Upstream - Breaking the Chains of Empire w/ Abby Martin (Live Show)

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

U.S. empire—the world’s greatest enemy. U.S. imperialism is not a "single issue," it's directly connected to hundreds of millions of people's lives, capital accumulation and global inequality, climate change, fascism in the US, crumbling infrastructure, monopolies, and much, much more. U.S. imperialism is the issue that ties all of the other issues together, founded as it is on capital's need to accumulate profits and maintain U.S. political hegemony. There is not a single issue in your life that cannot be traced back to our empire and its maintenance. Today’s episode is a special live conversation we did last month in Los Angeles with the terrific Abby Martin. Abby is journalist, filmmaker, activist, founder of The Empire Files and director of the films Gaza Fights for Freedom and the upcoming documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy, which focuses on one particular aspect of U.S. empire: its environmental impact. The U.S. military is the largest institutional source of climate emissions on the planet—and yet it’s exempt from the climate protocols that aim to reduce emissions. However, this is not the only way the US Empire harms the planet. Abby’s upcoming film, as well as our conversation with her, take a deep dive into imperialism’s wider environmental impacts. We also discuss Abby’s other work, including her 2019 film, Gaza Fights for Freedom, which documents the Great March of Return in Palestine. We talk about what she learned in 2017 from her time in Jerusalem and witnessing Israeli society first hand, her experience being an unapologetically anti-Zionist voice for so many years, the business of war, the upcoming elections, the role of alternative media in breaking the chains of empire and much more.  Thank you to All Power Books in Los Angeles for organizing this event—they are a radical bookstore and community space that are the real deal. Check them out and support their incredible work at: allpowerbooks.org. And also, visit earthsgreatestenemy.com to chip in and support Abby and her team in getting their film past the finish line—they are still raising funds to complete production.  Further Resources: Donate to Earth’s Greatest Enemy Gaza Fights for Freedom Breakthrough News Project Censored Jerusalem street interviews All Power Books Donate to All Power Books Join us in supporting Palestine at MECA, Anera, or the Palestinian Red Crescent Society Related Episodes: Better Lives for All w/ Jason Hickel Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly [UNLOCKED] How the North Plunders the South w/ Jason Hickel Palestine Pt. 11: Israel and the U.S. Empire w/ Max Ajl Nationalism and the Error of Patriotic Socialism w/ Sina Rahmani and Nick Climate Leninism w/ Jodi Dean and Kai Heron Upstream's ongoing series on Palestine Covert art: Gage from All Power Books Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.    

Ah Ah All of these issues are interconnected. Global capitalism, the US military being the enforcer and protector of a system that defies all logic. How could we poison ourselves? How could we sit back and allow these corporations to kill us? And so for me, all the problems are connected to this. It's all through this system and everyone around the world is suffering under its boot. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. U.S. Empire. The world's greatest enemy. U.S. imperialism is not a quote single issue. It's directly connected to hundreds of millions of people's lives, capital accumulation and global inequality, climate change, fascism in the US, crumbling infrastructure, monopolies, and much, much more.

US imperialism is the issue that ties all of the other issues together, founded as it is on capital's need to accumulate profits and maintain US political hegemony. There is not a single issue in your life that cannot be traced back to our empire and its maintenance. Today's episode is a live conversation we did last month in Los Angeles with the terrific Abby Martin.

Abby is a journalist, filmmaker, activist, founder of The Empire Files, and director of the films Gaza Fights for Freedom, and the upcoming documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy, which focuses on one particular aspect of U.S. empire, its environmental impact. The U.S. military is the largest institutional source of climate emissions on the planet,

and yet it's exempt from the climate protocols that aim to reduce emissions. However, this is not the only way that the U.S. empire harms the planet. Abby's upcoming film, as well as our conversation with her, take a deep dive into imperialism's wider environmental impact. We also discuss Abby's other work, including her 2019 film, Gaza Fights for Freedom, which documented the great march of return in Palestine. We talk about what she learned in 2017 from her time in Jerusalem and witnessing Israeli society first-hand, her experience being an unapologetically anti-Zionist voice for so

many years. The business of war, the upcoming elections, the role of alternative media in breaking the chains of empire, and much more. Thank you to All Power Books in Los Angeles for organizing this event. They're a radical bookstore and community space, and they are the real deal. Check them out and support their incredible work at allpowerbooks.org. And also, visit earthsgreatestenemy.com to chip in and support Abby and her team in getting their film past the finish line. They're still raising funds to complete production. We'll throw all of those links in the show notes. And before we get started, Upstream is almost entirely listener-funded. We could not keep this

project going without your support. There are a number of ways in which you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bonus episodes, at least one a month, but usually more, along with our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes at patreon.com forward slash upstream podcast. And you can also make a tax deductible recurring donation or a one time donation on our website, upstream podcast.org forward slash support. Through your support, you'll be helping us to keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here is our live conversation with Abby Martin. Hello, everybody. It's really amazing to see so many faces out here. And thank you so much, Jesse, for the warm introduction. And I also wanna just also thank All Power

and the Church of Christ and everybody who helped put this together. Like Jesse said, we've been planning this for a while, so it's really exciting to see it happening. And I also wanna say thank you to Abby for being here and being our very first live podcast guest. So I'm particularly excited to be having this conversation because as I think a lot of us have been thinking about imperialism and empire for a long time now. Like we've been doing

a lot of episodes on imperialism and US empire and so I couldn't be more excited to be having this conversation and particularly this is a topic that covers like a very broad range of different issues. Of course there's the ongoing genocide happening in Palestine which is very front and center I think on a lot of our minds but it stretches out to you right there's the US presidential elections are very much tied to this issue obviously. I mean I think the last week has been kind of a horror show for a lot of us watching. There is issues of underdevelopment and like the global north global south relations that we've been focusing a lot on the show.

The list goes on, but there's also importantly one that I personally haven't been thinking about too much, but I think I'm very excited to be talking about tonight, which is the issue of climate change and the environment and how that pertains to the US military. So yeah, I mean I'd love it if we could start with maybe an introduction to the film Earth's Greatest Enemy and maybe if you could tell us a little bit about like what actually inspired you to take that approach, like why look at the US military with the angle of like pollution, environmental impacts, and climate change?

Thank you so much everyone for coming out. It's amazing to see everyone here. Thank you All Power Books and thank you Upstream. And I'm super honored to be here. So Earth's Greatest Enemy, we've been working on it for like four years now because the topic just keeps unraveling into more things. But I'm super excited to put it out finally in a couple months. The seeds of the documentary basically came out of me and my husband Mike Preisner, who's also the producer on Empire Files, our shared passion for anti-war

activism, anti-imperialist organizing, coupled with our profound climate anxiety, which was exacerbated greatly in the wake of having our first child in 2020. We started just thinking like, what world is this going to look like when our kid is our age? And it's a very scary prospect to think about actually.

