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Aug. 2, 2014 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:56:47
Joe Rogan Experience #529 - Abby Martin
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abby martin
01:13:32
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joe rogan
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and people that prefer to be genderless, if you're one of those.
This is a new era.
We have to be super sensitive to everybody.
That's what queer is, right?
You're like, I'm this.
I'm that.
I'm it.
This episode is brought to you by Ting.
I have a new Ting phone, by the way.
I just got it.
This is the official cell phone Of this podcast, and I got the Samsung Galaxy S5, which has a heart rate monitor built in, young Jamie.
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And tracks also.
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That makes me a phone whore seeing how it's only August.
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So what the fee is, is every month they just tack on a little of the price of the phone to your bill.
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And that is the only commercial today.
How about them apples, bitches?
Abby Martin's here.
Why fuck around?
Cue the music, young Jamie.
unidentified
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
joe rogan
So, Mrs. Rogan sends me this video.
She goes, uh, have you seen this?
Like, what do you think about Gaza?
What's going on with Gaza?
What is your take on this?
And she sends me a video of you.
And I said, that's my friend Abby Martin, who took this very controversial stance.
And, um...
This is a tricky situation, isn't it?
First of all, it's sad and depressing and disgusting, but it's also very tricky because there's all these weird biases that are going on left and right.
The United States has this weird bias where they're criticizing Israel, and then Israel's like, hey, fuckheads, didn't you guys bomb the shit out of Iraq?
Didn't you bomb the shit out of Afghanistan?
You guys are talking about innocent civilians being killed?
What about you?
And then there's also people on the Palestinian side that think it's just fucking horrendous what Israel's doing.
And then there's people on the Israeli side that think Hamas should just sign the peace treaty and stop training suicide bombers.
You know, in my opinion, when I look at it, and I'm obviously not qualified to be some sort of a political analyst, but when I look at it, I try to look at it objectively.
The whole thing looks like just a disaster, like a huge humanitarian disaster.
abby martin
I think it's one of the largest humanitarian issues in the world today, and I think that we're going to look back in 50 years and really just criticize how abominable the entire situation is and the fact that the world isn't turning a blind eye.
The U.S. is turning a blind eye.
You know, you say that I took a controversial position, but really, it isn't controversial in my mind because I'm looking at this oppressed population that's imprisoned.
When I grew up, Joe, I didn't even know, first of all, what Palestine was.
And then finally, when I learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though it's really one-sided, I started to learn about what Gaza actually is.
And I think a lot of people don't even understand, when they hear the word Gaza, what they're talking about.
It's really what we're talking about as an open-air prison system.
45-mile strip of land.
Completely closed off.
Egypt's closed their borders.
Sisi's just fucking sucking the dick of Netanyahu.
Totally working together.
Netanyahu shut off.
The IDF is closed off all the other borders.
It's totally under siege.
There's 1.8 million people living in that close quarters.
It's one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
So whenever you have this bombing campaign, People are gonna die in mass.
And when they say that they're using human shields, that's complete fucking bullshit.
I haven't seen one shred of evidence to prove that they're using human shields.
In fact, if you look back at the last 60 years of US military conflicts, they've used that term to demonize populations whenever they want to make it seem like this population doesn't value human life.
You're telling me Palestinians don't value their child's life?
They're gonna throw their kids out and guard missiles?
All I've seen is cartoons from Netanyahu, these infographics that show people standing on a house with missiles underneath.
Total fucking bullshit.
This place has been under siege for years.
Yes, they may have said that they pulled their troops out in 2007. It's under siege.
The Israeli health officials said that they've tried to put them on a diet, so they only allow basic staples in.
They claim because they don't want the Palestinians to be making weapons.
Pasta?
Paper?
Chocolate, anesthetics, wheelchairs.
This is the shit that people can't get inside Gaza.
joe rogan
They're keeping them gluten-free.
It's been shown to reduce hostility.
There was a documentary once on suicide bombings and they had this Palestinian school and they had this sign over the school that said, today's children are tomorrow's holy martyrs.
And they had this child that was strapped up with C4 and they had this picture of this kid that had died in a suicide bombing.
And they were praising him like he was some sort of a saint.
Because he died executing this suicide bomb.
abby martin
We praise soldiers who go and drop white phosphorus from a plane.
What's more manly?
When you're driven to zero, when you have nothing left, that's when people blow themselves up.
It's not because it's a culture of martyrdom, it's because they have fucking nothing.
And they don't have the industrial warfare capabilities to drop depleted uranium.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah, I'm certainly not taking a side.
But what I'm saying is that it's an incredibly complicated situation.
I don't know what would Israel do to alleviate tensions at this point.
How many thousands of people have died so far in this?
abby martin
Over 1,500 at this point.
1,500.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ.
abby martin
30% children.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I've seen photos.
Anthony Bourdain tweeted some awful photo of these children on the beach that had been bombed.
And one kid was dead.
Another kid was being carried away.
Most likely dead, it looked like, by all the blood and everything.
It's so depressing.
It's so awful.
And if you could objectively stop...
The whole scene and say, what is a way to fix this?
What is a way to alleviate this horrible conflict?
What is it?
Is there a way?
abby martin
Well, I think up until now, people have been saying that two-state solutions are a possibility.
You had the Palestinian Authority working with the Israeli government.
Hamas has negotiated before.
It's not that they're, like, ignoring Israel.
And, of course, there's a lot of problems with Hamas, and I'm not going to sit here and apologize for them.
I don't agree with anything that they want to see happen.
But I understand why Palestinians have aligned themselves with this group because the Palestinian Authority failed so much and they capitulated so much to Israel.
So they basically turned to the more militant faction of the leadership saying, fucking do something.
At least you guys are resisting because to them it's an occupation and under the UN charter it's an occupation as well.
A lot of people say the one state solution is the only possibility, which is end the apartheid state, give Palestinians equal rights, because right now there's different laws.
If you're Arab, that's what Israel is.
It's a Jewish state and they've driven out people who are not Jewish and they're ethnically cleansing them.
It's a fucking disaster, man.
It's really scary.
And I don't actually blame Israelis because you're growing up in Israel.
First of all, they think that they're the chosen people because the Bible says so, which is disturbing in itself.
But second of all, if you're growing up in Israel and you do hear the sirens all the time and you fucking think you're being told that these people are terrorists and they want to kill you.
So, I mean, I don't blame it.
But honestly, Israel has much more fair media coverage.
They have Haaretz, they have 972 Mag.
Here in America, we're treated like fucking children.
We aren't told the context of the situation whatsoever.
All we're told is Hamas terrorists keep firing at Israel, and Israel has the right to self-defense.
joe rogan
Well, in all fairness, this is a topic that's really too complicated for the news, in quotes.
You're not going to get in a Fox seven-minute soundbite in between commercials.
This is something that's incredibly complex and really should be like a three- or four-hour documentary just to scratch the surface.
And I don't know if...
I mean, I guess if you call yourself the news, there's a responsibility, at least an implied responsibility, to educate when it comes to a situation like this.
But to try to cover it on Fox News or on CNN and to try to give an understanding to the people viewing, it seems almost impossible.
abby martin
But they also just only do pro-Israel bias.
That's why I did that video, Why Doesn't the Media Care About Dead Palestinians?
Because there were hundreds of Palestinians that had died already and the news was still making it seem like...
Like literally every single headline was just like three Israeli soldiers died, 400 others.
And you're like, who are others?
Palestinians?
Like human beings?
Like who the fuck are these people?
Or it would just be like Israel's, you know, Hamas rockets have Israel on edge.
It's like, yeah, they might have Israel on edge, but people are fucking like dying and getting dismembered and getting blown up.
Like, from bombs.
And all this ceasefire shit, man, look, you're invading a country.
They are invading Gaza.
Netanyahu has also said it doesn't matter ceasefire or not, they're gonna go through with the invasion and destroy the tunnels.
The tunnels are not just used to store rockets.
The tunnels are used to smuggle food into Gaza.
The tunnels are used to smuggle people out to try to get them into Egypt because they're wounded and injured.
On the news, it is disgusting.
I've never seen anything so disgusting in my life than the bias toward Israel on the media.
And I know I'm called so many names because I'm pointing this out, but to me, it's very obvious.
My friend right here, she's from South Africa.
She grew up in a culture of post-apartheid, and we're living in a world where an apartheid state exists right now.
And because of this tight allegiance with the U.S., the U.S. supplies over $3 billion a year in just weaponry.
We're continuing to give more weapons to Israel.
Unless the U.S. says something, nothing's going to change.
And because it's this Jewish state, if you criticize it, then you must hate Jewish people.
And that's the problem is this rhetoric.
And it's so hard to break through and to explain to people, look, because I'm criticizing a government doesn't mean that I hate a population.
I love all human beings.
I just want them to have...
joe rogan
Well, there's also this undeniable problem with having an area like that.
And what the problem is, is that there are going to be children that are born in that area that have no history of conflict whatsoever, and they're fucked.
They're fucked.
This is where they live now, and they're treated as the enemy.
And they're born into that.
And there's no chance to break that cycle.
In that sort of a scenario, if you have a closed border, you have a closed-in population, and you have this demonized population, There's no chance to break that struggle.
I mean, if you're a child and you're born in Palestine, what the fuck are the options?
Where are you going?
What's going on?
And what are the ideologies that you're confronted with constantly, left and right?
You've got Hamas, you've got all these Palestinian organizations that want to fight against Israel.
And, you know, you're growing up in this state of perpetual conflict.
It doesn't seem like there's any resolution that's conceivable.
It's a terrible, terrible tragedy as far as, like, the wasted human potential of the children that are born there, the people that are forced to grow up in that environment, as opposed to Israel, where they could just fucking fly out and leave and live there.
You know, I mean...
I'm not, you know, I'm 100% against war.
100%.
I don't think that war is the option here.
I don't think it's correct.
I don't think...
I never think it's correct.
The only time it's ever...
I think the only time the military should ever be used is when there's an obvious threat.
You've got some ISIS crazy fucks or something that are invading a country and having mass executions.
Like what we're dealing with right now in Iraq...
That, to me, is a way clearer example of something that probably needs some fucking military attention than anything that they use to justify going to war with Iraq in the first place.
Like, what they've created in this vacuum is way scary.
We're pulling out now.
Well, it's not our problem.
No, that's a real problem.
This is a real problem.
What you fuckers did is you created a problem.
You created a power vacuum and now there's a real problem because now you've got militants who are so militant that regular Islam is not militant enough for them.
They're blowing up mosques.
These fuckers are blowing up like these historic sites.
abby martin
They got training from the Syrian rebels that we gave them.
So it's like we embolden the Syrian rebels that were aligned with this really radical faction of Islam and then they join up with ISIS and now they're going back to fucking Iraq and you're like, what in the hell?
This is why we shouldn't get involved!
This is why we shouldn't go inject democracy in places that are completely on a different evolutionary path of, you know, culture.
joe rogan
Duncan and I had dinner last night after the show and we were talking about this and we were both shaking our head.
And one of the things that we kept coming to is whenever you have military action, whenever you kill a thousand people, you don't just kill a thousand people.
You also make widows.
You make loved ones who hate, who lost their friends and family.
And there's just this culture of hate that just never goes away.
abby martin
It's a cycle of violence.
joe rogan
As long as those people are alive, this cycle is just ingrained in them on both sides, on the Israeli side, on the Palestinian side.
It's just horrific and it's almost like this process that's impossible to completely stop.
Like once the blood is shed, like fuck man, it creates this unfixable problem.
abby martin
I see it in a—okay, so we created this Jewish state.
The U.S. helped create this Jewish state, Israel.
Then there was, you know, the Antifadas, and then they had their borders.
And basically what's happened is that Israel has continued to encroach.
And if you look at the map, there's like this map, this very famous picture of these four factions of how Israel has encroached more and more in Palestine.
And now it just closed off more and more.
Gaza's just shrunk.
To about this big.
The West Bank has shrunk to about this big.
And they continue to build settlements against international law.
They've violated all of these international treaties to continue doing this because more and more settlers are going over there and making a home base, demolishing homes left and right.
So if you look at the conflict, it depends on when you want to start the clock.
You can start it with the kidnappings, which Hamas actually didn't do and Israel had to admit to that.
Or you can start with the two kids that were executed on camera by IDF soldiers weeks prior to that.
Or you could start with fucking 50 years ago or you could start with fucking 3000 years ago.
I mean, when when you want to start the conflict or the clock on the conflict and.
And that really all depends on the context of the situation.
But when people say, like, well, you're fucking shooting rockets at us, what do you think we're going to do?
The problem is you have to understand why they're shooting rockets.
And no one wants to talk about that.
And no one wants to talk about how if you have a helpless population under Section 51 under the UN Charter, that if you're getting fucking peddled with industrial warfare and you don't have an army and you're a helpless population being occupied, you do have the right to defend yourself.
That's the UN! I'm not- I abhor violence on either side, and I completely condemn shooting rockets into civilian populations and trying to kill people.
But I do understand the resistance movement, and I do understand people aligning with Hamas because, look, they're under fucking siege.
And if I didn't have basic amenities, and if I saw my home, like, my neighbor's homes getting demolished all my life, and if I fucking saw people getting shot and beat the shit out of all my Palestinian friends here who have left Palestine over the years, Their stories are just unbelievable.
One of them's brother was beaten to death by the IDF when he was 16 because he threw a stone.
The other one lost six family members and one bombing.
And I'm just like, how the fuck do you guys go on?
And they're like, just surviving is our resistance.
Just living is our resistance.
And everyone has a story like that.
joe rogan
And there's incredible biases on the pro-Israel side.
I've seen some videos that make you just go, wait, what?
The Dennis Prager one is the most egregious.
Have you ever seen that?
abby martin
No.
What is it?
joe rogan
We'll play it.
We'll play it because it's quite fascinating.
Dennis Prager on the Palestine-Israeli conflict.
It's like he...
He breaks it down in this way.
It's a highly criticized video.
abby martin
The one in a nutshell?
joe rogan
Yes.
Let's listen to it.
abby martin
Let's do it.
joe rogan
Because it's one of those ones where you're like, okay, come on, man.
We'll play it here.
You got it?
Because it's something that you can't really describe without actually saying.
Because Dennis Prager is this, like, serious conservative Jewish fella.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Prager University.
By the way, you can't have Prager University, you fuck.
You know, you're not a goddamn professor of a university that you make yourself.
unidentified
You know, the motto of Prager University is you give us five minutes and we'll give you a semester.
Well, I took many semesters on the question of the Middle East conflict.
I was at the Middle East Institute, in fact, at Columbia University.
That's where I did my graduate work.
Semester after semester, discussing the Middle East conflict as if it were the most complex conflict in the world, when in fact it's probably the easiest conflict in the world to describe.
It may be the hardest to solve, But it really is the easiest to describe.
abby martin
Kill all Muslims.
unidentified
And really, in a nutshell, this is what it is.
Israel would like to exist and recognizes the right of the Palestinians to have a state.
The Palestinians, however, and many other Muslims and Arabs do not recognize the right of a Jewish state of Israel to exist.
Every poll among Palestinians shows that the majority of Palestinians want there to be no Jewish state of Israel, doesn't believe that it should exist, or had any basis for being.
And this has been true since 1948, when the British left and the UN established A division.
Palestine will be cut in half, a Jewish half, and an Arab half.
The Jews accepted it, the Arabs didn't accept it, and what happened?
The moment it was announced, Arab armies, about seven Arab armies, attacked the Jewish state in order to destroy it.
To everybody's surprise, the little Jewish state survived, and that was pretty much it.
And then it happened again in 1967 when the dictator of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, said we are now going to extinguish the Jewish state of Israel.
And Jordan joined him and Syria joined him, but Israel attacked first and so Israel survived.
And that is how Israel, and only that way, came to occupy what was called the West Bank of Jordan, where many Palestinians lived, because many Palestinians lived in that part of Jordan.
So the war was over in 1967, and what did the Arabs do?
The Arab states all went to Khartoum, Sudan, and announced no recognition, no peace, and no negotiations.
The three famous no's.
What was Israel supposed to do?
Then Israel made an agreement to give the entire Sinai Peninsula an area of land bigger than Israel with oil back to Egypt because they said they would make peace with Israel.
Israel gives territory back for peace and it will always do that.
But is there really a desire for peace on the part of Israel's enemies, which broadcast after broadcast on TV and radio in the Palestinian areas is about how Jews should be killed and how Allah wants Jews to be killed?
That's the typical broadcast on Palestinian television.
It's not hard to explain the Middle East dispute.
One side wants the other dead.
You know what the motto of Hamas is?
The motto of Hamas is, we love death as much as the Jews love life.
Now you tell me, how is Israel supposed to make peace when people believe what Hamas believes?
abby martin
Oh God, where do I start?
unidentified
Now here is one of the most important things nobody talks about.
Everybody talks about a Palestinian state.
Why didn't anybody talk about a Palestinian state while the Palestinians lived under Jordanian rule?
Because the truth is, people started talking about a Palestinian state once the Palestinians were under Israeli rule because it was always a way to destroy the Jewish state of Israel.
And I say Jewish state because that's what it is.
There are many, many Arab states, but there is only one Jewish state.
It is about the size of New Jersey.
In fact, Israel is the size of El Salvador.
El Salvador!
And yet, if a Martian came to the Earth and they visited the United Nations or they read the world's newspapers or watched world television, they would believe that the biggest problem on Earth is a state the size of New Jersey and El Salvador, this state of Israel.
This preoccupation with a little democratic, humane state is absolutely irrational.
And here's another question to be asked.
If Israel tomorrow put down its arms and said, we will fight no more, what would happen?
If the Arab countries around Israel said, we will fight no more, we put down our arms, what would happen?
In the first case, there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel, with mass murder of the Jews of Israel.
In the second scenario I presented, where the Arabs put down their arms and said, we just want peace, there would be peace the next Wednesday.
The fact is, as I said at the outset, it is a very simple problem to describe.
One side wants the other dead.
And if they didn't, there would be peace.
And yet, please remember this.
There has never been, never in the history of the world, a state in that area, in what is called geographically Palestine, that was not Jewish.
Israel is the third autonomous Jewish state to exist in that area.
There was never an autonomous Arab state.
There was never an autonomous Muslim state.
There was never an autonomous any other state.
That's the issue.
Why can't a little state the size of El Salvador that calls itself Israel be allowed to exist?
That, in a nutshell, is the Middle East problem.
I'm Dennis Prager.
abby martin
Dennis Prager's a douchebag.
I love how he's like, um, okay, so you have all these Arab states and this is the only Jewish state.
Arab isn't a fucking religion, idiot!
Jewish state!
Yeah, you have an Islamic state, Iran, but are you going to really compare the fucking two if you're claiming that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East?
Are you really comparing yourself to Iran and all these other, like...
I mean, it's just amazing that he just said that.
That's insane.
Also, sure, there's absolutely people who hate Jewish people.
There's calls for genocide on that side.
But there's also calls for genocide in the Israeli cabinet as well.
Some woman just said that all Palestinians should die.
Times of Israel just published a piece...
Justifying genocide.
They actually said when genocide is permissible.
This was just published yesterday, taken down in a couple hours because of the backlash.
But you have this rhetoric coming from both sides, but I only see one side actually doing the genocide.
Carrying out genocide.
One side is doing the killing.
