 Hello, everyone. I'm Jim Garrison. I want to welcome you to this session of Humanity Rising as we convene our second of five sessions on the conflict in Ukraine. As we all know, this conflict has put the world in its most dangerous condition since at least 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis. It seems to be escalating day by day, both at the conventional force level with now incontrovertible evidence that US and NATO military forces are in Ukraine fighting alongside the Ukrainians against the Russians with tactical nuclear weapons now on both sides of the borders in Belarus and Romania and other places in Eastern Europe. And so the need for us to understand what's happening and most fundamentally see what we can contribute to bringing this war to a close is really paramount for any notion of humanity rising anywhere around the world. Because as long as the Ukrainian conflict escalates and militarism, war, competition emanates from that place, which is now evident in Asia with growing conflict and escalating tensions with China, not only over Taiwan, but just generally as the superpowers now rather than cooperating as they urgently need to to solve issues like climate change and a range of other critical global concerns, we're now fighting one another in a way that could end up with a nuclear exchange. So the situation could not be more serious. The need for all of us to understand more paramount and the fundamental challenge of bringing a ceasefire and the initiation of diplomacy in this conflict and some kind of amity between the superpowers and the nations could not be more urgent. So it's in that spirit that we're convening this second summit on Ukraine. Yesterday, we heard from those citizen diplomats who've been working with Russians for decades on their understanding of how one works with people across the ideological, political, and social divide is extremely important for us to learn from and if possible to apply to the current very, very challenging situation. We'll begin our program in a moment. But first, let us just pause as we always do on humanity rising given the escalating chaos and turbulence all around us just to take a moment to do the simplest thing in the world. And that is to breathe consciously and coherently together because the greater the external chaos, the more important it is to cultivate internal, conscious coherence. There's nothing that does that more effectively and immediately than simply breathing. So in a moment, you're going to hear the sound of a bell. You hear the bell just breathe in about five and a half seconds, and then you'll hear another bell and just breathe out. We're going to take 10 breaths together and then we'll begin our program. So thank you, everyone. Welcome to humanity rising. And now let us breathe as one. Thank you, everyone. Our printed program today called for Larry Wilkerson, who has been a military professional for decades and served as chief of staff for Colin Powell when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But he was unable to make it today. So in rather short order, we've rearranged the schedule with people who are equally imminent. And to introduce our first speaker, I'd like to turn it over to Jodi Evans, who's co-moderating and co-sponsoring our program this week between humanity rising and Code Pink. So Jodi, welcome to humanity rising. And lead us from here. Thank you, Jim. So welcome again to everyone this morning. Thank you for joining us. And thank you for your care and concern for peace, because right now more than ever, we need to be peace activists. And we need to be sharing the information that we glean. So I think it's so important that we have the model on the planet of this, of being standing and being a peace activist, being a tuning fork for peace. So I want to introduce you to my dear friend, my partner in disruption, Medea Benjamin. She's an American political activist, author, lecturer, and disruptor of war criminals and war mongers. She's the other co-founder of Code Pink. Along with her partner, Kevin Donnerhurst, she created the Fair Tweet Advocacy Group Code Global Exchange. And I met Medea when she was a Green Party candidate for the Senate in California in 2000. She's written, she's been arrested over 100 times, trying to get the word out. She's written books about drones, about Iran, about Saudi Arabia. And now she's on a 100-city book tour across the United States with her new book on Ukraine that she got out in record time and got to the presses in record time. So Medea works tirelessly to help us understand what is really happening below, behind, obfuscated by the mainstream propaganda. And she's out there on this book tour. And I'd like to start with that about because we're living in a time, as Jim just said, where you can't get what's really happening in the news. You're actually being, I say, your heart and mind are being weaponized, literally, for war. And so Medea's going around the country, talking about her book. And Medea, maybe start with what are you sharing? What are people interested in? What are you finding before we move into talking about the Nord Stream Pipeline? Thank you for joining us today. I'm with you, Jodi. I am still on this book tour and some interesting things about it. One is that, as you well know, Jodi, from all these years, peace is very controversial. Calling for peace is controversial. Calling for peace talks is controversial. Calling for a ceasefire is controversial. It's quite wild being on the road and in some places being dogged by people who call me a Putin apologist, who go from talk to talk, handing out leaflets about how wrong I am, how I'm a voice for the Russians. And everywhere I go, I make it so clear, as the book does, that I condemn this invasion. This invasion is legal. This invasion is immoral. This invasion has to end. But no matter how many times I say that or in how many ways, there are still people who say that just calling for an end to the fighting is somehow wrong and should be condemned. So it's not easy. The propaganda has turned people around in such a way that even at a peace church, I've had my talks canceled. At a university bookstore, I've had my talks canceled. The last one I did at Upstate New York, they had higher security guards because they were worried. I wasn't worried. And I welcome protests. You know, Jodi, you and I have protested for decades. And I always welcome people to come and give their viewpoints. But it is remarkable how people just don't want this point of view to get out. Now, when I do get to the public, I get a lot of, oh, now I understand. I didn't know that. I didn't know what the history of the US was in Ukraine. I didn't know how the US has blocked peace talks. I didn't know how the West didn't even try to implement those minks agreements in 2015, blocked the peace talks that happened right after the war began, and are blocking the peace talks proposed by China right now. So when I get a chance to talk to people, I get a lot of those, oh, thank you so much. I didn't really understand what was going on. And that's why it is so important, even in small venues, to being going around and around and around and just initiating these conversations. Oh, wow. And you've been tireless. You've been just going sometimes two a day. So deep as a four a day, Jodi. In Albania, it was four a day. Oh, no. Well, so there's a lot of controversy. There's a lot of controversy about the Nord