Joe Rogan Experience #1684 - Abby Martin

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Abby Martin, how are you?

   4. AMAbby Martin0:16

      I'm great, how are you, Joe?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      You're my favorite hardcore lefty.

   6. AMAbby Martin0:18

      (laughs) Thank you.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      (laughs)

   8. AMAbby Martin0:20

      Thank you very much.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Yeah. 'Cause, uh, at all... You know, all the podcasts that I ever do, whenever I do a podcast with you, I'm like, "Okay, this one's gonna be interesting."

   10. AMAbby Martin0:28

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       There's, there's gonna be some shit that's gonna disturb me that I don't know about.

   12. AMAbby Martin0:32

       Hell yeah, man. That's how I like to do it. Well, a lot of the stuff is depressing and it's not for everyone, but, you know, you try to, you try to just go balls deep, because I, I grew up in the YouTube generation, and I learned so much and I wanna be that source for a lot of people, you know? I wanna, I wanna guide people through the journey of learning about real education and all the sinister shit your government's doing.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       Sinister shit all guns- governments are doing. You know, I remember one of the first times... No- not one of the first times, but one of the, one of the biggest times that I got blowback from having you on was your s- your personal experience interviewing people in Israel.

   14. AMAbby Martin1:07

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:07

       Interviewing, um, Israelis and interviewing Palestinians and, and trying to sort through, like, what is really going on over there? What is the real attitude about people over there? And I remember go- because... Fucking cam- it must be a, an email campaign. It must've been-

   16. AMAbby Martin1:21

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       ... a campaign, because it was, like, the same letter over and over and over again I was receiving in my inbox. It must've been, like, a website you could go and then sign it and then send it to me. But n- now, don't you think that, like, the tide has shifted in that subject, where now people are realizing, like, they're going, "Hey, like, this is not as simple as the mainstream media wants everybody to, to, to look at it"? The way mainstream media was portraying it in this country, it was always that Israel's the good guys, the Palestinians are the bad people. That's how it was. But the mainstream perception now has v- very much shifted, don't you think? Like with this last-

   18. AMAbby Martin2:04

       100%.

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:05

       When you see, like, that Iron Dome and you're seeing these rockets being fired out of Palestine and they're all getting detonated in the air, and then you realize, like, "Oh, this is, this is a, kind of a crazy situation." Like, one side has this insane technology and the other side is kind of in an open-air prison camp, in a way. Like, you can't go anywhere.

   20. AMAbby Martin2:27

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:27

       Y- you're kinda stuck.

   22. AMAbby Martin2:30

       25% of American Jews now, after the latest onslaught in Gaza, believe Israel's an apartheid state, and that, that shows you how dramatically the narrative has completely flipped on its head, because for the last 20 years, Israel's been losing control of dictating the narrative. I mean, that, that was really what they relied on for so long, that, "We're acting in self-defense. That we're surrounded by people who hate us and hypothetically will commit genocide against us," to basically defend the fact that they are committing de facto genocide in Gaza. That is the erasure of, of Gaza residents. It's the erasure of a culture. It's not just the extermination. That, that's according to the UN. But yeah, the, the tide has changed, Joe. They can no longer say that they're acting in self-defense over the last 20 years, with the bombardments, with the invasions, with the colonization outside of their borders. I mean, we're talking about Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, and just constantly bombing an open-air prison. It is an open-air prison. There's two million people trapped there. They cannot leave without permits by the Israeli government or the collaborative government in Egypt. Those people are trapped. And then you look at Israel, they're living, they're, they're living high. High... You know, they're on the, they're on a... Living a great life. I mean, I saw some crazy-ass ad from Dior, like, of people, you know, basically just having this very ritzy time, you know, living in Tel Aviv, living in Jerusalem, and completely just separate from the fact that there is this besieged ghetto of two million people denied basic access to things like water and electricity. I mean, the right to have human mobility, I think, is like, the most basic right that you can have as a human being. Like, to leave and freely travel, and these people can't do that, and, and the media has completely painted it forever. The media's totally controlled, right? The media acts as an arm of, of the state, and for the longest time the media has basically just said, "Israel is right." They've only depicted the Israeli side of the story, and it doesn't matter anymore, because with the advent of social media, Palestinians are able to film their own reality for the first time. So they're filming the home demolitions, they're filming the ethnic cleansing, they're filming themselves getting bombed relentlessly for no reason other than collective punishment and torture of this area. And that is convincing the world, and actually bringing more people t- to their side. The sympathy is now going to Palestinians, where even Democratic voters... Um, a Gallup poll is taken every single year of Democratic Party voters and where they're at on the Israel-Palestine thing, and this year, for the first time in the history of the poll, more Democratic Party voters say that the m- pressure needs to be put on Israel than Palestine. And it's just because of this. It's because the narrative's changing, Joe, and, and they've lost the moral high ground here. They have targeted munitions that the US supplies to them. They choose to target entire families' homes. They choose to kill 14 members of one family sleeping in their bed at night, because maybe one person has ties to Hamas. Hamas has indiscriminate rocket fire because they don't have targeted munitions. Wrap your mind around that. One side has all the armaments in the world, supplied by the world's empire, and they actually direct these missiles towards sleeping families and civilian infrastructure and AP buildings.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:56