The other side, yes, the Hamas charter may say that Israel should cease to exist.
I don't know if that's like a mistranslation in Arabic of just saying the state should be dissolved.
But I know that they mistranslated Ahmadinejad saying wipe Israel off the map.
He never actually said that.
He just he said like the borders should like Israel as a state shouldn't be there as a Jewish state.
He didn't say fucking wipe them off the map, kill them all.
That was a mistranslation.
And of course, you just hear that repeated ad nauseum, no matter what.
One other thing that's just really ridiculous is this other Israeli cabinet official just said that Palestinians are committing self genocide.
That every time a Palestinian child dies, it's because they're killing themselves.
I guess there must be rockets inside of these children, because I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever.
All the homes that they're blowing up, where are these rocket command centers?
I just want to see fucking evidence that's not a cartoon.
joe rogan
Well, Prager's, his point of view is very simplified, very simplistic and biased, obviously.
You know, the whole take, like, it's very simple.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
The Jewish state, it's very simple.
It's not very simple.
It's not simple at all, man.
And he didn't mention what you mentioned at all, is that these people are kind of closed in there.
Right.
And there's no hope for them.
This idea that, you know, first of all, the idea that a Jewish state has always...
Who gives a fuck?
Religion's retarded, alright?
If you're an old man and you think religion's a good idea, good on you, buddy.
Keep rocking that shit until your fucking body stops working.
But for us, for the young folks that are out here that are sort of paying attention to the way things have run on this planet...
In this idiotic, cyclical manner from the beginning of time.
From the beginning, the first fucking dude wrote shit down and decided to tell the other guys that God wrote it or God told them to write it.
This idea that the religious state should be allowed to exist, the idea of a religious state is ridiculous.
unidentified
Right.
abby martin
It's insane.
joe rogan
It's ridiculous whether it's a state of Scientology, whether it's the Moonies have their own fucking country, like any country that is based on religion.
It's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous.
And I know we're supposed to have religious freedom, and I agree with that.
I agree that you should fucking, you should be able to worship the spaghetti monster, you should be able to do whatever you want, but when you have an entire state that believes it's the chosen people, And they're connected to this other state that they have sort of boxed into this 45-mile strip.
I mean, objectively, stand outside of the situation.
What are those poor people supposed to do?
Right.
Look, I am not discounting this idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization, because they obviously are.
But how does a terrorist organization start out?
It's like one of the things that happened during September 11th that drove me fucking bananas, when George Bush was like, they hate us for our freedom, you know?
Okay.
They hate us so much for our freedom that they're willing to fly planes into buildings.
What did we do?
What the fuck are we doing that gets people angry?
Nobody ever thinks about that.
All they ever think about is the action themselves.
Not like, what's causing this action?
What is it that's making people come from another planet and blow up buildings in New York City?
Well, it's not New York City.
It's not those people.
It's not the people in those buildings.
abby martin
They're surely as fuck not freedom.
joe rogan
It's not freedom.
It has nothing to do with it.
It's this discounting of the chain of events that cause this cataclysmic disaster.
It's discounting the pressures, the inequities, all the problems, the inequality, the despair of being born into that situation.
And it's the idea that the thing that drives me the most crazy about war is that people will agree that those people are the enemy.
People that they don't even know.
They're just people.
This concept of tribalism is so archaic and so fucking stupid that it drives me crazy that it still exists.
That in this day and age, people who have never met will see someone who's on the other side of the fence and say, that is my enemy and I have to go kill them.
People who have never met.
They don't know each other at all.
And this idea that these people are Arab and these people are Jewish, so they could never possibly get it wrong.
It's preposterous.
unidentified
That's insane.
joe rogan
It exists all throughout this country.
Yeah, there's racism and there's biases against religions and religious beliefs, for sure.
But there's always going to be that.
There's bias against Republicans.
Hate fucking Democrats.
Democrats hate Republicans.
A lot of people hate libertarians.
People love to hate people, regardless.
abby martin
And when the media is amplifying that hate and telling you more reasons why you should hate, it's the same logic.
Okay, so Hamas is the democratically elected leadership of the Gaza Strip.
And the reason is because of what I said before is that they're aligning more with this militant faction because they are trying to resist this occupation and ongoing siege.
I disagree with Hamas's All of what they stand for, but I understand the evolution of how this happened.
But it's the same logic as saying all Palestinians deserve to die because they elected Hamas.
They all must be terrorists.
They all must believe in this shit.
It's the same logic Bin Laden had, that Americans deserve to die because, you know, of what we did.
Because we elected these leaders who you could say are terrorists on just a larger scale.
What makes someone a terrorist?
Killing a million Iraqis with all this fucking high-grade weaponry or blowing yourself up on an airplane?
I mean, it's comparable if you're looking at...
I would say that the Million Dead Iraqis would say that Bush was a terrorist.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's easy to point.
It's easy to decide that someone's a terrorist and that label terrorist is such a- Right.
It's so vague and it's so easy to move around.
You could apply it to either side.
abby martin
But the dehumanization of populations, my brother, Robbie Martin, he does journalism for Mediaroots.org, which is my other citizen journalism website, but we just published this article about the history of the term human shield, and it is really incredible because you look back at even World War II, Japan, the Viet Cong, we all use this terminology, and there's really little evidence to ever back it up, and it always is when the establishment wants to paint a population as having little value to human life.
Even Bin Laden using his wives as human shields when we raided the compound, that turned out to be a lie.
The Taliban, they said that they used people as human shields shooting from civilian areas.
All of this never really has been proven, but when you repeat it more and more and more and more, people just say, oh, well, they're using their kids as human shields.
What are we supposed to do when we go in there and bomb them?
It's not our fault that the kids are dying.
Here's an even fucking crazier part.
I just remember this.
When we invaded Iraq, Bush...
Actually, so the CIA has this giant document on human shields and Saddam's use of human shields.
And Bush actually fucking had the audacity to go out on TV and say, just to warn you, there's going to be mass casualties when we invade Iraq.
And he was like, but it's going to be because Iraqis are going to be used as human shields.
He was like, the people who die, Saddam will be using them as human shields.
Like, how the fucking insane is that you're preemptively justifying slaughter by blaming the population that you're going to be bombing?
Sorry, I just got really upset.
joe rogan
Well, you should be.
You should be, because these tactics are ridiculous.
You know, and these tactics, they're a part of an ancient system.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
This ancient system of justification of warfare.
And this ancient system, it really...
You know, for the longest time, it was incredibly difficult to decipher.
Incredibly difficult.
I mean, go back to the Roman days, try to figure out who's right and who's wrong.
Good luck.
What, are you going to find the right animal skin to read?
You know, where it has the fucking truth written down on it?
No, you couldn't possibly be there.
When the events transpired that caused the war itself, you couldn't possibly be in the tent where the war chiefs decided to fucking, you know, this is the attack we're going to do and this is the reason why we're going to do it.
No, you just were a part of the army or you were a part of the civilian population that had to endure whatever was going on.
You felt powerless.
You felt you had no information other than what was being spread through the state and you were fucked.
But now, we live in this different time.
And in this different time, you can watch a Dennis Prager video and go, Dennis Prager's a douchebag.
You can debate it.
You can look at the actual facts of the situation and people can be informed in a way that's really never been available before.
The Vietnam War protests were largely based on educational institutions.
It was largely based out of universities.
Where these liberal professors were trying to explain to people what the reality of the situation was.
And then parents were like, these fucking liberals are teaching my kids bullshit.
And then you had Kent State where the fucking military, the National Guard came in and shot student protesters and scared the fuck out of everybody.
I mean, there was so much chaos going on to try to suppress the spread of information.
To try to suppress dissent.
But today, the well is broken.
I mean, it's just there's no suppressing it anymore.
And we have these organizations that are scrambling to try to make sense of it all, that they're trying to justify their actions in light of this overwhelming amount of information that didn't exist before.
abby martin
Exactly.
Social media, during Operation Cast Lead, which was, I think, I want to say 2009, but that was the last really brutal siege on Gaza, and we didn't have social media like we did.
I mean, they didn't have it back then like we do now, so I think they were able to control the narrative a little bit more, but now it's like the fucking floodgates are open, dude.
You can't deny seeing children's brains being blown out I mean, it's just, there's so much death and destruction on social media that you're just seeing the truth right in your fucking face.
It doesn't matter how many cartoon infographics you make up on the IDF side.
And going back to propaganda, I mean, Israel's just working 24-7 to try to spin this thing.
Not only is our media an abysmal failure in relaying what is actually happening, But they actually have, you know, first of all, there's the birthright trip where actually I think like 2,000 soldiers right now in the IDF are American because they go on these birthright trips and then they're told at the end of the trip, like, come fight for us.
Like, you need, this is like, everyone wants to kill us still, you know, Jews need protection and come join the IDF. And it's just bizarre.
I can't imagine another army...
Well, actually, I can.
And they were called terrorists.
When people wanted to join, like, the Iraqi resistance and the Syrian resistance, we call them terrorists.
But if you're an American, you go fucking join the IDF, which is a colonial army.
Somehow, you're a fucking hero.
The Propaganda Machine's working 24-7.
They offer grants, scholarships for people who can do the most pro-Zionist editing on Wikipedia and edit the most Facebook posts and post the most pro-Tweets, pro-Israel tweets.
They offer free hot air balloon rides around Israel, Tel Aviv.
if you post the most pro-israeli shit on like facebook and twitter dude it's pretty sweet though hot air balloon yeah who wouldn't want to do that right i'm thinking about it i mean i doubt hamas is offering like i doubt him has the capability to offer that to all the fucking human shields in They don't even have pasta or chocolate.
joe rogan
How are they going to have hot air balloons?
abby martin
They can't even make terrorist paper airplanes because they don't have the.2 paper.
But it just shows you how much is going into the spin machine on one side.
And I was invited on CNN last night and I was like shocked.
I was like, holy fuck, they're going to let me go on CNN and drop this truth on there?
And then they canceled.
I think they got some pressure because it was too good to be true.
joe rogan
Oh, good googly moogly.
Of course they did.
Yeah.
abby martin
Someone was probably like, who are you fucking?
No, no, no, no, no.
joe rogan
What?
unidentified
Jesus Christ.
joe rogan
Have you watched her videos?
That bitch is crazy.
She's got a nose ring.
Yeah.
This is a strange time when it comes to these sort of events.
Because they don't play out the way the military leaders sort of expect them to play out in the media anymore.
Because the media that's online is as big, if not bigger...
In total than the mainstream, in quotes, media.
There's no mainstream media anymore.
There's CNN, there's Fox, there's these traditional media outlets, which is the way to describe them, traditional media.
It's almost like their legacy.
It's like legacy media.
But then there's online media, which if you totaled up the amount of blogs, the amount of videos, the amount of online websites that have streaming video and podcasts and the different forms of media that exist...
That cover these same issues, it's overwhelmingly bigger.
Overwhelmingly.
The numbers are much larger.
For the cumulative total of websites that cover these stories, it's much more people are downloading, clicking on those links, reading those stories.
Watching those videos than you're getting ever on a CNN broadcast.
unidentified
Absolutely.
abby martin
That's why I didn't even care when they canceled it.
I was like, fuck it, I'm going on Joe Rogan's show tomorrow and that has a million times more just like people who I would even want to be reaching out to.
Like, would I want to reach out to like old ladies in their home watching fucking Fox?
Or do I want to reach out to people who actually, you know, have their eye on the ball or like invested in the culture and what the fuck's happening in this country and that's your audience and...
It's just really cool.
I mean, being at your show last night and seeing just like how many people give a shit and are paying attention to you and the podcast and fuck CNN. We're driving them into irrelevancy, man.
I mean, your show and all the social media stuff.
These people, it's dinosaurs.
joe rogan
They're silent movies.
It's a silent movie is what it is.
The format is archaic.
We'll be right back.
And these fucking things drive me crazy when they have a legitimate issue to debate and they have four squares like it's the fucking Hollywood squares and Rip Taylor's up in the corner and he's like, this is crazy!
She's nuts!
And then you have all these other people and they're yelling over each other and like, we'll be right back.
unidentified
Thank you for your time.
abby martin
We have to cut to Justin Bieber.
He just got back in court.
I mean, that's what they actually did.
They cut from a congresswoman, I think CNN or something, was cutting.
He was talking to a congresswoman about the NSA and then they're like, Hold on, breaking news.
Justin Bieber just like pled something.
I was like, what?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, if I could just say one thing so people don't call me a Nazi and shit is that I love all people.
I think all human beings.
I just want to see humanity have equality and I just think that the Palestinians are being royally fucked over and I'm just totally disgusted with the way that it's being portrayed and that they're being vilified and demonized with zero context and zero historical context of how this happened.
And that's why I'm just like trying to just say as much as I can, even though I'm very biased and openly biased.
I'm an advocacy journalist and I just think that it needs to be done because I see just a giant void in the mainstream.
And I just got to fucking do it.
I mean, I interviewed some woman in Gaza who she was just like, I could be called a human shield because I'm refusing to leave my house.
And she's like, and the truth is there's nowhere for us to go.
We can't leave.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
45 miles and that many people stuffed in together.
The options are incredibly limited.
And if anybody in that area really wants to have peace, this idea that you contain these people is almost like ensuring that you're going to have some sort of constant conflict.
I don't know what to do, though, but what are you going to do?
Are you going to let those people out of Gaza?
Say if the Jews and the Palestinians come to an agreement and then they open the borders and then the Palestinians come over to Israel and they seek revenge for their family members that have died.
And then it all starts all over again.
I mean, once thousands of people have been killed and, in their eyes, murdered, You can say military action.
Use whatever noises with your face to describe a missile hitting a fucking baby.
But it is what it is.
And if that's my baby, I'm strapping some C4 to my chest, and I'm going to find out who did it, and I'm going to take out the whole group.
I mean, that's probably what they're thinking.
And there's going to be a lot of those people.
There's a lot of those people that are filled with despair.
And what are their options?
I don't know.
I don't know.
abby martin
It's a very good point, and I think that's the reason why these 120 people are still languishing innocent in Gitmo.
Because at this point, they're like, what the fuck are we going to do?
Release these people?
We just tortured them for 12 years.
joe rogan
Well, we tortured some folks.
unidentified
We tortured some folks.
joe rogan
Did you see that fucking thing?
unidentified
Oh my god.
joe rogan
Tortured some folks.
If you haven't seen it, folks, ladies and gentlemen, there is a recent thing where Barack Obama is talking about people being tortured, and he uses the term, well, we tortured some folks after the September 11 attacks.
unidentified
We tortured some folks?
joe rogan
No, you can't say that.
You can say, we met some folks.
You know, we went to Atlanta.
We met some nice folks.
You don't say, we tortured some folks.
Like, what kind of fucking weird euphemism speak is that?
We tortured some folks.
So that's become a hashtag on Twitter now.
Hashtag, we tortured some folks.
abby martin
Hashtag, drone king.
joe rogan
Yeah, that is what's going on.
I'm not kidding.
That's trending.
Hashtag, we tortured some folks.
I'm not kidding.
abby martin
And that's exactly what's happening with the drone wars.
Look, these fucking Taliban militants just took over this airport in Karachi, killed a shitload of people.
And why?
Because they said that a drone fucking killed one of their leaders in fucking the rural area of It's like, this is going to be going on forever.
When you kill people with drones, when you fucking imprison people in a little area, I mean, it's just going to be a cycle of violence and revenge and hate.
And that's why I just completely disagree with, of course, the drone war.
I disagree with all that shit, man.
joe rogan
Obamas are spooky.
It's a spooky idea that you're nowhere near there, and you have a remote control, and you press a button, and missiles that are called Hellfire missiles come flying out of the sky and slam into targets.
Often the wrong ones.
And if you look at the amount of people that are innocent that have been killed by drones versus the amount of actual terrorists that have been killed by drones, what a fucking mess that program is.
abby martin
And they also just call them militants.
Anyone who's just aged, like literally military age, so it could be 15 to fucking 100. If you're a military age male, you're considered a militant.
So who are, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know who's even, like, I'm sure the majority of them are civilians.
If you have enough dirt on someone where you actually, they're worthy of being executed, put them on fucking trial.
I'm sorry, but I believe in the rule and justice.
I don't believe in just assassinating motherfuckers across the globe with zero accountability, zero context of who these people are.
And we know that they've executed fucking, like, that 16-year-old boy, the son of Anwar al-Awlaki.
unidentified
Yeah.
abby martin
16-year-old kid, blew him up in a drone, him and his whole family just dead.
No accountability, no rationale.
And, you know, they're just all terrorists, I guess.
That just makes us feel better, I guess, to think that.
joe rogan
In Pakistan alone, between 416 and 951 civilians, including 168 to 200 children, have been killed, depending upon reports.
And, you know, who knows what the numbers, the correct numbers are?
I mean, first of all, you got a real problem with incredibly poor people where you hit a fucking house where they live in and there's no paperwork and they're blown to smithereens.
Like, how many people are there?
You were going to have to find the family members.
You're going to report and tell you how many.
And it's, you know, that's why you're getting these weird numbers.
But the bottom line is hundreds of people have been murdered that did nothing.
abby martin
And also more disturbingly, two disturbing things.
One of them, the Intercept release, which is Glenn Greenwald's publication with the NSA leaks that they actually are killing people based on metadata.
So they track someone's metadata through their cell phone and then they track all these patterns.
So it's not even like real human beings with, you know.
It's like conducting intelligence on the ground, figuring out what people deserve to die or not.
It's actually fucking tracking metadata on a fucking computer screen.
That is insane to me, because what if you give your cell phone to your grandma, and the cell phone's in your grandma's house or a church?
They're gonna fucking blow the shit out of that church.
joe rogan
Exactly.
abby martin
They're gonna blow your grandma apart.
joe rogan
They're targeting wherever that phone is.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
And if you really hated somebody, you just leave your phone over their house.
Hellfire is coming.
Yeah, it's not that specific.
And so the idea of the, this is the word that gets thrown around a lot, surgical strikes.
I mean, you want to talk about surgical precision.
You don't usually talk about missiles that hit metadata where a phone is and it's a hit in a fucking apartment building.
You're just going to blow up whoever happens to randomly be near this phone.
abby martin
Collateral damage, man.
And going back to what do we do?
I mean, I think that we end the apartheid state.
We start giving Arabs equal rights.
But I think that the U.S. cutting off funding militarily, I think, is the number one thing.
I mean, for God's sake, there's been blatant war crimes that have happened.
Hitting the U.N. refugee school, killing 17 human beings that were trying to get refuge.
During a humanitarian ceasefire, they bombed a crowded market, killing another 17. They've killed like six journalists, targeted all these media centers.
And then there was the UN Security Council where every single country either abstained or voted to investigate war crimes in Gaza, except the US. Except the US. That's how blind this allegiance is.
And if we could just end this military funding, I think then Israel would be forced to kind of analyze their role and we can really talk seriously about solutions here because it's not going to work.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're not anti-Israel.
You're anti-war.
I have a lot of friends that are Jewish, and a lot of them have very strong opinions about this whole thing.
I see it from their point of view.
They grew up with this idea that the Palestinians are terrorists, and the Palestinians kidnapped Jews, and you remember the Olympic Games and all this craziness.
I see their point of view, but as an objective human observer, When you watch this, you go, there has got to be a way to break this cycle.