Stream Pipeline explosion. And you did an article about this, how the US blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline. And we're watching that argument be closed down, not talked about again. And we're trying to get Congress to do, to research it. And maybe you could talk a little bit about what you know about that and where it is right now. Of course, it's Cy Hirsch's article that really gave a lot of detail about what happened to that pipeline. Before his article came out, I like to quote this cartoon that said, who hates the Russian pipelines, the USA? Who tried to stop them from being built the USA? Who said they would destroy them, the USA? Who benefits from their destruction, the USA? Who blew them up? We have no idea. So Cy Hirsch's piece was fantastic, but it's been pilloried for not having identifiable people. Instead, it's anonymous. And so we really do need more collaboration with people coming out. We need whistleblowers. We need more details. But in the meantime, it's amazing to see the mainstream press, how much they try to shoot the messengers, Cy Hirsch, and then the message itself, like the New York Times, that on March 5th came out with an article on it that said that intelligence suggests that it was a Ukrainian group that sabotaged the pipeline. And this was to take away from Cy Hirsch's saying this was planned by Biden even before the US invasion. But when you read the New York Times article, it was all anonymous sources as well. This was exactly the reason why they say that Cy Hirsch's article was incredible. And in this New York Times quote report, they act as if it was just a bunch of people not connected to any government. And they rented a boat and some explosives and some scuba gear and went and did this massive job that most experts say could only be done with a government support. So anyway, we are still waiting to hear the results of investigations by the Scandinavian countries, by our own government. But in the meantime, if you look for motive, that certainly points in one direction, especially Doty, since when you look at who jumped in afterwards to supply the gas and the oil that was no longer coming from Russia, well, it's US companies. And the US companies last year had their record profits. And they are having record profits now. And this has also led to the US government going back on its promises and giving now leases in places like Alaska for increased oil production, increased fracking. I was with our good friend Diane Wilson, who, by the way, as you know, just won the Goldman Environmental Prize. And she was telling me how in the Gulf Coast in Texas, so much of what they had been working for has been destroyed because the government is now saying, well, we have to have more refineries. We have to have more exploration to help our brothers and sisters in Europe who are suffering as a result of the Russian invasion. So this is another motive how the US companies are really making record profits, war profiteering from this explosion and from the sanctions on Russia. Well, and you talk about how it's an anonymous source. And this week, you wrote a piece about information. And where people could go to this poor guy could go to jail for a very long time. So the way people respond to truth isn't exactly with kindness. Can you talk about what you read about this week and what happens when you share information? Well, these Pentagon Papers that were released by supposedly a 21-year-old national airman we still don't know if he is alone in this and the motivations that have been put out in the press or that he just wanted to impress a couple of his buddies. But the poor guy will suffer greatly for this. The important thing, though, is what is in those papers that were revealed. And I think one of the most important things is a message that runs counter to the narrative that we hear from the mainstream media and the White House. The official narrative is that Ukraine is winning this war and that if we only send in more weapons, there will be a complete victory. And what these papers reveal is that the Pentagon knows full well that that's not true, that, yes, there are tremendous deficiencies on the Russian side. One only needs to look at the long battle for this city of Bakhmud that's been raging for months without the Russians being able to take 100% control, but with so, so many soldiers on both sides losing their lives for this. And then on the Ukrainian side, what the Pentagon information reveals is that there are tremendous deficiencies both in ammunition and weapons and in trained soldiers and that the long-awaited spring offensive will probably not bring any significant gains on the ground. And so the conclusion of one of the most important documents is that this is a grinding campaign of attrition likely headed towards a stalemate. And indeed, this is something that many experts inside both the Pentagon and our friends in Europe, former military people, have been saying for quite a long time. And we see it in the fact that this war is going on for over a year now and Russia still maintains about 20% of the territory. So if it's indeed a stalemate, why isn't this information given to the American public and why aren't our policies based on that, which would be, of course, we need to push as soon as we can for negotiations because so many people are getting killed in a war that is not winnable on the battlefield. And so, I mean, we've been saying that for over a year. And you're out on the book tour and you see what it's like. How do we help people listening understand how to engage to shift that? Because it's heartbreaking that this can be happening. We know how many people are dying. We talk to the people in Ukraine, the women that they call it the Anne Frank moment where they're hiding their sons and their husbands and their fathers and their brothers. And because it's really to be sent off to be mowed down. I mean, worse than mowed down. But what you're out there, I know tirelessly, how do we help raise up the peace matters, that diplomacy matters, that there must be talks. You were with us, you know, at Couping when we got those 30 members of Congress to call for diplomacy. And now they're chicken chicks to call for diplomacy again. What can we say to everyone listening about engaging? I think people have to realize that this is a political, a partisan issue in the United States that if we had a Republican in the White House, we would have our friends, the liberal Democrats in the Congress would be out there with us demanding negotiations. But since it's Biden in the White House and he has taken this line of stick with Ukraine to victory, that that is what the Democrats in Congress are supposed to go with. And we see most of them silenced at this point. And what does that leave? That leaves the hawkish Republicans, most of whom have always called for more weapons, for the Pentagon, for more war, for higher budgets. But a small minority of them, mostly on the extreme right, have been the ones who have had the most rational position on this. And just a couple of days ago, there was a letter from a sector that is a little more of the mainstream of the Republican Party led by Mike Lee, the senator from Utah. You might remember, Jody, that he worked with Bernie Sanders in bringing a left-right coalition to try to stop the US support for the war in Yemen. And he came out with a letter saying that it only made sense to support Ukraine