I was reading my friend Dar Jamal's book, The End of Ice, and just a statistic that just stuck with me was, by 2100, alpine glaciers will be gone. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, when the majority of fresh water on the planet comes from glaciers, that's a really big deal. And it's really scary. And what role is the US military

going to play when we enter into this new phase of the climate crisis, right? That's a very dystopian vision because they're not just going to be deployed all around the world with the increasing, you know, basically the lack of resources and the increasing wars over the depletion of these resources, they're going to be used here at home against us. All the unrest that's going to be happening here around the border with the refugee crisis that's going to exacerbate, the US military, we've seen how they become militarized just in the last 20 years. I was looking at photographs from Oscar Grant protests back in Oakland 20 years ago. The police look quaint.

Now they're fucking storm troopers. That is going to be used on us. So as much as the U.S. military is now branding itself as environmental stewards and they're actually advertising, oh you have anxiety about climate change? Come join the military and we can actually be a force for good. We know exactly what that means. It means repression at home and it means depletion of resources abroad to secure these strategic resources for a very, very, very tiny group of people who continue to profit off of this environmental collapse. And so there was this huge disconnect. I mean, there's this enormous climate movement around the world. Millions of people in the street,

there's people taking really dramatic actions, because we don't have time, right? We do not have time to waste. And so you see incredible things happening, but there's still this disconnect with the growing And so you see incredible things happening, but there's still this disconnect with the growing anti-imperialist movement around the world that's centering Palestine right now and it's a beautiful thing to see and so we felt like this film was a really necessary intervention in that movement and we hope that it can really change the conversation and bridge these very important struggles together But you know US military missions was our entry point into the film, and then it became so much bigger because it's just the tip of the iceberg. Like,

it is such a gargantuan topic, and so we traveled from Alaska to Hawaii to Guam to Okinawa to cover and document military pollution and also the indigenous struggles and fight back against this. And so we're very excited to put the film out soon. As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. These were words from this week from Kamala Harris. And of course, in anticipation of speaking with you, the most lethal force in the world, I couldn't help but connect that to Earth's greatest enemy.

So I love the take that you're taking on all the ways that it is the US military is, the US empire is the most lethal force in the world. So let's start with carbon emissions. Paint that picture for us. How is the US military contributing to climate change at the carbon emissions level? Let's start there. Yeah and also can I just like quickly comment on destroy the planet a hundred times over with nukes so like girl we're good we're super good we just want fucking healthcare we do not want we don't want this no one wants

this yeah and and i do want to talk about the other ways too but i'll start with carbon emissions because it is it's crazy and you've probably heard the statistic that the Pentagon is the largest institutional polluter. And that's based on just their oil purchases on paper. It's actually so much bigger than that. It's actually really crazy. I mean, the U.S. military is completely unparalleled in size. All of those oil purchases go to the ridiculous amount of aircraft, land vehicles and naval

power that we have. It's unparalleled, it's fucking huge and it's unnecessary. Let's just look at aircraft alone. We have a bigger arsenal of aircraft than the next seven countries combined. Outrageous. And when you just look, let's just paint a picture of just one of these aircrafts. Because when you hear this, you think, oh, they're all just ready to be deployed in case there's something that happens. No. All of these vehicles,

all of these aircraft are just pointlessly on missions to patrol land, air, sea to maintain like mission readiness. So it's literally just pointlessly patrolling 24-7. We have like floating gas stations. There's actual planes that just refuel planes. Like no one else has this. But one B-52 bomber, one B-52 bomber, which the US is flying around like 50 of these all the time every day to maintain mission readiness. That's one flight mission of a B-52 bomber is equivalent to the average American driving a hundred years. I mean, that's it, right? Like what else do you need to know? I mean, it's absolutely insane that this is what we're dealing with. But when you look at that and you're like, oh my God, there's this huge fleet, this huge arsenal, that's insane.

And that's just like what's reported, right? The climate emissions make the Pentagon a bigger polluter than 140 countries. But then when you dig into the life cycle emissions, what is it taking in terms of emissions to produce all of these weapons, to ship all of these weapons, to extract all the rare earth minerals and maintain this massive global military empire? Then the number shoots up, way up. Then there's the unquantifiable emissions of what is all of this for? What are we using all this

equipment for? War. You can't quantify that. You can't quantify blowing up metropolises, decimating entire areas. Look at what they've done to Gaza. All of that green space, all of the carbon-intensive buildings, and then they're going to give it to defense contractors and people like Halliburton and all of these rich billionaires and their corporations to rebuild these destroyed cities from war. So it truly becomes completely impossible to quantify. But if you're not pissed off yet,

here's the real fun part, is that the US military is exempt from all of the climate pledges, all of these international treaties that are touted as what's gonna save us, right? Everyone's getting together every year, all the global leaders get together and they pledge we commit ourselves to net zero by 2050. All of this is completely meaningless because the very first annual conference that addressed all of this the U.S. lobbied to have its military exempt and all the other countries followed suit and so none of this means anything if we're not talking about the totality of the problem anything if we're not talking about the totality of the problem and that's terrifying. It is, it is terrifying and we're here to talk about it and we're

here to listen to it and I know even sitting here it's it's not easy to hear so thank you for for truth-telling and thank you for all of us listening. So I know that you said that you you pulled this thread around carbon emissions of the U.S. military and then it led to all these other ways that the U.S. military, U.S. empire, is impacting our planet. So maybe share another example, maybe a more surprising example of what you found through your documentary. I mean I think another obvious one of probably people in this room is just the fossil fuel infrastructure that's propped up and maintained by this global military empire. So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have a thousand military bases, basically you have them to

justify, oh we need this access in the supply chains and the production routes to maintain and extract all of these resources and the trade routes, but then we need the oil to fuel our massive military empire. So it's just a cycle that continues and continues and continues. I think, you know, the toxic dumping, it seems obvious that, you know, every base is basically a wasteland of toxic dumping. The military dumps forever chemicals here and abroad. 75% of all superfund sites in the U.S., these are toxic sites that are declared like in

immediate need of remediation. They need to be cleaned up now. 75% of those in the U.S. are current or former military installations. Abroad, just imagine the lack of regulation, imagine the lack of environmental oversight, all of the bases abroad. So every base quite literally is not just a toxic dumping ground, but also a testing ground for the indigenous communities. There's cancer clusters, there's just wastelands, there's the toxic fallout from war. I mean from Vietnam to Iraq, There's the toxic fallout from war. I mean from Vietnam to Iraq, warfare renders places uninhabitable for generations. And I'm not just talking about depleted

uranium. Bullets, bullets actually, small munitions, that has the biggest impact. We talked to leading toxicologists who are studying the fallout from the Iraq war. There's nowhere safe in Iraq. Not one place in Iraq is safe to live. That's from bullets. And there's nowhere that the US military is training or conducting warfare that doesn't use munitions. There's still dead zones from wars a 100 years ago in Europe. I mean, that's insane, right? There's habitat destruction. I mean, this is insane too.

Wherever the US builds a base, like for example in Okinawa, there's already 32 bases in a place the size of Rhode Island. They're building another one in a very pristine bay called the Ora Bay. There's an endangered blue coral reef. There's this beautiful dugong mammal that's like the prize of you know this incredible cherished mammal by the Okinawan people. They're building this base, they're land filling a mountain, they're blowing it up and they're just pouring fucking dirt into this bay cover and no one wants this.

