Abby Martin: How the media manufactures ‘bloodlust’ for war

welcome everyone to the real news network my name is maximilian alvarez i'm the editor-in-chief here at the real news and it's so great to have you all with us today is saturday march 5th and the world continues to watch in horror as the full-scale russian military invasion wreaks havoc on ukraine and its people and pushes the world closer to the ever-approaching brink of global catastrophe since this invasion began on february 24th nearly 1.3 million people have fled the fighting in ukraine and at least 351 civilians have been killed according to the united nations according to the latest updates from the news agency reuters quote russian forces seized the zaporiska nuclear power plant in eastern ukraine the largest nuclear power plant in europe after a building at the complex was set ablaze during intense fighting with ukraine defenders the u.s embassy in ukraine called the russian assault on the zaporizka plant a war crime the european union the united states britain and others have hit russia with a wide range of sanctions after its invasion of ukraine the sanctions span various industries and include financial energy export and travel bans russia's large banks are deeply integrated into the global financial system and the country is one of the world's biggest energy producers meaning sanctions could disrupt economies around the world end quote in his first extended remarks about the war since the invasion began russian president vladimir putin said today quote these sanctions that are being imposed are like the declaration of war end quote then in a deeply ominous and chilling statement about the response to the invasion by ukrainian and world leaders putin went on to say quote the current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing they risk the future of ukrainian statehood end quote in today's interview we're going to be taking a look at the media side of war and at the ways our mediated connections to war and to each other can limit how we think and act but also how we can use the tools available to us from social media to independent news to think more clearly and act more bravely and lovingly and i couldn't be more honored to be joined today by my guest who is very much dedicated to that struggle and has been for quite some time abby martin is an american journalist show presenter activist and artist she helped found the citizen journalism website media roots she is the host of the invaluable investigative documentary and interview series the empire files and she has been involved in numerous film projects including producing the recent feature documentary gaza fights for freedom and she is currently producing another feature entitled earth's greatest enemy abby thank you so much for joining me today it's a great honor to be talking to you thanks for having me well it's almost like where do we start right because um you know there's so much to talk about and so much invaluable experience that i know that viewers and listeners would love to hear you speak on but i suppose we should start with kind of the most recent news just that happened just this week um for viewers and listeners who may not have seen um news broke a couple days ago that rt america announced that it would cease productions and would lay off most of its staff now for viewers and listeners rt america was a us-based news channel headquartered in washington dc it was owned by tv novosti uh operated by production company tnr productions and it was part of the rt network a global multilingual television news network that is funded by the russian government and rt america has hosted the likes of critical voices including chris hedges lee camp anders lee and of course abby martin and before viewers and listeners jump down our throats and and and you know shout about this we want to kind of take a measured look at this because this isn't just rt america um radio sputnik has also been taken off a lot of podcast platforms and they host shows like by any means necessary um hosted by jacqueline luchmann and sean blackmon a show that i've been on many times to talk about worker issues labor struggles strikes so on and so forth and of course russia is not the only country that has um funded news agencies around the world the us has many so with that all those caveats in mind um abby i wanted to just get your thoughts and impressions on the news of the shuttering of rt america and um i guess what you think this may portend not just for media that has any ties whatsoever to the russian state but any uh media that in fact um doesn't toe the national line or or it takes critical stances that aren't uh you know well received in the fog of war what are your thoughts what are your impressions yeah i mean you bring up really salient points that i think need to be explored first and foremost the first one is we need to be honest and not hypocritical when we're looking at the landscape of media that we all need to navigate as responsible critical thinkers today of course we all know the problems with corporate media of course i don't need to tell viewers of real news network why that's problematic and that's why you see foreign funded networks like russia today cynically let's be honest about this i mean cynically filling that void that huge void left by the corporate media apparatus the void of you know the lack of real reporting substantive coverage of issues like third party candidates occupy wall street and in fact that is what this is really about this is about the suppression um of and and purging of all dissident voices in the landscape of alternative media i mean the u.s establishment has been clamoring for years to do this to purge everyone that doesn't kind of toe the line of what the u.s foreign policy establishment wants and we saw this come to a head with the dni report when trump won the election of course there was a deliberate effort to absolve the political establishment's failures or accountability or reckoning of how we got to this place and