And the way is not missiles.
And it's not blowing up tunnels.
And it's not keeping these people on a strip of land.
I don't know what the way is.
You know, that's the problem.
I'm talking a lot of shit here.
I don't have any solutions.
But it's scary.
It's scary as fuck.
And then you've got Russia that may be invading Ukraine right now.
I mean, as we speak, this weekend that might be going down.
You know, there's a bunch of points all over the earth.
Where there's some scary shit that's happening.
This is a scary time.
It's a very scary time.
Because human beings have so much more capacity for violence.
Our ability, when you have things like drones, when you have things like long-range missiles and nuclear weapons and all these different things that just didn't exist 100 years ago, but you still have the same mentality that existed 100 years ago.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
That's the real issue, right?
I mean, a hundred years ago, you had to fucking get in a boat and you had to get over there in a plane with a propeller and it was hard to fuck shit up.
Now you can be in Nevada with a fucking Xbox controller and you're launching missiles from the other side of the world.
It gets real weird when it becomes easy to kill.
abby martin
And when you're so delusional that you think that you are literally chosen by God to live more than another human being, and then you have these weapons at your arsenal.
That's what's scary to me.
joe rogan
That's goofy as fuck.
That is unbelievably goofy.
And that's the thing that, you know, when you talk to Jewish people, that's, you know, that's my faith and my undeniable right to have this faith.
That's my Dennis Prager voice.
My faith, my undeniable right for a Jewish state.
abby martin
Look, undeniably, there's so much fucking anti-Semitism online.
It's disgusting.
It's vile.
And there's obviously Jews have been persecuted horribly in the past.
And, you know, it's awful, but it's not a reason or justification to do this to another population.
joe rogan
No, you know, it's not.
And it's only going to make more anti-Semitism.
abby martin
It's so unfortunate.
joe rogan
Attacking Palestinians and having the outside world look at this happen.
And also, look, when Palestinians attack Israelis, that shit ain't helping either, man.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
But it's a terribly imbalanced situation.
A terribly, terribly imbalanced situation.
It's imbalanced that Israel feels like it's completely surrounded by these Arab states, these Muslim states that hate it and want it gone.
That's incredibly imbalanced as well.
And that's also a religious issue.
They're just as goofy.
It's all goofy.
This idea that your ideology, your religious ideology, based on some ancient shit that nobody knows the real source of, is more important or more valid than someone else's.
It's all fucking madness.
abby martin
And look at us.
Look at the Christian culture here.
The evangelicals.
Dude, I just saw...
I don't know if you've been watching John Oliver.
I really like his show.
But he had on this stuff about the Uganda gay law.
And you're like, oh wow, that's so fucked up.
Uganda has such horrible gay laws.
And then you realize that it's because of the evangelicals here in this country that they've basically been emboldened because the political establishment for some reason takes them seriously enough to let them have such a say.
And it's driven all of our politics of the fucking right so much.
And so then these evangelicals have so much money in backing that they go across the world and start like making these laws get pushed through to fucking kill gay people.
And you're like, what in the hell is going on?
It's this crazy shit.
Like, sure, Uganda's, you know, might be backwards in a lot of ways, but without these American Christian evangelicals going over there and actually helping get this done, it wouldn't have happened.
And that's really scary because for some reason they're relevant here.
And I'm not saying, of course, if you're Christian, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the very, very, very right-wing, very small minority that have an extremely powerful political voice because they have so much money.
And it gets people like Mitt Romney and fucking Rick Santorum.
joe rogan
Yeah, what a goof.
abby martin
I mean, the fact that those people are even relevant, the fact that we almost had that as our president, like, look, I think Obama's a war criminal, but Mitt Romney's, I mean, damn.
I mean, these people are just nuts.
Sarah Palin?
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
These people should not be anywhere near politics!
They're fucking crazy!
joe rogan
Mitt Romney, for folks who don't know, is a part of one of the most extreme Mormon sects ever.
They left the country to go to Mexico because they couldn't have a hundred wives here in America.
That's literally why Mitt Romney's family, his dad couldn't be president because his dad was born in fucking Mexico.
His family is from Mexico.
They have a giant compound in Mexico where they're engaged in these wars with the drug cartels.
They get kidnapped and shit.
Vice did this whole piece on it.
It's incredibly fucked up.
And Mitt Romney, no one talked about it.
My Mormonism is off the table.
abby martin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're like, actually, that's pretty fucking important.
joe rogan
No, it's on the table as fuck, dude.
You know, you might keep it off the table on your goofy legacy television shows and all these ridiculous things that you do, these ridiculous debates where everything's controlled.
If I was ever in a debate with that guy, the first thing I would say is, you really believe Joseph Smith, a 14-year-old boy, found golden tablets that contained the lost work of Jesus, but only he could read them because he had a magic rock.
abby martin
And then he had to bury him, and then no one else can see him.
joe rogan
Get the fuck out of here, dude.
I would literally say, get the fuck out of here on TV. You're in a cult.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Cults are big sometimes.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Sometimes cults only have 30 people, and you live in the fucking San Fernando Valley in a weird shelter.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And sometimes cults have a billion people.
And you got a guy called the Pope and he sits on a fucking golden throne.
Guess what?
That guy's a fucking cult leader.
Maybe the new one's the best one ever because he's sweet and he's a man of the people and he's so proletariat.
Look at him.
He's an awesome Pope.
He's a regular guy.
unidentified
No, he's not!
joe rogan
He's a fucking cult leader!
He's just a better cult leader than that creepy fuck that came before him that sat on a golden throne, you know, and had a gay bathhouse in the same property as the Vatican.
unidentified
Yeah, exactly!
abby martin
Thank you for bringing that up.
Well, I know L. Ron Hubbard's great-grandson, he lives in Oakland, and he was telling me that it's very openly admitted, and his great-grandfather wrote it in fucking books and shit, that he was in tax trouble and he needed to start a religion to, like, get out of this fucking tax trouble.
He was gonna go to jail.
He owed...
Tons of money to the government, and he even said, like, I'm going to start a fucking religion and get myself out of these, like, tax problems, and wow, here you go.
joe rogan
Yeah, he did it.
And to think that Scientology is any less valid than Mormonism, or that Mormonism is any less valid than a religion that is based on a Jewish zombie, all of it's silly, man.
And it's not saying that there's no God.
It's not saying that spirituality doesn't...
Have some sort of a benefit to our society and our culture and this idea of a greater thing other than people, this greater power, whatever it may be that created the universe, because there is something that runs this world, is something that runs this universe.
You want to give it scientific terms, you want to give it philosophical terms, whatever it is, there's obviously a giant energy that has created this massive fucking universe.
Whether it has a consciousness or not, you could debate it all day long.
But I'm guessing that a dude didn't die and then three days later come out and push a rock aside and, you know, come on.
abby martin
It's the myths that hold society together.
It's all these fables and myths that are the glue.
And you're talking about how we haven't really changed.
We fucking haven't, dude.
I just saw a poll that basically if a president was atheist, that would be like the least favorable factor of like any candidate running for president is if they didn't believe in God.
That's how important religion still is to society.
And I think that even it's like we were saying last night at the comedy show, you can show someone proof that Bigfoot, that this video is fucking fake and they still want to believe it.
joe rogan
They believe.
abby martin
It doesn't matter if you just say like, look, Jonah couldn't have survived inside of a whale for three days.
It's just not scientifically possible.
joe rogan
Well, the whales were different back then.
They had condos.
They had condos in the whales.
Yeah, people are weird, man.
They're weird with their beliefs.
And what's weird is as long as something's old, we'll accept it.
But if you tried to come out today with some Jewish zombie story, people would be like, what is this asshole doing?
abby martin
They'd lock you up.
They'd put you on pills.
They'd be like, go down psychoactive medicine.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you were standing in the middle of all the people in Occupy Wall Street and you had a chart and you were holding up this chart, this is how the earth was formed.
6,000 years ago.
abby martin
Sign up to my religion!
joe rogan
Here!
In six days, he created this.
He'd be like, bitch, are you out of your fucking mind?
If everybody just believed wholeheartedly in science, if we had completely abandoned all religion and then you came along with aversion, nobody would take it.
It has to be old.
abby martin
It has to be old.
joe rogan
But when it's old, we'll accept goofy shit.
abby martin
Goofy shit.
And even though so much fucking shit has come out since then, even though we have the internet, we have the world's knowledge at our fingertips, we still believe in these archaic philosophies that do not apply anymore.
Dude, did you hear about the Blackwater shit that came out?
You know Blackwater, the most criminal mafia organization, and somehow the...
joe rogan
Mercenaries.
abby martin
Yeah, they're fucking mercenaries.
joe rogan
I had a friend who worked for them.
abby martin
Really?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
abby martin
Holy shit.
joe rogan
Went over there and did a couple tours.
unidentified
Yeah?
joe rogan
Yeah, he was a marine sniper and then wanted to make some more money after the war.
abby martin
Wanted to make a lot more money.
joe rogan
Yeah, made a lot more money than he did for the army.
Did a couple tours, opened up an MMA gym with it.
abby martin
That's cool, man.
Not really.
joe rogan
Go over there and kill some people.
abby martin
Okay, no, that's fucked up.
I mean, that's what you do.
I mean, I'm just trying to be nice.
I think anyone in Glavackwater is a criminal.
But Eric Prince, the guy who founded it, actually did think that he was ordained by God to, like, fucking, like, kill Muslims.
Like, he thought that he was carrying out a holy war.
So, what did we do?
We hired this company, sent them over to fucking Iraq.
They massacre God knows how many people.
But that's not the crazy part.
The crazy part that just came out is that basically we went over to investigate them.
And the State Department official went over to Iraq right before the Nasser Square Massacre, which is when they just went out with fucking machine guns and just slaughtered 17 fucking women and children on the street.
Before that even happened, a State Department official went over to Iraq and they're like, yo, yo, yo, this company is out of fucking control.
You guys are just crashing into cars, running over people, shooting fucking birds in the sky and shit.
So they meet with the embassy and they're like, we need to...
You know, this contractor that we hired is basically running our operation.
What did they do?
The Blackwater guy there just said, I'm gonna fucking kill you.
We're gonna kill you if you do anything.
And he fucking left terrified.
He told the embassy, he was like, they're threatening to kill me.
And they're like, get out.
They're like, you're threatening our relationship now with Blackwater.
joe rogan
Yeah, get out.
And he fucking came back to the U.S. Well, they're beyond the law.
That's what's really crazy.
A lot of the things that were done by Blackwater, these war crimes, they changed their name a couple times since then.
And now I believe they're owned by the United Arab Emirates.
I think they hired Prince to start another organization because they were worried about an Arab Spring event happening over there.
abby martin
He's provided safe harbor in Abu Dhabi and they...
Something like...
joe rogan
Is it Abu Dhabi?
abby martin
Yeah, he's in Abu Dhabi, and he did start...
Triple Canopy, that's what they just merged with.
So before it was Blackwater, then Academy, and then Z. Yeah, right.
And then after the story came out, all these other people came out anonymously inside Blackwater or ex-officials, and they're like, no, we, like...
Eric Prince has, like, killed people.
Like, Eric Prince has put out hits on motherfuckers.
Like, we know this for sure, and we're fucking terrified to come out and actually put our identities because we might die too.
Like, that's how insane this dude is!
And he's just living...
Still making contracts with the government.
The CIA just gave Blackwater, whatever the fuck they're called now, another contract earlier this year.
joe rogan
Well, they're very effective.
abby martin
Really good at their job.
joe rogan
I mean, this day and age, it's hard to get people to shut the fuck up about things, but boy, those guys know how to shut people up.
Yeah.
Especially when you can do things that are completely outside of the jurisdiction of any laws.
Ours, theirs.
I mean, that word contractor is so cute.
Because I always think of a plumber or a guy who's going to fucking fix your roof.
That's a contractor.
Like, wait, well, those contractors also have fucking sniper rifles?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, what?
That's a contractor?
Oh, okay.
Like, you know, like, when you heard, that was one of the things that kept, like, when that Fallujah thing happened, and they hung those contractors, the United States contractors, like, I was like, why are they killing construction workers?
They're killing contractors?
And then you realize, like, oh, no, no, they're killing mercenaries.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
They're killing hired assassins.
Oh, that's different.
That's like insurgent.
We killed some insurgents.
What is that?
Oh, people that are resisting.
They were born in this place that we showed up with tanks, and they're resisting, so they're insurgents.
Oh, they're not just people that live there?
abby martin
Right.
Now they're militants.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, we can...
Throughout history, people have had this incredible ability to dehumanize with terms.
You can just call them something and then they become the enemy or categorize them.
What Genghis Khan used to do, anybody who didn't live in a tent was a bitch.
These dummies that lived in these cities, they just treated them like cattle.
That was why they were able to justify killing millions and millions of people.
And that's just one of the things that people have figured out a way to do.
Us versus them.
We love it.
We love...
I fucking hate Windows users, you know?
I'm a Mac till I die.
I mean, it gets that dumb.
We literally...
Ford versus Chevy.
I saw a fucking Calvin and Hobbes thing.
abby martin
Pissing on a...
joe rogan
Yeah, pissing on a Chevy logo.
Like, he's standing on a Ford logo and he's pissing on a Chevy logo.
If I had a fucking drone with Hellfire missiles, I might launch it at that fucking guy.
abby martin
I want to launch it at anyone who has the fake balls on their truck.
joe rogan
Well, those could just be misguided youth.
You know?
Shit.
If you gave me some of those fake balls when I was 18, I might have put them on my car.
I was retarded.
You know?
But Calvin and Hobbes pissing on a Ford logo.
Jesus fucking Christ.
But there's people that are like, this is Chevy country.
If you listen quiet, you can hear a Ford rust.
Like, there's fucking bumper stickers like that.
People love to be on goddamn teams.
abby martin
Unite blue.
Unite red.
We're weird.
joe rogan
We're really weird like that.
abby martin
Well, and what better way to control the population, to have these fake teams of political parties that essentially there's total uniformity when it comes to foreign policy and the militarization of this country and surveillance and all that shit, but then you just have these minute differences in terms of...
I'm not saying that they're null and void.
Obviously there's things that are very good about the differences, but on a big scale, it's essentially you're driving the fucking country to the ground.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think it's like what they're doing is taking advantage of these ingrained tribal sensibilities that have been with us since we were in these small groups of people that had to worry about other small groups of people.
Like we were just talking about this the other day that this is like one of the first times in human history where if a boatload of people show up, it's a good thing.
It used to be when a boat showed up, you're fucked.
Men are going to get off that boat.
They haven't seen pussy in a hundred years.
They have guns.
They have no food.
They all have rickets.
They all have scurvy and shit.
And they're just going to fucking shoot arrows at everybody and rape everybody and take all your food and light everything on fire.
I mean, that's what people did.
Now they're tourists.
It's a very weird time that we live in.
It's very unique in that sense.
That's never happened before.
So I think there's a slight erosion of this tribal attitude that people used to have.
And it's because of access, because we can go to places that we couldn't go to before, much easier.
And it's also because of information.
When you have enough of these kind of conversations, and there's enough articles that are written on the web, there's enough conversations, like real, legitimate, objective conversations between people that actually know what's going on, where they go over the...
The facts on both sides and try to come to some sort of a rational, unbiased conclusion.
It changes the culture.
I mean, slowly but surely, access changes the culture.
Access to areas changes and access to information changes.
We're a part of that.
It's all going on right now.
And that's why this younger generation, these people that are growing up with no idea of life without the internet, we're completely repulsed by these things that are happening.
I think the people that, if you polled young people today in America, in Canada, in places where there's no conflict, and they don't have this ingrained sensibility that's due to having family members being murdered in front of them, And you ask them about nationalism.
I think their attitudes will be radically different than people that lived 100 years ago.
abby martin
Totally.
Yeah, I think it's the homogenization of culture and it's the internet.
I mean, where else can you just see a guy getting raped by a horse and dying other than the internet?
I mean, 100 years ago, we'd never been able to see that.
But I think it's true.
I think nationalism, I think people are realizing how toxic it is.
And the more that they travel and the more that they reach out online to people across the world and they see that we're all fucking human, we all bleed the same, we all suffer loss the same way.
And there's only so much you can do to indoctrinate someone to think that someone else is a lesser human being than you.
And I think that the more we learn about what's going on, and the more access we have, that's going to really, really erode.
Fuck, I mean, the old guard is holding on.
They're clinging on to that, man.
joe rogan
They're trying.
abby martin
They're clinging on.
joe rogan
Well, ideology is the only thing that glues everything in place still.
Like, when you have something like ISIS or you have, like, this Palestinian versus Israel conflict, the ideology of religion is one of the few things that unites people in this sort of very...
Very rock-solid position.
It's very hard to do when you have an agnostic population.
It's very difficult to get them to just accept that these people in Canada are douchebags and we need to go over there and fucking take their pine trees.
It just doesn't make any sense, you know?
People would be like, what?
We're going to go to war with Canada?
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Can you imagine if for some reason we found, you know, this supply of diamonds or whatever the fuck it is in Canada and all of a sudden, you know, we started talking about Canadian terrorism and like, what?
Like, we're going to go over to Canada?
Like, you know, people would be like, get the fuck out of here.
abby martin
They're like, but they look like us.
unidentified
How could they be evil?
joe rogan
Well, this is the first time ever in my life I can recall the public's opposition to military action stopping military action, like Syria.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Like, when was the last time?
Listen, put your hand, cup your hand in your ear, and listen in the news for anything about fucking invading Syria.
It doesn't exist anymore.
The conflict, the idea of the dialogue of going over there and military action, it's gone.
It's gone.
Because the overwhelming reaction to that goofy fucking President Obama speech, left and right, people are like, what?
You're gonna put our children at risk?
You're gonna send children over to fucking Syria for what?
For what's going on over there?
Oh, someone used gas?
Oh, okay.
abby martin
Yeah, why is that the red line?
What about the 150,000 people who died at the hands of Assad and all these rebels and all this shit before that?
It's like, why do we have these arbitrary, quote, red lines where that's when we need to go and impose military action?
Like, what the fuck is that about?
joe rogan
What?
I would love to have been in the room when they talked to Obama and they're making that speech.
abby martin
Right.
And that's why I'm terrified of Hillary Clinton, man.
Because if you read some articles about who's really like...
I mean, I think Obama, once again, he's a worker and he's a horrible president.
But Hillary's fucking crazy, dude.
She's like as crazy as John McCain.
They were like pushing him to get into Syria so hard.
Hillary was?
Yeah, Hillary was like almost one of the most militant military hawks in his whole national security team.
And, man, it's gonna be bad news if she gets in.
joe rogan
I blame Bill.
unidentified
Fucked her up.
joe rogan
Made her angry.
She was probably a peacenik when she was younger.
Probably a goddamn hippie.
abby martin
She looked like she was.
She got the big eyebrows, fucking glasses.
joe rogan
All those years of dealing with Bill and his fucking rampant philandering.
She wants to blow shit up now.
Just anger.
abby martin
That's how you create terrorists.
joe rogan
Well, lucky she doesn't have a dick.
She had a dick.
Jesus Christ.