Like who asked for this, right? The Okinawan people have been fighting militantly for 20 years, but it's a runaway train. It literally is a runaway train. I mean, like the military industrial complex is just, it's just a cash cow, and they've been building this thing for 25 years. Nuclear waste is another one that I think because it's kind of in the backdrop, people have forgotten that there's entire places in the US

that are just uninhabitable because of our nuclear weapons production. Navajo land, I mean, all of the plutonium poisoning. And guess what? We need new ones. We need next generation nukes because our nuclear arsenal isn't good enough. We can destroy the entire planet several times over, but we need bigger and better. So they're

developing next-gen nukes and what does that mean? It means digging new plutonium pits. 18 I think every year. I mean, the catastrophic fallout that has the potential from these pits is, it's unbelievable. So every aspect of this has a million stories and you could do a whole documentary on them and that, you know, we're deciding to approach this. We wanna cover it all and it's important. Warfare renders a place uninhabitable for

generations. I just heard you say that and not just for human but for the more than human world as well and I really hear you in all these stories that you've that you found and that you tell. So let's go to a clip of the film. We get to see a clip tonight of the not yet released film, Earth's Greatest Enemy. Before we show it, is there anything you want to say by way of introduction? Yeah, I wanted to introduce this clip by talking really briefly about Rim Pack, which is a story that we cover in the film. It's the Rim of the Pacific, it's the biggest war games in the world hosted by the United States off the coast of Hawaii and I went there somehow

They fucking approved me. I have no idea. The military is really fucking stupid, too They forgot to Google me I guess So I'm on this boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean not just boat It's like a giant naval aircraft carrier in the middle of Pacific Ocean I guess the only thing they could have done was thrown me off board and they didn't want that fanfare yet. So I'm there with this small group of defense reporters and what I realize is it's not just the lobbyists, it's not just the defense contractors, it's quite literally like a huge interlocking web of institutional bodies including media that exists to glorify and defend the U.S. military.

And so all these reporters I was with literally just follow around the military and report and marvel at the latest generation of weapons. Oh, my God, this is such cool technology. So what kind of new planes you got this year? I mean, it's just bizarre. So let's take a look at the clip because I think it really kind of speaks volumes and then I do want to talk more about RIMPAC afterwards. So let's check it out. I'm here at the Airspace and Cyber Conference in Washington, DC. It's one of the many events that takes place here every year in the nation's capital, where

the top brass of the military gets together with weapons contractors to strengthen their relationship and, of course, do some shopping. the top brass of the military gets together with weapons contractors to strengthen their relationship and of course, do some shopping. It's a mass gathering of the military industrial complex that most Americans never get to see, even though they're paying for it. All right, let's walk to the expo hall. So we got, of course, all the premier defense contractors sponsoring this event.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, GE, Northrop Grumman, Bay Systems, General Dynamics, a lot of defense contractors here. I'm going to go get some stickers from Lockheed Martin. Rolls Royce. What the hell is that about? We got some direct energy weapons. I didn't know Rolls Royce did lasers. News to me.

That's where all our money's gone. All right. Go ahead and fire a missile here. So here we go. There's one. And there's the other guy. See if we got the kill. We did. So victory roll. There you go. Wow.

That was crazy. How much does one of those run? You know, they're going to be somewhere around $80 million. I can get you the family ring if you're interested. It sounds like a very interesting piece, documentary, on climate change and the impact that defense industries have on it. Yes. Well, I mean, it's for a documentary, you know, I would say that it's, I'm just trying

to think, it sounds to me like it's a complicated much more of a political piece. What's that? It sounds to me like it's much more much more of a political piece. What's that? It sounds to me like it's much more of a political piece of sorts. Uh-huh. Correct? Uh, I mean everything's political, isn't it? No, no, this is... I mean, you're a defense contractor, right?

Yeah, yeah, go ahead. You're a defense contractor, I mean. Let's be honest. You sell weapons that kill people, right? It's as political as it gets. Oh, say can you see By the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed At the twilight's last gleaming

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air The bombs bursting in air The bombs bursting in air The bombs bursting in air The bombs burst in air The bombs

The bombs The bombs Another question. We have time for one more. Is that okay? Wait a minute. Wait, I want a woman. I want a woman. A woman. Gender equality. Maybe I don't, but...

Abby Martin with The Empire Files. Speaker Pelosi, you just presided over a large increase in the Pentagon budget. This Pentagon budget is already massive. The Pentagon is a larger polluter than 140 countries. How can we seriously talk about net zero if there is this bipartisan consensus to constantly expand this large contributor to climate change, which is exempt from these conferences?

Military is exempt from climate talks. Governor, do you agree about not including emissions from the military in these climate negotiations? My answer stands, thank you very much. But you didn't say yes or no. The emissions from the military should be exempt negotiations? My answer stands, thank you very much. But you didn't say yes or no. The emissions from the military should be exempt. Do you agree with that? I want to say thank you to our Oregon National Guard

for stepping up. Unfortunately, they're telling us they have to clean the room. I didn't know about that. Why is this following us? Because we're filming right now. Oh, I'm being filmed. I'm sorry, I didn't authorize this.

Why are we building so many bases surrounding China? Isn't that agitating for wars? Why do you think the United States is entitled to dominate the Arctic? Why are we building so many bases surrounding China? Isn't that agitating for wars? Why do you think the United States is entitled to dominate the Arctic? I don't appreciate your attitude right now. Do you have time for one more quick statement? I have to join another group. I apologize. Sorry about that. Okay. Any, any con- I mean you mentioned Okinawa and Guam. I can walk with you to the next place.

Lieutenant General Kane, quick question. We're not doing any remarks. Just contact the public. Okay. So if you want to type that question out, happy to answer. What does that mean we're making a connection? I think it was you who said that RIMPAC is actually an environmentally friendly exercise. I mean, how could you say that though when you guys are using live ordnance, dropping, you know, actual real missiles, using live ammunition?

I mean, that can't be what you really think. I incredibly value a free press. Again, I support a free press in every possible way. You didn't actually answer the question, though. And that's an applause line, in case you didn't know. We can applaud ourselves. We can applaud ourselves. We can applaud ourselves. That was so good. I just first want to like kudos to the production on that like really well done bombs bursting

in air. And like, I was getting a lot of vibes that like this could have also been something at the DNC in this last week, like very similar vibe, especially when like Nancy Pelosi was like awkwardly like shuffling with her scarf when you asked her the question. That was so good. Yeah, no, thank you for that that's that's amazing and do you want to say anything about that like you said you want to follow up with RIMPAC and I don't know if you also want to like share a little bit about what it was like to be in those

spaces because yeah that's it's sucked it's really weird. I mean, like, it just shows the absurdity of all of this and how literally, I mean, no one at this defense contractor conference was there to ask hard questions. And that's why they were all just so like, what? Like, everyone was running away and then they're like, oh, no, no, I value a free press. You should basically be grateful that I'm allowing you to ask me questions even though we're not answering them. They said that to me over and over and over again at RIMPAC, too. They were just like, thank you, we value a free press. It was very weird and dystopian.

