Do I live under a rock? Why have I literally never heard of Lee Camp or Abby Martin until these tweets?
Were they good?
Abby Martin was/is fantastic. You should check out her program The Empire Files .
They are both anticapitalist, but not communist. Lee Camp’s show had a nice niche in the Bush and Obama era where there was still a lot of overlap between new age conspiracy stuff, the anti-war movement, and occupy wall street type stuff. When I was watching his show regularly, I was also following I Fucking Love Science and Spirituality & Metaphysics on Facebook if that helps paint a picture. They’re both better than the vast majority of mainstream American news on the vast majority of issues, but there’s still gonna be some manufacturing-consent-style hangups. Their reporting on Snowden, Assange, and Manning was all super refreshing at the time
idk about lee camp but Abby Martin is or was a reporter for RT. Honestly it’s shitty this is happening but I’m skeptical about saying the latter is good. Mehdi Hasan was also considered “left wing” because of his intercept podcast but he’s a known unscrupulous grifter. If you’re critical of the US from the left but work for a sus outlet idk where you stand ethically.
I recommend this clip to get some insight into one of the half dozen different format they used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUGh1Su7-ok
About the book “Giants: Who Really Rules The World?” in which the transnational capital class is described in on your nose descriptions by the Prof who wrote it.
Abby Martin
She’s great. She’s staunchly anti-imperialist and very pro-Palestine. Check out her work Gaza Fights for Freedom. She also used to go on D*re, but as far as I know, she hasn’t been back on since he went full grifter.
Lee Camp
He’s good as well. I’ve listened to him off and on for years, well before he had a show on RT. He seems to cover a lot of indigenous and environmental issues that usually get ignored. As far as I know, he’s on the Common Censored podcast.
my first genuine exposure to abby martin was like 4 years ago during the US backed coup attempt in venezuela. there were constant videos and images of “citizen uprisings” in venezuela all over :reddit-logo: , then abby pops out with this 30 minute video where she goes around caracas interviewing people at the protests (peaceful and more aggressive) or non-protestors going about their business, and showing maps of where opposition and pro-government support exist while discussing socioeconomic data of regions. i’m a sucker for critical geography.
it was the first time i had seen coverage of the venezuela situation besides the un-ending B-roll of riot police and protestors while some $300 haircut in a $3000 suit described the situation as people rising up against a corrupt authoritarian regime for 6 minutes at the top of every hour before interviewing some NatSec goblin about the feasibility of US intervention. abby was the first person going in and talking to the people protesting and they were more than happy to explain themselves, on camera, to an english-speaking white lady from the US. very light skinned and wealthy looking people just straight up regurgitating mindless talking points and occasionally telling on themselves. at least until the opposition’s dogs among the elites posted pictures of her and her team all over social media, accusing them of being part of a state intelligence service and advocating violence against them. not to mention, she was the only one i had seen at that point letting people in Caracas talk at length about their opinions of the situation, or analyzing the deaths attributed to the protests or the tactics of the protestors.
it completely shattered the monolithic narrative we had been seeing on all corporate news outlets in the US and made me wonder how long it would be until she and her producers were killed “mysteriously”. it also touched on the racial component, which is completely wiped from typical US media coverage.
it is wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtu1DwHo1Zg