       Don't they let them know in advance when they're doing something like... Don't they drop leaflets and let 'em know that, that-

   24. AMAbby Martin6:01

       So that's what they, that's what they claim, that, "We're the most moral army in the world because we warn people in advance." I have contacts on the ground in Gaza that said that that is not true, and also, this was happening at night.... you're sleeping in bed.

   25. JRJoe Rogan6:14

       Mm.

   26. AMAbby Martin6:15

       But they can use that and say, "Oh, no, we, we sent a 10-minute warning." And even if that were true, your entire home, you know, your entire... Like, some guy lost his wh- like, a bookstore that his, you know, his family has passed down from generations. That's all gone. All of these businesses, gone. You know? It's not just about people's lives tragically lost, it's about their livelihoods.

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:38

       And their counter is that Hamas is attacking them, and they're simply countering- counterattacking, right?

   28. AMAbby Martin6:44

       That is what they say all the time, and they have used Hamas governing the Gaza Strip as a reason since Hamas pushed Israeli settlers out back in the day, 15 years ago, as a reason to enact this medieval siege and tighten the noose every year, allow less and less people to leave, allow less and less water, bomb more and more factories. You know, all of these things that basically make life harder and harder. But the thing is, if you look at actually the history, the Israeli government facilitated Hamas to rise to power. They wanted Hamas to take control of the Gaza Strip so then they can use Hamas as this eternal enemy to collectively punish everyone there. And it's actually a war crime upon war crime upon war crime because this is indiscriminate bombing. 50% of people who live in Gaza are children, innocent children. That's 70 kids who just died in the last bombing campaign. These people are innocent. They have nothing to do with Hamas. But, Joe, it doesn't even matter what Gazans do, what Palestinians do to resist. Look at the Great March of Return, the documentary that I actually came on last time and talked about. It's now up for free, Gaza Fights for Freedom. Everyone can check it out on YouTube. YouTube's throttling it, but please check it out. This is what happens when Palestinians resist peacefully. Everyone says, "Where's the Palestinian Gandhi? Why don't they peacefully resist?" They are. They have been. They've largely abandoned violent struggle or- or armed resistance, which is actually internationally protected right for colonized people. But when they resist peacefully, in the tens of thousands, they were mowed down by Israeli snipers, Joe. And it doesn't matter what they do.

   29. JRJoe Rogan8:25

       In the tens of thousands?

