MintCast

It ain’t easy being a YouTuber—at least, not a political one. The platform is a giant, Byzantine organization filled with secret rules and algorithms that content creators constantly fall afoul of. This is especially true for radical voices, who are incessantly shadowbanned and suppressed by the Google-owned platform.One person who has broken through the algorithmic barriers better than almost anyone is JT Chapman, host of the Second Thought channel. Chapman makes engaging video essays about some of the most pressing issues of the day, and the quality of his work has drawn 1.6 million subscribers to his main channel. He is also the founder of the YouTube news show First Thought and the co-host of The Deprogram podcast. Today, he discusses his tips for YouTube success, climate change, the economy, and what radicals could learn from Walmart.Having one of the world’s largest corporations (Google) own the global town square poses huge problems for freedom of speech, not least because of the company’s intimate links to the Central Intelligence Agency. Chapman has to tread a careful line on YouTube because of demonetization, age restriction, and other tactics the platform uses to suppress radical voices. All this, he says, “really disincentivizes people like me to produce radical content.” This leads many well-meaning YouTubers to just start chasing the algorithm and become “toxic little clout goblins,” he told “MintCast” host Alan MacLeod.When asked how useful YouTube is for inspiring people and producing societal change, Chapman said,I think investigative journalism that exposes corruption is useful in moving the needle…but on the other hand, I’d say that a large percentage of people doing what I do on platforms like YouTube really aren’t all that useful, unless we are actively driving people to get engaged in organizations and on the ground movements.”On this episode, MacLeod and Chapman also chatted about how we could stop economic recessions entirely if we wanted to, how economies could be planned, and his tips for others wishing to make an impact online.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