if it was part of a strategy for negotiations. But so how do we get Democrats to start saying that? Is the question, and I feel that that has to be from the ground up, that they hear from their constituents. So either directly us really calling and asking for meetings, demanding meetings with our representatives, but also getting other voices out there, getting voices from the faith-based movement, getting voices from the environmental leaders talking about what a catastrophe this is for the environment, getting voices from people who have worked on issues of weapons reduction and anti-nuclear issues to be out there with us. So as I go around, I ask people, who's a member of an environmental group? And people are part of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace. And I say, write to them and ask them to sign on to this letter that Code Pink and the Coalition Peace in Ukraine have put out with all of the environmental effects of this war. And so I think that those are some of the ways that people can get directly involved in either contacting their Congress people or contacting organizations that they are part of and asking them to join in this effort. Yes, and we also have a campaign. You mentioned the environmental groups of really getting these environmental groups to understand the cost to the planet of this war. And we just finished doing that with Earth Day. So another thing that you've written about and that you know about, I am actually gonna post here also that you can join Code Pink every other Tuesday and be engaged together. And not only are we building a community that engages together every other Tuesday, but we've been in the streets a lot. And we've been, local groups have been organizing, have been in the streets, have been visiting their members of Congress. So if you wanna join us, first of all, I posted there's more to learn about Ukraine and more ways to engage actions you can take now. And also Code Pink Congress, you learn and then you engage and you act. We're trying to build that muscle so that you wake up every morning after you brush your teeth and you call your member of Congress. They need to hear from us and they're not hearing from their constituents about peace. So that is super important to start with. But Medea, one of the things you've written about a lot and I know you talk about a lot is the spin and propaganda about what that's like. It's hard for people to understand that they're literally being manipulated for war. And we've seen that since the founding of Code Pink. We saw that even when we were talking to Senator Wellstone about voting for peace, that his briefings had been full of lies and were lied to. If you could talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I think that we're seeing now, for example, the amazing spin machine that is out there that can turn everything upside down so that war is peace and peace is war. If you are for peace in Ukraine, then you're for sending more weapons. It makes no sense. And you see the spin in the media that obliterates the whole context for this war. If it ever talks about NATO, it's NATO as a protector, not NATO as an aggressor. It never puts the context of the US involvement in the internal affairs of Ukraine. We hear so much, we heard for 10 years about Russiagate how Russia affected the elections and led to the win of Donald Trump, which turned out to be a big lie. But the reality of the US getting so deeply involved in the internal affairs of Ukraine that we know that the US spent billions of dollars creating pro-western anti-Russian civil society in Ukraine that orchestrated a coup in 2014 that was started out as a peaceful, popular uprising but turned into a violent coup. And you never hear in the mainstream press how the US has been sabotaging the prospects for peace. And so it is so hard to break through that and we have to recognize that in the rest of the world there's a totally different narrative that people are hearing. Just take, Jodi, the issue of the Chinese peace proposal because here in this country, we heard very little about it at all and yet both Putin and Zelinsky have responded positively to it and the US response to it was that it was unacceptable even went so far as to say it would be illegal for a ceasefire because that would solidify Russia's gains which just makes absolutely no sense at all but we don't see pushback on what a ridiculous response the US has had yet. Well, we lost some pushback, Medea. We saw you behind Blinken in Congress asking him, if you don't like this, where's yours, right? Absolutely. And that's a question we should all be asking and the media should be asking what first of all, what don't you like about the Chinese peace plan? Because it's 12 points, so go point by point. You like one, three, four, six, seven but you don't like two, four, six, eight, 10 let us know specifically. And the other thing is if the whole peace plan is no good which is crazy because a lot of it's about supporting territorial integrity then where is your peace plan? And that is the question that we should be asking every member of Congress. We should be telling the media to be asking them and of course we should be asking the White House on the comment line, on the email that they have where is your peace plan? Because that, you know, we don't see the grilling that the media should be giving to the US when it just summarily dismissed the Chinese both as possible mediators. And here we see it on the heels of this incredible mediation they did between Saudi Arabia and Iran but the US dismissing the entirety of their proposal. Well, and also just to note that, you know we've been working at Kudping for the last eight years. Like sometimes that was all we worked on up for a year on the peace with Yemen between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. You wrote a book about it. You wrote a book tour around that. We had members of Congress that carried it as their main thing. And actually I think what three or four times it passed the Congress without a president signing it. We just recently like last year got it through Congress again and it was gonna go through the Senate and Biden stopped it because he didn't wanna sign it. So I mean, that's a fact. And then China goes in because it and it negotiates peace. So it negotiates peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran to very repressive governments. You know, when people say we can't talk to Putin because he's such an authoritarian and so awful. Well, you know you talk to people who are not your friends that you sit down at the table because they're at your adversaries. And when you look at Saudi Arabia, I mean we have terrible disdain for that government and the repressiveness of the Iranian government as well but we're delighted when they come to a peace proposal because that helps people in their countries and the region. And the fact that now it looks like there will be an end to the war in Yemen because of this peace proposal because the Iranians who are backing the Houthis are probably ready to step back and the Saudis are ready to step back. So that brings peace to a part of the world that we heard very little about but where there has been a horrific war going on for eight years. So wouldn't it be nice if our government focused on bringing warring parties together instead of picking one side and supporting it? And of course we know that the weapons industry is the one that