   30. AMAbby Martin8:27

       Tens of th- Not mowed down dead, but shot. Shot with exploding bullets from these snipers. 200 people died. 500 people were shot in the head. A lot of them did survive. We interviewed several of these people, medics, journalists, children. I mean, all of these people are protected categories under the Geneva Conventions. They were targeted and shot by Israeli snipers, and they were peacefully protesting. And that just shows you, it does not matter what they do. They will get met with the same brutality and violence.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Check it out. Just…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

   2. AMAbby Martin15:00

      Check it out. Just look up... Yeah. Dude, it's unbelievable, this fucking guy who's just an American dude literally squatting in some Palestinian's house and he's just like, "Hey. Sorry. If I don't do it, someone else will. It's not my problem." And the people are just like, "Get out of my goddamn home."

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      So, how does an American settler get to do that in Israel? What is... Like, here, let's see.

   4. NANarrator15:21

      (energetic music plays) No one is allowed to steal it, (energetic music plays) .

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:26

      This Israeli settler is trying to take over a Palestinian family's home. Talked about-

   6. NANarrator15:31

      You know this is not your house.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:32

      Yes. But if I go, you don't go back. So, what's the problem? Why are you yelling at me? I didn't do this. I didn't do this.

   8. NANarrator15:38

      But he is-

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:38

      Why are you not helping? It's easy to yell at me, but I didn't do this.

   10. AMAbby Martin15:40

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:40

       You are stealing my house. Whoa.

   12. AMAbby Martin15:44

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       This neighborhood is home to 3,000 Palestinians m- many of whom are descendants, uh, now, uh, Israel, during the ethnic cleansing of 1948, Israel's been ordering the eviction of Palestinian families who've lived in... How do you say that?

   14. AMAbby Martin16:00

       Sheikh Jarrah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:01

       Sheikh Jarrah.

   16. AMAbby Martin16:02

       Yeah, fast-forward 'cause I think, there's a part where he's just like, "If I don't take it, someone else will." I don't know if it shows him.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:07

       I think he- he did say that.

   18. AMAbby Martin16:07

       Oh, right, here at the end.

   19. NANarrator16:08

       (energetic music plays) You are stealing my house.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:11

       And if I don't steal it, someone else will.

   21. AMAbby Martin16:13

       Yeah, so-

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       "If I don't steal it, someone else will."

   23. AMAbby Martin16:15

       So, Sheikh Jarrah is a flashpoint right now, so is Silwan. They're two flashpoints in Jerusalem. Um, basically they're just expelling hundreds of Palestinians from their homes in order to maintain an artificial majority of Israeli Jews. And it's not just Israeli Jews, it's, as you can see, American Jews who come and squat, and they're actually backed by NGOs. This guy's being paid to do that, he's being paid by US organizations and NGOs to go and squat in a Palestinian's home.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:43

       What is NGO? What's an NGO?

   25. AMAbby Martin16:45

       Like, a non-governmental organization. Like, a, just an organization that's backed by rich people who just say, "Okay, I'm gonna pay you. You go squat in this person's home and force them out."

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       So, w- how are they reinforcing this? Like, how does this guy get into there? What- what are they saying? Like, how is this... How are they trying to get these families to leave their houses?

   27. AMAbby Martin17:04

       So, there's a... This is the problem, is that there's a court order that's just totally fallaciously concocted by the Israeli court system because everything is discriminatory against Palestinians and everything is disenfranchised, geared toward pushing Palestinians out. So, they have this kind of, these concocted documents that they can use to be like, "Look, we have this court order, so therefore we need to push you out." The Palestinians are fighting it, but who's gonna win at the end, Joe? I mean, this is a demographic law that's in place which means that 70% of Jerusalem needs to be Israeli Jews. So, what happens when you have 31% who are Palestinian Arabs? They need to be expelled to maintain that artificial majority to maintain that demographic. Um, there's incredible twins, uh, brother and sister, Mohammed and Mona El-Kurd, who are filming their reality, they live in Sheikh Jarrah, they're filming real time settlers, like, like, in their home, trying to take it over forcibly.