She'd already be president probably, right?
abby martin
but what do you think yeah i mean it is amazing and i think um i don't know what the fucking think about this ukraine shit man i mean were you following all that crazy shit that happened with rt well what happened they were trying to send you over there right dude what happened what does that because i remember reading that like oh shit they're trying to send abby to russia Wait, I need to go to the bathroom.
joe rogan
Go to the bathroom?
Uh-oh, she's going to fucking formulate her thoughts.
You've got to take some deep breaths.
abby martin
Plug ting again.
joe rogan
There's Hillary Clinton.
Oh my god, look at that photo of Hillary Clinton.
First of all, dude, don't zoom in because if you do, you miss the feet.
Look at those goddamn Birkenstocks.
She might have had the original pair of Birkenstocks.
And these pants.
She's wearing these striped pants that look like a version of yoga pants in some sort of a way.
They're very tight.
Who knows what kind of material they're made out of, but they're like multicolored, striped, and it's all pointing you towards her crotch in some weird geometric pattern.
And she's got glasses on.
What happened to the glasses?
Does she still wear glasses?
Kind of.
Sometimes?
Contacts?
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's her.
That's her when she was young.
And Bill and him, look at, they were hippies.
He had like a hipster beard.
And she looked like a hippie.
Wow.
And they were young students trying to make their way in the world.
Yeah.
unidentified
Non-inhaling.
joe rogan
Non-inhaling.
Yeah.
Fucking liar.
They weren't inhaling because they were putting it up their asses.
It's so crazy.
unidentified
I heard they ate it.
joe rogan
That's what you heard?
I heard they ate brownies.
Did you just make that up?
unidentified
No, I heard someone said that he didn't inhale.
That's why I said he didn't inhale, because he didn't.
joe rogan
Please, he inhaled.
Yeah, everybody that smokes pot inhales.
Stop.
I tried it once, I didn't like it.
If you didn't like it, you're hanging around with the wrong people.
Come on, dude.
You tell me, and all those chicks that he hooked up with, none of them smoked a joint before they fucked?
Get out of here.
abby martin
Look at her.
That's before she wanted to kill people.
joe rogan
If he's smart enough to be the goddamn governor of Arkansas, he's smart enough to know that weed enhances sex.
Guy's a freak.
Whipping his dick out all the time.
Of course he's high.
Crazy.
unidentified
Can you believe that?
abby martin
He just, like, fucked some girl on the desk of the Oval Office with, like, a cigar and shit.
Just, like, super...
joe rogan
Gotta do what you gotta do.
Ballsy, dude.
abby martin
Ballsy motherfucker.
joe rogan
Just imagine the stress of being the goddamn president.
abby martin
Yeah.
joe rogan
He needs to blow off some steam somehow.
abby martin
Cut the guy a little slack.
Hey, I don't give a fuck about people's private lives.
They could have a million affairs.
I mean, if you're a president, that's the last thing that we should be worrying about.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, if anything, it shows...
It shows your character, and it also shows if you're in a really high-profile position of power.
It shows that you may be vulnerable to, like, impulsive behavior, which is kind of tricky.
Because it's like, on one hand, yeah, I think that, you know...
Especially if you're not in the position to start wars and shit.
Like, you know, I'm not worried about what someone does.
The fucking head of Nabisco likes to...
I'm not going to stop buying crackers.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't make any sense.
But when you're in a political position, when you're in a position of power, that's the one time when I go, maybe you should kind of look at their behavior because if they're doing really blatantly, ridiculous, impulsive shit, they might be out of control.
Yeah, they might be a sociopath, but even more importantly, they might be out of control.
Because I've known some people that were completely out of control.
abby martin
Like, they're just so powerful, they just think that they can fucking do anything.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
When, you know, if you're the head of a company, that's not really an issue.
Unless there's some sort of effect.
Yeah, it's a company that kills people.
That's an issue.
But, you know, if you're making tires or something, it's probably not an issue.
But if you're the head of a country that has the largest army the world has ever known, not by like a small margin, but like, fuck Rome, okay?
We've got military bases in a hundred countries.
abby martin
900 bases.
joe rogan
Jesus fucking Christ!
But Clinton, the way I describe him, is the last great American presidential dick-slinger.
They don't exist anymore.
abby martin
Dick-slinger, yes.
joe rogan
They don't exist anymore.
You can't do that anymore.
There will be no more.
Every guy from now on that gets into that role will be a Mitt Romney type.
They'll be super bland, just without any charisma whatsoever.
Because guys with charisma, they get laid.
Those JFK-type guys who can captivate a nation, those guys are pussy chasers.
You can't have a guy like that as a president anymore.
They don't exist.
Those charismatic leaders are like, that charisma, that ability to do that is just too intoxicating to find that rare one that doesn't act on those abilities.
Just this is a different time, right?
We're gonna have some weird ass fucking president I'm hoping that what it actually does is it eliminates the position because I think the position of president is the last great alpha monkey position It's a dopey idea this idea that one person as our figurehead is one person that gets to make the decisions and he can the president could veto it What one guy right 300 the one guy for 300 million How's that fucking real?
How is that still real?
abby martin
Right, and then I love how people, they blame him, and then they also excuse everything on him.
They're like, oh, well, he, you know, a president can only do so much.
But then they're like, but a president should be able to do this and that.
It's like way too much fucking power.
And then also the Supreme Court, I think, really pisses me off, though.
Because we're talking about a court that we have nothing to do with.
And they're like the end-all, be-all arbitrators of a lot of different shit.
And it's fucking terrifying, because they're just fucking elected till death.
They're appointed.
They're basically like running this fucking monarchy.
And it's crazy.
It's disgusting.
There's a couple fucking fascists sitting on the Supreme Court and I don't want them to have the decisions over...
unidentified
How about Scalia?
abby martin
Scalia's a sick fuck.
joe rogan
He's crazy.
abby martin
Alito and...
Scalia still wants sodomy to be illegal.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
Like, that's how fucking warped he is.
joe rogan
Well, he's actually said, if people choose to...
If men choose to marry men, what's going to stop them from having sex with animals?
abby martin
You're like, I don't know where you're...
That's a sick fucking trajectory, dude.
joe rogan
What's going to stop them from marrying pigeons?
Nothing.
abby martin
You're like, I'm sorry, how are you Supreme Court Justice?
It's unreal.
joe rogan
You can marry pigeons all you want.
I don't give a fuck.
abby martin
I wanted to...
Yeah, so what were you thinking when all this fucking RT shit happened?
I mean...
joe rogan
I was worried about you.
I was worried about you because you were criticizing the Putin regime and...
Well, here's the thing, okay?
And I've had, you know, many people tweet at me, oh, she's a mouthpiece for fucking Putin.
abby martin
Right, right, right, right, right.
joe rogan
We work for RT and this and that.
They give you an incredible amount of editorial leeway.
It's very obvious if you watch the things.
Me as your friend and knowing you and having these long conversations with you and then seeing you talk on those.
That's fucking Abby Martin, period.
I don't know how much oversight they have over the things that you say.
But when you're talking, this is your opinions on these things.
And your opinions, in many situations, were critical of Russia, and critical of Putin, and critical of this military regime and their actions.
And there was this backlash where they were saying they wanted to send you over.
Where were they saying they were going to send you?
abby martin
Crimea.
joe rogan
And what area was this?
What was going on?
abby martin
So that was like Russia did this military incursion into Crimea right when all the Ukraine coup happened and then all of a sudden the Russian military is like making all these maneuvers on the border of Ukraine and Crimea was basically the first little territory right there.
It was fucking crazy.
And this is what's so hard.
Working at RT, the world hates Russia right now.
The world fucking hates Russia right now.
And we're being told in the media all day, Putin's the biggest villain in the world.
We should all fucking hate Russia.
And then we're seeing like all this shit about the gay law and pussy riot and all this stuff.
So it's really tough already to just be working there, you know, already.
And it's even tougher to know what the fuck the truth is when we already know how biased the mainstream media is, especially the way that they're covering Israel-Palestine.
So when they're all telling us one thing...
But then all I'm getting is actual, like, Russian sources.
I'm like, I don't fucking believe anything that I'm seeing.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
So are you getting, like, an agenda that you're supposed to push?
abby martin
Oh, no.
I have total editorial freedom.
Here's the thing.
RT, Russia Today, you know it in the name.
It's literally the name of what the bias is.
It was created to put the Russian perspective out in the world.
Of course it's going to be fucking biased toward Russia.
joe rogan
How did you wind up working for Russia today?
That's a very strange position for someone as opinionated as you.
abby martin
It is.
I was actually covering Occupy Oakland and RT was the only media organization covering the protest movement.
And so I kept seeing this weird Russian channel out there and I was like, I don't know why the fuck this Russian station is covering Occupy.
I was like, but it's great and I'm so grateful to have this platform.
That they're at least covering what's going on.
And I really think it's because of RT's coverage, and they were nominated for an Emmy for it, that we were able to see all the videos go viral, and I think it forced the mainstream media to at least pay a little bit of attention to Occupy.
But that's how I got involved.
I saw RT all over the place in terms of Occupy shit.
And they wanted me to come and have a show.
I mean, their whole thing is they offer the perspectives that you don't see, so they can have the very extreme libertarian voice, and they have the socialist voice, they have the anarchist voice, and it's just breaking through all the mainstream media bullshit.
But when you're looking at the bias, of course they're going to have a fucking pro-Russian bias.
It's funded by the Russian government, just like you have Al Jazeera's Qatar.
The Emir of Qatar funds Al Jazeera, just like BBC's run by the British fucking crown, dude.
joe rogan
Does that bother you working there?
abby martin
It bothers me when people tell me that I'm a fucking propagandist and that I'm a mouthpiece for Putin because I've already displayed multiple times that I will risk my job to speak out against Putin if I feel like I want to and I have to.
I've done it twice already.
One time I saw all this military maneuvering in...
I was in Crimea and I made a statement and of course the mainstream media picked it up, touted me as this anti-Russian hero just because they had no idea who I was.
They didn't know how fucking controversial my show was and how I criticized the US empire all the time.
So they picked the statement up, made me an overnight sensation and then they quickly realized like I was way too controversial to be lauded.
So they ended up calling me like a fucking crazy conspiracy theorist, you know, lunatic.
But what was really crazy about that, and I want to talk about RT some more, but what was so fucking crazy is if anyone's watched House of Cards, that's exactly how this shit actually operates in DC. Like, I made this statement, and then this girl, Liz Wall, which was my colleague and actually one of my best friends in DC, saw all the attention that I was getting, and she was just like a newsreader, very generic, never heard her voice any opinions.
Two days after this happened, I was getting all this international press, and then so she resigns live on air and is like, I can't work for Putin.
This is a horrible network, and I'm for the truth, and I'm pro-American and all this shit.
And then she...
Got picked up and, you know, lauded all this shit.
And then I found out that there was actually this think tank called the Foreign Policy Initiative.
This is where it gets fucking weird.
Full of neoconservatives.
It's the same people who started the Iraq War.
Bill Kristol, you know, all these motherfuckers who basically forced us into Iraq.
They're like the most militant neocon faction of the entire DC establishment.
They've resurrected into a new think tank called the Foreign Policy Initiative.
And I found out that Liz was like essentially being used by these people.
These people probably reached out to her and they just said, like, look, we're going to like help you get this media tour behind you because their whole platform, if you look at their mission statement, they want a new Cold War with Russia.
That's what the FBI is all about.
And then you saw Liz working with these dudes like she was just this fucking idiot pawn who was basically used by all these dudes in this neocon think tank to spread their agenda.
And it just it was so fucking crazy.
And these people in this think tank are the ones that went out on the media and called me crazy.
They were like, Abby's a false flag.
Putin had Abby do this to make RT look like it's a legitimate news station, like they let journalists have editorial freedom.
They're like, Liz is the real hero because she quit.
And she hates Russia and we should all pay attention to her.
And I was like, this is fucking crazy.
This is all being manufactured.
And that's why I was like, this is absolutely insane.
And I just saw this media machine spinning and I was being victimized by the media machine that I critique every day.
joe rogan
That's fascinating.
abby martin
It was unbelievable.
joe rogan
That's fascinating to watch propaganda disseminate, isn't it?
abby martin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Especially when you're the...
Seeds and water and grows and then they catch it and run with it.
abby martin
It was unreal, man.
joe rogan
So you're a Putin mouthpiece.
That's what we've gotten out of this.
abby martin
But it was hilarious because I woke up the next morning after making that statement and I woke up to a press release saying, we don't push our journalists into saying what they need to say, but that's why we're shipping Abby to Crimea.
And I was like, pardon me?
I'm not fucking going to Crimea.
It's a fucking war zone.
joe rogan
Yeah, what did they say to you?
What was the actual conversation with you?
Because I remember they said, someone had said, we want to send her there so she can see it on the ground and see what the situation actually is.
What was their contention when they were saying that there was something wrong with your perception of it?
abby martin
Right.
So here's the problem, and I've learned a lot more about Crimea since I still stand by everything I said.
But Russians have a very strong allegiance with Crimea because Ukraine is like half Russian speakers.
Ukraine, I know like a lot of Ukrainians that I know are literally identify with Russia.
Like they speak Russian, they don't speak Ukrainian and shit.
So Crimea to them was actually like they were scared and they did reach out and they wanted help.
I'm not justifying the military action whatsoever and I think it was really wrong to have these maneuvers right on the heels of this coup.
joe rogan
What were they worried about with Crimea?
abby martin
Um, they were worried about the new, like, interim government and how there's just, like, a lot of lawlessness.
There's, like, all this shit going down, and I guess they reached out and wanted this referendum.
I don't know if it was a fair referendum.
I don't fucking know.
I'm not over there.
But my boss, and I think the boss of the whole RT operation, really didn't understand what the fuck I was doing.
They were like, I don't fucking get what you're talking about.
They're like, we're Russian.
You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
about you need to go over there and check it out to me I felt like it was a very Russian front dish punitive like threat like oh we're gonna ship you there you'll learn for yourself and I was like what in the holy hell like obviously I'm not gonna go and I told him I said look I'll go if you give me like weeks that I can prepare for war training and making my own contacts in Kiev and shit I was like I would definitely consider going but I'm not just gonna go there tomorrow like so what was the conversation that
joe rogan
They pull you into the office, Abby want to talk to you about some of the shit you said on TV, and we want to send you over to a war zone.
abby martin
So I woke up to this press release without even being asked, so I go into work knowing, and my boss calls me and he's like, hey Abby, we need to talk to you.
joe rogan
He has a Russian accent.
abby martin
He's like, I have a really great offer for you.
I'm like, oh, you're going to send me to Crimea?
Ship me there?
I was like, is that the offer?
Because I'm not going.
And I was like, I woke up to already saying that I was.
So maybe you guys got to eat your shit together and fix these narratives before you tell the world that I'm being shipped there.
joe rogan
So were you worried about being fired?
Were you ready to walk?
abby martin
I was ready to walk at that point, and I was just trying to see what they were going to do.
But I think...
I went into my boss's office and I was like, look, this is actually the best thing that's ever happened, RT. I was like, let me say what I want to say.
Because people call this network a Putin mouthpiece.
And I was like, and, you know, for good reason, because it does parrot the Russian line.
I was like, but if you let me go out there and fucking criticize Russia...
That's good.
That's good.
And I was like, even Fox News has diverse opinions on.
They had Alan Combs, even though he was like a little pussy.
joe rogan
You know what I mean?
abby martin
But at least they had that space where they could be like, we have liberals on sometimes.
It's like, you need that if you want to be legitimate.
And so I was like, fucking run with it.
Let me do my thing.
And at the end of the day, I give them inordinate credit for fucking letting me stay and letting me be there.
And I don't know what's going to happen, but You cannot say the same for a lot of corporate media stations that fired people for criticizing war, which is even scary to me because those aren't even funded by the U.S. government.
joe rogan
Yeah, but they're all terrified of the wrath of the U.S. government The access to stories, the access to interviews, you know, whenever you see Obama sit down with Bill O'Reilly, cross-legged, you know, they're sitting there, sitting like two gentlemen, their feet dangling over their other knee, like all casual and shit.
abby martin
Jerk each other off into the table.
joe rogan
So fucking bizarre and strange.
abby martin
It's really incestual.
joe rogan
It's weird because you know that there's certain things that they're not allowed to say, questions they're not allowed to ask.
You don't get that job unless you're safe as fuck.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
You're walking into a nerfed room, you know, and O'Reilly can pretend to play hardball, but it's going to be about economics or Obamacare or something like real fucking simple.
abby martin
You knew it was going to be about Benghazi, IRS, and Obamacare.
They probably already agreed to the terms.
It was all pre-taped, all that shit.
joe rogan
Well, we torture some folks.
That's fucking cool.
abby martin
But I went after this whole thing happened, so I was like, I went on Piers Morgan, and Piers Morgan...
joe rogan
What a dickwad that guy is, huh?
abby martin
That was hilarious, because he had no idea, like, he just thought that I'd go on there and just talk all this shit about, like, throw my network under the bus, throw all my work that I'd done there under the bus, and just be like, so, you know, you're working for this overt propaganda machine.
I was like, no different than you, bro.
Like, no different than you.
I was like, fucking look at what you guys have been doing.
You guys have been warmongering us.
joe rogan
He's a fool.
abby martin
It's unbelievable.
joe rogan
He's a very strange fool because I find it incredibly odd that they gave that guy that job after his whole scandal with...
abby martin
Oh, I know.
The phone tapping scandal.
joe rogan
Phone tapping victims.
unidentified
Unbelievable.
joe rogan
Phones.
And then, did you ever see Chelsea Handler manhandle him?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
She handled him.
abby martin
That was really awkward.
joe rogan
She destroyed him.
It was hilarious.
It was hilarious.
abby martin
She seems so irritated.
She's like, I don't even want to fucking be here right now.
joe rogan
Well, she's rich as fuck.
She doesn't give a shit.
She's a comic and a drunk.
And has it all out on the table.
She gives zero fucks.
So, Piers Morgan not paying attention to her and not even talking to her and in between takes and going over his notes and fucking reading his Twitter.
abby martin
But I think self-censorship is probably the biggest issue that you see on media.
And the point that I was trying to make is that I'm obviously like the only thing that I self-censor about is Russia because it's funded by fucking Russia.
The money comes from everywhere.
Even if you're looking at Piero Midiar, there's a lot of fucking dirty money that's going into that.
Like a lot of neoliberal fucked up policies that he's done.
It's like no matter what, if you want the platform, unless you're Joe Rogan and have the Joe Rogan experience, the money's coming from somewhere fucking shady, man.
joe rogan
Well, you could do the Abby Martin experience.
abby martin
I think I might, man.
I mean, I think I might at some point.
joe rogan
You might have to.
abby martin
You know what I mean?
I mean, if shit keeps going spiraling out of control, I don't know how much longer I can be at an organization with dirty money and still not feel like a hypocrite and shit.
But it really does come from everywhere, whether you're looking at MSNBC, NBC, CNN.
And I think that the biggest problem is that those have dozens, if not hundreds of conflicts of interest.
At least you know RT's Russia.
You're not going to get news about Russia from RT. That's pretty obvious.
how many dozens of corporate advertisers am I not going to get the truth about?
joe rogan
Right.
abby martin
How much are they self-censoring about the U.S. or about Israel?
You know what I mean?