But yeah, the part where the people are just staring at the camera, I was going for, I don't know if anyone's seen Samsara or Baraka vibes, but I just would go up to these guys and I'd be like hi I work for like a local paper and can I just take a picture of you with this bomb next to you and they're just like just like filming them for 10 seconds and they're just like ah just so it's just so so so creepy honestly but yeah RIMPAC was a similar vibe because you realize that no one's there to actually hold these people accountable to ask real questions about what impact the war games are having on the

world's oceans. And it's really, really nuts actually because no one really talks about that. And I want to just quickly talk about the response from some of these generals and admirals and stuff that I was confronting on the ship. Their whole language is like we're environmental stewards, like I mentioned. We actually protect the environment. And this is because they were sued by several environmental organizations about 10 years

ago because of the use of high frequency sonar. And they use this on like 70% of the world's oceans. People may know that sonar like completely turns the world of marine mammals into a grinding hell. It disrupts everything, breeding, eating, navigation. These mammals depend on this for all of those things. To them, it's not training. It's fucking war 24-7 in the ocean. And every time that the Navy has these wargame exercises out in the ocean,

which they're, you know, they're doing this across the majority of the world's oceans, every time there's mass whale beachings. Every time. The eardrums just blow out. And so they were sued. And so what they did was they now incorporate this language, right? It's just the same way that the Democratic Party co-ops the language and the rhetoric of environmentalism and our struggles and then uses it for marketing and propaganda. And that's exactly what they've done now. They deal with this by having an 18-year-old whale scout on the boat. And if they don't see a dolphin fin or a whale spout well then full steam

ahead turn on the sonar I mean it's cartoonishly absurd that that's the way that they're mitigating preventing disruption to these crucial habitats I mean this is like crucial to staving off the worst impacts of climate change because marine mammals absorb I mean they provide so much oxygen they're breathing the lungs into a lot of the life in the ocean. So here's where it gets really infuriating, is that NOAA, which is the administration

of the government that actually renders a lot of these mammals endangered species, they're the same ones that actually give the permits every year to the Navy for their takes. They call every mammal that they injure, harass, or kill a take. And in these permits, we looked through all the documents and we added up all the numbers and it took a couple times because I couldn't believe my eyes of how many takes the Navy has allowed. Millions every year, millions of dolphins, whale. I didn't even know there was millions of dolphins. That's how many mammals they're harming in the ocean.

That's what our government grants them to do. And so to be gas-lit, no, no, we're stewards of the environment. We protect the environment. Oh, but every year we ask for more takes. So it's honestly one of the most upsetting parts of doing this research because I didn't know. I didn't know this and I'm so mad. I'm so fucking mad. So yeah, so you know, it's just absolutely insane and this whole just experience just the fact that there's no other reporters doing that. Like why? Why is there no accountability?

Why is no one confronting these people about this? This is crazy. Do you think they're gonna let you back ever? No, it's fucking wild to think about that and that's just like marine mammals, right? That's just like one aspect of the whole project. So I've been thinking a lot about how this, like the U.S. military and this aspect of empire is, it's really kind of like the violent political layer that exists above this foundation of like zooming out and thinking about what this is all actually about, right? Like this isn't about spreading democracy or taking out bad guys and like whatever the fuck in different countries. This is about capital accumulation, right? This is about ensuring that there is a free flow of resources and cheap labor from the global south to the global

north, that there's a free market basically where all the different corporations and firms and countries can do whatever the fuck they want. So yeah, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that aspect of it too and the underlying foundation of everything, which is capital accumulation. Particularly, we've been talking a little bit about the violent sort of military layer of that, but then also there's this flip side too of like, this is a business, right? Like we've alluded to this and the firms and the clips and all the weapons contractors, like they're making a lot of money off of this. Like this is a business and it's a thriving business.

I think I saw a tweet the other day that was like, someone was asking like, who was that line that Kamala Harris was like, you know, we have the most lethal military on earth or whatever. They're like, who was that for? And then there was like a graph in the quote tweet of Lockheed Martin stocks going up, right? Like that's who the line was for, you know?

So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that aspect of it too. Yeah, and I saw that graph. It's like really high. It's like this and then it goes, probably because of the war in Gaza. The genocide that Lockheed Martin is just bankrolling and you know cashing in on. I mean I think oil is the perfect entry point to understanding how the US

military is basically the enforcer and protector of global capitalism. Because look at the Middle East, look at the Persian Gulf. Why does the US have bases there? What was Iraq? I mean, that's like a trope we all know and have learned for the last 20 years. The war was quite clearly about oil. Why is the US in Syria admittedly protecting the oil fields? Why is the corporate media and US political establishment obsessed with demonizing Venezuela? They have the largest oil

reserves in the world. But then you extrapolate that out, oh and also just propping up oil rich dictatorships undermining leftist governments to basically that don't acquiesce their natural resources and want to nationalize them. But then when you extrapolate that out, it's everything. It's not just oil. It's every single resource and rare earth mineral. It's finance capital. It's keeping countries on the dollar. It's upholding all of these institutional bodies from the World Bank to the IMF to these arbitration courts to keep the developing world underdeveloped at the expense of them to just line the pockets of the very, very few. And like I said, I mean, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the more bases you have,

the more potential and risk for war and conflict. And then you justify those bases because you need the access to our strategic interests, right? As one general told me at the conference, well, we need to secure access. That's why we need to dominate the Arctic. Well, what interests are you talking about? Oh, you're talking about whatever

lies beneath the melting glaciers. That's what you want to dominate. And again, we need the big military to get the oil and we need the oil to feed and fuel our military. And the US military is quite literally the protector and enforcer of this global system. And it's continuing to keep the entire world hostage at the barrel of a gun and with our nuclear weapons.

And I think countries at this point know they need to bow down to the dictates of the US or else. Or else. Look at what the US has done to prevent anything from happening to Israel. So, you know, listeners of this podcast, obviously, you know, fans of all power books. I mean, capitalism is completely unsustainable. It's necessitates, I mean it's necessitated by endless growth. How do you have endless growth on a finite planet? How? We're digging our own graves and these people, the very very few at the very top, are the ones benefiting at the expense of not just humanity, not just the billions of people on the planet left to suffer and die in the wake of their profits.

But the planet itself is completely imperiled by the system. You cannot have a global military empire and a habitable planet. There's no way that that ever makes sense and there's no greening our way out of this Elizabeth Warren. You can't green a global military empire. You can't slap the solar panel on the thousand bases and call it a day when you have an arsenal of aircraft and tanks and floating gas stations and like one guy at the defense contractor conference told me this lobbyist he said it's a fucking pipe dream that you think we're gonna get off oil these activists need to learn something we're never gonna get

off oil oil runs the world I was like, I wish I had that shit on camera, dude. That was crazy. So, you know, there's no greening our way out of this. We have to abolish it. Economic growth is the rate at which the capitalist economy is cannibalizing the natural world. That's a quote from Jason Hickel. And I'm really hearing both of you go upstream from the challenges of our time to the root root causes. So, U.S. hegemony, imperialism, capitalism.