The United States is an empire, even if its citizens don’t all realize it. That is the conclusion from historian and political scientist Aaron Good, who joins Alan MacLeod on this week’s edition of “MintCast.” Today, Good walks us through the history of how the United States came to dominate the world and the organizations it uses – especially the CIA and NATO – in order to enforce its control over the planet.He notes that as Europe and Asia were destroying themselves in conflict, the U.S. gave the powerful business think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, the task of planning America’s entry into World War II.Enter the war, win it, and establish dominion over global capitalism. They are going to essentially take control of Western imperialism. It’s not stated that way, but that’s what ends up being the consensus of people at the top of the U.S. And that consensus of the U.S. as the global hegemon of capitalism worldwide is the story of our time.”In this, the U.S. has been very effective dominating the planet for the past 75 years, although Good does later note that China’s growing role is loosening the American grip on the world.  Good describes the U.S. as a “paper tiger,” explaining that:In a sense, the U.S. is musclebound to the military, meaning that we may have all these bases and all these billions. But there are two things that the U.S. does not have the ability to do. One is actually using its nuclear arsenal because it would kill everybody. It is a non-starter.”“The other…is fielding a military. When they talk about the U.S. potentially entering a war in Ukraine. Good luck with that!... Who in the world is going to fight in some World War One-style battle?! In Iraq, the U.S. lost fewer than 10,000, and that was very unpopular. By some estimates, 400,000 have died in Ukraine. How could you possibly expect Americans or Europeans to want to die in that way?”Today, Good and MacLeod also chat about the power and purpose of the CIA, how the United States laid the groundwork for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the use and misuse of the term “the deep state.”Aaron Good is a historian and former political organizer. His book, “American Exception: Empire and the Deep State,” was published in 2022. He is also the host of the American Exception podcast, which can be found on most major podcast platforms.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Last month, on his way back to Great Britain, MintPress contributor Kit Klarenberg was detained and interrogated. The investigative journalist was met at the airport by six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers, who seized his electronic devices, and memory cards and took his fingerprints and DNA. Under Schedule Three, Section Four of the U.K. 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, they grilled him for over five hours, asking probing questions on everything from his opinions on the current British leadership to Vladimir Putin to 9/11.For Klarenberg, the real reason he was being targeted had nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with his investigative reporting that has exposed the machinations of the British state. In recent months, this has included revealing that British spies plotted to bomb the Kerch Bridge in Crimea, how the U.K. government is constructing a “secret terror army” in Ukraine, and how British intelligence seemingly worked with state broadcaster, the BBC to smear anti-war academics. While the United Kingdom continues to enjoy a reputation for being an island of relative freedom, prosperity and democracy, Klarenberg challenged this idea, pointing to several Draconian laws passed under the guise of keeping the public safe. As he told Adley: Britain has, for a very long time, had the most sweeping counter-terror laws in the Western world and arguably in the world. They have overturned centuries-old and hard-fought-for rights, protections and freedoms that average citizens enjoy, and have granted police sweeping and disturbingly vague powers.” Klarenberg’s reporting has also uncovered many connections between established corporate media and the U.K. national security state, to the point where it is sometimes hard to ascertain where one ends and the other begins. As he said:For many, the Klarenberg case seems eerily reminiscent of the treatment of another journalist forgotten by his mainstream colleagues: of Julian Assange. Assange remains confined in Belmarsh high-security prison in London while British authorities negotiate with their American counterparts on whether to send him stateside.What is clear is that critical investigative journalism is under attack and that those who value a free press must stand together to fight against it.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Amid an ongoing crisis in recruitment, the military has found a novel way of enticing teens to enlist: thirst traps. “MintCast” co-host Alan MacLeod joins Mnar Adley for an in-house edition of the podcast to describe how the military is using young teens’ horniness against them, utilizing an army of attractive women posting sexually suggestive content on social media – in effect, turning a generation of young men from simps into soldiers.Alan MacLeod is senior staff writer and podcast producer for MintPress News. He has worked at the company since 2019. Before joining MintPress, he was an academic and freelance journalist specializing in Latin America and in analyzing media and propaganda. In recent months, he has specialized in analyzing U.S. military propaganda and exploring the national security state’s ties to big social media organizations. His latest investigation, “From Simp to Soldier: How the Military is Using E-Girls To Recruit Gen Z Into Service,” can be read exclusively at MintPress News.Chief amongst these new Army e-girls pushing their followers to join up is 21-year-old Hailey Lujan. In recent months, Lujan’s social media profile has exploded, with the young star now boasting nearly three-quarters of a million followers on TikTok alone. In between posting highly sexually suggestive content and zany memes, however, are subtle and not-so-subtle commands to her army of loyal followers to join up. “Don’t go to college; become a farmer or a soldier instead,” she says in one recent video.The plot thickens, however, when we look into Lujan’s background. She is a member of the Army’s psychological operations division, whose job it is to carry out online propaganda and influence operations. Despite constantly hinting that she is a “psyop” herself, Lujan strenuously denies that the Army controls her content.MacLeod told Adley that it is almost a moot point whether the Army is actively directing Lujan, stating:I think if you were [psychology expert and father of modern propaganda] Edward Bernays, you might say that it doesn’t really matter whether she is or isn’t being supported by the military, because, ultimately, what this is doing is getting people who look at this content – and there are millions of people watching this stuff – to associate lustfulness and horniness with joining the military. It’s literally making them horny for war.”Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

You can indict Vladimir Putin over war crimes in Ukraine. But if you do, you’d better indict Joe Biden as well. That is the message that Professor Alfred de Zayas, world-renowned human rights and international law expert, gave “MintCast” host Alan MacLeod on today’s episode of the series.  A Swiss-American lawyer, academic and United Nations official with over 50 years’ experience in the field of human rights, de Zayas joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about international law and Ukraine, U.S. sanctions, whistleblowers, the successes and failures of the United Nations and its bodies, and the growth of a new and cynical “human rights industry” that weaponizes the concept to attack foreign governments. “The double standards [with regard to Russia] are absolutely breathtaking” de Zayas said, noting how British International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan had discontinued all investigations into NATO war crimes in Afghanistan but continued those into the Taliban against NATO. Now the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, another one-sided decision that de Zayas claims has made the organization a joke:“There is no question that here, the crime of aggression has been committed, and certainly Russian troops have committed crimes in Ukraine. But you cannot prosecute one side and let the other side off scot-free. If you are going to indict a serving head of state [like Putin], then you would have to indict Joe Biden.”The United States and NATO, he says, have been carrying out dangerous provocations in Ukraine for years, supplying weapons to militias who use them against civilians, while also carrying out similar crimes to Russia in Afghanistan, meaning that anyone with a semblance of balance or neutrality would conclude that American leaders need to be held accountable, too. After graduating from Harvard University in 1970, de Zayas practiced law in New York and Florida. For many years, he served in various human rights organizations and as a senior official at the United Nations. From 2010 to 2013 he was editor-in-chief of Ex Tempore, the United Nations’ literary journal. Until 2018, he was UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order. In addition to this, he has taught law at academic institutions across the world, including the University of Geneva, the University of Trier, the Human Rights Institute at the Irish National University and DePaul University. Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