instead they just wanted to blame putin and not only blamed putin for undermining our you know alleged democracy but also russian media as this huge sinister propaganda effort that really sowed this sinister you know um distrust and discontent with american institutions and that's actually what gave us the rise of trump it was russian media um these you know ten thousand dollars or whatever very menial amount of facebook ads that you know did this and that and really it's kind of laughable when you look at how much does the us really meddle in um you know in foreign policy all around the world how much does the us undermine sovereignty of countries all around the world how much has the u.s really pumped its own propaganda and dominated this kind of cultural hegemony over the rest of the world the list goes on and on and on but what they really did was grossly exaggerate the effect and impact of russian propaganda to deflect what they were doing how trump came to be so this is kind of a long this is basically the culmination of a long years-long um plan to purge all alternative media whether it's people you know opposing the assassination of general solomoni and the purging of pro-iran voices on networks like twitter and facebook but really it's the kind of coalescing of big tech silicon valley giants working in acquiescing with state government policy and what's scary about this is there wasn't even legislation that demanded them to do so this was a kind of a preemptive um preemptive coordination with the government on behalf of organizations like google and facebook and you saw the fact checking go into account um where you had people like uh on the board of atlantic council you know this is defense contractor funded think tanks that were now tasking themselves with fact checking so all of this put together brings us to today which is russia today america the american bureau in dc shuttering its doors i'm assuming as the result of constrictive sanctions that have basically made it untenable and impossible to run the bureau this is after we see youtube banning straight up banning and removing all rt platforms in europe i mean this is a huge swath of territory that now you cannot access the russian perspective and then we saw u.s distribution of course cut off russia media that includes comcast and directv i'm pretty sure and as you mentioned it's not just you know it's not just the cartoonish depiction of a putin-run propaganda network i think it's very obvious by its name russia today that it's russian state media that it parrots the bias of russia and that it peddles russian talking points that's not a shocking declaration the problem is that we have the u.s corporate media which basically acts as the arm of the pentagon whenever we need critical dissent against u.s foreign policy these voices kind of uniformly come together they coalesce and they essentially just echo whatever the foreign policy line is of the us empire and its junior collaborators and that is a highly sophisticated propaganda model that we that we basically parrot and declare as free press um we herald and cherish the notion of free press in this country but what does that really mean if we have this ever constrictive media apparatus that essentially only echoes corporate media talking points i mean this is a this is an apparatus that is controlled by five corporations um it affects more than 90 of everything we see here in reed and for me as a critical thinker and as someone who really cares about what our government is doing abroad i feel like i need to have a wide range of views that i can navigate on my own and i don't want the infantilizing effect of censorship i don't want my reality curated for me by big tech giants i want to be able to pick and choose what the truth is determine my own reality based on the facts that are available and that's why this is so offensive that's why this is such an extreme measure because at the same time you see all these corporate news anchors bemoaning censorship in russia and while that may be true and that is horrible what russia is doing to shut down independent media why are we doing it too why are we limiting and actually purging russian media that of course it doesn't just host russian talking points this is one of the only networks that actually uplifted marginalized voices going back to the cynical exploitation and covering the void that's lacking by the corporate media rt america was an incredible opportunity to highlight voices like chris hedges consistent anti-war voices like myself lee camp and that was unmatched that platform that rt america gave us was unmatched our viewpoints are not allowed on the corporate media dissent against empire is not allowed on the corporate media and that is why we had to go to places like russia today in order to have a platform for these very important and crucial perspectives um and so the shuttering of rt you know this is if i if i may just say something really quickly about the dna report i mean we saw this firsthand and what the dni report said we were told by the intelligence agencies that this 2017 report was supposed to be a conclusive indictment on russian media what it was instead was it wasn't about how rt promoted russia and putin it was about that it covered forbidden viewpoints so for example it pointed out my show specifically breaking the set which was on air for three years ended two years before the trump um administration was elected it talked about how i fomented radical discontent because i covered issues like third party candidates that i covered issues like fracking um like socialism i mean this is what they were really scared of this is why they wanted to shun rt and of course in that huge wave of shunning all alternative media and blaming it for really the discontent the real very real grievances that exist they don't want those grievances shown or aired they want to sanitize our reality and pretend these viewpoints simply don't exist because then it's easier to to basically control the masses and manufacture