Empire Files

The increased aggression towards Russia from US politicians and media is made more clear when taking into account the real history of the post-Soviet period. The hidden story of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency explains how deeply the US government, along with Western capitalist institutions, cheered, shaped and exploited the country after the fall of the Soviet Union, paving the way for the political system they all condemn today.

To uncover just how much the US Empire has interfered in Russia’s political evolution, Abby Martin interviews Mark Ames, an American journalist who spent a decade reporting from Yeltsin’ and Putin’s Russia and witnessed the country’s transformation from an American “colony” to it’s “number one threat.”

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Leading scholar on US-Russia relations addresses the claim being trumpeted by politicians and media on both sides of the political spectrum that Russia is now the "number one" threat to the United States. Given the proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, Dr. Cohen tells host Abby Martin that the real alarming danger today is "a new, multi-front Cuban missile crisis."

Dr. Stephen Cohen is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and New York University where he taught Russian Studies. He has been a noted author and commentator on US-Russia policy for decades.

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In her first on-the-ground report from Palestine, Abby Martin gives a first-hand look into two of the most attacked refugee camps in the West Bank: Balata and Aida camps.

With over seven million displaced Palestinians around the world, hundreds of thousands are refugees inside their own country—many live packed into these refugee camps after being ethnically cleansed from their villages just miles away. They are blocked from returning home, in violation of international law.

Watch the essential introduction to The Empire Files coverage from Palestine, "How Palestine Became Colonized": http://bit.ly/2cBOdST

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A historic gathering is taking place against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. Thousands of people, and around 300 Native nations, have gathered to stop Big Oil’s pipeline, which threatens sacred Native grounds and the environment.

To give an eyewitness account of this growing movement, as well as essential historical context, Abby Martin interviews legendary Native leader Dennis Banks. Banks is a founder of of the American Indian Movement (AIM), a leader in the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff and many other actions over five decades.

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Previewing Abby Martin’s on-the-ground investigation in Palestine, The Empire Files looks at the long history of Zionist colonization, expansion and expulsion of Palestine’s indigenous inhabitants.

Giving critical historical context the occupation today, this timeline explores the creation of the state of Israel and how it came to cover so much land since. From the early settlements, to the Nakba, to it’s conquest of the West Bank, Abby Martin reveals the brutally honest root of what is behind the so-called “Israel-Palestine conflict.”

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Abby Martin interviews Ecuador's United Nations representative and Chair of negotiations creating a new international instrument to hold transnational corporations accountable for human rights and environmental crimes.

Transnational corporations--many with larger economies than the countries they operate in--have enjoyed immunity from charges for destroying the environment and taking human lives.

But Ecuador is leading a fight in the UN to create an international treaty and standards that can change this equation.

At teleSUR's studios in Quito, Abby Martin interviews Ecuador's Permanent Representative to the UN, María Fernanda Espinosa, about the need for this step.

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Puerto Rico’s massive debt has been discussed at length in Congress and the media, all omitting the most important fact: the history of being a colonial subject for over 500 years, still owned and controlled by the United States.

Abby Martin talks to two professors of Latin American studies, Luis Barrios and Danny Shaw, about the long struggle of Puerto Rico to break the shackles of US and Spanish colonialism—from indigenous resistance to the Young Lords in Harlem. Learn how the US Empire obscures the island’s colonial status today, who really is responsible for the so-called “debt crisis,” and how it can all be solved.

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Obama’s high-profile trip to Hiroshima was accompanied by a media storm that gave endless justifications for the US use of the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians. The myths are widely accepted in society, and underpin the notion of American exceptionalism.

Abby Martin interviews Dr. Peter Kuznick, co-author with Director Oliver Stone of the bestselling book and HBO series "The Untold History of the United States,” about the real story behind the use of the atomic bombs—as well as the untold history of Imperial Japan, its role today for the US Empire, and the danger for new war on the horizon.

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Few corporations in the world are as loathed—and as sinister—as Monsanto. But the threat it poses to people and planet could be reaching new heights, as the World Health Organization has recently upgraded Monsanto's main product as carcinogenic to humans.

With protests against the agrochemical giant held in over 40 countries in May, learn why the global movement against Monsanto is of critical importance to our future.

In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin issues a scathing expose on the corporate polluter, chronicling it's rise to power, the collusion of its crimes by the US government, and highlighting the serious danger it puts us in today.

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With thousands of advertisements seen by Americans everyday, and a corporate media that reinforces the needs of Empire, propaganda in the U.S. is more pervasive and effective than ever before.

The manipulation of public opinion through suggestion can be traced back to the father of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, who discovered that preying on the subconscious mind was the best way to sell products people don't need, and wars people don't want.

To get a deeper understanding of how propaganda functions in today's society, Abby Martin interviews Dr. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of Media Studies at New York University.

http://www.markcrispinmiller.com

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Music by Fluorescent Grey