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:02

       So, these people just show up-

   29. AMAbby Martin18:04

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       ... and just move into your house?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      uh, American intellectuals who are very bright people but either are supporters of Israel or are- are American Jews and they have, um, sort of a blind allegiance towards Israel in a lot of ways. And that was, in a lot of ways, that was what you had to have in those circles for a long time, right? You supported Israel, like, everybody supported Israel. But I think seeing some of the things that you uncovered in- in your work and seeing some of those interviews and- and recognize that this is a- it's a very disturbed place, very, very disturbed. Like, this is- there's no clear...... lo- th- there's no, th- there's no, like, clear moral high ground for these people when they're ... we ... w- you're talking about shooting people that are just working as press, or shooting people that are medics, and it's, it's one of those things too, where if you ask someone, like, "How do you fix this?"

   2. AMAbby Martin30:58

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:59

      How does one resolve the conflict in the Middle East? That, that might be like the biggest problem in all of world politics. Like, ask someone, "How do you resolve the, the crisis in the Middle East?" How do you resolve that?

   4. AMAbby Martin31:11

      (laughs) Boom, go.

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:12

      Right? Yeah.

   6. AMAbby Martin31:12

      So, I mean, I have an answer.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:13

      Not, not a ... see, wasn't that, was n- that an AOC, like, gotcha question-

   8. AMAbby Martin31:18

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:18

      ... where they got ... what, remember that?

   10. AMAbby Martin31:19

       Yeah, and she backpedaled and said she didn't know enough to, to-

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       Yeah, well guess what?

   12. AMAbby Martin31:23

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       No one knows enough. How the fuck do you fix that? There's not a goddamn solution. Like, what would you do, like imagine if you're a-

   14. AMAbby Martin31:29

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       Imagine you are in the middle of a presidential debate, right? Abby, what would you do to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine?

   16. AMAbby Martin31:39

       I would condition ... and first of all, this is just my political face talking-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:43

       Yes.

   18. AMAbby Martin31:43

       I think no aid should go to Israel, but I, uh, you know, pulling the Bern- Bernie Sanders card, he said he would condition all aid in accordance to international law, which goes back to the BDS thing, right?

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AMAbby Martin31:54

       We want the occupation to be lifted, which flies in the face of international law. We want the right to return, and we want apartheid to fall, and once those things happen, once we have equal rights for everyone, then we can see where we're at.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       So what is a-

   22. AMAbby Martin32:07

       But that is the source-

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:08

       What does that mean, like, "occupation, occupation lifted"?

   24. AMAbby Martin32:11

       ... of the conflict. So there's a brutal Israeli military dictatorship that's been imposed on the West Bank, and it has been since '67, and this is, uh, this is preventing people from organizing politically. I know people who've been in jail for years and years with no trial because they were an organizer. You know, they were politically active. You can't have weapons, you can be thrown in jail if you have anything on you that can be construed as a weapon, you can't convene in groups. You saw plenty of footage that came out of the last onslaught, and the last stuff that was going on, of people simply raising a flag, which is illegal under the Israeli military dictatorship. You cannot hold up a symbol of your culture and you will get arrested. Uh, you saw plenty of people getting attacked. F- you even saw, like, a six-year-old boy, like, getting arrested by the (laughs) Israeli military. I mean, it is-

   25. JRJoe Rogan33:04

       For having a Palestinian flag?

   26. AMAbby Martin33:05

       For having a, for holding a Palestinian flag. It's wild stuff. So, Joe, I don't know if you knew this, but I just w- won a lawsuit. Um, this is fucking insane. I mean, this, this goes along with the whole BDS thing, but there are 30 states in the US that have passed legislation that says you cannot make money at a state institution as an independent contractor unless you sign a contract saying that you will never advocate the boycott of Israel, and never engage in the boycott of Israel.

   27. JRJoe Rogan33:44

       Really?

