, the way that this video does. But this channel obviously couldn’t let the attack on the Abqaiq refinery go uncommented on. Saudi Arabia is sort of my bread and butter, and this could very well be the biggest thing that has happened to Saudi Arabia since it’s idiotic decision to invade Yemen back in 2015. Two weeks later, I’m pretty pleased with my coverage. In the video I referred to my surprise that the oil price spike had been so small. My surprise has only grown.

As of today, the price of Brent Crude oil fell back below the 60 dollars a barrel mark. Two weeks after an attack disrupting half of Saudi Arabia’s production, oil prices are back where they were before the attack, but the oil market has changed irrevocably. In the comments, and unfortunately in the video itself, there is a lot of emphasis on how quickly or slowly Saudi production resumes. That’s important, but it’s not that important. Two weeks later, it’s still not entirely clear what the on the ground impact is. The important thing is that the market no longer seems to really care that much. Reading articles on outlets like www.oilprice.com has gotten seriously depressing. It’s become clear that high prices, not really seen since 2014, are not returning any time soon. I said it in the video, and I’ll say it again now, with two weeks of reinforcement: This is HUGE. Ten years ago, even if Saudi Arabia restored full production the within hours, prices would have spiked, and wouldn’t have come down for months. The attack itself would have sent a message of risk and worry that would jack up prices for weeks.

Now that the worst has happened, and prices haven’t gone up at all, a different message is being sent, loud and clear: Saudi Arabia just doesn’t matter that much anymore.

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Xi Jinping Is Napoleon

A certain kind of commenter has real problems with videos like this one. It compares the trajectory of current Chinese leader Xi Jinping to a mid 19th century French dictator. Some see the idea of historical comparisons as ineffective, or even racist. To those who say it’s ineffective, I am forced to agree. It’s not like what happened to Napoleon III will predict exactly the path that Xi Jinping’s rule will take. But I never claimed it would. This video only talks about the surprising parallels, it makes no claims for the future. History is a treasure trove of events, processes, and situations. None of it will predict exactly what happens, but aspects are often similar. There’s no harm, and certainly no prophecy in drawing out parallels the way that this video does. Some other commenters, both Chinese and Western, claim that it’s ridiculous to compare China to European history. Both of them hold on to the idea that there’s something intrinsically different about the Chinese, and I’m either being racist, or not racist enough by assuming easy parallels with Europeans. I think that’s just balderdash. Chinese people are people too, and despite the scale and age of their country, it moves in similar ways.

Vague similarity to past situations is all I’m claiming here. I’m not claiming to know how Xi Jinping’s rule will end. But I am trying to make the case that Xi Jinping’s assumption of dictatorial power is something that we’ve seen before in modern history. Many in the US are reacting with panic to the idea of a great power backsliding in this way. They are acting as if it’s somehow unprecedented. It’s not. That’s all this video is saying.

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Boris Johnson Wakes Up The US Ireland Lobby | Brexit VIII

Man, #Brexit just keeps getting worse. I’m very pleased with how this video on the Northern Ireland problem performed. A month later it’s got over 14K views, which is more than enough to consider it a success. What’s more, I got a ton of positive feedback from all over on how well it dealt with the issue… in addition to the usual nastygrams. It appears that there are a lot of Brexit supporters in the UK who have not given this issue any thought at all. As the chaos has spun up over the past month, Northern Ireland has gotten even less attention. UK Prime Minister Boris’s inability to get the Parliament to do anything has raised hopes that we will get past the October 31st deadline with another extension, this mess will drag on for another year or so, Brexit could never happen, and maybe nobody will ever have to think about Ireland’s troubles ever again. I’m not so optimistic. In fact, I’ve got a kind of disastrous scenario for this month that’s been bugging me.