And yeah, the answer, the antidote to abolish it, to break the chains of empire, right? And to turn towards what's more solidaristic, regenerative, and sustainable. And I know that many of us cannot think about, talk about US empire and US militarism without our minds and our hearts going to Gaza. And I wanna turn now to Gaza and what's happening there

and particularly go into your longstanding relationship. So your work, particularly Gaza Fights for Freedom was before October 7th. So I know that and other work that you've done has been longstanding. And so I'd love for you to tell us what has that relationship been like and what did those moments, those interviews,

that documentary in particular, how did that help inform how you're viewing, how you're feeling into what is happening now? Yeah, when we made when we made Gaza fights for freedom, it was because my colleagues in Gaza had requested it. Because we all know how the media covers this. And at the time, I felt like it was one of the craziest things that Israel had ever done.

Yes, they've done a lot of crazy shit. But up until that point, I mean the methodical, methodical slaughter from Israeli snipers perched behind sand dunes for months, executing one by one children, medics, journalists marked press, disabled people, slaughtering civilians for fun. For fun. These Palestinians were going out every week for months and months and months with bared chests, peacefully, even though we know they have the right to armed resistance, codified by international law. No, they were doing what liberals had asked them to do for years. Where's the Palestinian Gandhi? Why don't they protest peacefully? Well, this is what happens

when they protest peacefully. They're killed en masse, just the same. And so my Palestinian friends there said, please, we want Americans to understand that we don't want to die, that we love life just the same as they do, that we love our children, that we want our children to live and to love, and we want to show not only what they're doing to us, but we want to show the joy that we feel. We want to show them that we're just like them. And to hear that as an American, it's like, how sick, how sick the dehumanization and devaluation of Palestinian life. I'm sorry.

It's just so hard. And so we did the documentary and I thought, maybe if we show the UN and the representation of the UN and documenting these war crimes, maybe then people would understand. But of course we saw what happened. We saw what the media did to paint all of these people as human shields for Hamas. And so we decided to make an unapologetically pro-Palestinian film and depict the Palestinians the way that they want to be depicted. Because there's no shortage of films about Palestine, right? In fact, when we made the film, there was two films about Gaza coming out that year.

But all they do, in order to mainstream and distribute these films and to get in the film festival circuit and to really get that fanfare, they have to show the colonizers side. What do the murderers say about why they're murdering kids? What do the colonizers say about why they're ethnically cleansing Gaza? Let's give them the platform to lie and to propagandize us and weigh more weight to them and then they always show Palestinians as you know in the dark and the shadows these evil this evil death cult. It's absolutely atrocious and disgusting and when we did that film 220 Palestinians were killed during the Great March of Return.

They're killing that many people every day in single airstrikes. I mean, the rapidity, the succession of war crimes. I mean, when we showed that film, it's an 84-minute film. There's two scenes of harrowing violence, one a lifeless child being carried in the aftermath of an airstrike, Another a child who was shot in the head and killed for using a slingshot during the Great March. And when we showed the film people were gassed. Oh my

god because it was such a critical moment they they haven't they hadn't seen anything like that. There's another scene in the film that's a very pivotal moment where the camera turns around to the Israelis who are doing the sniping and they're celebrating the slaughter of the children that they're killing and blowing the kneecaps out of and people were stunned how did you get this footage they released it in turn they they telegraphed this I mean there's no shock now, right? We've all seen the last 11 months. There's no shortage of atrocities that keep compounding and compounding. Everyone has a horror story there. My friends and colleagues who worked on that film.

Ahmed Artema, the great organizer, the great marcher-return organizer, house was targeted in a strike and his child was killed and he and his family are suffering from second degree burns. Maz Mazza, the incredible videographer, the house that his father built with his bare hands was blown up in an airstrike. There's not a morsel of anything that man has ever owned left in the rubble. They killed two of his brothers and he couldn't retrieve their bodies for six weeks because of Israeli snipers that would target anyone who

tried to dig through the rubble and so he couldn't get his brother's bodies for six weeks. And that's, I mean, these are just the people that I know. My other friend who was the field producer, his wife was pregnant during this with no water. And so I felt so sick, all I could do was just put a GoFundMe out, as we do. And they got out and went to Egypt. But my God, I think the biggest revelation today is just,

Israel is a Nazi state, and we have all seen the true face of Israeli society, of the soldiers, and this is where impunity leads. This is where total impunity leads. This is where total impunity leads. On that fucking note, you were in Jerusalem in 2017 filming, among other things, some street interviews with Israelis. And I think maybe, you know, there are probably a few people out here who have seen those. They've gone viral a few times.

And yeah, before we're going to play some of those interviews, I think it's worthwhile for us to do that because yeah, they're a really, really important insight, I think, into sort of what you were just talking about in the lifting of this veil and looking into this society a little bit more closely. So, you know, we'll debrief afterwards, but maybe we can maybe we can just queue up those street interviews from Jerusalem and maybe if you want to just maybe introduce them and say anything about like the context before we play them and I'll ask you to follow up on that. Yeah, again, this is like people were like, oh you went there and just did it, gotcha.

You went and just cherry-picked the craziest people that you could find. And no, I wish that were true, man. This is like a period of relative calm in Israeli society. And, you know, we were we just literally spent a couple of hours and every, you know, the full episodes on our YouTube channel, I encourage everyone to check it out because we talk to people who claim that they're leftists right leftists in Israel means the occupation should maybe be more humane I talked to a guy from the Labour Party who says no we want the

infiltrators out I'm a Labour member what so you know if we think our system is right-wing my god there is very, very small left in Israel. Not saying there's no left, but there's not enough. These views are completely, completely mainstream. We talk to secular, religious, young, old, I mean, you name it, and this is the responses that we got. I think Israelis have to take over and they have to kick them away. It will be much better not to kill them, just to go back to Arab countries. But it's really rightfully ours if you look at the history and at the wars

and we didn't even start a lot of the wars. We conquered these places rightfully like it's ours. A thousand four hundred years later we come back. Now I'm not saying that we can blame the people living here for what happened, but you gotta accept that that's some kind of divine justice that their great great great great grandfathers kicked my great great great grandfather out of here, and then we come back and all of a sudden they're like, well no, we don't want it, it's not fair. I think that the Jews came here, they took this land, and this is our land now,

and I don't think there should be no Arabs. Like Arabs, they want, we gave them Gaza, they should go live there quietly, if they want they should go back to Iraq, I don't know, to wherever they want, we gave them Gaza so they should go live there quietly if they want. They should go back to Iraq, I don't know, to wherever they want. I think that we need to... How do you say it in Arabic? Yes, tell me how to say it in Arabic. I don't think there's any answer to it. Really?