And so that's where it gets really tricky because even though it's much more of a gray area, and I'd rather know the bias and I'd rather know exactly who's funding the organization so I can maneuver around that and get the truth.
joe rogan
It's working for any company that gets their money from various sources, whether it's the Russian government, whether it's corporations that sponsor shows and want you to keep a non-confrontational movement, non-controversial stance on their network because they have this agenda, because they're As many products as possible during their commercial breaks.
There's a whole bunch of reasons.
Because they want to negotiate good guests.
They want to make high-profile political guests feel at home.
So they have to censor opinions.
abby martin
Access.
It's all about access, baby.
You know what we were saying before about absolutism?
That's why I work for RT. Because if I was an absolutist, I'd be living in the fucking jungle drinking rainwater.
I have an iPhone.
I can criticize the NSA a lot, but look at fucking Facebook and Apple.
They're all working with the NSA. They're offering these backdoors.
I use these tools because I care more about the truth and I'm giving up and I'm compromising my moral values a little bit because I'm not a fucking absolutist because I believe in the bigger picture that this is a platform that's going to get the truth out to as many people as possible.
That I'm using Facebook to spread the message about this and that.
And I value that more than I do cutting off all social media because I believe in privacy to the absolute extreme.
So I guess there's a lot of compromises that you make living in the society that we live in.
And it's just tough.
You mentioned...
Commercials.
Dude, pharmaceutical industry.
The U.S. is only one of two countries in the entire world that allows direct-to-consumer advertising about pharmaceuticals.
And guess who's fucking preventing weed legalization in the U.S.? Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which is hilarious.
Unbelievable.
joe rogan
They are funded by pharmaceutical companies.
Drugs fund anti-drug commercials.
abby martin
Kid groups and shit.
Like kids for a drug-free America.
You're peddling, but yet you're giving Adderall to two-year-olds.
joe rogan
Well, they used to take money from alcohol companies.
They stopped.
Now it's just pharmaceuticals.
abby martin
It's un-fucking-real.
joe rogan
Partnership for a drug-free America.
Yeah, I had a joke that it was just like hookers doing commercials against strippers.
Like, that's...
Partnership for a drug-free America having commercials against weed.
Pharmaceutical drugs kill a lot of fucking people.
Weed kills zero.
Like, the idea behind it is so hilarious.
It's just gross.
It's gross and more transparent now than ever before.
And that's why, you know, you're not seeing that talking dog commercial anymore.
It's really hard to push those things.
It was just a few years ago.
You know, Lindsay, I wish you wouldn't smoke weed.
You're not the same when you smoke it.
I wish you were on Oxys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
abby martin
Snort some Oxys instead.
joe rogan
Take some Adderall and get shit done.
Become a part of the workforce, Lindsay.
abby martin
Yeah, become a more high-functioning worker.
unidentified
Dude!
joe rogan
Fucking Adderall, man.
That shit's everywhere.
I know so many people that are on that now.
abby martin
Oh my god.
joe rogan
It's really confusing.
It's like you become some hyper-vigilant corporate entity, some mass-producing consumer, this person that can work 16 hours a day hardcore, and you're just taxing and redlining your system all day.
abby martin
It's insane.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I know a dude's got a serious problem with it.
He can't get off it.
He fucking loves it.
unidentified
Yum, yum, yum.
joe rogan
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
abby martin
10,000 kids right now.
Think about how many fucking kids two to three years old are on Adderall.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
abby martin
They're fucking toddlers!
What are you prescribing to fucking babies?
joe rogan
Babies being a baby.
I'm tired of it.
I can't deal with it, doctor.
unidentified
Get him on drugs!
joe rogan
Well, I had a next-door neighbor.
There's nothing wrong with their kid.
They got their kid on Ritalin.
Or something.
One of those things.
Prozac, Ritalin, something.
Some sort of a control-the-fucking-kid drug.
And it was really bizarre.
Bizarre to see this little kid become like a zombie.
You know, just like dead.
Dead eyes.
abby martin
It's insane.
joe rogan
Wandering around.
I mean, these people were such shitty neighbors.
They had a dog that was just so wild.
They had a weird fence.
Like, they kind of had a fence, but any dog could go over.
Like, they had a fence that was connected to a hill, so the dog could just go up the hill and over the fence.
And I was like, bro, you gotta put a real fucking...
Like, their dog would growl at me and shit.
And I told him that his dog growled at me, and he made up some crazy story about my dog getting out, and, like, the dog tried to attack him.
He grabbed it by his neck.
He was, like, this fucking fat, out of shape, dumpy dude.
I'm like, you grabbed that dog's neck and kept that dog from...
My dog's a big dog.
I'm like, that dog didn't try to bite...
Plus, my dog's not aggressive.
Like, you're an asshole.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Just making up some story because his dog is creepy.
His dog would, like, growl at people and shit.
So, um, it was the same guy that had this kid that was just a kid.
It was just a kid.
And they just didn't want to deal with it.
They didn't want to deal.
Kids need a god...
They need attention.
The mom was whacked out of her mind on all sorts of fucking pills.
And the father was just sort of absentee.
Worked all day.
Twelve hours a day every day.
Never home.
And then when he was home, the kid was too much noise.
So, like, put...
Get them on pills!
Get them on pills!
abby martin
You know that crazy show My Strange Addiction where people eat fucking upholstery and shit?
unidentified
I was watching one where they're fucking eating tape.
joe rogan
Scotch tape.
unidentified
Do you think third world countries have that problem?
abby martin
Or is it just this vacuous, vapid identity crisis of Americans just being like, what the fuck is life all about?
I don't know.
I'm generalizing American culture maybe way too much.
Where does that come from?
joe rogan
People are fucking soft.
You know, this life is a little bit too easy.
It's a little too easy to go to the supermarket and get your food.
It's a little too easy to drive in the jack-in-the-box and get your food.
It's a little too easy to exist in this weird world that's completely and totally unnatural.
This cubicle world, this world of sitting at a desk all day.
It's just not natural.
And we're fucked up.
We're all really screwed up because of that.
Because of this unnatural existence that our bodies are not designed for, our minds are not designed for.
So people get wacky.
They start eating tape.
They start chewing on fucking upholstery and eating curtains.
It's fucking strange.
A perfect example is...
It's all about access, right?
Because in Florida, it's better now, but they had a real issue for a long time before...
Before they put out that documentary, the OxyContin Express...
abby martin
That was crazy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
Those health centers or whatever that they just fucking...
joe rogan
Yeah, pain management centers.
abby martin
What's the address of those?
joe rogan
Yeah, they're everywhere.
It's not an address.
It's just like, close your eyes and throw a dart at the map of Florida and you'll fucking hit one.
And they were one-stop shops, which is disturbing enough.
But what's more disturbing was that they didn't have a database.
So you could go to Dr. Jamie over here and get a prescription.
And then you could go down the street and go to Dr. Mike and get a prescription from him.
And then you can go down the street further to Dr. Michelle and get a prescription from her.
And there's no one to stop you.
There's no one to know what you've done.
There was nothing.
And so because of that, there was this insane number of people that were on OxyContin.
I'll pull up the data.
I'll pull up the actual.
But the number of prescriptions of people, of prescriptions that people had OxyContin in Florida as opposed to the rest of the world.
abby martin
And it's also where all the drug puddlers go to buy it.
And then they just go to their respective states and sell it.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
It's fucking nuts.
joe rogan
Yeah, it was real nuts.
It was something like 90% of...
abby martin
No way.
joe rogan
Yeah, 90% of all of the prescriptions in the country were in Florida.
abby martin
Holy...
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
Well, Americans have...
I mean, we consume more opiates than any other country in the world.
There's some insane stat.
40% of Americans are on...
I think it's honestly like five pills or more.
I mean, I might be exaggerating.
But remember how last time, Joe, we were talking about the opium in Afghanistan?
joe rogan
Yes.
abby martin
Did you hear that the NSA is tapping every single phone call?
and storing it and recording it in Afghanistan, that convinced to me, that sealed the deal that we're running drugs from there.
I was like, so you're telling me that every single audio phone call that's made is being tapped and stored by the NSA and we're still allowing 90% of the world's heroin from coming out of there?
That's even fucking crazier.
joe rogan
Well, it is, but see, what people get confused about when it comes to this idea of tapping phones is that there's a person that's monitoring Abby Martin, there's a person that's monitoring me, a person that's got Amber Lyons number No, it's all just being stored.
And if you get arrested...
Then, then they're going to go through your shit with a fine-tooth comb and they have all this data.
But until you get arrested, they're just, you know...
abby martin
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
It's the retroactive prosecution.
It's the ability to frame a case about you going back in your history and doing all this shit.
Like, you can pick one thing that you said, exactly.
joe rogan
Implied blackmail.
Implied blackmail is what it is.
It's like, it keeps you on the up and up.
It keeps you from challenging authority because if you do, they know a lot of shit about you, Abby Martin.
abby martin
I guess my point is that if we wanted to stop the opium trade, it wouldn't be that hard.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It probably wouldn't be as hard.
abby martin
Yeah.
But yeah, no, dude.
When people know that they're being watched, we were talking about the generation, the internet generation.
The problem is that there's no semblance of privacy with the generation growing up next.
That's all gone.
And people...
They react differently.
They act differently when they know there's a camera on them, when they know that they're being recorded.
And what is that going to do for just independent thought?
And I just hope that we can...
I don't know what the fuck's going to happen, man.
It's getting really crazy.
The surveillance state is just really, really out of control.
joe rogan
Well, the only thing that's...
What's fascinating to me is that it's starting to eat itself.
It just came out recently that the NSA was...
They were using surveillance on the Senate.
abby martin
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's like they're eating themselves.
And then the FBI... It's like they're eating themselves.
They've gone to cannibalism.
That's one of the things that many people are not aware is that a lot of government agencies don't like the other government agencies.
It's fucking hilarious.
You assholes are supposed to be on Team America and the fucking FBI and the CIA have issues with each other.
They don't share information.
They go back and they have fucking real problems.
I think that ultimately the evil and the sort of creepy behavior that's involved in the surveillance state We'll prove to be its own undoing because they're going to investigate each other.
They're going to expose each other's issues.
They're attacking each other.
This whole thing.
I mean, the fucking head of the CIA, the number one spook in the country, gets investigated by the FBI and he loses his gig.
Because it turns out that he's having an affair.
I mean, if that doesn't show you how crazy this is.
And that guy, Petraeus, who lost his gig, was, you know, I mean, you remember during the Iraq War?
He was like Jesus of the battlefield.
He was like the guy that everybody went to.
abby martin
Isn't it funny that an affair can take you down and not like war crimes?
unidentified
Hilarious.
joe rogan
Yeah.
With some crazy bitch that was banging a lot of dudes.
abby martin
Who gives a fuck?
joe rogan
She was like into fucking high-level military guys.
Right, right.
abby martin
It was her thing.
joe rogan
They were kind of like weird swingers when it comes to hired killers.
Very strange.
Very strange.
abby martin
Did you hear about that other leak about GCHQ, which is like the NSA counterpart in Britain?
They actually, it came out that they're manipulating polls and online traffic and essentially, you know the whole whoever controls the past controls the present?
Well, these motherfuckers are controlling the present and the future because if you're manipulating polls...
That right there can change the course of the political evolution of a country.
If you're like, oh, well, 90% of UK citizens agree with this, what, are you going to say no?
And it's like, you're just fucking making that shit up!
You can just make it up now!
joe rogan
It's insane!
But, again, then the information comes out that that's what's going on, and it makes it sort of invalid.
abby martin
I hope so, man.
joe rogan
I think kind of in a way it does.
It's like, look, the more the information comes out, the more the information gets in the hands of the people, the more that information becomes invalid.
Or at least it becomes a weapon that's used against him.
Like, the Petraeus situation.
Petraeus is like, he was teaching at City College of New York, and as he's walking, he has to walk.
Did you ever see it?
abby martin
Yeah, the war criminal stuff.
joe rogan
The kids follow him and scream war criminal at him.
And you're like, whoa, this is crazy.
This guy doesn't have any protection.
They jettisoned him.
They took this guy, who was the head killer, right?
He's the head military guy, the top dude, who apparently, he would take credit for stuff that other people really deserve credit for.
There was a lot of dissent.
There was a lot of real issue.
In the military community, they had issues with this guy.
I don't know how much of this is true or not.
But watching him walk down the street while these kids are yelling war criminal, they're holding up these signs, and they're saying, we'll be back tomorrow, we'll be back every day you're teaching.
And it's like, this is crazy.
Who fucking expected this?
And he can't do it.
Let's see if we can pull that video up.
unidentified
Yeah, that's great.
joe rogan
Let's see if you can find it.
It's a fascinating video.
It's fascinating.
Because it's like, who would have ever expected, how would he have ever expected that a chick he was banging...
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Led to this.
abby martin
Right, right, right, right, right.
joe rogan
What a weird world we live in.
Well, you could be the head of a military machine that's responsible for, what was the, it's between X hundred thousand and a million innocents died in Iraq, right?
abby martin
Over a million.
There was like a 2007 poll that was a million back then.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
And I can't even imagine how much it is now.
joe rogan
A thing of a pile of a million bodies.
Good luck trying to wrap your head around that.
abby martin
It's unbelievable.
joe rogan
But watching this guy, here it is.
It's fair.
unidentified
He's just walking.
joe rogan
You will.
unidentified
You piece of shit.
joe rogan
There's blood all over you.
Wow.
unidentified
Why are you teaching at CUNY?
What do you have to say?
joe rogan
So stupid!
So stupid!
unidentified
Everyone loves David!
Every class, David.
Wow.
And he doesn't know what to do.
There's a camera in his face.
joe rogan
He doesn't know what to do.
He doesn't do anything.
He just keeps walking.
But there's no one with this guy.
unidentified
Right.
abby martin
That is really crazy that he just probably thought he could slink off.
unidentified
The giant's out of CUNY!
The giant's out of CUNY!
The giant!
joe rogan
He's a war criminal!
unidentified
He's a war criminal!
joe rogan
Wow.
And he's jaywalking.
Arrest him.
That's illegal.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
They don't touch him though.
They get in his face.
They yell at him.
But they never get in front of him.
They get to the side.
They don't stop him.
Wow, he just keeps walking.
abby martin
It's just like, I mean, what's so weird, John Yoo, the guy who basically codified torture, is still working at Berkeley.
He's just still a teacher there.
Like, I don't, it's fucking crazy.
unidentified
Who is he?
abby martin
John Yoo, he's the guy who actually wrote, like, the torture justification in the Bush, like, torture memos.
Like, he actually wrote the law to actually legalize torture.
Not legalize it, but codified it so that it was essentially legal.
unidentified
Whew.
abby martin
Yeah, and he's a fucking criminal, man, and he's just working at Berkeley.
I love when people do that, though.
I mean, Kissinger...
What kills me is that the oldest motherfuckers, like Kissinger and Bush Sr., and Cheney, it's like, god damn, you guys have had all the luck that you can go skydiving when you're like 99 years old and you're like a war criminal like Bush Sr. It's like, how are you...
How are you so lucky, Ben?
joe rogan
22 times more oxycodones are prescribed in Florida than anywhere else in the country.
abby martin
And these pain centers are just still operating?
joe rogan
They're still operating, but they've cut them back.
And this is where it gets really crazy.
These poor people that were hooked on this shit, now they have to go illegal because there's no options.
It's become a serious issue for people that live in Florida because you essentially have all these people that are hooked illegally.
And they're kind of collateral damage.
This OxyContin Express comes out.
Everybody finds out about this issue.
And the pharmaceutical companies are just raking it in, raking it in.
And they've made a bunch of people addicted.
They've created all these addicts by giving them this access, this insane access.
Like, what's wrong with you?
My back hurts.
Here's a prescription.
Go right next door.
And they go right next door and they give them pills.
And the hardest pills to kick on the planet.
I mean, within a couple of days, these fucking things are deep in your bones and you're fucked.
I have a relative.
Fucking guy just lost everything.
He became a junkie.
I watched him have a regular job and then just become a lying piece of shit that never works and just always is on pills.
abby martin
It's fucking legal heroin.
That's exactly what it is.
It's even crazier.
It's more concentrated.
joe rogan
You just have to swallow it.
You don't even have to shoot up.
You don't have to fucking get a rope.
You don't have to get a needle.
You don't have to stick a needle in your arm and find a vein.
You don't have to do any of that.
Just pop a pill.
Boom.
Suck on it.
unidentified
And then you need it.
abby martin
It's just unbelievable that we are living in a country where weed is still a class one drug.
Schedule one.
Sorry.
joe rogan
It's cute.
abby martin
Isn't it sweet?
joe rogan
Did you see the United States response?
The New York Times wrote an op-ed saying we should, yeah.
And the government had a response, and the government's response is fucking hilarious.
unidentified
What is it?
joe rogan
It's so stupid.
I'm looking for it right now.
Dave Seaman pulled it up.
If you look on my Twitter from July 31st, I retweeted it.
But the response is so goddamn goofy.
Marijuana use affects the developing brain.
Okay, here's the problem.
All of their arguments are all about children.
Well, they're talking about marijuana use amongst adults.
It had no bearing in the conversation.
It doesn't make any sense.
It's completely irrelevant.
But their first two points are about children.
Marijuana use affects the developing brain.
Substance use in school-aged children has a detrimental effect on their academic achievement.
Yeah, you wonder why.
First of all, it's substance use, which includes alcohol, which is legal.
It includes oxycodones, which are legal.
It includes a lot of shit, which is legal.
Yeah, a lot of things acute.
Students who received, and this is on the fucking federal government's website, students who received earned D's or F's were more likely to be current users of marijuana.
Than those who earned A's.
Yeah.
Okay.
Whatever.
They're high and they're not paying attention in class.
What are you trying to say?
abby martin
They're probably getting high because they're not paying attention in class.
joe rogan
School, for the most part, sucks a fat dick.
And that's probably one of the reasons why they're high as fuck and not paying attention.
You're trying to stick a round kid into a square hole and most kids don't like it.
And most kids that are creative, anybody that thinks outside the box, anybody that has...
Any sort of aspirations in any sort of alternative career outside of the academic process of getting a degree, getting a job, getting a cubicle, following this very rigid pattern.
Yeah, the people have a problem with it.
People have a problem with people telling them what to do.
And they get D's or F's.
Yeah, they're more likely to be the kind of kids that'll get high.
abby martin
Right, and that's why Finland has the best fucking education system in the world because they have very personalized education because they know everyone isn't uniform robots that fit into a perfect little thing, a perfect package that everything's standardized and this and that.
And when we're talking about the vapid nature of people who take all these fucking drugs to try to fill this void or eat upholstery and tape and shit and glue...
I mean, you know, when you're living in a culture that tells you that working is the best, like, if you work hard, you can get anything you want, and that's just fucking not true anymore, man.
The American dream isn't available for everyone.
It never really was.
And it's just not possible anymore.
And I think people just still want to hold on to this dying fucking dream.
And we work harder than almost every other fucking industrialized nation.
We're the only country, literally, North Korea and Saudi Arabia both offer this and we don't.
Paid maternity leave.
We don't even offer paid maternity leave.
Yeah, it is crazy.
It's just nuts.
It's like, I think that we just put work above all else and we're just working ourselves to death.
And it's really not what life is all about.
Like, even if you wanted to work and get money, Really, what are the chances of you getting your dream job where it doesn't feel like you're working?