gains from all these wars that their whole business model is based on more and more wars. And we have a Congress and a whole war economy that you write about Jodi that unfortunately thrives on this kind of chaos and suffering. And separation and division, yes. So before we let you go, thank you so much for joining us this morning. You know, we yesterday talked about citizen diplomacy and I've been around the world with you as a citizen diplomat. I mean, global exchange, what was global exchange but citizen diplomacy and really educating people inside the empire that sometimes can be, not see the world as to who we are and who the people of the world are and how we love each other. And can you talk about your citizen diplomacy? Because it's longer than could pink. And I know that before we started could pink with the thing that I knew about you is that you had people falling in love with Cuba, a country that United States hated and has oppressed and has been horrific to. So talk about your citizen diplomacy and then maybe we can end on what you're doing this weekend about the United States and what about neighbor they've been to Latin America? Yes, well, Jodi, you and I have been all around the world including in Iraq just before the US invaded trying to support the weapons inspectors with our message of diplomacy, not war. We've been to Yemen where we met with the families who lost loved ones through drone strikes including a 16 year old American citizen who has killed in a drone strike in Yemen and no accountability for that. We've been to Afghanistan where I was there not all that long ago after the Taliban came back into power and saw how the US not only left in a horrifically chaotic way but also took $7 billion of Afghan people's money, not the Taliban money, the people's money. So we've been around the world many times trying to understand the effects of our policies so that we could come back and not only educate people but do something about it. And that's why I'm so excited about this weekend because it's a weekend where we're going to gather people from all over the US and Latin America to focus on the changing Latin America and the need to change US policy. We're trying to bury 200 years of the Monroe doctrine where the US thought it could dictate to Latin America what would happen in its quote backyard but Latin America and the Caribbean have been rising up and there are amazingly wonderful progressive governments throughout the region that are saying no to this and that are coming up with their own institutions like CELAC are coming up with their own policies and are determined that the US must be a good neighbor and not be a neighbor that interferes and imposes its will oftentimes through force. So anybody interested can go to www.americaspolicyforum and sign up for this either in DC itself or online. It's gonna be a great, great event on Saturday. Well, and I think one of the other things we're noticing with this war in Ukraine is the falling away of the global south from the United States and joining together and creating a bipolar world instead of a unipolar world. Yes, and I'd love to end by quoting one of the great leaders of the global south who is the president of Brazil known as Lula because when Biden pushed him to give weapons to Ukraine, he said, no, that's not what is needed. We do not want to join this war. We want to end this war. So I think it's important that we echo that call coming from the global south that we should not be fueling this war, we should be ending this war. Thank you, Medea. Thank you for all you do. And I just wanna, you mentioned it earlier, but last night I was at the Goldman Awards and our partner, Diane Wilson, who was the co-founder of Code Bank who has been arrested a hundred times, who got arrested so many times she got kicked out of Washington, DC who threw herself over the White House fence who was with us in Iraq has just been a fearless, called on everyone yesterday. It's like civil disobedience, it's important, it changes things. And Diane was awarded because she was persistent because she didn't ever let go and we know that we get these phone calls. Okay, bring her this now, including bringing us down to go half naked outside of BP after the explosion, that oil tanker explosion. And that it takes being outrageous for peace, it takes being vocal, it takes being persistent and it takes a little civil disobedience. But I also just wanna say, please take care of her. I hand her over to you, she's yours this week, but we, the persistence, Medea, that you have and that you're non-stoppable. And thank you so much for all you do and give and for being that tuning fork for peace so necessary right now. Thank you so much, Jody and Jim. Great to be on with you. Medea, do you have just a few more minutes? I have a question or two I would like to add because you're such a encyclopedia of information. And particularly given the fact that you've been traveling all over the states, you're picking up a lot of the field spirits from the ground as it were. And so I'd like to just pursue some of the deeper dimensions of some of the questions that Jody was putting to you, just so that we all have a sense of what's going on. And I'd like to start in relationship to journalism and the virtually complete absence of any critical voices coming out of the press. And I wanted to just juxtapose Dan Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. You brought this in Jody yesterday, this sort of Daniel Ellsberg week. As you all know, he's quite sick and people are really realizing that in Dan Ellsberg, we have a patriot and I would say a world treasure who really risked his life and reputation coming out of very high levels of the Pentagon to provide the information that at that time, even more dramatically than Jack Teixeira's release of documents just a few weeks ago had a profound effect on public opinion and eventually a government policy. And one of the reasons for that is because at that time, the New York Times and the Washington Post were on his side. And just like the Washington Post was during the Watergate and it was one of those demonstrations of the power of the media when they get behind a certain issue or a certain individual that they can have a profoundly important influence on unfolding events. So that if you juxtapose of that exemplification of free speech and an independent media with what's going on today, where it was the New York Times and the Washington Post who hunted Jack Teixeira down for the Pentagon. And then rather than airing anything that he was saying, basically started to engage in immediate character assassination that he was a Christian right and he loved guns and he was just doing this to show off. And then the issue kind of disappears. And this comes after the Nord Stream revelations which in the 60s would have garnered huge, scandalous reporting. I would love to hear and actually from both of you because Jodi, you've been in on this because I think it's such an important reason why there's such quiescence in the public and even in the Congress who rely on these major newspapers for real news. What do you both think has happened? What caused this pliancy and this essential takeover of the media by the military industrial complex, let's call it, for want of a better word in enveloping the media into the neoconservative strategy of perpetual war, in this case against the Russians and the Chinese? What's