   28. AMAbby Martin33:45

       Yes. 30 states in the US. This is the ultimate censorship. This is the black hand of the state coming down and enacting laws that says you cannot speak or advocate for this issue. This is a totally passive action. BDS is what brought down Jim Crow apartheid in the South, BDS is what brought down apartheid in South Africa, and BDS will inevitably b- inevitably bring down apartheid in Israel, but I was given such a contract. I was supposed to speak at Georgia Southern University, and I was given a contract that says, "You can never boycott the State of Israel, you can never advocate the boycott of Israel." And I was just like, "This is fucking mind-blowing because, uh, this is what I do." (laughs) I mean, this is, in part, you know, bringing attention to these issues, advocating BDS, and the whole conference fell apart, and, uh, I ended up suing Georgia. Uh, I sued them-

   29. JRJoe Rogan34:40

       The State of Georgia?

   30. AMAbby Martin34:41

       Yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Do you think that…

   1. AMAbby Martin45:00

      its military goals and regional domination, which means that it can be untenable, which means that we can make it inconvenient for the US to care about subsidizing Israel. They don't give a shit. You know, if th- if enough pressure is mounted, they will abandon the project. They have similar goals, but not congruent goals and interests. They don't care if Israel takes over all of Palestine. That doesn't really matter to the US political establishment.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      Do you think that part of the way this is all playing out is because of the fact that they're backed up by the United States, and the United States gives them, like, these crazy laws, like what you faced in Georgia? And they have these, sort of the attitude over here that, like, this is our, that's our guard dog over there. Like, we'll, we'll let this thing loose. We'll do whatever we can to support them, because we need them.

   3. AMAbby Martin45:52

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:52

      We need them to protect our assets over there, and so we empower them in a wi- a wild way, like in, i- in not ever talking about these atrocities, and really kinda glossing over the things that you've highlighted.

   5. AMAbby Martin46:07

      Oh, 100%. I mean, it's totally subsidized by the US. And that's why d- during the Great March of Return, you saw these toothless resolutions passed by the UN being like, "We condemn Israel," and the US has veto power on the world stage. There's something called The Hague Invasion Act that says if you even try to indict US officials for war crimes, you can fucking be invaded by the US. I mean, there is so much power and domination from the US as the supplier and backer of these states, like Saudi Arabia and Israel, that no one can do anything about it until we act here.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:40

      Is there propaganda that the Israeli people are exposed to that ch- that gives them this perspective? Like, is there, uh, a concerted effort to try to demonize the people that live in Palestine? Do they try to, to do this to make it so that they do accept these sort of dehumanizing tactics?

   7. AMAbby Martin46:57

      Oh, hell yeah. I mean, absolutely. You know, it'd probably be the same propaganda that was given to Americans during Jim Crow. It's like, you don't, you know, you don't have the other side of the story.

   8. JRJoe Rogan47:07

      Or to the Germans.

   9. AMAbby Martin47:08

      Oh my God, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       During World War II.

   11. AMAbby Martin47:09

       Of course. And that's really d- it's, it's a dark truth, but it is very similar. You know, I, one of the smears against me is that I compared Israel's tactics to Nazi Germany, and that's actually no longer controversial anymore. I mean, you just have to look at what they're doing today. And it... Even Holocaust survivors have said that this is... These are very similar mentalities and similar atrocities being carried out.

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:35

       But it was controversial at the time, because there wasn't the kind of media coverage in mainstream media-

   13. AMAbby Martin47:41

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:41

       ... which is where everybody was getting their news.

   15. AMAbby Martin47:43

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:44

       So, these controversial, small, independently operated media units, like yours, that would go over there and report things, they were sort of dismissed and marginalized, right? Is that, uh, fair to say?

   17. AMAbby Martin47:57

       100%. Part of the manufacturing of consent.

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:00

       Did you get... Yes, right? Did you get anybody from any mainstream, whether it's MSNBC or whoever, who wanted to talk to you about your work?

   19. AMAbby Martin48:11

       Not one person, Joe, and, and I think we know why. I'm persona non grata because of multiple reasons, the Russia media stuff. I worked for Russia Today. So, right off the bat-

   20. JRJoe Rogan48:22

       Yeah.

