I’ve been watching political YouTube videos recently. As Stewart Lee says, “Where the people film themselves talking.” Mostly, I watch assorted leftists — people like Peter Coffin, Three Arrows, and (so unpretentious it is pretentious) Shaun.
I like all these people very much. But I do think we should call them YouTube Ranters. They are part of an online ecosystem. Much bigger are really vile right-wing loons like Paul Joseph Watson and Stefan Molyneux. And a fair amount of left-wing YouTube is spent debunking all the nonsense that comes from the right-wing echo-chamber.
BadMouseProductions
The most interesting person I’ve found online is BadMouseProductions. I don’t know his name. He says he isn’t a “furry.” I also don’t know what that is — maybe a person who dresses up like My Little Pony?
He used to be an anarcho-capitalist but announced one day that he could no longer support capitalism and became an anarcho-communist. Or something like that.
Patreon
BadMouseProductions is the only YouTube channel that I support. And for ten bucks a month, I get mentioned at the end of some videos. I got a whole screen because I’m new. In the future, I’ll just be part of a list. That’s good; I wasn’t sure I wanted my name in there at all. Regardless, I’m too disorganized to have stopped it.
But this involves using Patreon, which I hate. I don’t know how much money they skim but it strikes me as unethical in the way that the entire internet now is. One of the reasons I support this particular channel is that there isn’t much money pledged to it — especially considering just how great the videos are.
Economic Freedom Maps
I think the first video I saw was Debunking the Economic Freedom Map. I’ve been seeing these things for over a decade. And recently, I had to remove them from an article I edited about the best places to start a business. (I’d link to it, but it’s typical nonsense for would-be entrepreneurs — even if I thought I did some of my best work on it.)
These economic freedom maps are all reverse engineered: they start with the countries they want to rank high and then come up with the model. But even if this weren’t the case, the conservative idea of freedom is really messed up. It isn’t the freedom to do what you want but rather the freedom to try. Yes, you have the freedom to be a millionaire by buying a lottery ticket while Donald Trump has the freedom to have the money given to him while still a child.
This video does an excellent job of destroying these maps by looking at it from a Marxist perspective with lots of international insights — including some from Ha-Joon Chang. So it isn’t surprising that I would be struck by this work.
Answer Videos
BadMouse is also really good at answer videos. This one is great: Questions Liberals Can’t Answer (But Socialists Can). They are both crisp and, at times, hilarious.
These kinds of videos are also a good chance to see white nationalist videos without having to wade all the way through them — which is really hard. (For this, Shaun is better.) Even if you don’t follow much politics it doesn’t take long to notice some outrageous false or misleading statement.
Venezuela
BadMouseProductions has created at least two videos on Venezuela. The first was Argument ad Venezuelum, which is great. But just last week, he released Joanna Hausmann Is Lying About Venezuela. One thing, above all, that annoys me about the discussion of Venezuela is that our media’s tendency toward showing “all sides” of an issue on domestic matters is totally absent when it comes to Venezuela. The video takes on this issue in the person of privileged “white” Venezuelan Joanna Hausmann.
For some unknowable reason, we almost never hear from supporters of Maduro (and Chávez before him). Instead, any loud-mouth who criticizes the regime is held up as George Washington (but without all the slaves). BadMouse’s video was a small pushback.
Unfortunately, that video is not available so here is Argument ad Venezuelum:
Support BadMouseProductions
Hausmann’s Venezuela video has roughly 350,000 views whereas BadMouseProductions’ has less than 50,000. This is why you should support people like BadMouse who are doing great work but getting relatively little exposure and support. And by “support” I definitely include watching and sharing the videos. Even if you don’t learn anything, they are a couple of quantum levels above most popular YouTube videos.
BadMouse Playlist
BadMouse took down all his videos. He has put back up roughly three dozen, which you can see here:
Images taken from “Joanna Hausmann Is Lying About Venezuela” and used under Fair Use.
In an ideal world, BadMouse would be a researcher on some of the political-comedy TV shows I like — wouldn’t necessarily get his info into every piece, but is easily as good as anybody else doing research on those things. (And the best of those shows feature terrific research staffs.) That recent Venezuela piece is excellent. I don’t know how anybody can’t seriously think the US isn’t heavily involved, and for hugely selfish reasons… unless it’s a family tradition, as BadMouse shows.
This Elliott Abrams guy the US has put in charge. I didn’t know the name, but he’s serious Nuremberg war-criminal level of awful back to the 1980s, all kinds of horrific stuff I won’t mention.
If you want to keep your edited pieces out of sight, don’t describe in detail what they are, how recently they were published, and say “my best work.” I found it in 45 seconds, and recognized the style of subheads immediately. Good graphics text on that one. Typo in title. Unless it was somebody else copying your style of subheads, which is possible.
A typo in the title?! What do you mean? It seems fine. Or did you mean a subheading?
I don’t mind if people find it. What I don’t want is for a client to see someone clicking through, going to this page, and seeing that I have opinions. Not that they don’t know! In fact, I got put on this when a libertarian writer submitted something that was based on “freedom indexes” from Heritage and Fraiser. (I should point out, the writer is really good and I link them a lot personally — they’re much like me.)