consent for whatever they want to do and max i think it's really crucial i want the russian perspective as we're heading into this potential standoff a potential hot war with two nuclear armed powers i want the chinese perspective i want the iranian perspective i want the russian perspective i'm not a child this is all this does is constrict the already very severely limited parameters of debate on our airwaves and i feel like we're not children we can make up our own minds man i think that's very well and powerfully said and um i mean there's so much there that i want to respond to and i but i honestly think that you know for viewers and listeners um it's a tough situation to be in right we need to kind of accept that as the starting point there are no pure souls here they're people who are committed to peace and justice and equality doing the best with what we've got you heard abby mention that rt yes of course cynically for its own political purposes had a vested interest in platforming voices that were not welcome on us mainstream media but also think about what that actually means like how how could you say that chris hedges you know or abby martin is a is a puppet of the russian state chris hedges was vilified for speaking out against the the post-9 11 fury of war that that we grew up in and like that's that should be something that we should you know kind of sympathize with and it should open up that space that abby pointed to that if the mainstream media has that sort of stranglehold on the contours of permissible debate in this country and that limits our capacity to think and act in this world to know in fact about the world that we are in and to be guided towards certain ends with the limited knowledge that we have the limited vision that we are given um that is very dangerous that is how and why you see what we're seeing right now which very much hearkens back to those post-9 11 days you know abby i know that you and i were just a couple years apart in in high school and we grew up in in similar areas but like i feel like i didn't quite grasp then and granted i was a very conservative person who fully bought into the the war you know furor after 9 11. um but seeing it more as an adult now it is very scary to recognize how quickly right the day before the russian invasion began we were focused on you know we were still talking about covet 19 and the like government's uh opening up a restructuring of the cdc guidelines we were talking about trans kids being attacked and and vilified in texas we were talking about important labor struggles around the us and beyond and suddenly it was like a pavlovian bell had been rung everyone stopped dropped everything this became our primary focus the media apparatus kind of just went right into full effect and all and even i felt it in myself right i mean like and and i was deeply uncomfortable with that because i feel like i'm a critical person but i i just immediately i felt that that sort of ideological conditioning just be activated at a moment's notice um i guess i wanted to to ask before i i move on to talking about your time at rt just um i guess what you what you feel that says about how much we may have or have not learned from what we saw um in that sort of propagandistic effort pro-war effort that sort of cultural mania after 9 11 have we come much farther from that uh now it's a really good point and it's a very important comparison because i similarly feel that way max i i feel like our reptile brain was activated as peacely loving people as anti-imperialists as someone who has values that i hold very strongly that guide my principles and my actions i mean i have moral consistency and so of course i'm horrified um at what russia did and i think it's a criminal action and and you know i think that it should be widely condemned but i think we all need to take a step back and then ask after the horse subsides and through the fog of war because it's very hard to determine what's going on in the ground right now is how did we get here and it is so interesting to think back about 9 to 9 11 because that's really what um it was a formative for my political awakening and radicalization and i think post 9 11 weeks and months and of course years you can argue it never really ended right this mass conditioning it was such a revealing time in how propaganda can really take hold of a society and and essentially guide tens of millions of people who are completely terrified into supporting the hell that this government unleashed on the rest of the world for the last two decades we were a country that was paralyzed with fear we were driven by bloodlust and revenge and since then the news media further consolidated further synchronized its messaging i think project sensor did this study showing how that 24 hour kind of broadcast um was really perfected from 9 11. i think we saw like anna nicole smith and then 911 was like the next time that it was like 24 7. let's just never stop showing the horror and destruction of these towers you know falling and all of this and then it just never stopped it's like there is something to be said about that psychological control of like always having that beaten into your mind um and you know since that day i mean and it just further consolidated ever since then where we saw let's go back to the trump administration i mean this algorithmic censorship that has further tightened its control over over our airwaves i mean back paging sources like the real news and now you have this media machinery that basically uniformly acts as one voice whether it's on fox news or cnn or whatever when it comes to u.s foreign policy and our supposed friends and foes around the world and you see a similar uniformity just like you did whether the venezuela regime change efforts you see a similar uniformity acting um in reaction to russia's invasion of ukraine where it's the same resolve and hysterical brow beating hand wringing that we saw after 9 11 right well we need to do something about this what are we going to do about this of