   21. AMAbby Martin48:22

       ... I'm a Russian disinformation agent no matter how long I'm out in the field independently operated and grassroots-funded.... I'm done.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:30

       Well, you were working for Russia Today, and I think the, the way I was describing this to a friend, I said, "I bet they thought that if you got this woman who s- talks a lot of shit about-

   23. AMAbby Martin48:40

       (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:40

       ... American imperialism, and you hire her for Russia Today, that'd be a pretty good scoop. You got this very articulate American woman who's talking shit about the American empire. Whoops, what is she saying about Crimea?"

   25. AMAbby Martin48:52

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:52

       Oh, no. Like, when you- (laughs) when she... And they're like, "Oh, no, this bitch-"

   27. AMAbby Martin48:57

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:57

       "... like, hates all imperialism. Fuck, I thought she was on our side."

   29. AMAbby Martin49:00

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:01

       Like, you, when you started going a- against the, the, um, what, what Putin was doing in Crimea and then they invited you to go to Crimea and put shoes on the ground, you're like, "Get the fuck outta here." You, you knew your time there was-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      you know, if you're dropping bombs-

   2. AMAbby Martin1:00:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      ... on countr- especially if you're d- like, do you remember when Clinton was in the middle of the N- the L- Monica Lewinsky thing, and then he just started d- l- launch some bombs? Remember that?

   4. AMAbby Martin1:00:11

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      I was like, "Well, gonna fucking-"

   6. AMAbby Martin1:00:12

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      "... need to take some of the heat off me here. What's the best way?"

   8. AMAbby Martin1:00:15

      Exactly.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      Just launch some bombs.

   10. AMAbby Martin1:00:17

       Exactly.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

       Yeah, I mean, doing things like that, doing things like... Any, any, any time you're i- uh, imagine, I mean, this is not, I'm not accusing anybody of this, again. But imagine if you want to distract someone from one thing you're doing, and the way you do it is invade a country.... invade a country, prop up some rebels, launch some rockets, do something, and while all that's going on, you're over here on-

   12. AMAbby Martin1:00:42

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       ... fucking shoveling money and doing a little this, doing a little that. That's gone on th- throughout history. People have done that. That's, it's a part of strategy, it's a part of propaganda, it's a part of how people implement a, a thing that they want to do that's unpopular with the people.

   14. AMAbby Martin1:00:59

       Of course. I mean, and, and when the military industrial complex plays such an interwoven role in our politics, it's, it's hard to separate the two, really.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       Yeah.

   16. AMAbby Martin1:01:08

       You know? It really is. And these things are administered with such extreme levels of cognitive dissonance. Like the Yemen war, I mean, it's unbelievable, um, how that was started, and Obama's a war criminal for that alone. You know? And, and no one actually gives him the credit for starting that, and it's still going on and it's absolutely horrifying, but-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

       Can you explain why th- what happened there?

   18. AMAbby Martin1:01:30

       (sighs) Yeah, without getting into the depressing nature, 'cause I know I tend to, to get t- go too hard, you know?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

       Do you?

   20. AMAbby Martin1:01:36

       This isn't for everyone, you know what I mean? Like, th- e- what I do at Empire Files, it's not for everyone. It's for people who want to go down the rabbit hole with me, take the red fucking pill and come down the journey with me.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       That word's been co-opted-

   22. AMAbby Martin1:01:47

       It's depressing. It has.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:48

       ... uh, unfortunately.

   24. AMAbby Martin1:01:49

       It has, sadly.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:50

       Too bad.

   26. AMAbby Martin1:01:50

       But it's-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       By dorks.

   28. AMAbby Martin1:01:51

       ... it's kind of true. (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       (laughs) They stole it. Because it's, it's such a-

   30. AMAbby Martin1:01:55

       The Matrix still holds up, man.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:19:26

   365. And that they…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      365. And that they all, like- a lot of them got sick. A lot of them have really fucked up health repercussions because of this.

