Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is your host, Abby Martin. The Empire Files is a documentary and interview series chronicling war and inequality in a world dominated by U.S. Empire.

Every week on Telesaur English will bring you original content about how the U.S. Empire is shaping our daily lives and the world at large.

Complete episodes can be found on the Empirefiles.

TV on our Empire Files YouTube channel, Empire Files, or on the Telesore English YouTube channel

in the playlist The Empire Files. Throughout its history, America's leaders have echoed the

mantra that it is a beacon of freedom and equality.

That its actions abroad are based on democracy and morality,

and that it's the greatest country on earth.

America's actions we've been told have been for the greater good.

That its citizens are in this together,

united under the banner of one nation under God.

But history tells a different story.

When we think of empire, we think of ruthless civilizations like Rome,

where an emperor class reigns supreme over the masses,

brazenly conquering and enslaving their neighbors.

But these feudal remnants linger still today, and despite

the trappings, the core system of empire remains. As colonialism advanced, empires swallowed up the

last indigenous lands. Most egregiously at the Berlin conference in 1884, European superpowers

sat down at a negotiating table and divided up Africa

for themselves, eviscerating the last bastion of autonomy on the continent. But as empires

expanded, their appetite grew bigger than the planet. The feeding frenzy came to a head in 1914,

when the rulers of competing empires led 17 million people like cattle to the slaughter.

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