Most assume that the UK government will be bullied into asking the EU for another extension. I agree that that will probably happen. It’s what happens after that’s more suspect. Everybody assumes that if Boris asks, the EU will grant another three to six months of time for fiddling about. The EU doesn’t want a no-deal either. But what if the calculation is wrong? My understanding is that all 27 EU countries need to vote unanimously to grant another extension. What if just one of those countries decides “fuck it!”? A no-deal Brexit would be bad for Europe, but the past three years of indecision and investment stagnation have been pretty bad too. It’s quite possible that Britain will ask for another extension this month, and the EU will say no. I’m not someone that thinks No-Deal will be as instantly catastrophic as advertised. At this point, it would have to kill more people than the bubonic plague to be spun as anything other than “not as bad as they said it would be”. But I do believe the long term result will be terrible for the UK eventually, and in Northern Ireland almost immediately.

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It’s Time For Saudi Arabia To Give Up On Yemen | Yemen 18

Man, this video just gets more and more right with time. When I uploaded this one just over two months ago, it presented three reasons why Saudi Arabia should get the heck out of Yemen as soon as possible. Today I would add at least two more. First, the war is putting the safety and security of Saudi Arabia itself in more and more jeopardy by the day. Just a few weeks ago, the Yemenis pulled off history’s most devastating attack on Saudi oil infrastructure. This attack, and the indifference of world oil markets to it, both gravely undermine the Saudis. Over this past weekend, confused reports emerged that the Saudis may be losing large battles on or distressingly close to their own territory. Whether those reports are true or not, the fact that they can be believed should be terrifying to the Saudis.

There is an out from all of this. The Houthis are aware that their complete dominance of the battle space is actually a problem for them. If they push their advantage, and make real inroads in to Saudi territory, they could prompt a US response. They have proved their independence, and remain more interested in peace than the Saudis are. The Houthis have offered to cease attacks on Saudi territory, if the Saudis will agree to do the same. This is a real opportunity. So far, the Saudis have reacted by murdering a bunch of Yemeni families from the air. They should really start pursuing peace before it’s too late.

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Amazon’s The Boys Isn’t Just About Superheroes | MIC 20

I feel like I should do some more media criticism. In this video I sing the praises of “The Boys” a new Amazon streaming show that satirizes the Military Industrial Complex pretty heavily. It’s a good show, and I’m sure it will be disappointing when the 2nd season backs off on all the political content. But I’m not sure that this video does a good job laying out why I found the Boys so noteworthy.

In the video I point out that most of the rest of Amazon’s prestige products are implicitly or explicitly pro-war, and even pro war on terror, which is pretty insane in 2019. But I don’t underline the degree to which almost everything we watch, consume and walk through in the United States today carries some sort of pro-militarism bias. From the national anthem at sports games, to the absurdly one-sided reporting on foreign policy to everything in between, everything works to force us towards war. Maybe that’s why Amazon feels comfortable putting out one niche genre show that lightly satirizes the MIC. Amazon knows this show is just a drop in the bucket, that helps it seem a little more independent from the Pentagon it is currently trying to win a 10 billion dollar contract from.

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Ilhan Omar Is Winning | Everybody’s Lying About Islam 40

I like this video, but it also reminds me of some missed opportunities. For over two years now I’ve been putting out this “Everybody’s Lying About Islam” series, but I think I’ve been falling down on one of the most central points I was trying to make. I am grateful to Ilhan Omar for giving me the opportunity to make that point more forcefully. Throughout the series I vaguely allude to the ways that Islamophobia serves the US government, even as the US government’s most prominent figures preach peace and tolerance.

In this video, I make the connection crystal clear, in ways that I should have done long ago. Islamophobia allows the US government to shield their Saudi partners from blame for 9-11, while also providing an endless series of countries to be lucratively bombed and destroyed. Ilhan Omar is the subject of extraordinary hate and vilification because she points out the facts of Islamophobia, and the ways it is used by our government. I adore her for it. Her outspoken presence in congress, and the fact of her presence alone, is a sign that the US public is tiring of this old Islamophobic ploy, which is inspiring a high degree of panic in Washington, DC.