course we're the world arbiter of morality and everything holy even though there was no attack here russia didn't do anything to this country but it's this climate we've fostered that we're the world's empire that we have the duty and the right uh to let's just say collectively punish tens of millions of people in another country strangle them ex-fixiate their economy prevent them from doing anything the bloodlust the the it's it's sick it's sick it's so disturbing that people are just calling clamoring for war and escalation this is a nuclear-armed power why is this happening and so what you see is this kind of collective punishment um to not just russian oligarchs but to all of its citizens i mean making boycotting russians compulsory within a matter of days and then of course you see big tech acting accordingly as well to basically crack down on anything that could be deemed a russian media affiliate anyone who's simply now bringing up the role of nato and the us government is now deemed a putin apologist it really does go back to the days of the demands of leftists who dared to oppose early on the invasion of iraq and of course subsequently i'm sorry afghanistan and subsequently iraq the demands to basically denounce saddam hussein to denounce the taliban i mean it it's sad how little we've learned but it's also very instructive of how we can move forward and try to avoid falling into the same disastrous pitfalls that we uh that we unfortunately did in a post-9 11 world and i think first and foremost it's acknowledging the role of our government how did we get here and pushing for peace and de-escalation and that includes abolishing nato because that's a really strong force that has basically sowed the seeds and set the stage for everything that we're seeing today well i'm like you know that that i'm really glad that you brought up the the sort of algorithmic censorship because that is another thing that has been keeping me up at night um probably because i'm now the editor-in-chief of an independent news network right and we live and die in many ways on these algorithms both uh on youtube on facebook on twitter it's how we get the message out because as abby said we're not on network news right we have to hustle to gain visibility and there are a lot of ways that these privately owned tech companies can essentially tweak their algorithms to make us invisible and to make others invisible this is exactly what we saw in the wake of the russia gate um you know hysteria that that abby mentioned before right um again i speaking personally and this was before i was even at the real news but i think that you know i cover worker struggles i lift up workers voices i i that's that's my beat i suppose i try to do other stuff but it is very very difficult to find outlets that are willing to give that sort of deep attention to uh you know train operators who had their strike blocked by a court and are deathly afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation from the company it is incredibly hard to find outlets that will lift up the voices of um spanish-speaking workers at a production plant um for amy's kitchen in california like i did here at the real news point being is that that is the stuff that got shadow banned in the wake of uh you know the russia gate not just my stuff but the police accountability report eddie conway's coverage of prisons at rattling the bars so for folks who are cheering on or not thinking that uh the shuttering of rt america or deep platforming of shows like or platforms like radio sputnik that it's gonna stop there it's not we've seen in the past that it hasn't stopped there and um all of us to circle back to abby's point about how this you know essentially infantilizes us and limits our ability to think and act and be in the world that is the cumulative effect so we should all be very mindful of the waters that we are waiting in right now and you know kind of building from that point like you said abby like there's there are going to be many opportunities for us to bend to that might to bend to that cultural pressure that political pressure that can get very vicious very quickly the racist attacks on you know muslim people or anyone brown for that matter after 9 11. right the vicious vilification of people who speak out about the us or nato's role here i'm we're seeing that unfold in real time and we are all going to be tested i think and we are all going to have the chance to stand by our principles our commitment to peace to justice to equality to the sanctity of life on this planet and that is something that in fact ties very well to your experience at rt america because you you know as you said you hosted a show there for three years and um quite famously uh spoke out on that show against the russian invasion and annexation of crimea and i guess i wanted to ask you if you could sort of take us back to that moment um when you i guess probably felt that that pressure what was going through your mind if you could i guess just tell listeners a bit more about that uh event and and why you felt the need to to make that stand and say what you did absolutely i was hosting breaking the set which was an opinion show every day at rt america for three years i was covering war crimes and foreign policy decisions from the u.s government that i had strong opinions and disagreements about and i was never told what to do or say from my bosses i had 100 editorial freedom to do whatever i wanted and that stands in very stark contrast to what we're told about rt you know there's this cartoonish depiction of rt that we had some sort of morning meeting at a round table where putin you know like 1984 is like on the telescreen being like this is what you do today and like that i mean it's just it's just hilarious because as i said before you can really pick apart the entire corporate media as well as all the state-funded media including voice of america radio for europe and basically levy the same criticisms that all of these networks including feis which by the way is funded