happened? Jodi, you wanna go first? I've been talking about this a lot. Why don't you go ahead? Well, I don't really know. I mean, we have obviously the media is controlled by fewer and fewer companies that they are part of the corporate control of so many aspects of our lives in this country and that there are so fewer journalists who are reporting on foreign policy issues when I travel around the country, I see that there's just almost no local papers anymore. It's so sad and local papers that they are don't have real journalism anymore. And I've been meeting with so many people who used to be journalists who say, they can't get jobs anymore, there aren't jobs out there. And so part of it is just the cutting down of all the journalists who used to do this kind of reporting and journalists who have been doing reporting being pushed out to look at Chris Hedges getting pushed out, look at Cy Hirsch. I mean, the fact that he had to do this bombshell of a report on his own sub-stack instead of in the New York or somewhere else where he used to work is quite incredible. So all I know is that you can't believe what you read in the paper, that when I asked the great ambassador, diplomat, Chas Freeman, what people should do when they're so confused about the information they're getting from Ukraine, he said, turn off the television. And I think that's some wise advice. And as I go around, I try to give people alternative sources where they could get their information because as you say, Jim, this is turning people's heads around and it's also the information that people are getting in Congress. And so it's a vicious circle going round and round. And one thing that would be good to bring into this is also this idea that the media reinforces and it comes from the White House that the whole world is with us on this and that the West is solidified more than ever. The West represents democracy and the rest of the world looks up to the West. And so this is a war for the survival of democracy around the world. And the fact that we don't get the voices from outside of the West. So that we're not even recognizing the bubble that we are in is quite remarkable and so hard to push through that because of the way that both the echo chamber that we have between the White House and the media. I think it's stronger than that. It is on purpose. This has been constructed and funded and it is on purpose. And when they see pushback, when power sees pushback they do what is necessary to have it not happen again. So when you arrest people, when people lose their jobs you can't have a job at the New York Times if you do not behave to a list of things and that's like, don't mention this, don't say that. It's not an accident, it's on purpose. Well, I remember when a friend of ours who I won't mention got a show in MSNBC and the producer for the show, the booker was a good friend of ours. I thought, oh wow, we're gonna get on there all the time. And immediately was told that we are blacklisted, blacklisted and that was MSNBC. And we used to be on CNN as well. And sure, you've got to toe the line. Maybe you'll sneak on once, but you won't get back again. And that certainly has been the case around this Ukraine issue as they're so careful to get the guests that they know that they want because they know what they will say and push the others out and then pretend that there's not censorship in this country. And it's also not new. I mean, they've been manufacturing war for more than a century. So it's also, I think what people don't understand that live in the United States is that we live in a war economy culture, that we have been acculturized to accept violence that the rest of the world thinks is obscene and insane. And so we don't even understand kind of like the frog in the water that's boiling. Our brains and our hearts have been boiled out to really feel the devastations that this behavior is. And I think that's kind of what Lula's been modeling. It's like, no, that's not okay. And like Medea said, it's like the rest of the world is falling away. They're like, oh, that's way over the line. And immediately when the United States decided to sanction Russia for doing something the United States did every day and said, like, well, we're next, if the United States can do that to Russia, we're next. So we better do something else because otherwise we're fried. And so nobody, the vote in the UN around Ukraine when during Iraq, we watched the coalition of the willing which we knew were not willing or were very unwilling and had to be dance tied behind their back, had to be blackmailed, had to be won by money promises. This time that didn't happen. And you had more than half the population, governments that represented more than half the population said, no, we are not with the United States on this war in Ukraine. People that know more, people that read history more, people that know what Medea is going around and telling people. And also, I mean, like Medea said in the beginning, it's once they hear, it makes sense. They feel like a ground. But when you're so ungrounded, we've got too much money and politics. We've got a country that has been polluted and their brains and their pocketbooks had been put into politics. A politics that is owned by the rich and we call it democracy. When we live inside of so many lies, this one is harder to get to. Oh, well, it's been drawn as a picture of the right fighting the wrong and it's really bad cartoon. I mean, it's been cartoonized for the brain instead of the complexity that war is, instead of the complexity that foreign affairs is, that we know that when we talk to members of Congress, they don't, people get elected to Congress. They don't understand foreign relations. They barely know history. And, when we're talking to the staffs and members of Congress, they're trying to figure out themselves because they're just being brainwashed all day long from the State Department and the Pentagon. And I think the other thing is that we have a State Department that is the diplomat of this country that is a fricking war monger. I mean, many of you want to finish with your ideas about Blinken, but like to have a person in the State Department that is literally carrying out US hegemony plans is not a diplomat and the rest of the world sees that. You want to comment on Secretary Blinken, Medea? He showed his warlike colors when he worked for Biden in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And he was a supporter of the Iraq War. He went and worked for one of these lobby groups that gets big Pentagon contracts. And now he's in a position in the State Department where he really ought to move over to the Pentagon. He's been traveling around the world trying to gin up weapons to send to Ukraine, strong armed countries to send weapons. And I haven't heard a word out of his mouth that would make it seem like he's a diplomat. And that's why when I was getting carried off during the hearing in Congress, I was saying, do your job. You're supposed to be a diplomat. He should be speaking to his counterpart Sergei Lavrov on a regular basis. And in 14 months of war, he's spoken to him once on the sidelines of a G20 meeting for less than 10 minutes. And that makes a mockery of the whole idea of diplomacy, which is hard work. And yet he has no interest in speaking to the Russians in trying to find some kind of off-ramp for everybody in all of this. Biden said at one point that Putin needs an off-ramp. The