RT has given me opportunities I will be eternally thankful for and hosting Breaking the Set has been the best and most invaluable experience of my life. I never imagined the kind of support it would generate, proving how many people are hungry for raw truth and systemic change.

Throughout the course of the show, I’m most proud of the stories we’ve done on the road – Pine Ridge, Detroit, Gulf Coast, Guantanamo Bay and soon to be released Cuba. As such, after almost three years of reporting from the studio I’ve decided to focus on investigative field reporting.

Please note I’m not stopping or going anywhere. If I can’t find a platform to host my show vision with the same editorial freedom, I will turn to crowdsourcing. And until I establish my next venture I’ll be writing daily, podcasting, producing video shorts and doing talks around the world.

Please follow me on facebook, youtube, twitter and my website Media Roots to stay tuned.

I’m excited to put all my heart into the last two weeks of the most hard hitting show on TV and celebrate a great run, all of which wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Much love and appreciation to everyone for supporting me and my future endeavors.

Never Stop Breaking the Set.

Abby

For many, the words “I have a dream” are the only thing they associate with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King’s legacy is mostly depicted in the context of civil rights, with history books lauding his noble achievements of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts being passed.

But Dr. King gave hundreds of unpopular and controversial speeches ranging from the dangers of the Vietnam War to mass commercialization. During his life, he was attacked and marginalized from the white and black community alike.

The US government coined Dr. King the most “dangerous Negro leader in the country”, routinely spied on him and even went as far as writing him a letter in 1964 urging him to commit suicide.

In fact, MLK Jr.’s surviving family filed a civil suit in Memphis, TN, in which the jury found elements of the US government complicit in his assassination.

Having been arrested thirty times, Dr. King routinely threw his body upon the gears of the machine to show that change doesn’t roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but through continuous struggle against institutionalized injustice.

Focusing on America as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, Dr. King spent the last year of his life fighting what he called the triple evils of the word: racism, militarism, and economic exploitation.

In fact, when MLK was assassinated he was planning the “Poor People’s Campaign” – a mass march and occupation of DC until the US government granted poor people an “Economic Bill of Rights”.

Listen to his profound speech “Beyond Vietnam”, given exactly one year before Dr. King’s assassination.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Beyond Vietnam”

It’s a topic Tavis Smiley explores in amazing depth and clarity in his new book, Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s’ Final Year in which he talks about the unvarnished truth about Dr. King’s life, and last sermon entitled “Why America May Go to Hell”.

Breaking the Set speaks with Smiley about Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, about why structural and passive violence are the most inhibiting factors for peace.

Breaking the Set with Tavis Smiley and Arun Gandhi

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 Abby Martin | @Abby Martin 

Photo by flickr user Angela N.

Six years ago, Congress passed a bailout to the tune of 80 billions dollars funded by American taxpayers to rescue the bankrupt auto industry, mostly based in Detroit. But when the Motor City itself needed help and retirees were on the brink of losing everything, the money was nowhere to be found, apparently to avoid “meddling” in the bankruptcy process.

Fast forward to today, where the government admits it “only” lost 9.3 billion taxpayer dollars to the auto makers – an amount that could transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Detroit residents.

And despite the rhetoric that Detroit is on the up and up, there’s still an insurmountable amount of suffering and neglect plaguing the city. Much of Detroit is in squalor, with skyrocketing rates of poverty, homelessness, and even cuts to vital resources like water where 40% of the population faces shut-offs.

At the end of the day, it’s a story of priorities. If this country continues to prioritize guns over water, bombs over shelter, and bloodshed over life, then it won’t just be Detroit that needs saving.

Breaking the Set recently traveled to Detroit to delve deeper into the roots of the bankruptcy as well as connect with activists working tirelessly to help bring city residents back on their feet.

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Detroit Part I: Extinguishing the Homeless & Shutting Off Human Rights

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 Detroit Part II: Bankruptcy Dictatorship & Foreclosed Futures

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Donate to the Detroit Water Brigade here. Find out more about The Tricycle Collective here.

Follow me @AbbyMartin and let me know what you think at #BTSDetroit