by saudi arabia um so you know the hypocrisy is is staggering but let's let's go back to that day where you know russian troops started to amass at the border um and started to move into crimea now being someone who has a moral consistency and who was really willing at that point i was like look i am willing to risk my job because i feel strongly about saying something especially being at a russian-funded network i felt like um i was in quite a dilemma because not only did i feel strongly about you know being against militarism of any fashion and having you know militarily moving into annex territories was wrong but i also felt like at russia today i i felt like the network was becoming an arm of the russian government for the first time i felt that way and i wanted to to distinguish myself as an independent voice that i wasn't going along with the rest of the network's narrative that honestly felt very similar to me of the u.s media establishments narrative during the lead-up to the invasion of iraq where if you'll remember um troops were greeted with flowers and candy and that's what we basically saw um when when the first troops hit the ground and that's what i was seeing on rt all around me and i was like look i do not agree with this i need to distinguish myself i need to distinguish my voice and um i didn't even think anyone would see it you know and i went into my boss's office that morning i wasn't trying to hijack air i wasn't trying to throw the network under the bus i went and spoke to my my manager and i was like look this is what i feel if you don't want me to read this statement on air i'm gonna walk out the door and he was like go for it he said if you feel that strongly about this then you should do it and so i said what i said um what was really shocking though is what happened after that um overnight i became an anti-russian hero i was broadcast on the front page of all these major newspapers around the world i was hit up by almost every single corporate media outlet trying to get my story because they were using me for western propaganda all of a sudden i was the anti-russian hero the dissident at russian-backed media the kremlin operation that that had the audacity to stand up against her handler um quickly as someone who comes from a very critical media lens and someone who basically was a citizen journalist i immediately understood the role that i was you know being used for and so i turned it around really quickly every time i would talk to like let's say npr i would remind them that they're funded by shell and chevron how does that affect your editorial freedom you know do you self-censor do you not talk about this and that because of the funding the very questionable funding that you guys get or when i went on piers morgan show and said look cnn is as responsible for what is happening the constant fear-mongering and warmongering about russia so quickly i didn't serve their goals and so what happened after that was that i had to be thrown under the bus very quickly and smeared i was even alleged that i was like a false flag on behalf of russia to pose like they had editorial freedom at the network that i was being used by the network and that this was all a setup two days later this is where it gets really fascinating and i'll try to make a long story short two days later a calling straight um absolutely insane and i think it really says a lot about this entire situation that's unfolding today two days later a colleague of mine who was an anchor who had no political views she was pretty apolitical she was just a standard you know reading the teleprompter anchor i i actually was close with her as a friend um and i can i can testify that she was not you know didn't have strong political views like me about war or anything like that two days after i did what i did she resigns live on air i can't work with this kremlin propaganda outfit blah blah blah immediately she has a whole media tour lined up within an hour of her leaving rt she was on all of these different stations all night long she had a big tell-all in the daily beast the next day basically what happened and and part of her media rounds was calling me a conspiracy theorist a lunatic immediately throwing what i did under the bus to legitimize what she did as actually the braver act she was the real dissident she was the real hero in the story and the media lapped it up she went on colbert report she went everywhere baby she was the hero of the story but what happened behind the scenes is actually very telling because what her entire resignation was was actually a psyop that was staged managed by bill crystal's henchmen bill crystal the famous arc at one of the famous architects of the iraq war had a foreign policy think tank called the fbi the foreign policy initiative in dc and they basically helped facilitate this entire resignation they stage managed the whole thing and they saw what happened to me they saw the media attention that happened to me and they saw that i was trying to explain that i was actually given the editorial freedom to criticize putin and that i wasn't fired like phil donahue was on u.s media for criticizing the iraq war and that i actually paved my own freedom at the network if i could do this at rt what are other anchors explanations for being dutiful stenographers of the us empire and its wars so this narrative didn't stick and so they had to do something to throw a wrench in it and so they used this other anchor liz wall to basically try to paint me as a illegitimate a putin puppet and paint hers the real dissident and and once this other story came out it it really it was too late you know that phrase like the truth circles around the world before or the the li a lie will circle around the word before the truth could put up put on his shoes or whatever like that's really what happened here it was like this fervor this frenzy that within 24 hours this was the new narrative and no one even knew um how dark this this actual operation was that a neo-con architect of the iraq war actually