There's only one way, like, I would carpet bomb them. You would carpet bomb them? It's the only way you could deal with it. Or try to stop them a different way. It never worked. I think that we're miserable. The Arabs make a big game and we need to kill the Arabs. I think another thing, that thes should have rights to hate them

I think we have the right to hate them I don't see a reason why not I wouldn't trust any of them I think we should give them a country and the situation cannot stay like this. I need to take a shower. I first saw those. They were like, you know, shocking to me, but of course watching them now, it's like they're not surprising or shocking whatsoever. I think that this last year, this last 10 months

has just punctured that veil so thoroughly that this isn't at all like shocking, I don't think to anybody. Watching it again, what stands out to me, I think, is like the laughter, the casualness of it. Like the dude just walking by with like, he's eating ice cream, you know, is like this guy is like talking about carpet bombing

an entire population. And then like the kids, you know, like you can tell they're kind of just regurgitating, right? And they're kind of like laughing a little bit, it's awkward. And it just shows you that this like Zionist ideology and the violence within it is just so embedded in the society, you know. So, I mean, kudos to you for helping to unveil that back in 2017, you know.

I don't think Gaza being front and center right now as it is, it wasn't the same way back then. So I think that you presenting these interviews was really important in lifting that veil for a lot of us. Yeah, I don't know, I guess is there anything that like you want to talk about with that specific experience? Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, a little behind the scenes into being in Jerusalem. And yeah, I mean, this is why you don't see Israelis platformed by the Western media, right? When's the last time you saw Israelis speaking for themselves? They have pre-approved government spokespeople that they go out to placate Western audiences that subsidize this atrocious apartheid state, this maniac state. We were in Palestine for a month.

I talked to hundreds of Palestinians, Palestinians who were under direct settler violence. Their homes were fire bombed. Their families were threatened daily. I never heard anyone say anything remotely similar to that. They want to tell us this is what Palestinians think. No, it's actually what Israelis think. And we were there for so long, we were in Palestine for so long, literally, I mean, I was so repulsed after talking to these people. I remember we all just went home completely silent and I felt so disgusting. I mean, look, America's racist as fuck and there's horrible conservative pockets of bigotry.

But even if you go to those places, you're not going to find a mainstreaming of a belief system of people willing to espouse genocidal beliefs on camera. They're still cool people, right, in these places. Not in Israel. Everyone sucks. Everyone's like that. And a lot of the people that we didn't talk to on camera are the same exact way. And so I didn't want to editorialize this. I think Israelis can speak for themselves, but now I'm not ashamed or afraid to talk about what the actual experience was. It was horrifying. It was like being in Berlin in 1930. And I think until then I did not know. I truly did not understand until I

saw for myself. Because we're not exposed to this. You don't want to believe it's this far gone. You want to believe that there's hope within Israeli society. You want to believe there's a left conting. You want to believe that there's hope within Israeli society. You want to believe that there's a left contingent. But now, especially in the wake of October 7, it's gone full bore, fascist. Full bore. So the very tiny anti-war activists, it's actually dangerous to even talk about.

You are threatened by the government. You could be arrested. You're also threatened by your fellow citizens. I remember Al Jazeera or someone documented this was like months into the genocide and there was still like a handful of Israelis that were protesting. I mean that's how small the contingent was after what we've been witnessing there. And they said I'm terrified to be out here. I'm terrified of being beaten up by my fellow Israelis because that's how bad it is. I mean I have friends there that have embedded themselves into these rallies of 10,000 people chanting

death to Arabs, death to the leftists because they see the left as the impediment of the final solution which is the complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population. And so, yeah, I think that this is now completely revealed in polling as well. It's not just, you could say, oh, this is just anecdotal, right? No, no, because polling reflects exactly the situation on the ground. Before October 7th, already 95% of Israelis agreed with the open fire policy at that fortified border fence. That's just like a partition preventing Palestinians from getting back to their ancestral lands.

And they supported just shooting to kill kids who stray too close to that fence. I mean, that's crazy. But after October 7th, I mean, just look at the rape scandal. But after October 7th, I mean just look at the rape scandal. Two-thirds or 65% of Israeli Jews do not support criminalizing the raping of Palestinian prisoners. They think that that should be allowed as a tactic. Less than 2% of Israeli Jews think that Israel is using too much fire power in Gaza. Wrap your mind around that. Less than 2% of those polled think that Israel is using too much firepower. I mean there's nothing left there. It's

the equivalent of what like three nukes being dropped at a 25 by 5 mile stretch of land. So if anything, I feel vindicated. I feel like this is validating. But like you said, it's also just completely not shocking at all based on what we've seen from Israelis themselves over the last 11 months. They have

proudly documented and telegraphed how vile and depraved their behavior has been and they are openly celebrating the recolonization of Gaza, which was the plan all along. October 7th was just the excuse. Of course, this kind of stuff doesn't make it into the mainstream media, right? And I feel like watching this and sort of reflecting on how extreme Israeli society is, it's kind of proportional to how extreme the Hasbara is, right? And how extreme the invention of reality by the media and the manufacturing of consent for this has to be in order for them to get away with this.

It's like a proportional level of laying it on really thick for us here in the United States, because you're not gonna see anything that really shows you what Israeli society is like unless you're really digging, even now. And I'm curious for you, because you've been digging into this for many years now, and you have a very prominent, loud,

unapologetic, anti-Zionist voice, and you're putting yourself out there in many different spaces, which is something that I wanna like acknowledge, and really, I'm curious to know what it's been like because I feel like it's got to suck to get all of that vitriol and hatred and pushback from these people who are perpetuating not just the lies but the atrocities themselves.

And you've been uncovering a lot of them. You've been just out there on the front lines talking about this. So I'm curious what it's been like for you for the years that you've been covering this so loudly and unapologetically. Back in 2014, I was at Russia today, and I did this, you know, I had like several

Palestinian colleagues, and back when Israel was doing one of their, you know, I had like several Palestinian colleagues back when Israel was doing one of their mowing the lawn operations where they just massacre and have this mass blood letting of Palestinians. A couple of my colleagues had to stop working and check in with their friends and family to see if they were alive. And I was absolutely appalled at the disgraceful media coverage, the lack, the omissions, the lies, the propaganda that I went out there on this rant. The rant became viral in the Middle East and when I went to Palestine everyone was like, you're that woman who said that

thing and I was just like yeah that's cool but also what an abysmal failure and testament that is that you remember this one person who said something because of how egregious the media lies about this issue. That was the biggest takeaway for me. And then get this, after I did that, Israel bombed the Al-Sharouk journalist tower in Gaza, which housed RT and blew off the leg of an RT cameraman. And so when my boss at the time wrote like a sternly worded letter to Israeli authorities, why did you bomb a journalist tower?

They said, well, RT has taken a side. It's an unbelievable story, but I guess not too unbelievable now that they wanted to retaliate against this video that they actually bombed a journalist tower and blew the leg off of a colleague of mine. At the time I was out there kind of unapologetically comparing Israel to Nazi Germany because of just the nature of having a concentration camp and the irony of it all and I've been you know at the time I was slandered and smeared and there was countless publications that tried to demonize me and weaponize the anti-Semitic label.

I went on Joe Rogan's show several times to talk about this. He got hundreds and hundreds of campaigns against him to lobby to never platform me again. When I did the court case against Georgia for their anti-BDS law, Netanyahu himself took to Twitter to basically threaten me as well as American citizens. You will never get a job in this country again. We've seen him do this again also in the result of the campus crackdowns. That's just how flagrant and brazen all of this stuff is. But in terms of the trolling, look we have been on the defense for far too

long as anti-racists and anti-bigots because we care about the plight of marginalized people. We care about the plight of Jewish people worldwide, right? We're not gonna be on the defense anymore. They're the racists, they're the bigots, they're the ones who want an ethno-state and they want genocide, and now we have to put them on the defense.