So, ultimately, you're going to be fucking miserable, working your ass off just to get the money, sitting in traffic, fucking coming home, you can't even have time to fuck your wife or make dinner, and it's just like this horrible cycle.
Of course that they're going to abuse shit.
Of course you're going to abuse drugs.
There's no purpose, because the purpose that you've put as your god is money.
And as much as we all love to buy shit, at the end of the day, that's not going to fill the void of what the meaning of life is and why you're here.
joe rogan
That's the real issue with materialism as well, is a lot of times people resort to materialism to sort of placate themselves because they're so miserable with their job.
At least I'm going to get a reward.
I'm going to buy that fucking Lexus.
They're at least going to get themselves a nice watch.
They're at least going to get themselves a big TV. That's going to at least make me feel better for this fucking creepy existence that I've sort of locked myself into that I get to do until I'm 65 and then what?
Then what?
Then fucking watch my knees give out?
Watch my back give out?
Watch my body decay?
What are the options?
I don't know.
I would say to anybody that's listening to this that's confused, if there's another thing that you want to do, please at least try to do it.
Find a way.
Other people have.
This idea that you should work for a company in some thankless, loveless position and just keep doing it until the wheels fall off.
Don't have kids until you have to.
Don't fucking get a mortgage until you have to.
Don't do it.
Don't do it when you're young.
Don't lock yourself in to needing a certain amount of money every month.
Don't do it until it's mandatory, until it's necessary.
And you can find other paths.
People can find other paths.
You're not going to find it paying attention to the fucking news.
You're not going to find it paying attention to most school teachers.
You're not going to find it paying attention to...
Most of the standards that people hear applied to human beings.
abby martin
That's why DC is so fucking weird.
joe rogan
That's where you live, right?
abby martin
Yeah.
It's fucking creepy, man.
joe rogan
You're in the belly of the beast.
abby martin
I'm getting out of there soon.
I told my boss, I was like, there's no way I can be here for another year.
I don't know.
joe rogan
Big Sur.
abby martin
Big Sur.
Live in a cave.
unidentified
Go the opposite.
joe rogan
No cell phone reception.
abby martin
Do the Kerouac shit and just fucking move out there.
joe rogan
Satellite internet.
abby martin
I'm serious, dude.
I'm going to take a long break, but...
But DC's so weird because everyone there, it's just like Hollywood for ugly people, you've heard that saying, but it's fucking true because everyone there's a predator.
And everyone there, they look like a pudgy-faced Karl Rove, baby-faced little doughboy.
And they're all like these white dudes wearing plaid.
And all they're doing is just trying to find out how they can fuck you over to try to get like, you know, use you to do this and it's just a super creepy predatory place and it's full of a lot of soulless people and they're all like, they've all navigated there because they feel like they can streamline their careers and just fuck over humanity essentially.
I mean, I know that they're obviously going there with more altruistic goals.
But it's just sad that they are bred to say, like, you know, this is all that matters is money and power, essentially.
And power just corrupts the shit out of people.
And they just lose sight of so much.
Like, once you're in that bubble, you can't really see outside of it.
And it's just all this, like...
Minuscule shit that you think that you're changing stuff and really like on the grand scheme of things you're just kind of perpetuating the same system and I just think it's bad.
I just feel like I'm, yeah, there's not really too many radical voices out there.
I have learned a lot more about like the incompetence of government.
Now that I'm living there, though, I feel like I've changed my mind about some things because I've seen how fucking stupid everyone is and how much in a bubble people are.
I'm like, okay, at least I understand why things are the way they are.
joe rogan
You mean as far as the ideas of conspiracy theories as opposed to just total incompetence?
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
I feel the same way.
The more I've paid attention to more things, the more I go, listen, man, there are conspiracies for sure.
They have always existed.
They probably will until we have total transparency as far as...
People's thoughts and actions, which may be coming a lot sooner than we think.
But more likely than not, there's terrible incompetence and then there's people that are capitalizing on events.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
Because people capitalize on events, a lot of times people say, you've got to look who benefited from this happening.
Actually, no.
Because anytime any tragic event happens, people benefit from it.
So it doesn't mean they caused said tragic event.
And that's where a lot of these conspiracy theorists, they make this really egregious error in judgment.
Because it's not that they caused the event and that's why they're benefiting because they planned it out.
It's usually that shit is just fucked from the get-go.
Like 9-11 is a perfect example.
So many people have benefited from 9-11.
And there's a lot of people that try to directly correlate those people that have benefited from 9-11 with having planned out 9-11.
With very little evidence.
But there's an old saying, I forget how it goes exactly, but to paraphrase it, is like any tragedy that is not capitalized on is a waste.
And that this is like a staple of governments.
They look at any situation where things go wrong.
Like Oklahoma City, perfect example, when they blew up the federal building.
Whoever did it.
Whether it was Timothy McVeigh, whether it was the fucking Illuminati, whoever blew up that building, one of the things that happened was they started changing the laws on the ability to act against terrorism.
Homegrown terrorism, they used the term, not light-skinned terrorism, clean-skinned, I forget what the term that they started using.
Yeah, the idea of looking for a terrorist that, you know, is like a white man instead of looking for Arabs.
abby martin
Oh, the homegrown.
Yeah, yeah, homegrown.
joe rogan
But it was like, I think the term is like literally clean-skinned terrorists or something like that, but they changed the laws.
They changed the laws directly because of the Oklahoma City bombings.
abby martin
After I got propelled in the mainstream, they resurrected all the shit that I'd done about 9-11 because I used to be in the 9-11 truth movement.
And they were like, you're fucking crazy.
Here you are on video six years ago saying it was an inside job, all this shit.
And I was like, look, I don't think it was an inside job.
As a journalist, that would be extremely irresponsible to claim that you know anything.
All I can do is point out things that I feel are wrong with the official story.
I feel like there's a lot of things that are wrong with what we've been told.
Does that mean that we know what happened?
We can go out there and declare it?
No.
And really, at this point, all we can do is point out the people that benefited, the people that exploited it, because it's just the fact that you're just called a conspiracy theorist.
It's this catch-all phrase that you can just use to shut down debate.
But I still have some questions about 9-11.
I have a lot of questions about 9-11.
But I don't go out there and say it was an inside job.
joe rogan
Well, what specifically do you have questions about?
abby martin
I have questions about the insider trading, the fact that there were dozens and dozens of warnings beyond just the initial PDB given to Condoleezza Rice saying Bin Laden determined to strike within the US. There's like dozens and dozens more directly to the top of the intelligence.
And the fact that they...
I don't blame that just on incompetence.
I think that someone turned a blind eye at the very least in that respect.
And then we know that people bet that the stocks would fail and they fucking made a shitload of money on it.
Who were those people?
They never investigated it.
So there's just certain things like that that make me raise eyebrows.
But, you know, do I go out and say...
Building 7 and shit?
Like, no, because I just think at this point, all we can do is point to the questions that we have and point to how they've used the event.
But I think that in terms of all these school shootings and shit, the problem with this movement is that it started off, I was drawn to it because I'm like, I, you know, I like to question the narratives that I'm given because I think that they lie about a lot of shit and rewrite history.
But then it's turned into this kind of conspiracy culture where there's like a conspiracy like fucking ink.
It's like making money off everything and you're capitalizing on everything.
Everyone wants to be this celebrity on YouTube making these fucking paranoid videos about the Illuminati and every school shootings controlled and a false flag and I'm just like this is just that makes me just never want to touch that shit again because I'm just like you guys have actually ruined just asking questions like yes we should all ask questions but when you're just going out there within hours of every event saying it's a false flag You're actually making people like never wanting to question like the origin of these things and that's dangerous.
joe rogan
Well, which is disinformation agent's job.
abby martin
Absolutely.
joe rogan
The idea of a disinformation agent is someone who connects some really credible ideas with some wacky alien on the moon fucking conspiracies that are so ridiculous that it makes the other stuff that it's connected to seem ridiculous.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
Have you ever read the debunking of all that, the insider trading stuff?
It's pretty interesting.
unidentified
No.
abby martin
What is the debunking?
joe rogan
Well, you can go to Snopes.
Snopes has it.
Here, I'll read it.
In the days just prior to the September 11th attacks, large quantities of stock in United and American Airlines were traded by persons with foreknowledge of the upcoming 9-11 attacks, right?
That's what everybody parrots.
unidentified
False.
joe rogan
Origins.
On 11 September 2001, four planes were hijacked and used in the attack on America.
American Airlines Flight 11, leaving Boston bound for Los Angeles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Leaving New York bound for San Francisco.
Each of these planes was deliberately crashed, killing all on board.
Two into the World Trade Center Towers, one into the Pentagon.
The operation taken years to plan.
The perpetrators knew well in advance.
In the month prior to 11 September, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Unusual trading activity involving American United stock was noted by market analysts, who at the time had no idea what to make of it.
Wildly unusual discrepancies in the put-and-call ratio, 25 to 100 times normal, were reportedly observed in stock options of the two airlines.
In one case, Bloomberg, Trade Book, Electronic Trade Center, Trading system identified option volume in UAL, a parent of United Airlines, on 16th of August 2001. That was 36 times higher than usual.
But it was during the final few trading days that the most unusual variances of activity occurred.
Highly publicized allegations of insider trading have advanced.
9-11 generally rests on reports of unusual pre-9-11 trading activities in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks.
Some unusual trading did, in fact, occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation.
For example...
The volume of put options, instruments that pay off only when a stock drops in price, surge in the parent company of United Airlines of September 6th and American Airlines of September 10th.
Highly suspicious trading on its face, yet further investigation has revealed.
That the trading had no connection with 9-11 and a single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to Al-Qaeda purchased 95% of the UAL puts on September 6th as a part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American Airlines on September 10th.
Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10th was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9th, which recommended these trades.
The SEC and FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments.
These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous.
So what they're saying is that the same company also bought a shitload of shares.
abby martin
What source is this?
I know it's on Snopes, but what's the actual citation?
joe rogan
That's a good question.
abby martin
Because I just read the CBS report, because someone was asking about this, and I wanted to refresh my memory.
And, I mean, people to this day claim that they still don't know.
And even the 9-11 Commission said that they didn't investigate who made money off the attack because it was of a little practical significance.
So if that's explained, that's great.
That still doesn't explain how Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Willie Brown were told not to fly.
Like, who the fuck told them not to fly?
And why weren't our lives as well as them?
joe rogan
How do we know that they were told?
abby martin
I heard Willie Brown on the radio show saying I was told not to fly.
Rumsfeld and Silverstein, who worked in the building and he had breakfast every morning, he just didn't show up.
I mean, I just think that people did have foreknowledge.
I absolutely do.
And also the whole funding operation, we know that there was $100,000 wire transfer.
transferred to the lead hijacker from Mahmoud Ahmed, which was the head of Pakistani intelligence.
And why the fuck wasn't that followed up?
Like he was having breakfast with the White House the week of 9/11.
So it's like there's just things that I just don't fucking get.
And I just feel like it was thrown under the rug and the fact that Saudi Arabia basically financed this whole operation with Pakistan and we flew out all of Bin Laden's family.
That to me is just like, what the fuck is that?
So even if you don't believe anything else, if you have no other questions, the fact that we are still tight with Saudi Arabia funding them, allies with them, and they essentially like knew about the attacks and helped finance these hijackers is insane to me.
That's insane.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, the word they is very weird, too.
When you start, they did this and they funded that.
Who is they?
Well, we know proof.
No, no, no.
abby martin
We know Bob Graham.
Look at fucking Senator Bob Graham has been screaming about this on the floor for the last 10 years saying they actually do know that they were financed by the Saudi Arabian government, that the Saudi Arabian government knew and the intelligence services knew about these hijackers, where they were.
And it's just unbelievable.
joe rogan
And is it possible that our allegiance to Saudi Arabia financially is greater than the desire for justice?
Yeah.
That we make so much money from Saudi Arabian oil.
abby martin
I think it's very clear.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And that's obviously probably the same reason why Bin Laden's family was shipped out of the country.
There's just so much money involved.
abby martin
I guess it just sickens me because if it really was the biggest deal in the world where they can implement a domestic police state and kill a million Iraqis and continue out this giant war on terror, wiretapping the planet because of it, the fact that they didn't want to investigate Saudi Arabia because the oil money or whatever the fuck trumps the justice, that says it all.
joe rogan
It certainly does.
It certainly says that there's some creepy shit going on and that this has been the way it's always been.
I mean, this is the way they've always done business.
There's a massive, massive amount of money in oil.
The oil money is so hard for any of us to even...
When you especially start talking about these oligarch families, these families that have insane amounts of money, they're not publicly traded companies.
They don't have to pay taxes because they own countries.
So the ideas that we have of the richest men in the world, they're not really entirely accurate because our idea of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and what about these Prince King dudes that nobody knows about who own oil?
They own massive amounts of money.
I mean, the amount of money that these kings have and these princes and sheiks, has anybody ever accurately got a reading on how much money they have?
abby martin
Everyone watched House of Saud because it gives a really good background on Saudi Arabia.
But I mean, it basically is like a hundred-year-old regime because they just discovered oil and they rise to this status.
And if you just look at Saudi Arabia's relationship with the U.S., Like we said, it tells you everything you need to know because of the utter hypocrisy in terms of human rights standards.
I mean, Saudi Arabia is fucking disgusting.
Zero rights for women.
They used to execute gay people.
I think they just imprisoned them for life now.
So if we want to talk about Russia's gay law, that's fine as well we should.
But for fuck's sake, let's talk about Saudi Arabia as well.
joe rogan
What is up with Russia's gay law though?
Why are they so worried about gay people?
abby martin
I think Russia, you know, we're talking about a country that Soviet Union collapsed, what, like 30 years ago?
So they're just like, I think they're going through a lot of fucking weird transitions where they're just kind of going through this evolutionary process.
I'm not trying to defend them at all.
I think the gay law is terrible.
And they have a lot of horrible crackdowns on press freedom as well.
But I think it's just completely like apples and oranges when you're looking at Russia and you're like, how come you aren't as fucking free as us?
It's like, well, the Soviet Union just collapsed 30 years ago.
Like, they're in a weird place.
And yeah, they're run by a bunch of oligarchs and it's a lot of fucked up shit going on.
But I just don't understand the totally egregious demonization of Russia when at the same time, you know, all these partnerships are just so much crazier.
joe rogan
Yeah, we got to keep our mouth shut about them because that's where we're getting our oil from.
It's pretty simple.
unidentified
Yeah.
abby martin
It is.
It's very simple.
I'd have to go pee again.
joe rogan
It's a slippery, slimy world.
And Abby Martin is the bladder of a small boy's fist.
Well, we've managed to piss off a lot of groups today.
I think we should be proud.
Everybody hates us now.
The Saudi Arabians, the Jews, probably the Palestinians, Dennis Prager.
Who else?
Hillary Clinton's probably mad at us.
Everyone's going to go.
Petraeus is pissed.
Yeah, they're all going to go down the list.
We live in weird times.
It's a weird time to do an internet show, too.
Because you don't have a boss.
You can never do this.
You can never have this kind of a show and put it on television.
Because if you did try to record it, someone would come along and they would chop this out or hack that out and you can't talk shit about them or this or...
It's not the way it goes anymore.
We live in a weird world.
This world is changing too.
It's getting weirder and weirder.
And I wonder what it's going to be like 50, 100 years from now.
If you go back and...
I was looking at this video of Chicago.
And it was Chicago at the turn of the 20th century.
From the 19th century to the 20th century.
It was like the early, early days of Chicago.
And there's these people that are like riding horses down the street.
And I don't remember when the first cars came about.
It was like the 1800s, right?
The late 1800s they first had cars.
So there was like a couple cars on the streets of Chicago, early 1900s.
You look at this place, and you see this very quaint existence.
These people lived in the early 20th century.
We're talking about the difference between now and 100 years from now, as opposed to 100 years ago, early 20th century Chicago.
There was this video of these people riding fucking horses.
Horse-drawn carriages and shit.
It's so weird.
There was a couple cars, you know, there were these weird, goofy-ass cars that go, like, five miles an hour, run on steam and shit, but the difference between then and now is just stunning.
abby martin
That's why we don't need, like, DC. Like, we don't need these representatives.
We don't own horseback anymore.
We don't have the fucking Pony Express.
Like, we don't need these weird representatives that represent, like, 30,000 people, like, going and voicing.
It's like, the Electoral College is totally fucking irrelevant.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
It's all bullshit.
joe rogan
But do you think that it should be like, is it possible that when you see people like Mitt Romney or you see people that are Scientologists, that people could be too easily manipulated and that somehow or another this has to be filtered through representatives that understand the law.
But at least we know that these representatives who are going to cast the vote for their constituents, these people are educated, these people are moral, these people are of high standards and high moral fabric.
It's gross.
The idea is gross because it's very elitist.
But if you lived in Utah, and I love Utah, I just got back, would you allow the popular vote to decide a lot of things if you knew that there was a giant percentage of people that were in a weird cult that had some strange rules?
abby martin
But look, if the popular vote was replace the Electoral College, then New York and California, which is full of, I think, a lot more intelligent people, would have much more of a poll.
And you just don't even see politicians giving a fuck about those states because it all comes back to the, like, they know that it's going to go this way or that way.
And it's just, it's disgusting.
joe rogan
But the numbers that fly over states are gigantic.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
300 million people, 350, whatever it is in the country.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
How many of them are in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA? Is it a third?
Because the other two-thirds are dangerous.
abby martin
You're right.
joe rogan
Those fucking creepers.
There's a giant percentage that God guns and ram.
abby martin
Well, at least...
Okay, so at least Europe...
This two-party dictatorship is just crushing us, man.
Because, you know, you have money in politics, which is like people spend half their time, if not more, fundraising.
joe rogan
Right.
abby martin
So how could we ever get these people to really care about changing shit if they're just trying to make money to win the next election?
And the elections here are just disgusting.
This dog and pony show, it's like this fucking celebrity.
They spent a billion dollars last time.
You know, if you look at Europe, you can argue about the parliamentary system because of course there's fascist parties that get in and that's not good.
But at least they have the avenues for other voices other than like two parties.
And I think that it's just really dangerous to have this system.
joe rogan
There was an interesting story in The Guardian a couple weeks ago that was the rise of data and the death of politics.
And the idea was that tech pioneers in the U.S. are advocating a new data-based approach to governance, algorithmic regulation.
But if technology provides the answers to society's problems, what happens to governments?
And this idea was sort of...
They're sort of extrapolating on that.
That we don't need these representatives anymore.
They're a legacy.
They're this weird system that was in place when you had to fucking attach a note to a pigeon and send that motherfucker loose to get the word out.
We don't need that anymore.
You could directly, through your phone, you could directly cast your opinion on whatever it may be.
And if we still have a representative system...
You could make the argument that that's suppressive.
That's suppressive of the individual's right to choose for themselves.
abby martin
And then GCHQ can manipulate the polls.
I'm just joking.
But I think decentralization is really...
I think it's really key.
And with technology, you see things like Bitcoin working outside the system.
I think that if we can maintain net neutrality, if the FCC wants to implement that and be fucking for the people for once instead of telecom whores, then we can really create some sort of decentralization online and try to create other avenues outside the system.
It's just a dangerous world, because as you're saying, the more information that we have, the less relevant these authority and establishment systems will be.
