Exploring Warfare's Environmental Legacy and Military Connections

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

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