Why are you like this? ethnostate and they want genocide and now we have to put them on the defense. Why are you like this? And I think at this point we know that we're on the right side. There's such moral clarity, right? We don't ever have to be in that position again. And Israel spends billions of dollars, they've spent billions of dollars on Hasbra. They have a war room at Tel Aviv University with hundreds of people correcting the record online, probably much more today because all they've been able to do is maintain that propaganda and that narrative and again that's the only way they've been able to do this is

to dictate reality. It's a complete inversion of reality, right? Every accusation is a confession, as we've seen, very plainly. So literally, literally every single one. At this point, I don't give a fuck about the trolling. I don't give a fuck about Zionists. I'm done. I'm done. You're on the wrong side of history and history will absolve all of us.

One of our favorite things to do on the Upstream Podcast is to read people's quotes back at them. So I have a few quotes of yours, Abby. The empire of lies can only be dismantled by the power of truth. We must expose the lies and the propaganda that sustain the system. And finally, we must build a new media that serves the people, not the elites. So I find it really beautiful that we are here invited by a radical Marxist bookstore, All Power Books. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are several people in this room who are people working on documentaries and podcasts and other work So we are all part of a movement

So I want to ask you about the role that alternative media plays in breaking the chains of Empire and First I want to just quickly talk about Corporate media because I think you know if there's anything that's revealed that just the complete If there's anything that's revealed, just the complete dysfunction, and it actually functions entirely as it's supposed to, but I mean just how abysmal it is. And I think that we should stop thinking of appealing to these institutions, appealing, begging corporate media to cover and uplift our stories. No, no, no, no, no.

Corporate media exists for and by the elite. That is their role. They are an appendage of the state, they're a functionary of the state. And we see that plain as day whenever something's rolled out that needs consent manufactured like the Iraq war. They want to bemoan RT as a propaganda network. I mean, good God. Sure. Let's look at state media here, which is the entire conglomeration of our corporate media that's subsidized by the very planet-destroying corporations that we need to be fighting against. Big banks, big oil, weapons contractors. The New York Times, which is like the Bible for

liberals. It's like every coffee shop in Portland. I see the fucking New York Times out there. And you know, they've been the worst. They have been the worst. The passive voice, Palestinians died, Israelis are slaughtered, they bury the leads on the very last line. I mean, they have those style guides. You can't talk about Palestine. You can't say the word occupation, ethnic cleansing, or genocide. Okay, so now you literally can't talk about reality. Now we cannot talk about Israel's crimes. You are a political force that exists to just

absolve the crimes of empire. And it's junior collaborators. And that's disgusting. It's disgusting what they've done. And it's horrifying. And that's why that's why you see something like this pew poll that came out in March that showed half of Americans have no idea if more Israelis have died than Palestinians. So

the corporate media is doing its job very well. You know 20 years ago when I was radicalized by the Iraq war, I realized that it doesn't matter what your passion is, what your issue is, if you don't have a free press. If you don't have a media platform to tell these stories and to uplift these voices, no one's going to hear it. And so I decided at that point, I wanted to be an advocacy journalist. I wanted to wear my opinion on my sleeve. I wanted to use media as a tool for my activism.

And it's unapologetic. And some people like that and some people don't. I'd rather know the bias of the journalists that I'm watching instead of have it couch in all these fucking think tanks and institutions and all of that. And so at that time I started Media Roots and then became a citizen journalist in my own community and I strongly encourage anyone who wants to tell these stories, anyone who has a passion to cover these issues in the way that we know they should be covered.

The difference today is that you don't have to go and take courses to learn Final Cut and buy an expensive camera and do all that. You have the tool right here, right on your cell phone. Everyone can take 4K video HD. Everyone can have these apps that they can edit themselves, they can upload. That's incredible, right? We can't get sidetracked by this kind of rat race of the algorithm, and we can't get sucked

into the kind of the over sensationalist drivel that I think a lot of people do get sucked into. You know I don't... TikTokers and Instagram influencers and all that shit. Like yeah some people are doing great work on that field but not a lot. And I think if you're interested in getting into this space there are plenty of anti-imperialist, grassroots, incredible research organizations like Project Censored which mentored me, like Breakthrough News. I mean these are all available for all of us to contribute, to do research for and honestly it just takes getting yourself out there, putting yourself out there in

your community and telling the stories of what's happening around you and naturally I think those collaborations and those relationships and those skills will continue to build. And I'm so happy to be here with revolutionary alternative media that I admire and respect, because the more that we build this family and community, the more that we can mobilize the resistance.

So, we must ask, we must speak about election and what's going on right now. And particularly, I'd love to hear from you, how can we see the upcoming US election in terms of breaking the chains of empire? How are you seeing it? How are you making sense of it? And what could it look like to break the chains of empire in this cycle? You guys excited

for the election? I am! It's so fun to practice our democracy in the empire. Very fun times, but you know what? This election is important, not for the reasons that they tell us, but it's important for our movements because it reveals so much about the ability and the need to break the chains of empire. We were at the precipice of something really powerful at the end of the Bush administration. They ushered in Obama to placate and hypnotize and put everyone back to sleep. I mean, there is no comparison even to Kamala Harris.

There's not even the veneer or the sheen of progressivism at all. She's abandoned every pretense of progressivism. All of the coat-tailing on Bernie's policies that energized a lot of young people in this country, Medicare for all, ban on fracking, federal jobs guarantee, all of that's out the window. She doesn't give a fuck about even pretending to be progressive. It's all identity politics, it's all vibes, it's all Brat summer. That's what we're entering into. It's quite disturbing actually.

It's revealed so much. It's really just the continuation of Biden's right wing reign, right? But with kind of memes behind it. And look at the uncommitted movement. Look at the uncommitted movement. These people begged, begged for breadcrumbs at the DNC. All they wanted was a five-minute speech from a Palestinian to encourage Palestinians to vote for Kamala Harris. They couldn't even give them that. That's how much they hate us. That's how much content they have for the left. It defies logic if you're looking at electability. Why would they do that?

Why would they do that? That would help her in these swing states. That would help solidify her victory. Because the job of a president is not really about winning elections. This is about a managerial role of maintaining US imperialism and global capitalism. And they're the president of that.

