Puerto Rico: 500 Years of Colonial Bondage & Resistance

Posted on June 29, 2016 by abby

PRTHUMB 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 U.S. and Spanish colonialism—from indigenous resistance to the Young Lords in Harlem.

On this episode of The Empire Files, learn how the U.S. 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.

Puerto Rico: Colonialism & Resistance

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Monsanto, America’s Monster

Posted on June 21, 2016 by abby

Last month, the University of San Francisco made an alarming discovery, that 93% of Americans tested had traces of a chemical called glyphosate in their urine. Last year, the World Health Organization deemed glyphosate a “possible carcinogen”.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in biotech giant Monsanto’s flagship product: Roundup, an herbicide sprayed all over almost every acre of food grown. Not only has Roundup been dumped around the world more than any other weed killer in history, but the US is its largest customer. According to the US Geological Survey, a record 280 million pounds were used in 2010 alone, nearly a pound of poison for every American.

Monsanto has already proven it cannot be trusted to care about anything but money, especially when lives are at stake. In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin issues a scathing exposé on the corporate polluter, chronicling its rise to power, the collusion of its crimes with the US government, and the serious danger it poses today.

Monsanto, America’s Monster

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WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles

How the World Runs on Looting the Congo

Posted on April 29, 2016 by abby

KIDS MINING

Ten years ago, the US Empire honed its sights more intently on a profitable region of the world–the continent it once ravaged as a captain of the slave trade.

A new massive military command, AFRICOM was born. Its footprint includes an array of drone bases, camps and compounds, carrying out the American tradition of training and arming proxy militaries responsible for flagrant human rights abuses, and a variety of black ops. Far from a low-intensity war on the continent, AFRICOM averages several missions every single day.

Every Empire has longed for ownership of Africa for the same reason: it’s unimaginable treasure of minerals and raw materials. Much of that buried wealth is concentrated in Africa’s south, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Taking into account it’s untapped minerals, it’s considered the richest country in the world, with reserves worth $24 trillion dollars. The DRC has 10% of the world’s copper, 30% of the world’s diamonds, and 70% of the world’s coltan. And it produces over 50% of the world’s cobalt.

Among Congolese who literally risk their lives working in cobalt mines, tens of thousands are children, working 12 hours a day for one dollar. Paying local militias to illegally dig, Western mining giants make millions off this criminal, enterprise, including Adastra Minerals and Bechtel Incorporated.

On this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin is joined by Kambale Musavuli, spokesperson for Friends of the Congo, to look at the DRC’s resource curse and how empires have pillaged the region for over a century.

How the World Runs on Looting the Congo

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FOLLOW // @EmpireFiles // @AbbyMartin // @Kambale

WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles

The MOVE Bombing – When Philly Police Plotted to Exterminate a Family

Posted on March 18, 2016 by abby

let-the-fire-burn-movie On May 13, 1985, one of the most shameful, horrific attacks by US police ever took place in West Philadelphia. 11 people, including five children, were killed in a deliberate massacre.

A racist and political attack on a radical community group known as the MOVE Organization, city and police officials were revealed to have intentionally set their home ablaze, let the fire rage, and violently kept escaping men, women and children trapped inside.

Featuring a harrowing first-hand account with the only adult survivor of the atrocity, Ramona Africa, Abby Martin documents an indispensable, but largely unheard of, moment in American history. From MOVE’s formation, to the arrest of the MOVE 9 political prisoners, to the build-up to the infamous bombing, The Empire Files chronicles an act that cannot be forgotten.

The MOVE Bombing – When Police Plotted to Exterminate a Family

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Documentary – The Empire’s War on the Border

Posted on February 12, 2016 by abby

With growing attention on the refugee crisis, Obama has pledged to carve out space in the US for those escaping war and violence. But there’s already a humanitarian crisis at America’s doorstep. Due to extreme poverty and violence across Central America, there’s a massive number of people fleeing for their lives.

In 2014 alone, nearly 47,000 children without parents were arrested while crossing into the US from Mexico. Instead of helping these refugees, Obama has taken on the legacy of Deporter-in-Chief, by ejecting humans at higher rate than any US president. During the first five years of his term, Obama oversaw the deportation of two million people, more than Bush’s entire tenure.

Families are being torn apart by these policies. In 2014, 4,500 families were deported between October and November. During the same two month period in 2015, the number skyrocketed to 12,500. Staying up to speed, the Obama administration ordered a new wave of raids to kick off the new year, kicking down the doors of hundreds of sleeping women and children, uprooting countless more families.

To get here, these families risked everything–and most will risk it all again. Beyond the shocking numbers of arrested, jailed and deported, is the hidden side of the war on immigrants. It’s a war that doesn’t just have prisoners, but fatalities. Thousands of them.

The land itself has become a weapon. Before 1994, there were as few as five bodies of migrants found in the Arizona desert per year. Since 1994, state officials have registered over 7,000 human remains–over 200 per year. Many of the bodies are never found.

Originally aired as a two-part series for teleSUR English, The Empire Files team investigates the hidden war on the US Mexico border in this 45 minute documentary. Discover what is not only a shockingly high body count, but a humanitarian crisis manufactured by the US government, criminal tactics by a bloated Border Patrol, a for-profit prison pipeline, and court system that looks more like a slave auction. Featuring hidden camera footage from the Empire’s mass deportation trials ‘Operation Streamline’.

The US Empire’s War on the Border

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WATCH // YouTube.com/EmpireFiles