The war in Ukraine is well into its second year, and the United States is insistent on pumping billions more into the quagmire that has already seen thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.The U.S. has already approved more than $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, most of which is weaponry. This year, President Biden has earmarked a record-breaking $842 billion on the military. Yet much of this is not even directed towards Europe but at China. Seemingly not content with turning Europe into a war zone, Washington now has its sights set on Asia. Joining MintCast hosts Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod to discuss Washington’s permanent drive to war is author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges. “[War with China] is a serious threat given the mindset of the warmongers who dominate the Washington establishment,” Hedges says before naming and shaming many of the most callous hawks in the nation. “They never go away; it doesn’t matter how wrong they are. They were, of course, all cheerleaders for the war in Iraq. But they represent those interests, and they are creations of the Washington establishment. They don’t actually know war or geopolitics,” he added.Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent across the world, including in Central America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In 2002, he was part of a New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the global war on terror. After publicly denouncing the Iraq War, however, he was forced out of his job. Since then, he has worked in independent media. A prolific and best-selling author, his latest book, “The Greatest Evil is War” was published last year. You can find his work at ChrisHedges.substack.com/. America is “clearly on the decline,” Hedges told Adley and MacLeod, suggesting that:Anyone who drives through large swathes of the United States will tell you, it is one decayed city after another. All the mechanisms of repression that were tested largely on people of color (the way the Israelis do on Gaza) have migrated back to the homeland. Militarized drones, wholesale surveillance, militarized police, we have the largest prison system in the world; [the U.S. has almost] 25% of the world’s prisoners even though we are less than 5% of the world’s population. So we are dying the same way any empire dies.” Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Congress recently voted against pulling American troops out of Somalia. Officially, U.S. forces number 900 and are there in an advisory role to help the government of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud combat terrorist forces such as Al-Shabab.Yet our guest today states that U.S. boots on the ground in Somalia are doing nothing but serving as a recruiting tool for jihadists, their presence provoking widespread resentment among the people of the resource-rich but war-torn African nation.Ann Garrison is a journalist and a contributing editor to The Black Agenda Report. You can also find her at The Grayzone and on Pacifica Radio. Her latest article, “Ilhan Omar Voted to Withdraw from Somalia, but She’s No Anti-Imperialist,” assesses the Minnesota Congresswoman’s record on opposing U.S. actions in the Horn of Africa.Garrison notes that Washington has little interest in genuinely opposing radical jihadist groups in the region and is instead focused on maintaining control of a strategically important part of the world. Somalia sits on the Red Sea, across a narrow strait from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Around 40% of world seaborne trade passes by its waters on the way to or from the Suez Canal. Moreover, the nation is believed to possess over 100 billion barrels of untapped offshore oil reserves. “Securing African resources is an existential imperative” for the U.S., Garrison said.The United States has spent the past decade bullying and intimidating countries in North East Africa. From the bombing of Libya and the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 to its attempts to isolate Eritrea economically and politically to bombing Somalia and supporting the insurgency of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front against Ethiopia, Washington’s actions have led many in the region to sour on the United States altogether.While Garrison welcomed the campaign led by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz to get everyone in Congress on record as to whether they support or oppose ending the seemingly endless war in Somalia, she cautioned that Gaetz is not a committed anti-imperialist, but a strong China hawk, and sees U.S. conflicts like the one in Somalia as a sideshow to the real showdown against Beijing.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