And Israel's part and parcel with that. I mean, look at the logic-defying mess that Israel's bringing the world into, this regional war. No one fucking wants this. But at the end of the day, the US can wash its hands and be like, oh, we didn't start it, but we're sure in it now. And at the end of the day, it's going to serve us well. Because all of Israel's enemies are the US enemies, Iran,

Syria, Lebanon, all of these countries that are right next to Israel. The US wants to crush. And Israel is the perfect military garrison and attack dog to not only secure our resources in that region but also to do this kind of belligerent stuff. And so you know seeing Kamala's speech and seeing the DNC platform I think has been a very revealing moment because I think there was a lot of reading the tea leaves with walls and Kamala and people really want something to hold on to because of how

disenfranchised leftists are especially in the wake of Bernie and it's kind of rudderless like people don't really know where to invest their energy and we're brow-beaten I mean electoralism is like it's just 24 fucking 7 it's such a charade and so looking at the platform that they've adopted and Kamala's speech I mean it there is no pretense whatsoever of where they stand Right militarization abandoning the Iran nuclear deal abandoning Cuban and normalization harsh immigration policy platforming Border Patrol agents police officers Leon fucking Panetta Bill Kristol

Neocon architect of the Iraq War, took to Twitter and he was like, this is my kind of DNC. Leon Panetta quoting Ronald Reagan. And it's like, do you need anything more than that? So I think the whole failure of the uncommitted movement reveals everything we need to know and reveals the fact that we should not invest one iota of our political activism or energy into electoralism. Not one second. None.

None. The whole DNC was a spectacle of right-wing politics and talking down to leftists, don't forget Anna Navarro's speech about how horrible communism was, they speak to the right wing because that's who they are. That's who they are. So why would we vote for them? Why would we buy into this when we know if you just keep buying into the lesser evil, lesser evil, lesser evil? Is it lesser evil for the fucking people in Gaza that are being decimated? No. I'm an internationalist. I look at people all around the world suffering

under the boot of US imperialism. I feel solidarity for all of them. Yes, of course I care about the plight of marginalized people everywhere. We need to stop buying into the system and building our mass movement ourselves because you're just staving off the inevitability of the next Trump. They're paving the way for Trump 2.0 if Trump doesn't get in this time. We have to direct all of our energy into building the movement that we know is necessary, the only thing that will make the system bow to our demands, the only thing that's ever worked, that's the only thing that's ever made policy work for us. Millions of people in the streets forming coalitions, unions, activists, workers of all stripes, understanding that all of these

struggles are interconnected. Fifty years ago, they knew that. Our movements have been defanged. They've been co-opted for propaganda and marketing from the Democratic Party and we're taking 50 years later to catch up from what activists and anti-war organizers knew 50 years ago. We're relearning those lessons and we're realizing our struggles are one in the same. And so that's why let this election be a galvanizing moment. Let it radicalize us. Let it galvanize our movements.

Let it reveal the system for what it truly is and who it truly works for. And I think just going back to your last response before this one too, where you were talking about how you're done being on the defensive and responding to the trolls and all that kind of stuff. I think one of the most heartening aspects of when we're looking just specifically at the realm of electoralism is that reality and the truth is on our side. All somebody has to do is watch what was happening at the DNC to realize that they've been lied to, that all of the rhetoric that they're used to hearing about liberals in the Democratic Party is bullshit because when it comes down to it, this is who they're talking to.

They're talking to the corporatocracy, they're talking to capital, they're talking to the right wing because like you said, they are right wing. So for me, it brings me a lot of like, hope, I guess, and, you know, these dark times to think about. Our work is not as difficult as it could be because the truth is on our side. And it really is just a matter of letting people know that there are alternatives and like helping people to kind of become conscious of that. And so I guess my last question for you, and you know we've been talking about this on and off throughout the night, but maybe just to sort of like distill it here in one final question,

this topic of empire and imperialism, it's obviously your central focus with you know your documentaries and the empire files. Why did you choose to focus, or maybe you didn't choose to, but if you did, why did you choose to focus on the US Empire and imperialism as sort of one of the main driving components of your work? And also importantly, why is it important for us here in the United States, in our left movements,

to really center discussions and analysis of empire and to really incorporate a very unapologetically anti-imperialist analysis in our movements. I think that this is, you know, even like last year when I would talk about my show, people would be like, empire? Like what is that Star Wars? Like what do you mean the US is not it's like it's just this bizarre detachment from what our country does and what it how it's looked at from the rest of the world I mean shit ask anyone in any other country what's the greatest threat to the planet they'll all be like yeah the United States yeah yeah and Americans are just so blissfully unaware because that's how well the propaganda works right when you think you're the freest

country you think you have the freest press you're not being propagandized too and I think it goes back to when I was a freshman in college radicalized by the Iraq war I read this book blowback by Chalmers Johnson he was this former CIA guy who went to Okinawa Japan and was completely transformed by the impact US militarism had on the people there. The sexual assault, the impunity, the crimes, the environmental damage. And I was blown away. I just said, oh my god, what the hell is going on? And then I realized, oh wait, that's everywhere. That is everywhere that the US military is present. Tens of millions

of people suffering under sanctions, bombs, the threat of war. It's everywhere and and I couldn't believe it. I mean how could you not center this? The United States Empire, like I said, I mean they're holding the world hostage. All of these issues are interconnected. Global capitalism, the US military being the enforcer and protector of a system that defies all logic. How could we poison ourselves? How could we sit back and allow these corporations to kill us? Don't they have kids? The system just keeps going and so for me all the problems are connected to this. It's all through this system and

everyone around the world is suffering under its boot. Look at us in the US, mass suffering. We can't even get proper housing or health care because we're spending a trillion dollars a year on this massive global military empire. But you know what? We don't have the right to be silent. We don't have the right to be inactive. We are Americans, a lot of us in this room. We are in the Imperial Corps. We are the children of the Empire. We have the duty and the obligation to do everything that we can, everything that we can to stop this because we can. We have the power. We're the only ones that have the power. What is the world going to look like if we don't stop them from killing us and destroying the planet? So for me, I don't have a choice, I never did. It's our duty.

We have to fight with every fiber of our being for the better world that we know is possible. You've been listening to a live, upstream conversation with Abby Martin, journalist, filmmaker, activist, founder of The Empire Files and director of the films Gaza Fights for Freedom and the upcoming film Earth's Greatest Enemy, which is in its final stages of production. Abby and her team are still raising funds for this film, so please, if you can, chip in at earthsgreatestenemy.com. We'll put a link in the show notes.

And thank you so so much to the all-volunteer team at All Power Books for putting this event on. All Power Books is so much more than a bookstore. It's a community-supported, radical space in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. They do so many things that it is really hard to keep track of. They have a free store, a free clinic that serves 10 different locations all over Los Angeles. They have a free grocery distro, workshops, events, karaoke nights, reading groups.

The list goes on. Please support them if you can. They are the real deal and they could always use more support, whether through donations or volunteer labor. You can find out more at allpowerbooks.org. And thank you as well to the Church of Christ and Pastor Raymond for allowing us to use their beautiful space for our event.

And thank you to People Struggle, Black Men Build, and to all of the volunteers and organizations that helped make this event possible. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to Gage from All Power Books for the cover art, and Upstream Music was composed by me, Robbie. Upstream is almost entirely listener-funded. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways in which you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bonus episodes at least one a month, but usually more, at patreon.com forward slash upstream podcast. You can also make a tax deductible recurring donation or a one time donation on our website upstreampodcast.org forward slash support. Through your support, you'll be helping us keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going.

upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And for more from us please visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky, threads and Facebook for updates and post capitalist memes at Upstream Podcast. You can also subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please give us a 5-star rating or review. It really helps to get Upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. Thank you and see you next time. Oh Oh