US needs an off-ramp. And certainly Ukraine needs an off-ramp, off-ramps for everybody. And there are plenty of them around that the US could be talking to Ukraine and Russia about. But unfortunately, it's not coming from Anthony Blinken. And I have a feeling that when this moves towards more towards the negotiations, it's going to come from inside the Pentagon, not from the State Department. My God, Medea, we've kept you for so long. Thank you so much. Great talking to you. Bye-bye. Thank you, Medea. Thank you so much. I'd like to now invite Jim Hickman to join us for his comments. Jim was on yesterday. But before Jim, you comment, Jodi, I'd like to just extend that conversation a little bit and get your perspective on the parallel escalating conflict that the United States is engaged in with China. Because I think that is a crucial aspect for not only explaining why the Chinese peace proposal has sort of suffered a stillbirth in the West, but also is what is actually making the Ukraine war doubly dangerous because the three superpowers are now in direct increasingly militarized, nuclearized conflict with China and Russia on one side, the United States and NATO on the other. And I know this is something you care very deeply about. So I would just love to have your perspective on it. And also to say everyone that our third summit, which is gonna take place in June, is gonna be about China. Because there's a direct parallelism taking place that I think is very important for us to understand. But Jodi, why don't you make whatever comments you'd like and then Jim, I would love to hear your perspective. Sure, it's a huge thing to enter. So I'm gonna be a little general because what I've been watching it and what I feel is since Obama made the pivot to Asia, it was made because the United States could see that China was raising its GDP, it was becoming more economically powerful. And that started to make the US nervous and they started to pivot to deciding to go to war on China. Now, I feel and as I watched the landscape that the provocations around Ukraine and Russia are part of that war on China, that to get Russia out of the way, to wound Russia was necessary if you're gonna take on China. And we've been watching the US build this war on China for many years. They've been putting bases up around China. There's now 250 missile bases circling China right now. And the United States is destroying pristine ecosystems, destroying burial grounds of indigenous people. What is happening in this race to build this war on China from the United States is pretty horrific. And at the same time, it's kind of forced China to try to deal with, what are we gonna do with this? China's not, they're not warmongers. They don't wanna go to war. They spend a teeny bit of their money on weapons and military and the rest on the people. An example is there's this guy from Wall Street. He goes to China. He takes a award-winning documentary filmmaker with him. They do a lot of footage. Why? He's like, I'm so curious, how can China take everyone out of poverty? I wanna know that. Like he's a Wall Street banker, right? He makes the film, gets PBS to partner with him. They show it one time and it is taken off the air. It is censored because it makes Beijing look too good. So if you think you all don't know what's going on in Ukraine and Russia, that you are clueless about China. You don't know China, the racism about China, the ignorance about China, so that when there's a missing, you're filled with lies and distortions. I mean, I'm so embarrassed constantly of how people talk about China because it's racist on steroids. I mean, I kind of can't actually rock how little people know and what crazy ideas they have in their head about China. China is a country of 1.4 billion people. So China, to even call it a one thing, it is complex, it is full. It's a indigenous community, it's full of states, it's quite a profound history. It's a 4,000 year history of values that it sits on top of that we have no clue about and it's an entirely different culture. So you start by Americans are so indoctrinated about being inside of an empire that they don't even understand, they think like an empire, which is a really horrible way to say it because it's not human, it's not relational. It's how I talk about the war economy and the peace economy. We are cultivated inside the war economy to behave in 24 horrible ways that are violent to humanity or violent to ourselves, or violent to our community and are violent to the planet and just getting ourselves out of those behaviors into peace economy behaviors would help us better understand the other. I mean, Jim's about to talk about citizen diplomacy. Citizen diplomacy is about listening. It's about not entering with hubris but interested in with an open heart and an open mind and understanding that this is another human, but other. It is like, how do I come to understanding, come to know? But whoa, in the United States, we have, we're right, we know everyone should be like us. We don't even understand that we carry that way of being. So yes, and well, there's a lot more about China. It's amazing. The war on China has already started and there's sanctions, we've arrested people, we closed down Confucius universities in the United States and Asian American hate is like 3,000 times more. And I say the war has already started, there are already casualties and they're in the United States of America. And I talked to a lot of not first generation Chinese Americans, but second and third and these young 20 year olds, the emotional strife that it is for them to be Chinese American in a country that is propagating hate on beautiful people. They, it is like propagating hate on yourself. It's like, and then people say, oh, China's gonna bomb Taiwan. That's a US story. China is not gonna bomb itself. Taiwan is China. I mean, United States, even Biden has said, we all agree to this one China policy. It's a story promulgated by the United States. And just this week, Taiwanese have like back channeled to the White House and said, you have got to stop. You are destroying us. And the last president got beat by another person because they want peace. They don't want to work with the United States. They don't want more weapons. They don't want Nancy Pelosi to come. That woman who let Nancy Pelosi come, she lost. She lost because the people of Taiwan want peace. They don't wanna be Ukraine. And they're well aware of it. And now they're losing investments. Why? Because well, the United States is they're gonna be a war in Taiwan. So it's complex, it's beautiful. And we have to really get to be smarter people and look out at the world from a heart that believes in desires peace. Yeah, beautifully put, Jodi. I could just feel the passion in your heart to kind of create instant understanding of China. And as someone who was born in China and raised in the Chinese culture until I was a teenager, I can't agree with you more. Can you say one more thing about China that people don't know? They do not arm their nuclear weapons. Russia and the United States, their nuclear weapons are armed. The Chinese weapons are not armed and they have committed to no first strike. Yeah, that's worth pointing out. The Chinese do not have a first strike nuclear capability. They have nuclear weapons. But at a fraction of the number actually of the United States and Russia. So that's a very good point. 