facilitated and stage managed this psyop of this other anchor to try to undermine what i did and paint the network as actually illegitimate it was fascinating and really on her interviews i mean you could tell that there was no real understanding of even you know what she was doing she had notes with her that she was basically given by these people and she couldn't even explain what the propaganda was that she was told to say because there really was no story there but of course it didn't matter at the end of the day the damage was done wow i've got i've got a lot of thoughts um i mean that's that's so intense and you know i think i mean i thank you for for for sharing that and i'm processing it and i think that like um yeah with the limited time that i have with you i wanted to spin that into a question that i have been asked a lot uh here at the real news and and even uh from listeners of my show working people which is not a politic it doesn't focus on geopolitics all that much at all it focuses again on workers struggles but people are reaching out and asking about this because especially for folks who have recognized the compromised position we'll put it gently of mainstream corporate media and who search for answers among independent media sources that suspicion of psyops and and of of wolves amongst the sheep you know like or or you know like they're they're i feel like everyone is on very high alert and in fact it it becomes one of the weapons of first resort when people start kind of lashing out at media makers whose opinions they very much disagree with who's reporting they feel is lacking in certain points yadda yadda people get immediately accused of actually being uh assaya right you know like a being a plant and i guess the the going back to the fog of war thing the really humbling part about it is that there's actually a lot about that that we genuinely can't know there are people whose voices i do value but i i don't know them i don't know how much i can trust them at the end of all things so i guess i'm asking for viewers and listeners how learning from that experience that you had what sort of critical media literacy tools should we have in our toolbox to know when we're being duped or at least to to better try to discern right how to interpret you know the the voices and left and independent media to know who we can trust is that does that question make sense yeah i mean it was a very it was a really tough time for me to navigate let's just say that because i was the center of this media storm we know how these cycles operate where they chew you up and spit you out and at the end of the day i was fully exposed for all my faults and that's why i just continued to just wear my bias and opinion just on my sleeve you know love it or leave it i don't hide who i am and i don't hide what i'm advocating for and it's really difficult to discern the same you know we have a sea of of corporate media journalists who i feel like they get into the industry for the right reason um but there's a lot of self-censorship there's a lot of pressure to conform a lot of this is about access and keeping your job i mean that that really is what it is and i think a lot of people who get into the industry in these outlets like the new york times and such go down the line they believe in the underpin like the myths that underpin this country i mean they believe in american exceptionalism they believe in capitalism and they believe in empire and so it's not that they're lying it's just that that's their belief system and it kind of fits neatly into the way that the media functions and of course posits itself as a free press i think that as media literate or at least hoping to be media literate people there is a lot of pressure and work to do a lot of people have no time to you know get the chinese perspective russian perspective western perspective and then like like figure out the truth for themselves and so i think that you have to just find outlets like the real news find journalists that have shown themselves to be true to be consistent and follow those journalists work and and support those journalists work and just that's really all we can do because peop we can't expect people to do the job that we do and that's why we're enlisted to do this and to to kind of navigate these fields ourselves as you mentioned there is a very heavy fog of war going on today and going back to my point about russian media let's just pick out one story that turned out to be false um where russia you know invaded snake island and blew up those 13 soldiers that said go f yourself russia well i found out from russian media a day after that that it was completely false story that was paraded around zelonski said that these guys were gonna get medals of honor and like the whole media used them as these heroes that stood up to russia well it turned out to be false we would never maybe i would never have known that that story was false if i didn't have the russian media perspective actually validating or coming out and countering that and that is important to discern fact from fiction i want to know all sides i need to know all sides and we're not going to really know what's going on in the ground because there's so many conflicting reports until sadly the dust is settled and the blood has been shed and you know as peace as peace-loving people and as people who are pushing for accountability with the role that our government plays i think that as journalists in the heart of the empire the belly of the beast it is our duty to focus on what we can do to advocate for change of course we can join in the course of condemnation against putin that's easy that takes no effort at all but what takes a little bit more effort is actually figuring out our role our role as citizens our duty as journalists who live here to put pressure and to hold power to account in our own government who's not only exacerbating tensions they're sending hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry we just sent anti-aircraft missiles um there