Abbey Martin-Joe Rogan Podcast #1316

Abbey Martin joins the Joe Rogan podcasts while promoting one of her new documentaries :
"Gaza Fights for Freedom".Trailer (Documentary not released yet).

Abbey is a great independent journalist who has ad-free documentaries and interviews on her YouTube channel :Empire Files

Joe and Abbey talk about Google, information control, Venezuela, Iran, and the Palestine/Israel conflict. Judging by the comments, there were many who disagreed with her take on Venezuela and Palestine. Make no mistake though, she is not a left or right pundit. She often visits these countries, like Palestine and Venezuela to find out the truth for herself. Her take often contradicts corporate media.

Give her a shot. Before anyone gets lazy and calls her "anti-semetic" or "anti-American", she explains that she rales against the U.S. government for atrocities and conspiracies that get brushed off and ignored by the corporate media. It is because she believes American journalists have the responsibility to hold the U.S. government and military industrial complex accountable.

Her documentary on the attrocities commited to Palestinians by Israel is coming out May 2019 (although she still has many past interviews from Gaza). Like she says, even if you believe that they are two countries at war, war crimes ARE still being committed against peaceful protesting Palestinians. It's our responsibility as tax payers (who give Israel tax payer money) to call out the U.S. government on their attitude towards Israel.

a reply to: blueman12

She’s a good listen and doesn’t kowtow, but she’s is less than objective (yeah, I know, who is?) and I tuned her out when she publicly stated USAID was a covert front for regime change.

I’d still wanna sit down with her and shoot the breeze — it’d be a helluva entertaining conversation.

a reply to: Cravens

I looked the USAID thing and there are a few articles out there that suggest such notions (besides Abbey Martin). I don't know if it's true and even if she got it wrong, I don't think that's enough reason to tune her out.

USAID politicized funding article.

The U.S. State Department, USAID, and other government agencies have refused to provide humanitarian aid to government-held areas in Syria and have instead expressly used the funding to bankroll the political, civil, and health infrastructure of rebel-held territory, including areas that are governed by Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. The Guardian exposed how similar aid initiatives by the British government financed the activities of al-Nusra and other extremist Salafi-jihadist militias.

Hmm.. I don't have time to look deeply into this so who knows... (Another great topic joe and abbey touched on was that it's just so damn hard to look deeply into these issues as they are often complex for that average 9-5er. However, I would not doubt that U.S. humanitarian aid is often being politicized.

a reply to: blueman12

Hey man, that’s your opinion, ya know? I suppose I should have qualified the “tuned her out” bit, but it was in relation to Venezuela and I don’t mean to suggest I tuned her out on everything — the remainder of my reply speaks for itself and I suppose the lack of context could make some buy the idea I tune her out wholesale. Whatever.

My job right out of grad school was at a large nonprofit that did tons of government work and USAID subbed us for millions of dollars yearly. Maybe some covert faction at the top of USAID’s leadership is a real puppet master, but my years working with USAID was filled with do-gooders, nerds, and regular peeps.

USAID does more than dig wells and build schools, but Abbey’s characterization of their mission/work was a slap in the face; I am confident I know better what USAID is up to, who is doing it, why they are doing it and how they conduct their NGO operations than Martin does.

Again, I was clear in stating I would welcome the opportunity to have a chat with Martin and stated she’s not a shill (e.g. she doesn’t kowtow), but a couple articles loosely associating USAID’s activities in Syria to some kind of usurping motivation is laughable.

I hope Martin continues to do her thing. But her ‘truth’ is just that, her’s. It’s not the whole truth or even a logically consistent truth at times. Her ‘truth’ about USAID isn’t the unfettered, unadulterated truth she claims — she’s dead wrong regarding USAID. Period.

a reply to: Cravens

Ahh.. I understand your view now. Maybe she is wrong on that then.

a reply to: blueman12

only problem here with palestine is its like any country before the olympics , theres a big clean up and the non hamas people who just want food ,a job and safety are removed

a reply to: babalon1971

Removed?