800 and get together, United States and Russia, 10,000 of them, yeah. Yeah, so, well thank you. And just underscore again, we're gonna be talking about China in another five day program in June because of the importance of what Jodi's saying and the escalating danger of war so let's, we'll come back to that more formally in about a month's time. So Jim Hickman, citizen diplomat with the Russians, how do you view what Medea's been saying or what Jodi just said? From the point of view of citizen diplomacy and your own personal experience and international affairs, what comments would you add to this discussion? Wait, you're on mute. You need to take yourself off mute. First, I would just applaud Medea and Jodi for all of the incredible work you all are doing. I followed Code Pink for quite some time and have always been impressed and learned a lot from that experience. So it's really been nice to hear you these last two sessions, Jodi, and I think a part of what the two of you represent is a crucial element of what we used to be calling citizen diplomacy. Remember that when we were doing that, Jim, it was a very different world and very different actions in a sense were called for by all of us. And what Jodi and Medea are doing, as was said, outrageous and persistent or peace is so crucially important right now. And I understand that there's tremendous resistance, as Medea said, in where she talks about this and I wanted to just make a point about propaganda because it hasn't been mentioned yet. And most people don't know that the Russian news media excerpts US news reports on a regular basis that are seen to support the Russian point of view and they rebroadcast them. It's all being documented by an organization in San Francisco called the Internet Archives where they every day monitor Russian news and pull out the sections that are excerpted from US news reports that are clearly bias toward the Russian position. And this has become an important part of how the Russian leaders, let's say and the Russian use of media has convinced a huge portion of the Russian population that stayed, most of the people who were opposed to what was happening in Ukraine left Russia but the ones who stayed have now become somewhat supportive of the Russian government. And part of the reason is because of their very sophisticated use of US media reports primarily Fox News that speak a language that can be interpreted as very supportive what Russia is doing in the Ukraine. So a part of the difference in the world today is electronic media and communication. I mean, we didn't have this sort of thing 40 years ago when so many of us got involved in trying to resolve the Cold War because of nuclear weapons. So that's the first thing. So I really applaud the two of you. And one of the comments you made which I really like is the idea of getting young people involved in environmental causes to understand the cost of war for the environment and move them into the peace movement rather than just environment because the two things really go together in a significant way. So that's an important next step and especially because it involves a lot of young people. The environmental issue, climate crisis, et cetera has galvanized young people in a way that there's no other issue today that is doing that. And to move them into the peace initiative would be is a very important aspect of how we can change the culture in a way. And the other thing I just wanted to comment on is that I've lived in South America for 16 years. And I can just say that Lula's attitude is consistent with most of South America. The United States is not seen down here as the model of democracy for the world. It is primarily seen as a country that is on its downfall, that has reached its peak, has gone beyond it and largely driven by money is moving into a completely different aspect of its history. And because of that, there's a lot of resistance down here to US offers of support because people here know, as you all have described, it's largely driven by an interest of the money power people to get a new hold on areas of the world where they can extract natural resources in a way that has no consideration for what it does for the planet. So I just wanted to reinforce your comment that South America especially is not, it's not on the Russian side either. I mean, in fact, China is much more popular down here than either Russia in the US. And I really encourage everyone to follow up on what Jim was saying and as much as possible listen to the June humanity rising on China. I think it offers all of us an opportunity to learn much, much more than learning from the only sources we have, which is the media that we can say is now a propaganda tool of whoever is running it. And so that's important. And I would also just say that I see in the chat the comment that maybe we should bring the draft back again. Now, I was a draft resistor. Now, this is 1968, 69, I mean, 45 years ago. And the millions of young people like me who resisted the draft changed the US policy in Vietnam. So it was very effective. However, it has a huge expense that it goes beyond just motivating young people to resist war. And so it isn't really the answer, but something like that brought into the US culture that would galvanize young people to resist war would be a very important step forward. And I don't know what that is in the modern day, but I think it's an idea that's worth pursuing, thinking about. Code Pink has some really good thoughtful people in it and around it. And so it's just an idea that we need to galvanize young people for peace in whatever way we can find, starting with the environmental groups, the climate crisis issue, but also some direct experience with war. My father, I'll end with one last story. My father was a career military officer. So I grew up with the military and it was quite a challenge for him being one of the people who helped use the military in Vietnam for his son to resist all of what his father was doing. On the other hand, at a certain point, I was probably 17, 18 years old. My father had been nominated to be promoted to general from his full colon status. And I remember when he came back from Saudi Arabia, listening to him talk to my mother and he said, I think I have to refuse the promotion and retire. What I just did in Saudi Arabia, I became an arms dealer. I sold US weapons to places in the world that should not be armed, but the US has become the biggest arms dealer in history and they're using me as one of their, and shortly after that, he retired from the military because he could no longer do what was being done primarily by the political forces, not by the military as the civilians took more and more control. And so I just use this story as an example, if we could give young people a direct experience of what war and military and arms actually does for the world. This could help galvanize large groups of young people to help change the political strategy of the United States. Other than that, I don't know about the Ukraine Russia situation, it's too big a deal for me to have any real advice on it. But I would say one last thing that I go back to outrageous and persistent, Jody, you and Medea embody the personality and psychological traits that are absolutely required to change the way the world is going. And it takes time yet to stay at it for a long, long time to usher in a new kind of world for all of us and for our children, which is what we're all working toward. Thank