But at the same time, it can almost trap ourselves in a box, like the algorithms online.
It can cater your own biases toward you, where all of your Google search results are catered toward your bias and your preferential searching habits and stuff.
So it's like the information that you're seeking might be different than the information she's seeking.
And that's not good to a free and open society, too.
joe rogan
Yeah, that is weird, right?
The confirmation bias that comes from surrounding yourself with like-minded people.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
You get really weird groups.
I like to go to very bizarre websites and message boards and listen to people just debate about things.
People that I just never would come in contact with in real life.
And, you know, there's some right-wing Republican websites out there that are so bizarre.
They're so strange.
It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You guys are serious?
Like, there was a Sarah Palin website launch recently.
You know about that?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
She's got her own online TV channel, which costs more than Netflix.
abby martin
That's where Liz Wall's going to be working.
Liz Wall's going to get a job there, probably.
joe rogan
You think?
abby martin
That's the only thing she could probably do.
Smart enough to do.
joe rogan
But I was reading the comments and it's like they were trolls.
It's like they were comedy trolls.
And then I realized you look at the guy's profile and you follow his other comments and you go, oh no, you're real!
Oh my god, you're a real person!
God, in capital letters, is looking out for America.
God blesses this fine land.
And people like Sarah Palin, and true in all capital, Americans, are what we need to get this country back on track.
There's a few shitheads that I follow on Twitter just for comedy, but they're fucking serious.
They're legit.
abby martin
Dude, it's so true, man.
Everyone check out Margaret Heffernan.
She has this awesome TED Talk about willful blindness, and she has a whole book on...
Competition and the confirmation bias and how her whole thing, it sounds so simple, but the way she explains it is just like so mind-blowing.
She's just like, you need to interact with people who don't think what you do.
This is like a part of human progress.
And it'll reaffirm and you'll learn.
You can't just surround yourself with yes-men your whole life.
You need to be challenged every day.
Like, look, and not necessarily surrounding yourself with fucking trolls who are telling you, you know, what Sarah Palin's fucking great, but watching the video like that dude.
Like, the thing that we just watched about Israel.
joe rogan
The Dennis Prager thing, yeah.
abby martin
Like, do that.
joe rogan
See someone else's point of view.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
This is one of the guys that I follow.
Whatever label we stick on ourselves, the kingdom, all caps, of heaven, is for who pleases the Father, all caps, in heaven.
abby martin
Wow.
joe rogan
I love this guy.
unidentified
Wow.
Who is it?
joe rogan
Some dickwah that I'm not going to publicize.
unidentified
Is it an egg?
abby martin
Some little egg dickhead.
joe rogan
No, he's got a face.
He's just like some really retarded right-wing dude.
I love reading his stuff, though, because I just go, what?
You're a real guy?
abby martin
You're right, dude.
And I'm a victim of it, too, because it's like, who the fuck wants to hang out with people who are, you know, that you're going to be fighting?
joe rogan
They're pro-Israel, though.
This guy's super pro-Israel.
abby martin
Of course.
joe rogan
Barack Hussein Obama used the IRS to attack America.
This is what lying, low-life socialist, communist, anti-Israel, anti-U.S. demagogue does.
abby martin
If they think Obama's a communist, wow, they need to really read some shit, dude.
joe rogan
He's clearly a socialist.
Have you seen Obamacare?
Obamacare is a disaster.
The website alone has cost a billion trillion dollars and it eats babies.
It runs on babies.
abby martin
Christian babies.
That's how you know someone's a very uncritical thinker if they think Obama is remotely a socialist.
joe rogan
Well, yeah.
I don't know.
But these crazy super religious folks also back Israel because they believe that Israel is where Jesus is coming back.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Right?
Like, did you ever see the Vice piece where they send these folks who are like super-duper religious cuckoo heads?
No.
They fucking make their pilgrimage.
They're Christians from America, and they make their pilgrimage to Israel, and they follow these people around, and they're reading scripture like out loud on this fucking raft as they go, oh, it's glorious.
It's glorious in all its shitheadiness.
abby martin
Joe, have you seen An Idiot Abroad?
joe rogan
Dude, it's fucking hilarious.
abby martin
It makes everything just look like shit.
Like, it makes all the seven wonders of the world just look terrible.
Like, this guy's just miserable.
He goes and puts him in the worst situations, puts him in the worst hotels and shit, makes his life a living hell, and he's just going around traveling, complaining about everything.
It's fucking hysterical.
It's awesome.
Ricky Gervais is a genius.
But I want to ask you, have you seen the Vice special on Fukushima?
joe rogan
Yes.
abby martin
Oh my good God.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's terrifying.
I have a friend, my friend Ensign Inoue, he goes over there and he provides aid with people.
He's Japanese.
Yeah.
Well, he was born in Hawaii, but he's lived in Japan for a long time and is Japanese, you know, his nationality, his ethnicity rather.
But he's gone over there...
A bunch of times.
He goes over there and does a lot of humanitarian aid.
He's like, it's really strange.
He goes, you're over there and you feel normal.
He goes, you feel fine, but then you look at your radioactive Geiger counter or whatever, and it's just fucking off the charts.
unidentified
It's like...
joe rogan
You can only stay there for a certain amount of time because you don't feel anything.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
That's what's really weird about it.
abby martin
That's what's so fucked up about radiation.
But I just, I mean, even though I study this shit every day, I did not realize until you see it, like until you see that Vice special and you see the tanks, how every day they're filling this whole cool, like, reactor up with fresh water, draining the radioactive water,
like, multiple times a day, storing it in I think?
joe rogan
What are they going to do?
abby martin
I don't know.
And then the Yakuza, the Japanese government and TEPCO are hiring the Yakuza mafia there to help with the fucking cleanup because they owe them debt.
So all these old Japanese men want to help.
They're like, we've worked on the reactors our whole life.
They're like, let us go.
We're old, we can die.
And they're wanting to sacrifice themselves and instead they're hiring mafia members from the Yakuza mob that have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
It's a fucking nightmare, man.
joe rogan
Really?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
What can they do?
I mean, I know they have that idea to dig this giant pit and then have it surrounded with frozen cones.
abby martin
That already didn't work.
That already failed.
unidentified
That failed?
abby martin
Yeah, the ice wall.
It sounded like some Superman stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, like a fucking prison.
unidentified
Fortress of Solitude.
That failed.
abby martin
It didn't work?
Well, look at Chernobyl.
They have this giant sarcophagus that's cracking.
She was just telling me the other day that the nuclear waste, even with working reactors, they just have to dig a pit and put a fucking sign on it with a skull and crossbones.
Because they're like, well, in a million years, even though the radioactive energy will still be here, they're like, at least the future civilization here will know what a skull and crossbones is, and they won't be able to dig up this waste.
You're like, holy fuck, why are we dealing with an energy...
That we can't harness properly.
Like, it's a miracle and it's magic, but clearly we don't know what the fuck we're doing with it.
joe rogan
Well, you know what?
All it does is make steam.
abby martin
Yeah, that's what's so crazy!
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
When you see what it really just is.
joe rogan
I thought that it did something like made electricity with a nuclear something.
They're splitting atoms and it just goes right through the wires and they're housing it in some giant fucking...
It's just steam.
No, they're making steam.
It's hot.
It's hot as fuck.
Couldn't they do that in a better way?
Seems like a lot of ways to make steam.
Can you just boil water?
What are you assholes doing?
You guys are making some shit that you can never shut off.
It's really crazy.
abby martin
Right next to a fault line, right next to the ocean.
It's like, nothing can go wrong.
joe rogan
Well, they're all over the place, too.
The really bizarre thing is when you drive down the California coast and you realize that we are on a fault.
Like, California moves all the time.
And then you go on the way to San Diego, this is fucking nuclear power plants!
unidentified
It's right there!
And guess what?
abby martin
Similar design, except very small difference.
It's GE. It's a general electric design, and we have 22 sister reactors here in the U.S. that are almost identical to the Fukushima ones.
joe rogan
Well, the thing about the reactors that's super disturbing is people say, well, it's clean, it's efficient, it's very, you know, as far as like the access to the energy, it's very, very efficient.
But once those things go bad, they're bad forever.
So you have, as of now, there's only two spots.
But those two spots are toast.
Chernobyl and Fukushima are fucking toast.
Those areas are fucked for 100,000 years.
And then you have the storage of the nuclear waste from all the other places that are still operational, and you have this spot in Nevada where they have a fucking hole where Godzilla goes to eat his radioactive energy when he lands here.
I mean, what the fuck, man?
This is only 100 years, less than 100 years of splitting atoms, right?
Nuclear bomb, 1945, and here we are in 2014. Less than 100 years of you guys doing this shit, and you already have two spots that are broken.
You know, if you could look at the future, and you look at all the potential spots to go wrong, like if we had a hot map where you could, you know, everything that's blue is a nuclear reactor that's currently working and functional, And you have the two red spots.
And then you look at all the potential for red spots, these blue ones, to go bad.
Like, God, we're going to fuck up a huge percentage of the world with this power source.
I don't know a better method, but if I lived in California, which I do, and it never fucking gets cloudy, which it doesn't, I would say maybe that solar thing is something you guys want to...
abby martin
Let's just try it.
I mean, the thing is, it's not working.
I think that we really do need to shut down all reactors.
I know I've had someone on my show to talk about thorium.
I think we're good to go.
Whoa, where did that come from?
joe rogan
Oops, that was me.
abby martin
But when they first saw the nuclear bomb go off on whatever the hell island it was that they saw the first explosion, you know, all they told them was just to wear little sunglasses out there.
There's that photo of all of them.
They like quoted Bhagavad Gita and they said, we've become death.
Like, what have we done?
Like the guy who like...
joe rogan
Yeah, that's Oppenheimer.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You ever heard him talk?
It's so creepy when Oppenheimer says it.
He quoted the Bhagavad Gita.
He says, I am become death, destroyer of worlds.
It's a really creepy...
Pull it up because it's a really bizarre...
Because when you actually hear it from Oppenheimer's voice, when he talks about how he felt and you see his face, the regret, because he was a part of this thing.
And that's not even nuclear energy.
That's nuclear bomb.
He decided at that point in time that they had made a tremendous, tremendous mistake.
And here we are, 2014, still our major source of electricity in the United States of America.
abby martin
Everyone should check out Untold History of the United States, because in it, I learned that Reagan, fucking asshole, he was actually approached by Gorbachev To totally dismantle all the nuclear weapons.
He was just like, look, it's done.
Let's fucking close it all down.
And Reagan was like, no, because I'm senile and I believe in Star Wars and I think that we can create this giant space program and blah blah blah.
And he just said no.
And I blame him, dude.
He had the chance.
He had the golden ticket and he gave up on it, man.
joe rogan
You want to talk about conspiracies.
Have you ever looked into the Star Wars scientists that have mysteriously been murdered?
abby martin
No.
joe rogan
Oh, good lord.
That's a weird one.
Here, Star Wars scientists.
Yeah, if you do that, if you type that in, first thing that pumps up is deaths, conspiracy, murdered.
abby martin
Whoa.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's who killed all the British Star Wars scientists, and there's a bunch of different websites about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really fascinating how many people died, and the mysterious deaths.
All 25 workers on the United States Star Wars project were killed.
What?
Yeah.
abby martin
What?
joe rogan
Yeah, they died in really weird ways.
They died in plane crashes and all sorts of shit.
Yeah.
Dude, it's just like the SEAL Team 6. All 25 workers in the United States Star Wars projects and the Stingray Torpedo projects.
Although the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense still disputes these workers were connected to the Star Wars project, most workers died either having finished important projects or when they left for other employers.
Several of those who died had routinely expressed fears for their safety.
The manner of their deaths was also very curious.
And despite open verdicts or verdicts of suicide in the postmortems, there were aspects to their deaths that made these verdicts seem highly unlikely.
One of the strangest deaths was that of Shani Warren, a personal assistant for the company that was taken over by GEC Marconi.
Shari was found drowned in 18 inches of water, gagged a noose around her neck, Fairly a suicide.
Mark Wisner, a software engineer for the MOD, was found dead with a plastic sack over his head and several feet of cling film wrapped around his head.
This was deemed an accident by the coroner, but was exactly the same way as Mark's colleague, Richard Poogh, who met his untimely end several weeks earlier.
Uh, Ashard Sharif, uh, an experienced defense contractor, was found dead after placing a ligature around his neck, tying the other end around a tree, and driving off in his car with the accelerator pedal jammed down.
The police felt this was a most unusual suicide method, but still deemed it a suicide.
abby martin
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, he had last been seen in Bristol, um...
A long way from his home, looking into a guest house using cash, and was witnessed with a large bag of money.
These details, although known to the police, were never mentioned in his inquest.
There's a whole bunch of them.
There's a whole bunch of these very mysterious...
abby martin
That's extremely disturbing.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's fucking fascinating, man.
It's fascinating how many of them died.
Because apparently Star Wars was total horseshit.
It was never going to work.
And they knew it from the jump.
And all the scientists that were connected to it died.
So all these people that could have been able to prove that these fuckers had just embezzled all this money and had used their defense contracts and spent all this cash, all the people connected to it that actually could prove the science behind it or disprove the science behind it are all dead.
abby martin
That's insane.
That's when you know the CIA is up to some crazy shit.
joe rogan
It's amazing.
Well, it kind of makes sense.
Right.
abby martin
It's all about profit at the end of the day, man.
It really is.
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
The story of Bertha Champagne, she was like the maid of Jeb Bush or Bush Sr.'s family, I forget who, and she was found crushed.
With an empty car that, like, you know, someone had driven an empty car backed up into the garage and crushed her to death.
And you're like, what did she know?
Like, clearly she was killed.
I mean, like, no one, an empty car just doesn't start and crush someone against the wall.
joe rogan
This is so crazy.
abby martin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Between 1982 and 1986, 23 deaths of English scientists that work on the Star Wars related projects.
Professor Keith Bowden killed in an auto crash.
Jack Wolfenden died in a glider accident.
Ernest Brockway, suicide.
Stefan Drinkwater, suicide by strangulation.
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Godley, missing, declared dead.
George Frank, suicide by hanging.
Stefan Oaks, suicide by hanging.
Jonathan Walsh, suicide by jumping from a building.
Jonathan Britton, suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
These are all within like a year or two of each other.
unidentified
No way.
joe rogan
Ashar Sharif, that guy that we talked about, placing the rope around his neck and driving off.
This is crazy.
abby martin
It's just like the DC madam, that woman who came out and she was like, I have all this shit that I'm going to say, and she's like, I'm never going to kill myself, and I can indict so many people, and all of a sudden she just killed herself, and everyone was like, oh, I guess she ended up killing herself.
You're like, do you think that that's just a little bit strange?
joe rogan
Yeah, DC madams, those don't have a long life.
abby martin
Right.
unidentified
Yeah, that's a bad profession to get into.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're going to take the most powerful murderers on the planet who essentially have all these methods and they have these organizations that kill for them.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
I mean, they have, whether it's Blackwater or whatever.
I mean, if there is a Blackwater, please, if there's fucking Coca-Cola, there's RC Cola.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
Okay?
There's some lower level organizations of mercenaries.
It's not like there's only Blackwater.
You could only go to Blackwater.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
No, there's probably some dudes that are really good at being a mercenary.
They know how to keep their fucking mouth shut, and they don't go Eric Prince in the whole thing and do press conferences and change their name three or four times.
They might even have a fucking name.
Call Mike.
Mike used to be a Marine or a Green Beret or whatever, and he likes making $50,000 a week better.
Exactly.
That guy works for you.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
There's gotta be a ton of those fucking people out there.
There's gotta be.
abby martin
Absolutely, man.
joe rogan
Some DC Madam?
abby martin
DC Madam.
joe rogan
That bitch is dead.
abby martin
She's fucking murdered, bro.
joe rogan
And whatever happened to her, all of her notes and all of her...
abby martin
She committed suicide.
unidentified
Yeah.
abby martin
That's the official line.
If you question it, you're an insane conspiracy theorist.
joe rogan
Well, you are an insane conspiracy theorist.
You have to admit.
unidentified
I am.
joe rogan
You have to be.
If you are a conspiracy theorist, you're insane.
If you look into any conspiracy, you're an insane conspiracy theorist.
abby martin
Which is crazy because conspiracies exist all the time on a local level.
People conspire to kill their kids, like that kid in the car, tragically, who the parents conspired to keep him in the car.
unidentified
Isn't that awful?
abby martin
So if conspiracies happen between parents to kill their children, why is it so fucking crazy to imagine that people at a higher level are conspiring stuff?
Because it's the whole, they wouldn't be able to keep it secret, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, we know that conspiracies exist.
Look at fucking Wall Street.
What is that?
joe rogan
Enron.
abby martin
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Look at Gulf of Tonkin.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Look at Operation Northwoods.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
And look at the fucking, the Bush administration was thinking about doing a false flag event to get us into Iran.
abby martin
Oh my god, I know.
joe rogan
Oh my god, I know too.
That was what Dick Cheney said.
abby martin
What were they going to do?
Like fly a plane?
joe rogan
Something nutty.
That was Operation Northwoods where they were going to fly a plane and blow it up in the sky and blame it on the Cubans.
Arm Cuban friendlies attack Guantanamo Bay.
That was 62. Kennedy went, what?
abby martin
Bitch, are you crazy?
He was like, no, no, no.
joe rogan
That was signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff folks.
That wasn't just some idle chatter.
They had signed off on that.
abby martin
Can we talk about how stupid it is that we still, like, hate Cuba and have this blockade and seize on Cuba?
What the fuck is Cuba doing to us?
unidentified
Very bizarre.
abby martin
Just a Cold War grudge.
Like, just let Cuba just live.
joe rogan
How is Cuba worse than Saudi Arabia?
abby martin
There you go.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, not only are they super close, and they make great cigars, and the women are really pretty, and they're great boxers and wrestlers, and they're right there.
abby martin
Yeah, and I want to go.
I think I'm just saying this selfishly.
I don't want to not be able to go to Cuba.
I think it's just the stupidest thing in the world.
We demonize this country because we have this...
You know, communist grudge shit against them.
And they're actually incorporating a lot of different techniques.
The Castro family is like, look, we admit that a lot of things have failed in terms of the business side.
And we're being creative.
We're opening ourselves up to some capitalist elements.
And I just appreciate the fact that they're learning from mistakes, reinventing the wheel.
And I think that we just have a lot to learn.
I just think closing ourselves off from this tiny island nation is...
It's disgusting.
It's absurd.
And we still demonize them, you know?
joe rogan
Well, they are definitely fucked up, though.
I mean, their whole country and their system of government and their system of forcing occupation on people is pretty fucking creepy.
It's not great.
abby martin
But I mean, this whole blockade, I just think, is a disgrace.
joe rogan
It's not good for anybody.
abby martin
No.
joe rogan
No.
abby martin
And I think who knows what it would be like if we lifted the blockade.
I don't know.
But it's just, once again, U.S. and Israel are the only two countries in the world to uphold the blockade.
It's like, just fucking let it go, man.
joe rogan
Well, look what's going on with China, which was also an incredibly communist country, you know, and now they're really capitalist.
unidentified
It's like really strange how things are changing and shifting.
joe rogan
You know, I think that Cuba is a very interesting place because, well, you remember when Jay-Z went to Cuba and he got in trouble?
abby martin
And the media was like, oh, look it.