BadMouse has been very critical of the John Oliver segment of Venezuela. But I’ve gotten the impression that overall he likes the show. I’m most impressed with his video editing skills. Take all the politics out and you still end up with good videos.
The thing about Venezuela is that our media are so meek. An official US friend can’t do anything bad enough to get sustained negative coverage. An official US enemy can’t do anything good enough to get any positive coverage at all.
Ah, I must have found an article you didn’t edit. And I thought I was so clever! It WAS rather late at night…
You’d think the media would learn, wouldn’t you? How many “freedom fighters” against official enemies have they supported, how many of those democracy saviors turned out to be anything but opportunistic jerks? (Hey, NYTimes, remember Ahmed Chalabi? No? I guess not.)
BadMouse definitely makes top-notch videos. Who knows, maybe the guy edits video for his “real” job (aka the shit we all have to do to pay rent).
Just search for: “Frank Moraes best places to start a business.”
The problem is that capitalism is really good at corrupting people. My experience is that the elites are every bit as chauvinistic as the rabble.
BadMouse works in a hotel — he talks about it in some of his videoes. He also talks about it on Patreon as a reason why a video is late. BTW, he’s released another video, but it doesn’t go public until Wednesday, I think. But he said that it would be the only one in February because he has to work a bunch at the hotel. I think it is one of those typical things where he works at a hotel he couldn’t afford to stay in.
Oh, I definitely got the wrong article! Same site, wrong article. That one I just searched for per instructions is terrific, might use it someday…
Now that you mention it, I remember BadMouse saying he worked in hotels. I guess I spaced that, thought he’d be some tech expat in Dublin by now. (The article I thought you did was about horribly cruel cities which are good for tech startups; Dublin isn’t on the list, but it certainly qualifies.)
Notice our good Minnesota congresscritter Ilhan Omar is in trouble for saying Israel treats Palestinians horribly, an undisputed truth outside of ideological cocoons. She also condemned the coup in Venezuela. Oh, noes! New member of Congress overstepping her bounds!
Well, guess what, assholes. I know that district, and there’s no way in hell any Democrat can lose there. Omar put the legwork into serving the community, she won the nomination, she’s there until she’s caught on video eating the brains of baby kittens.
She’s doing exactly what Democrats should have been doing for decades. In contested elections, be centrist. In solid elections, start pushing that Overton window back the other way.
I’m relatively happy with that article. I particularly liked finding the images for it. And when it came to the images of the poor countries, it was hard. The etymology of the article is really complex. I’d tell you about it but I suspect that I’m not allowed. But even though it is part of the would-be-entrepreneur genre, I’m happy to have my name on it.
Did you see Ilhan Omar talk to Elliot Abrams? It was great. “That wasn’t a question.” It’s amazing in our country that people like Abrams get to live their lives without being confronted with the fact that they are war criminals. Instead of being indignant, he should be rotting in a cage somewhere.
I did see that! Someday I’d like to write an article titled “Note To Republicans: Ilhan Omar Is Tougher Than You.” Because that’s 100% true.
On the moral scale of war criminals, there’s levels of degrees. I haven’t been arrested for protesting the Pentagon, so I’m complicit. We all are.
This Abrams guy… he’s not lazy & corrupt. He digs it. He loves every heinous crime against humanity he’s ever been responsible for. Turns his crank.
You’d best believe a woman who escaped civil war AND moved to the coldest urban center in America AND won a primary the notoriously corrupt local DFL didn’t want her in ain’t gonna take no s**t from a cheapjack little Kommandant clone like this loser.
She won’t win this round. But she ain’t going nowhere.
Did you see the comment from jch? He (?) brought up Omar and others as claiming “only people of color can speak truth.” He said this while claiming that I was completely wrong about racism in America and that the Democrats are the real racists because he saw Ike fighting racist Democrats 60 years ago.
I was struck by Omar in numerous ways. I look forward to seeing more of her because I don’t have a handle yet.
You get some odd cats on here, that’s for sure! The funny thing about that one is Omar’s district switched from Republican to Democratic in 1963. Exactly the point in time you mention the parties switching sides on civil rights!
There’s a part of me that wants to know why somebody is websearching for “Harriet Tubman on money” articles just so they can be cranky about it. But it’s probably best not to know. Sad conspiracy theory soul holes and what not.
I just saw a video in which Ben Shapiro makes the same claim. He throws out a few cherry-picked facts like that the southern Democrats didn’t instantly turn Republican and that the new southern Republicans weren’t the same as the old southern Democrats. Both points are meaningless. And then he quotes someone, saying that he “proved” that there wasn’t a switch. It’s amazing to me how far Republicans will go to claim that they aren’t a party whose only claim to electoral viability is racial resentment.
I suspect that guy was searching for articles claiming that the new currency was an outrage.
I have to know:
What’s wrong w/ Patreon?
Patreon takes 5% of all money transferred — plus other fees. That’s even worse than PayPal.
Overall, I like the service. But as banking costs go down, charges go up. I have to pay $25 whenever a client does a wire transfer (the client pays a similar amount). A check is free, even though it costs the bank more to cash a check. It’s outrageous. But whatever the market will bear, am I right? It’s got to be this way because: freedom!
But I don’t hate Patreon any more than I do any other such company.