in ukraine there's numerous pundits and politicians calling for a no-fly zone which would actually mean a full-scale nuclear war i'm not sure if they actually know that that's what they're calling for and the list goes on and so we need to de-escalate not only tensions between these two countries but the rhetoric we need to bring people back to reality this is the role that nato's cause no this doesn't legitimate nato's presence this is actually this should show us the opposite that all of nato's aggression for the last 30 years brought us to the doorstep of war it doesn't excuse anything russia's doing but why are we making the situation worse why are we sanctioning an entire country why are we asphyxiating tens of millions of people punishing collectively punishing populations that have nothing to do with what their criminal actions of their government are doing can you imagine if that's what the whole world came together to do for americans in the midst of the war on terror i mean it's really disturbing the bloodlust and everyone's pressuring everyone to drink from the blood goblet and we need to really be the voice of reason here because there's not many outlets left and the pressure to conform and feed the algorithm to the sensationalist drivel is very strong because we have to operate under capitalist models still and that is a very difficult thing to do when you're trying to do responsible journalism but we have to do it no matter what uh the response is you know and that's that's just our duty max and you're doing a great job and we're just going to do the best we can to sift through the disinformation and keep reporting what we feel like is the most thing to put front and center well i mean i'm truly honored and humbled by that and i i thank you very much for saying that abby and for viewers and listeners it goes without saying but i will say it anyway that if you're not watching and supporting the empire files you need to correct that in a hurry for all the reasons that abby just said because um because those those those uh war drum beating blood thirsty uh uh uh you know fang dripping voices are incredibly well funded they're the ones who are getting you know the the most airtime they're the ones that can uh uh you know project their message to to every corner of the country and beyond we don't the real news is is viewers supported we're doing our best just like every other independent media outlet is but we are very much it is very much a david and goliath uh sort of a situation and what we're talking about is ultimately the potential annihilation of life on this planet i don't say that to be alarmist i say that because one of the most prominent voices in that sort of corporate media ecosystem this this if if i may editorialize this this [ __ ] sean hannity is literally going out there and saying why don't we just you know bomb uh this russian convoy and not say who did it putin will never figure it out this man is literally saying in in the sprint in the span of one sentence sean hannity goes we can see in full detail through satellite images thousands of miles away you know this russian convoy then he goes let's bomb it and not tell putin who it is it's like if you if we can see them in that clear detail what makes you think they're not going to see who's bombing them in clear detail like and and and that is just it it boggles the mind i'm i'm genuinely kind of speechless on that front especially because when it comes to the us and russia we're talking about two world powers that have over 90 of the world's nuclear weapons like that we're not [ __ ] around i'm sorry to say pardon my language but we need to all recognize the actual human stakes here and and non-human stakes here both for the people whose suffering we are seeing um on our screens in ukraine the people who are fleeing the people in russia who are hurting from these sanctions who don't even want this war the leftists who are trying to demonstrate against the war in russia who are being viciously cracked down upon including folks that we've talked to here at the real news there's a lot of pain in this situation and the fact that that our concern for that pain and and the needlessness of that pain the avoidability of that pain that should be front and center we shouldn't be i i think back to you know back to my academic days abby when i was studying uh mexican politics in the 19th and 20th century right and i think back to these postcards that used to be sold around the u.s showing um american citizens on the rio grande sitting and watching the revolutionary war happen like literally making a day out of it having picnics i'm not saying that that's what we're doing but that's the image that comes up for me where we are so kind of distance from that horror that reality that human pain but it still in some ways is a sort of spectacle that we feed off of and with the time that i have remaining with you i guess i wanted to ask you about that because people have rightly pointed out the the racist double standard with the way that the western media has covered the war in ukraine right i mean we've seen just kind of just horrifying examples of of anchors and correspondents being like well this war matters because they're white this war matters because they look like us right it's really that simple this war matters because it's in europe they're not brown they don't speak a language that's unrecognizable they don't look more like like me and i'm just like okay the quiet part has been said very much out loud so um but and when people are pushing a back against that it even kind of rebounds to us here at the real news like when we cover the war in ukraine people say well why aren't you covering the wars elsewhere it's like well we've been doing that we've tried to do that we we can't cover everything but we have a lot of great coverage including something that you have done um you know on the horror unleashed upon palestinians on the horde that has been unleashed for for decades if not centuries on the people of afghanistan