In 1999, South African anti-apartheid activist and revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela visited Gaza and said, "We know too well our freedom is not complete without the freedom of the Palestinians."Since his death in 2013, Mandela’s unifying message of decolonization reverberated across the globe. The anti-colonial, anti-apartheid struggle that he led to end racial segregation and transform South Africa into a democratic nation has been lauded by Palestinians, who have drawn parallels between Israeli occupation and apartheid to the situation that Black South Africans faced.Joining Mnar Adley for this week’s MintCast interview to discuss the struggle against Apartheid and the continued struggle against colonialism is Nkosi "Mandla" Mandela, who, since 2009, has been a member of the South African parliament for the African National Congress Party. He is also the grandson of Nelson Mandela.On Wednesday, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor called on the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders responsible for Operation Shield and Arrow, last weekend’s series of airstrikes against the Gaza Strip.Over 20 Palestinians have been killed so far since Israel began bombing the world’s largest open air prison. Entire families were killed in their sleep, including children, and several neighborhoods flattened to rubble, leaving many communities homeless.As the world witnesses yet another massacre committed by the apartheid state, South Africa and other African nations are rising in the fight against Israel’s occupation of Palestine.Earlier this year, the African Union asked its member states to cut scientific, cultural and even some economic ties with Israel until it reverses its colonial practices against Palestine.Nkosi Mandela has been one of the world’s most outspoken voices against Israeli apartheid and in support of Palestinian liberation. Join us today for this informative discussion.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

Although corporate media inundate us with stories of Russian aggression, far fewer people are aware that the Ukrainian government itself has been using the fog of war to move against certain sectors of its own population, settle scores, and attempt to revolutionize society.These attempts have been led by President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, who, in recent months, has banned more than ten political parties (including the main opposition bloc), made trade unions illegal, outlawed Russian language, music and culture, and proclaimed his country open for business to Western investors.On the latest edition of the MintCast, host Mnar Adley is joined by journalist Max Blumenthal, editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, to discuss Zelensky, the war, and the consequences for Europe.While Zelensky has been presented as a heroic figure in the West, he has also cracked down on all forms of dissent within Ukraine, even moving against religious groups he feels are not sufficiently loyal to his administration.“They are rounding up priests in Kherson as we speak, along with members of the Jewish ultra-orthodox sect, Chabad, to stayed behind in Kherson to tend to their people, when it was Russian territory, before the Russian retreat,” Blumenthal told Adley.While Ukrainian men in their millions are subject to being drafted into the military, others wait in fear of being targeted by the administration. Kill lists circulate online, while news of the latest politicians to be arrested spreads on social media.Blumenthal denounced what he described as “Pinochet-style regime of disappearances, assassinations, torture, arrests of all of Zelensky’s opposition, including his most popular and prominent opponent, the leader of the Ukrainian Patriots Party, Viktor Medvedchuk.”Chile’s General Pinochet, of course, used overwhelming violence as a tactic to force through economic measures to enrich his Western backers – measures that the population would not have accepted otherwise.Zelensky, too, it seems, is attempting to force through waves of privatization to revolutionize the Ukrainian economy. At the same time as jetting off to the New York Stock Exchange and proclaiming that Ukraine offers the best investment opportunity since World War Two, unions have effectively been banned across the country, and communists and labor rights activists have been jailed.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

After witnessing the ongoing attack from a coordinated campaign to silence him, tens of thousands of people from around the world have come out in support of hip hop artist, campaigner and host of the MintPress podcast “The Watchdog,” Lowkey. An online petition addressed to music giant Spotify, demanding it refuse to buckle to pressure from the Israel lobby to remove his music from its platform, has garnered over 40,000 signatures from members of the public.Joining the wave of support have been many of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Actors such as Mark Ruffalo, Michael Malarkey and Liam Cunningham have put their names to it, as have legendary musicians like Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Genesis’ Peter Gabriel and rock band Primal Scream.Prominent political figures have also stood behind Lowkey, including HRH Princess Dana Firas of Jordan, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and South African MP Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, the grandson of the anti-Apartheid hero Nelson Mandela. Support for Lowkey was perhaps strongest in the hip hop world, with figures such as DJ Charlie Sloth and rappers like Immortal Technique, Wretch 32 and Akala signing the petition.MintCast host Mnar Adley speaks to Lowkey about the extraordinary outpouring of global support he has received, why his activism and relentless campaigning for a free Palestine made him a target, and the growing success of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement worldwide.MintPress News is a fiercely independent, reader-supported outlet, with no billionaire owners or backers. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.Support the showMintPress News is a fiercely independent. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.