It’s becoming clear, also, that Ms. Omar may be quite the fallible human being. The questions surrounding immigration fraud she may have committed remain. I looked at those allegations, and why the statute of limitations means they won’t prove to be Omar’s kryptonite the way many in the swamp hope in a tweet storm back when I published this video. It has since been fairly credibly alleged that Omar may be getting a little bit Trumpy with her personal behavior. Her supposed seduction of (by?) a married, very non-Muslim campaign consultant doesn’t fit with the “fanatical jihadist” slurs we find on right wing radio, but it could present an interesting, and very current campaign finance challenge. With growing rumors of petty illegality, campaign finance irregularities, and moral failings, Ilhan Omar sounds a lot like… a congress person. In the world before Trump, who knows, perhaps I’d be bothered by all this. In 2019, I’m not. Let whatever proceedings are appropriate proceed, but I don’t yet see anything that’s likely to derail this vitally important voice in Congress.

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Thoughts on Turning 40 (…and turning 74)

It’s weird for a channel that covers so much death and destruction, but I don’t actually think about my own mortality much. That’s not to say I don’t think about age. In fact I’ve always been obsessed with age, and the passage of time. “Can you believe that we’re 20!, 30?, 35!” etc. etc. But I’ve never really thought about the end much, just sort of assuming there would always be more time to do everything. Turning 40 certainly puts this sort of thing in perspective. Reading the obituaries of people with very full lives, just a decade or two older helps with that too.

So I’ve been a bit maudlin lately. But, as I point out in this video, turning 40 is also very helpful. It’s given me a bigger sense of my own frailty, but also a sense of my own power. I could certainly get hit by a bus tomorrow ( especially with the amount of bicycling I do in New York City), but how much life I have left is largely in my control. That’s a powerful thing. It’s also left me a little less obsessed with age as well. All the milestones have passed. What I do with the time left, and how much time I have left is largely up to me…

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Is the War in Yemen Over? | UAE Withdrawal | Yemen 17

This video has turned out to be quite prescient. Closing in on two months ago, when it became clear that the UAE was withdrawing some troops from Yemen, I proposed three possible scenarios for what it would mean. All three are still worth considering, but it’s looking like the one I flagged as most likely is the one that’s happening. It’s a sort of Vietnam 1973 scenario. The Saudis have lost, but they won’t acknowledge it yet, and there is plenty of murder and destruction to come before it becomes obvious to everyone with a 1975 style “helicopters on rooftops” moment.

I didn’t anticipate how quickly things would fall apart, however, with Saudi and UAE proxies engaging in open warfare in the only major Yemeni city that their “coalition” has managed to take. I think the Vietnam parallel stands though. Since World War II we have been lucky enough to see very little inter-state war. Much of the suffering in the world has come in the context of civil wars. This Saudi invasion of its neighbor is only one of a handful of such examples since the 1940s. Vietnam is one of those examples, and the parallels will just get more and more obvious. As sad as this is, it is a bit heartening to see that the US failure in Vietnam wasn’t some unique failure of will, it’s just really fricking hard to invade a country in the modern context. The Saudis are doing even worse than we did, much more quickly.

The US invasion of Iraq also fits into the Vietnam structure pretty well, as I documented five years ago…

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The Terrible Threat From Chinese Grad Students

When should we panic? Donald Trump has obviously given freer reign to the nativist and racist instincts of my country, but how out of the ordinary is it really? There was a large industry and policy community based around fear of the other long before Donald Trump. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that his cartoonish attempt to put into practice all the ideas that Republicans used to only pay lip service to at election time has INCREASED support for immigration and multi-culturalism in the United States. It’s an interesting question. People are undeniably being hurt, but it’s often just because already existing policies are being carried out in a more haphazard fashion.

This video plays with the question. It focuses on a panic the Trump administration is creating around Chinese students and workers in the US, and places it in the context of decades of hate towards other groups that our country has been swimming in. It points out that the new China-panic might actually be a result of the diminishing panic about other groups. I don’t have any firm answers here, but it’s very worth thinking about.

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