   2. AMAbby Martin1:15:08

      And they're denied claims.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

      Yeah.

   4. AMAbby Martin1:15:10

      Just like Gulf War syndrome. Look, a lot of movies have been done about the environment. A lot of people are focused on climate change. This is a huge issue in politics, mass movements, all of this. The media acknowledges it, but no one has tackled what I see is the elephant in the room. And if you were to pull out 100 people from the streets, how many people would say the US military is one of the largest contributors of not only climate change, but just pollution?

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

      Is there a stat, like how much does the US military contribute to the- the carbon emissions versus agriculture versus-

   6. AMAbby Martin1:15:42

      Yeah, it's all in Barry Sanders' book.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:44

      Here, the global greenhouse gas emissions amount to 593 million metric tons-

   8. AMAbby Martin1:15:50

      See, I don't know what that... Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:51

      ... of CO2 equivalent from 2010 to 2018, an annual average similar to the annual GHG emission output of 14 million passenger cars. So, the- what the US military does is essentially the average emissions output of a large city.

   10. AMAbby Martin1:16:11

       No, no, no, no, no. It's- it's way bigger than that. You're not gonna find this on- It's the 55th ranked, if it was a country. So, here's the-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16:19

       55th ranked.

   12. AMAbby Martin1:16:19

       But here's the thing: we're talking about as an institution, it is the largest polluting organization on the planet.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:16:25

       But by saying that, what it said in that quote-

   14. AMAbby Martin1:16:29

       So, that's-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:16:29

       ... do you know what-

   16. AMAbby Martin1:16:29

       ... Barry Sanders' research, but I'll- I'll explain why because it's not just about CO2 emissions.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:16:35

       Right. But the CO2 emissions, that's what they are saying, though.

   18. AMAbby Martin1:16:38

       That's what-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

       That the average is a- a- a- approximately a 14 million city, 14 million passenger cars, which is probably more than 14 million people in the city, right? 'Cause it's not like everybody has a car.

   20. AMAbby Martin1:16:50

       Well, we're gonna- we're gonna outline, the- the climate change research is very, it's hard to elucidate because it's- it's very scientific and we're gonna be with the cutting edge science, with scientists in Alaska. We're going this summer and we're gonna be documenting that. But this goes so far beyond carbon emissions. This is about stuff like you're talking about. I mean, the US, again, the US military is the largest polluter on the planet, as an institution. Not even just the US government. Like this is- this is crazy, right? It pollutes more than the biggest chemical companies, the top five chemical companies combined. You know, if you were to ask people like, "Who- who should we fight if we're trying to save the environment?" People say like, "Oil companies or mining or animal agriculture," all that shit. But really, it's- it's this. This is the elephant in the room, Joe. And people don't want to address this because they want access. A lot of these environmental organizations have access and grants from the US government. It's controversial. It's controversial. And I wanna give you a couple, uh, examples that go far beyond what we just saw. Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina. There was so many chemicals that were poured into the water by the US military 60 years ago, that people in the tens of thousands were dying. There's actually a graveyard called Baby Heaven because of how many children under the age of five have died because of these pollutants. The government denied it for decades, and they're still denying paying people for the water contamination. Somewhere, uh, Coldwater Creek, Missouri, nuclear dumping of, from nuclear waste. I mean, this is radioactive compounds that have the shelf life of billions of years. It's permanent pollution, right?This is also has ... These toxins have polluted tens of thousands of people that played in these creeks. This is what the US military is doing to their own people, their own soldiers, their own pe- personnel at these military bases. You know what a s- you know what a Superfund site is, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:18:56

       No.

   22. AMAbby Martin1:18:57

       A Superfund site is a site that the EPA has designated a highly toxic, very polluted site in the United States that's on the National Priorities List because it's so fucking toxic, that it is causing extreme devastation to people's health and the environment. 900 out of 1,300 Superfund sites in the United States are either military installations or have previously hosted military needs, and there's hundreds more being considered. And, and-

Episode duration: 2:44:39