you Jody for everything you do. And Jim, thank you for this. And I'm gonna listen in on China and learn more about it. Thank you, Jim. I think that may be a good place to bring our session to a close for today. Jody, why don't you just close us out with whatever you would like to make as a final comment because I agree with Jim, you and Medea and Code Pink have the psychological profile of everything that's required in our world, just simply to wake people up. It's worth remembering about outrageous behavior, what Martin Luther King said, is the purpose of civil disobedience isn't to solve the problem, it's just to wake people up to the fact that there is a problem. And that's what you do so skillfully. So why don't you just give us a final word and then we'll bring this to a close. Well, we've talked about a lot today, we've covered a lot. And so I think that's a little bit of part of why it's hard to be a peace activist is it feels overwhelming, it feels like you can't really hold it. And so, I say you need to get out of the weeds. Those weeds are created by the State Department and the Pentagon. They try to distract us. I was in Iraq when Ramar got there and all the guys in his office, they didn't know that I was Code Pink. They said, oh, we just try to divide and conquer. We try to keep a dog hungry. So he has nowhere to go. And those plans come to us. It's like we're being used. This is remember, we are being used. This is beautiful life that we have is being used. So like Jess Riemann said, turn that television off. Do not read mainstream media. What do you need to know? You need to, I mean, living in this country and Jim Hickman, I appreciate that you don't live in this country. And that I know you understand as a gift. Find a way to have your life be about peace because that itself is nourishing. And then you come together with others. I think the other thing that is overwhelming is that we on purpose have been made narcissistic, individualistic, alienated, overwhelmed. It's all a plan. And that makes it hard to act from. So, it's gotta start with where am I? Where am I rooted? What do I believe in? What are my values? Because when that's rooted, you'll be able to read through the news. You won't be used by the news. Those weeds won't, you'll push the weeds away. And unfortunately, we've been overwhelmed. We've been alienated. All these things are how we're used and literally used. I mean, it's a plan. It's not an accident. And it takes some grieving to come out of being used. And so why it's easier to stay in the weeds because you feel protected. You feel like you're with everybody. You know, getting out of the weeds and going off on your own and having other ways of thinking, it feels dangerous to those around you because, oh my God, then they might have to do that. It feels a little bit alienating because like you feel kind of you're off on your own and nobody else kind of thinks like you. And so in that process, out of mainstream media, out of mainstream or mongering thought, you actually need care. You actually need the care of others who know what it's like, have been through the process. And then you come together. And we have so many food pink groups that are in cities across the country. And it starts there. It starts with taking a meeting with your member of Congress. And then when they don't take it, disrupting the front. And then like in Chicago, in Ann Arbor, in all these little cities, they have gotten their member of Congress to pay attention to them. And when he finally pays attention or she finally pays attention, it's full of humor. And it's full of like, it's like that member of Congress is also alienated, also covered with weeds. Also, it's so, that persistence of both the commitment to self. And I mean that commitment to the individual, not individualism, that we don't even understand that in this culture, the individual pays the price of individualism. Because we don't take the time to actually ground ourselves, root ourselves in space, in values, in what we're committed to. Because if we are, it's that commitment that makes them a dea and a jody. I mean, we are deeply rooted in our values where life is about peace and that's who we are. And it, you know, whatever is called upon comes out of us. It's not like we reach out to be outrageous or it's like, no, we have a commitment and it pulls a lot of stuff out of it. It pulls a book out of Medea, it pulls lectures out of me, it pulls what you are here to offer out of you. And I know when we gather in the local peace economy gatherings and it's always like, we have an hour and a half. What is an issue? What is in need of your community that we wanna deal with? By the time that hour and a half is over, we have managed complexities, come up with a way for everyone to engage and something beautiful happens. Do we take the time to do that? It actually doesn't take a lot of time. And what, when people leave what they, things they say to me is like, I never felt healthier. I didn't realize I lived in a field of generosity and I had no idea I had those things in my mind. So just taking our minds off of a war economy, being occupied by militarism and war and violence into caring and giving and sharing is a process that's beautiful. So if it's confusing, I say then walk away from it. Do what isn't confusing, find your ground, find your heart, find yourself then offer it to what's needed because the people aren't even at the table that can make the difference right now. And it's certainly not any of us listening. What we need to be is tuning forks for peace. What we need to do is give people the courage to be for peace again, young, old, whatever. I mean, Jim McMahon, I find the more people, it's interesting we have really old people that remember being a peace activist and are committed to peace with their lives because that's how they started. And then we do have these young people to get that war is the greatest contributor to climate change. And if we don't end war, they don't have a future. And then there's this middle that got totally lost. So be peace, find out what that is for you. That is the most important thing you can do. And then I've posted a lot of things in the chat about ways you can engage. Like I said, after you brush your teeth, call your member of Congress, call them them to be for diplomacy. It'll take you five minutes at the most, start there because the engagement matters and then it builds. And when you hear stuff, it will tell, it will speak to the place inside of you that will awaken something that needs to happen. That's where it starts. Thank you, Jodi. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, everyone. That'll bring us to a close for today. You're welcome to the after session chat. You'll see the link in the chat box. And then we'll see you all tomorrow for a conversation with Chris Hedges, who to my mind is one of the best informed and ethically motivated and grounded journalists that ranks with Cy Hirsch, I would say, and a few others as really giants of journalism in our time who will be speaking to us about not only the war, but imperialism and what he calls the United States of paralysis. Because within the backdrop that we're gonna get from Chris Hedges, it's a lot easier to see the weeds if you have the right context and no one's better at context than Chris Hedges. So thank you, Jodi, and I'll be back again tomorrow for Chris Hedges. Thank you, everyone. Bye for now.