Lee Camp speaks with Abby Martin journalist and host of The Empire Files, who exposes the profit-driven bias of corporate media reporting on Venezuela. Then, he sits down with the hosts of Watching The Hawks to discuss their recent trip to Australia. ~ Redacted Tonight is a comedy show written and performed by Americans, in America covering American news.
US EXCEPTIONALISM
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THOMAS KNAPP—Posturing America as “the exceptional nation,” Kim as a supplicant in rags, and those other governments as mere hangers-on could have had only two possible outcomes. One was the status quo ante. The other — a danger faced by then-president Barack Obama in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal — was those other parties negotiating their own deal, leaving a petulant, marginalized America to watch their parade from the sidelines.
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“We will soon kick the ass of that Indian shit [president of Bolivia, Evo Morales] … You think we care about money? We have plenty of money! We don’t care if we lose millions of dollars, even tens of millions! We will spread insecurity, uncertainty, fear, deficits and if we have to, even hunger… We’ll bleed those Indians to death!”—Local Bolivian aristocrat.
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MIKE HEAD—Last Sunday, Australia’s Channel 7 network broadcast an interview with Jennifer Robinson, an Australian-born, London-based lawyer who represents WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange. She issued a clear demand for the Australian government to carry out its responsibility to secure his freedom, as an Australian citizen.
The interview and 10-minute segment on the nationally-televised “Sunrise” morning program was a significant break in the general silence within the Australian corporate media on the more than seven-year detention of Assange. -
GEOFFREY O’NEILL—Most Americans are unaware of the amount of human suffering the U.S. government has inflicted on others throughout the world, especially post 9/11. We are incessantly told it is our duty to support the troops and our leaders who invade, bomb or otherwise intervene in other nations. The motives offered might be to stop genocide, to take down a maniacal despot, or to spread democracy and American values. Our government purportedly acts with reluctance as well as with compassion, respect for others, and good intent. We are reminded that the troops keep us safe, all the while helping spread the American way of life to a needy world. Why? It is because we are “exceptional.”