Does he know that fucking Che hated black people?
You're like, what are you talking about?
Like, what is going on?
It was the weirdest media coverage.
joe rogan
Didn't Che Guevara die in like 1964 or something?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
When did Che Guevara die?
abby martin
And he also went over to Angola and fought like the revolution in Africa.
So it's like, I don't know if that's really true, but it's just so crazy.
joe rogan
He was the perfect guy, though, to be on a t-shirt.
He just looked like such a great revolutionary.
I know people that wore a Che Guevara t-shirt that didn't know.
Remember there was that wave of Che Guevara support that happened like a decade ago or so?
abby martin
And no one knew really what they were talking about?
joe rogan
It's like, you could look cool by having a Che Guevara t-shirt on.
People had Che Guevara tattoos and it's like...
Why?
What about Che?
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Fucking...
abby martin
You know?
joe rogan
He just looked like the guy.
abby martin
And he would have hated it.
I mean, the fact that he's become this commercial figure, he would have fucking hated that.
It's just funny that he's become this icon of capitalism.
joe rogan
Well, it's a perfect example of these surface inquiries.
People just sort of look at it like...
I was badass.
No looking into it at all.
No trying to understand who he was or knowing deeply about who he was.
Yeah, this is like a baby with a fucking Che Guevara.
abby martin
Even though Cuba's fucked up in a lot of ways...
It's a different way to live.
They don't have advertisements.
joe rogan
Old cars.
It's kind of cool.
They have these restored old cars driving around everywhere.
If you see modern Cuba, they have these 1950s cars they're driving around.
These old Chevys and shit.
It's really interesting.
abby martin
I just want to go there and just learn because they don't use pesticides and shit.
Because of how closed off they are in a lot of ways, they've just adapted in a lot of interesting ways that I just think is...
It's fascinating, I think, that we have, you know...
joe rogan
I know a lot of athletes that fleed Cuba.
So, unfortunately, I've seen the worst side of it.
Talking to people that lived in Cuba under the Castro regime, people that tried to flee, got caught, you know, were forced back and then escaped again.
I mean, these fucking people got on boats and risked their lives.
There had to be something horribly wrong with the conditions they were living in to force them to do that.
But I would like to know if that's exacerbated by these policies of not allowing trade.
And who knows, like, if trade was opened up.
Trade and also the influence of foreigners coming in there and influencing the culture.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
The tourists.
abby martin
Exactly.
joe rogan
I mean, I don't, you know...
abby martin
Yeah, we're basically, like, forcing the society to be closed off, and who knows, like, if they weren't, you know, if we allowed the fiber lines to get the internet.
And that's another problem, is we don't even, we've, like, blocked off the fiber optic, like, network from Cuba.
So it's like, let them have, like...
joe rogan
Do they have the internet at all?
abby martin
They have like very limited internet and probably just on Gitmo, the US base there, which by the way, I'm going there next week.
joe rogan
I'm going to Guantanamo Bay.
Isn't that weird?
You can go to Cuba, but only the part of Cuba where it's a fucking jail.
abby martin
And how much of it is just like a fuck you to the Cuban government?
Just to be like, we're going to build like this torture base here.
joe rogan
Yeah.
What?
abby martin
Like on...
How did that happen?
joe rogan
It happened, obviously, in the 60s.
It was a long time ago.
They had that base there.
The military base had been there for a long-ass fucking time.
That was the Operation Northwoods.
They were going to bomb Guantanamo Bay and blame it on the Cubans.
Yeah, it is kind of fucked.
Is that how they're allowed to torture people?
We tortured some folks?
Is that how they're allowed to do that?
Because it's over there?
I mean, can you torture people on American soil?
abby martin
How does that work?
That's a good question.
I think it's probably easier to absolve themselves of responsibility from doing it in Cuba.
That's why we have CIA black sites in Poland and shit.
So I think it's just like, as long as it's out of sight, out of mind.
But what's so crazy to me about the Gitmo thing...
Is the Bo Bergdahl saga, how they're like, we released the five worst of the worst.
It's like, shit, if you release the five worst of the worst, then what about the other 120 innocent people that we already know are innocent?
Like, why are they still in there if it was so easy to release the five worst of the worst?
joe rogan
Why won't they release those people?
Because they're worried that they're going to go and say what happened to them?
Or is it because...
They would have to admit that they were holding people that weren't really...
I mean, once they do let them go, then they start talking, then they'd have to admit that there's probably a lot of other people that are also like that.
abby martin
Before the Bo Bergdahl thing, I think that was...
joe rogan
What's the Bo Bergdahl thing?
abby martin
That was the dude who was captured by the Taliban, and then they did a prisoner swap.
unidentified
Oh, the five guys.
abby martin
Yeah, that dude, yeah.
So he came back, and then they gave those five dudes.
And I think that really blew apart the whole logic of keeping these people in Guantanamo Bay, because before that, Obama, you know, he got in office saying, I'm going to close down Gitmo and everyone blames the Republicans for not letting him.
Truth is, he could sign a national security waiver and release every single one today if he wanted to.
And the fact that he kept maintaining, well, you know, we can't trust Yemen to take these people back because Yemen can harbor terrorism and, like, they can become terrorists and then they can retaliate.
And it's like, well, you trust Yemen to carry out drone strikes there.
You're, like, working with the Yemeni government in all these other fashions.
And that's where they released these dudes.
Yeah.
And I just think that we need to fucking get these people out of Gitmo because they're innocent.
And I would rather take the chance of like having someone retaliate than to keep an innocent person in prison for the rest of their life with no charges.
And my whole thing is if they're so bad, like those five worst of the worst guys, if they were so bad, how come we couldn't find anything to charge them with for 10 years?
Like, where was the charges?
Where the hell?
What happened?
You know?
joe rogan
Well, I've seen some instances where people were released and they talked about what happened and how they got arrested in the first place.
They just went to, like, organizations, they went to meetings, they listened to someone speak, and then they got locked into this idea of them being a part of this organization.
abby martin
Exactly.
It's just like a gang.
I think that we have these romanticized versions of what the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is.
It's just essentially like a gang.
And that if you are a teenager and you're living in this area, sometimes you are affiliated with a gang because it's how you fucking survive.
Or it's how you want to provide money for your family or you do running errands because you don't want to fucking get killed or beat up.
So all these loosely affiliated people with like these organizations, quote unquote terrorist organizations, that was like they were just swept up.
And those are the people who are just killed now with drones and stuff.
And it's just really, it's this really bizarre like interpretation of what these entities really are and how they operate.
It's just like coming from Oakland, like the, you know, gangs out in East Oakland.
It's like if you're affiliated with them, do you deserve to die?
joe rogan
Right.
And do you think that they can track those guys that they released, the five people that they released?
Do you think they had some sort of a method?
Like, my dog is a thing that they put under his skin, you know?
And if he gets, you know, like they take this thing and if he gets picked up by the pound, they run a scan on him and they go, oh, that's Joe's dog.
abby martin
The mark of the beast.
joe rogan
They can call me.
You know, there's like a microchip in them.
I would imagine that you could have some sort of a GPS tracking device that you could stick in someone's fucking scalp and they wouldn't even know it's there or wherever, you know, some part of your body.
abby martin
Yeah.
Who the hell knows, man?
I just think these people need to be let out of prison.
It's terrible.
joe rogan
If they do let them out, they're going to be mad.
They could cause havoc on U.S. soil.
And then what?
abby martin
So far, you know what, man?
So far, there hasn't been legitimate threat of terrorism.
If you want to include 9-11 and the Boston bombing, other than that, zero.
Like, this report just came out.
We were just talking about this.
This report just came out that says...
that's been thwarted in the last 12 years has been completely created by the FBI.
And this is like mainstream news, Guardian, Independent, like all these people picked up on it.
joe rogan
Yeah, explain how that works because it's really fascinating how they do this.
abby martin
So right now, the FBI has 5,000 informants working around the clock that are getting paid probably like 100 Gs with taxpayer money just so they can facilitate, create, and then thwart terrorist plots to completely continue to legitimize the domestic police state and the war abroad.
So these people will go to mosques and they'll pray really immorally on like retarded people or like mentally incompetent people or extremely poor people and they'll say, yo, listen up, 250 fucking G's.
And they'll work with them for like a year.
We're talking about like long con.
It's like a long ass con sometimes.
So the thing about you're getting paid an insane amount of money to do this on our behalf to basically manipulate people who are weak-minded into committing acts of terrorism that would never have the capabilities before and would never have even thought of it before.
for but they go into these mosques and they go into all these organizations and they're like yo yo yo like six months later they'll be like okay well you know we can talk about how fucked up the u.s government is and stuff but let's do something about it you know and then like they'll trust these people and then over time if you're weak enough you'll be like well fuck like let's do it you know i mean it's just really sad and And to me, it's so sick.
Because once they thwart the plot, and then they can parade around the media and be like, yo, we foiled another terrorist plot.
Like, look, we're still doing a good job, guys, but they don't tell you that they created the terrorists.
And then, of course, they put in prison for the rest of their life, so it's another wasted life.
Wasted capacity, just put in fucking prison, and just keeping up this facade, this charade that there's terrorists everywhere and that they want to blow us up.
And it's all fucking bullshit, man.
We're more likely to get stung by a bee.
We're more likely to get crushed by falling furniture than we are dying of a terrorist attack in this country.
joe rogan
Well, definitely stung by a bee.
Shit.
abby martin
I mean dead from a bee sting.
You're eight times more likely to get killed by a cop than you are dead from a terrorist here.
So it's just like, it's totally insane.
And this report just blew the lid off it.
It was just unbelievable knowing how much resources are going in.
And then you see this whole terror watch list thing where 1.5 million people have been added to a terror watch list in the last five years.
Just the last five years alone.
1.5 million people.
joe rogan
Do you think you're on there?
abby martin
No, because I don't think I would have been able to fly out here.
joe rogan
Oh, right.
abby martin
So I think that, but think about, I mean, you're telling me that 1.5 million people, and it's really making their lives a living hell, because you need, flying is like, you know what I mean?
And a lot of these people's families are over and abroad and stuff, and what came out On top of that no-fly list thing was that the FBI is actually using the no-fly list as a tool to try to get more informants.
So they will go to like Muslim dudes and be like, yo, you're on this no-fly list.
You want to get off it?
Become an informant.
Turn against your community.
And because the people are saying no, they're stuck on this list forever.
So now they're like using it as blackmail.
So there's like this huge class action lawsuit trying to like take these people off the list and it's a fucking mess, man.
unidentified
It's a mess.
abby martin
It's a giant industry.
joe rogan
That story about the guy in Dallas who is mentally incompetent.
They talked into trying to detonate a bomb that didn't exist.
It wasn't a bomb.
It was never gonna blow up.
There was no bomb.
They gave him a fake bomb.
They...
Talked him into doing it, financed the whole thing, funded it, coerced this poor fuck into thinking he was going to blow up the bomb.
And then when he tries to do it, then they swoop in.
We gotcha!
Red-handed!
America!
Fuck yeah!
unidentified
America!
abby martin
There was even this one dude who worked at the mosque that actually turned in the informant to the FBI because they were like, there's some dude here trying to talk a whole bunch of shit.
And they're like, oh, that kind of backfired on us.
joe rogan
That's us.
Oh, don't worry about it.
He's American.
unidentified
What?
joe rogan
He's one of us.
He's a good American.
abby martin
Just let him do his thing.
Let him do his job.
joe rogan
He's there to protect America, okay?
Leave him alone.
abby martin
It's insane.
joe rogan
It's very bizarre.
It's very bizarre that they think that that's somehow another law enforcement or protecting and serving.
It's a loophole.
The DEA uses that loophole, too.
There was a Rolling Stone story about a guy who was a dirty DEA agent who would do those sort of things, who would get someone who was very vulnerable and slowly but surely talk them into getting him drugs and then connecting them with a much larger drug dealer.
It wasn't really a drug dealer.
And organizing and...
Manipulating him into some situation where he's going to show him how to make a fuckload of money, but there's no real drugs.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
And so this guy conspires with them, and then they fucking, you're under arrest by me!
unidentified
Like, use your idea!
joe rogan
What the fuck, man?
How can you arrest me?
abby martin
I'm just going to make some cash, yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, you're manipulating people.
It's total, complete entrapment.
abby martin
Entrapment is so wrong.
It's so wrong.
And what's different than actual suicide bomber recruiters in the Middle East that we condemn?
They're doing the same exact thing, man.
joe rogan
Well, we're doing it for freedom.
abby martin
We're doing it for freedom.
There's a difference.
joe rogan
We're under the Constitution.
We have laws in this country that we don't really pay attention to anymore.
I mean, how much of the Constitution is valid after the NDAA and Patriot Act 1 and 2?
What's left?
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
We kind of can do anything, right?
They can kind of just scoop you up and lock you up and you don't have to have a lawyer.
They can do whatever they want.
abby martin
Now they're charging animal rights activists with terrorism.
Yeah.
There were these two kids charged under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and you're like, I don't know if releasing geese from a farm can be considered as terrorism.
joe rogan
Well, fogwa is delicious, so fuck those kids.
And geese are cunts.
I had a geese try to bite my baby once.
unidentified
I actually hate geese.
joe rogan
They're assholes.
abby martin
Geese are disgusting.
joe rogan
They're dinosaurs.
All birds are dinosaurs that made it.
That's what they are.
Now they're actually thinking that a good percentage of dinosaurs had feathers.
They're starting to find that now.
It's really fascinating.
A lot of raptors, if they think a lot of those fucking things had feathers.
abby martin
You know what?
I almost don't like that because now it's going to make them look silly.
If we try to reshape how they really look, we're like, oh, they don't look scary anymore.
They're just like giant dodo birds.
That's kind of funny.
joe rogan
Well, it kind of makes sense.
All the birds that we see today are essentially dinosaurs that survived.
That's really what they are.
We don't really have any raptors.
unidentified
Flying lizards, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And especially those types of, you know, the birds with the claws, the talons, those weird feet.
Yeah, chickens.
I have chickens.
I have 24 of them.
unidentified
No way!
Yeah.
abby martin
You have a whole farm?
joe rogan
I have a ton of chickens, yeah.
abby martin
Oh, cool.
joe rogan
Yeah, I get fresh eggs from them every day.
That's awesome!
But they're like pets, you know?
abby martin
Yeah.
joe rogan
They're just these weird things that lay eggs that you eat.
abby martin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
You don't go grab them, pick them up, and they'll let you.
abby martin
You don't chop their heads off and, like, rip their body apart and eat the meat?
joe rogan
No, but I would if shit got crazy.
There's 24 of them that could live off those for a couple weeks.
abby martin
Storable food and 24 chickens.
joe rogan
If shit got ugly, I'd eat my dog.
I'm going to be honest with you.
Kids are starving.
abby martin
Hey, what are you going to do?
joe rogan
What are you going to do?
I'd try to look for food, but...
abby martin
You want to see something gross?
Pull up aerial view factory farms.
I just want to show you this image that looks like a festering zombie wound.
And it was like this photographer that captured this image of...
And it's only in the US, which is really like the craziest of the factory farming.
If you go on Google image searches, you can find it.
It looks like a giant green festering wound.
And it's really just like...
unidentified
Cows...
abby martin
I don't know, like, millions of cows in middle America and all of their waste, like, accumulating in this lagoon.
It's fucking nuts.
Look, there's one of them.
Whoa.
Yeah, if you enlarge that...
See all those dots?
joe rogan
Yeah.
abby martin
Those are all cows to the left.
joe rogan
What?
abby martin
And those lots, and that's all, like...
The waste.
joe rogan
So what is, that's all cow shit?
abby martin
I don't know what it is, man.
joe rogan
That's a satellite image?
I don't know what it is, but- A waste lagoon at Coronado Feeders in Texas.
abby martin
Find the green one, too.
joe rogan
Whoa.
abby martin
And unfortunately, there's a lot of activists who, you know, a lot of, like, animal rights activists, like my friend Will Potter.
Look at that.
Isn't that nuts?
unidentified
Ugh.
joe rogan
What is that?
unidentified
Isn't that crazy?
joe rogan
What does it say in the caption?
That looks big.
abby martin
That's huge.
joe rogan
Waste Lagoon in Texas.
Or a nuclear waste site.
Or a nuclear waste site?
No, it's not a nuclear waste site.
abby martin
No, no, no.
It's just making it...
It's just being silly.
Yeah, it's comparing it to how gross it looks.
But there's all these laws now called ag-gag laws where you can't even...
joe rogan
Can't take photos of them.
If you see tortured animals, you get charged with terrorism.
Isn't that hilarious?
unidentified
How crazy is that?
joe rogan
Yeah.
If you find that, I mean, look, what they do is horrifying.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
They chop their chickens' beaks off when they're little to keep them from pecking each other because they're in such close quarters.
They attack each other and it's a disaster.
Factory farming is horrific.
abby martin
It's terrible.
joe rogan
What's one of the reasons?
I've tried to separate myself from that as much as humanly possible.
I, like I said, raise my own chickens.
abby martin
Yeah, that's awesome.
joe rogan
I hunt now.
abby martin
Fuck yeah.
joe rogan
I've killed four animals this year.
abby martin
Whoa.
Two deer, a pig.
Do you like dismantle the whole thing too?
That's cool.
joe rogan
Yeah, I have a freezer full of meat and I eat that.
And my goal is by the end of 2014 to only eat meat that I've hunted.
abby martin
Holy shit.
Where are you hunting?
joe rogan
I go on trips.
abby martin
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah.
That killed that deer.
abby martin
No way.
joe rogan
The one right there, the head.
abby martin
Oh, crazy.
unidentified
Wow.
abby martin
That's pretty badass.
I mean, if everyone knew how food was made and where it came from, I think that we'd eat a lot differently.
And I think people would view food a lot differently.
It's just like we're so removed from the process of food, which is really crazy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, when you see it in the wild and you shoot it yourself, I mean, that's an animal.
That deer, that was an animal that I got in Montana.
That probably had never seen a person before.
abby martin
Right.
joe rogan
Because it was in the Badlands.
That was off the Missouri River, the same place where Lewis and Clark traveled.
abby martin
Wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, it is a very, very remote place.
There's no cell phone reception.
It's a beautiful skull.
No nothing.
Yeah, it's pretty dope.
It's a cool animal, too.
And it tasted delicious.
No hormones, no antibiotics, no nitrates, and we're out of time.
abby martin
No!
joe rogan
Abby Martin, you're the shit.
We did three hours.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
It's over.
abby martin
Damn, there's so much we're talking about.
joe rogan
We turn into a pumpkin.
So much more to talk about.
Tell me anytime.
Anytime.
abby martin
Awesome, dude.
joe rogan
Like I said, I'll open this fucker up at 4 o'clock in the morning for you.
abby martin
Fuck yeah, dude.
joe rogan
Thank you so much.
abby martin
Thank you, man.
joe rogan
Follow Abby on Twitter.
abby martin
Check out abbymartin.org too.
joe rogan
abbymartin.org.
Watch her on RT until she escapes and forms the Abby Martin experience.
And thanks to our sponsor.
Thanks to Ting.
Go to rogan.ting.com and save yourself $25 off of any Ting device.
Alright, we'll be back next week with a lot of more podcasts.
So until then, go fuck yourselves.
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