Elon Musk’s Cozy Ties With The Military Industrial Complex, With Alan MacLeod

02/01/23 • 53 min

Via the Twitter Files, new Twitter owner Elon Musk has helped to reveal several hair-raising stories about the extent of U.S. national security state operations on social media. However, as today’s guest explains, Musk himself is a key cog in the military-industrial and surveillance states being built by Washington.
Joining Lowkey today is return guest Alan MacLeod, a Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017, Alan published two books: “Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting” and “Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent,” as well as a number of academic articles.
The podcast begins with Alan discussing Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, a space firm and military contractor with close links to the CIA. He describes how SpaceX’s Starlink communications devices are being used by both the Ukrainian military and by anti-government activists in Iran to further Washington’s goals in those two countries.
As Alan explains, Starlink is “an internet service which allows anyone with a terminal to directly connect to one of many thousands of satellites that are orbiting the earth.”
Such channels of communication can prove to be of use towards the CIA and other intelligence services in the region, such as Mossad, which retains an illustrious reputation of purporting misinformation to support the overthrow of democratically elected governments in the Middle East. Stalinks also allow ways for U.S.-backed groups inside the country to remain online and in communication with one another without the knowledge of the government.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has been one of the U.S.’ prime targets for regime change.
Suspicion towards Musk continued to rocket, as we delved further into his relationship with both NASA and more generally the National Security State. Alan describes how, from the very outset, Musk’s company was nurtured by the CIA in with the explicit expectation that it would work closely with Washington and become a key asset once established. SpaceX was also bankrolled by the U.S. government to the tune of billions of dollars.
The dialogue then shifts to the revelations discovered from the Twitter Files, the direct involvement of American intelligence personnel in the production of the video game series “Call of Duty,” and later the role played by U.S., Israeli and even German intelligence agencies in carrying out the assassination of Iranian general and statesman, Qassem Soleimani. The pair also discuss the disastrous effects of U.S. militarism, noting that at least 6 million people have died in America’s po

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The MintPress podcast, “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.
Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

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Meet The Man Arrested for Questioning King Charles – Lowkey Talks to Symon Hill

Support for the British Monarchy has rapidly declined, especially among young people, where near equal amounts of respondents say the country should become a republic as continue with the current system. In this episode of “The Watchdog,” Lowkey speaks to Symon Hill, a British activist who was recently arrested for questioning the proclamation of Charles as King following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth.

Lowkey begins by scrutinizing the infrastructure of information in British society. In doing so, the British-Iraqi rapper makes multiple references to the coordinated smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, and how it was orchestrated by private organizations following his nomination to lead the Labour Party. The conversation then shifts to the main topic of today, the unpopularity of King Charles III. Charles has been pelted in public with eggs on two separate occasions since his mother’s death.

Protesting the proclamation of King Charles III, Symon Hill, who had been arrested, stressed how he:

Finds it hard to stomach that in the 21st century, anybody being told that we must accept a head of state, with no say at all in who that is...so when this was said about Charles as Lord and King, I called out, who elected him?...”

Talking about his detention, Hill added:

It was me who they grabbed hold of and dragged me away and arrested me...what really appalls me, if you watch the video of that man heckling [Prince] Andrew, is that a few royalists in the crowd basically grab him and start beating him up and yet the police don’t arrest them.”

Formerly a campaigns manager at the Peace Pledge Union, Hill currently teaches history via evening courses for the Workers' Educational Association. “...If you can be arrested for saying a couple of sentences in the street that the establishment don’t like, then I think we’re in a very scary place,” he said.

The conversation steers to the absurdities of the recently passed Police Crime Sentencing Courts Act (2022). Equipping the Metropolitan Police with arbitrary powers, the law will “restrict movement at protests...it allows them [the police] to close down protests that are considered too noisy,” Hill warned. According to many domestic organizations, the act itself is a fundamental threat to the ideals and standards of British democracy and should be repealed immediately.

Watch the whole interview here, exclusively at MintPress News.

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Next Episode

Lowkey and Sukhdev Reel Talk Justice for Ricky Reel

After being chased by racists through London in 1997, Ricky Reel was found dead in the River Thames. For many years, his family struggled to convince the Metropolitan Police to investigate his death. Ricky’s mother Sukdhev was then later informed that SpyCops from the Special Demonstration Squad had spied on the family campaign. Lowkey speaks to the grieving mother still struggling for justice for her son almost 20 years later.

“Throughout his 20 years, there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t missed him...the police officer told me the story, told me that Ricky and his friends had been attacked...still turned around and said, I’m sorry, I’m not going to take a statement...”

While police racism has become a national issue in the United States, the situation in the U.K., if Reel’s case is anything to go by, is not so dissimilar. “They were racist,” Sukdhev said of the police, adding,

They were stereotyping our family because we happened to be an Asian, working-class family. And also sexism was also in there because I’m a woman. I stood up to face them.”

She also claimed that once her son’s body was found, the police categorically refused to investigate the matter.

Continuing the conversation, Lowkey discusses the Special Demonstration Squad. This undercover unit infiltrated hundreds of groups for over 40 years, including the Justice for Ricky Reel Campaign, which Sukdhev set up to investigate the death of her son.

“Why did they spy on me? All I was asking was for justice for my son. All I was asking was for you to do a proper investigation, simply because I kept on pointing on their mistakes...I felt like a second-class citizen. They treated me like dirt," she said.

Watch the whole interview here, exclusively at MintPress News.

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