the people in yemen the people in syria the people in central and south america the people all around the world who are under the boot of oppressive forces that we all you know need to try to stop i wanted to ask you in this kind of like kind of let's get some moral clarity here and let's think about how you yourself as a media maker as a journalist as a peace activist i want to give people the chance to sort of take the solidarity that they're feeling with the people the suffering people of ukraine right now and expand that across the globe to feel that solidarity with their fellow human beings around the world because then maybe we will recognize that this horror this injustice is as unbearable as it is in ukraine as it is everywhere else in the world how have you done that have you tried to do that um or what are the obstacles in doing that as a media maker as a documentarian as an activist i guess help me help me figure out how to get people to care i know as much for their fellow human beings around the world as we care about ukraine and to use that to fight to keep this world from falling apart i feel your pain i'm thinking that day in and day out how can we get people to widen this consciousness and apply it everywhere and have moral consistency and i don't think it's their fault it's that we're led by what we're told and we don't know any better and the outrage that this collective outrage that's felt that's palpable in the wake of russia's invasion of ukraine where does that come from that comes from the media chorus and the politicians and all the corporations acting with one voice to condemn russia and that's okay we need to utilize that outrage right we need to utilize the fact that there is anger but use that as an instructive moment how can we actually understand that war did not start today that war is actually a permanent state it's been perpetuated by the u.s for decades and decades the war on terror has been never ending in the same week of course as real news has pointed out and many others in the same week that russia invaded ukraine there was a u.s bombing campaign in somalia israel bombed syria and the saudi ira arabia coalition that's helped and facilitated facilitated excuse me by the us bombed yemen there's a genocide going on in yemen right now and we are internationalists we are leftists it is natural to be repelled by the sight of soldiers invading a sovereign nation right it's very natural and understandable to be angry and outraged at war crimes being taken place bombs being dropped on civilians war is hell and people die needlessly and suffer needlessly and that applies everywhere in the world and you know we can do about it i can't do anything about russia invading ukraine right now i'm an american citizen i'm sitting here in los angeles what i can do is try to pressure my government to stop unleashing the horror that it does on a daily basis that subjugates hundreds of millions of people around the world under the boot of u.s militarism the barbarism that's unleashed on the people of yemen yes it matters not just because i know that they're brown and they're poor but yes life matters everywhere human life is sacred it doesn't matter what skin color you have it doesn't matter where you live it's very emotional for me because i care about all human life and seeing what my government has done the murder the wars the barbarism that's unleashed on the rest of the world in my name it angers me so much and i know that people don't know and how dare the media how dare the media just pick and choose what it wants people to see and care about when i know that people would care if they knew what their government was doing in their name and that's where we come in all we can do as people who live in the west is expose what our government is doing and help put that pressure to end this madness i mean i'm seeing the hypocrisy is so astounding to me that i see you know bbc publishing an actual instructive manual on where to throw molotov cocktails to kill russian soldiers and tanks can you imagine if they did that with palestinian freedom fighters against the israeli occupation can you even imagine if there was a molotov cocktail training course being aired live on sky news pro-palestinian trying to show people how to make molotov cocktails i mean it is just so fascinating the way that this unfolds when it's a western enemy and that's not okay for me i think that we need to extend our solidarity to life and we need to understand that all life matters all around the world and it's our duty and responsibility to try to stop the suffering and murder and end of life that's perpetrated by our governments in the west no matter what the media tells us to do or say that that's our job and that's our role and that's really all we can do so that is the one and only abby martin american journalist show presenter activists artists can't say enough about how powerful and necessary her voice is but if you aren't already you should be checking out the empire files an invaluable investigative documentary and interview series that abby hosts please check out her feature documentary gaza fights for freedom and be on the lookout for the features she is currently working on entitled earth's greatest enemy abby thank you so much for your time and for your insight and for your passion thank you so much maximilian really appreciate everything you do and thanks for having me on keep fighting keep fighting and to all of you please keep fighting as well this is maximilian alvarez for the real news network before you go please head on over to the realnews.com forward slash support become a monthly sustainer of our work so we can keep bringing you important coverage and conversations just like this stay safe and thank you so much for watching you

Channel: The Real News Network

Views: 185,565

Keywords: abby martin, russia-ukraine conflict, manufacturing consent, the real news network, trnn

Id: XUVxdM5giKE

Length: 53min 20sec (3200 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 08 2022