 that still goes the wrong way because they take money from up in the company, it's super depressing, but let's not shut it, it's super depressing now. Just want to, Sarah has been organising New York for good paint for a year, at least now, right? And while she gave birth to a beautiful woman, and then we've got Rose who's just doing it. And Nina is back here, so just really acknowledging the team for pulling us all together, and for being in the streets. So we're going to, I mean, try to take us through, there's a bunch of chairs over there and just keep layering them inside. Maybe the back group could scoot up, and they could later in the back. How's that? Awesome. So, and my name's Jody and I'm one of the co-founders of her paint, and I live on the west coast. So it's fun to be on the east coast, maybe, when it's raining and stuff. That's a fun thing to do. If the back, you all could just slide it back, there's a lot of room in the back, and then the others of the organ can do it. Cool. So tonight we're going to have a chance to run through a lot of the work of coast paint and the campaigns we're working on, and how we kind of try to work in a holistic approach around the globe, with really divesting being our core kind of river, I'd say, that's running through it. Where to succeed we're going to have to build a much bigger anti-war movement. We watched it from 2001 to now get pretty crushed by Democrats who come into office and behave badly, which makes it very disheartening for people to be engaged. But having a divest movement, both that talks about weapons and divesting from weapons, but also that probably war is one of the biggest causes of climate change. It brings it into two of the divest stories. So starting tonight, we're going to start internationally. So I want to introduce you to Mani Mostafi, who's an Iranian-American human rights advocate and lawyer, and a punk rock vocalist. I didn't even give you that a follow-up. Of course. And with the Director of Impact around at Birken Hollis, give him a hand. So thank you everyone for having me. I've been asked to kind of, I guess, frame the situation that was happening in Iran, and asked to go first because I feel that we all know that that's probably in terms of potential war actions the most pressing potential conflict. So, and I'm trying to do it all by myself. Just to set the context, you know, I feel like most of the room knows it. I'm going to sort of real quickly. Obviously, a little over a year ago, Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iran deal, which has a whole bunch of international law implications, and then rolled into what they call a maximum pressure campaign, which has basically been a really draconian set of sanctions. There's no way they could ever argue before that these are these targeted or friendly sanctions that people tried to save the Iran sanctions before. And in recent weeks, we've seen a particular escalation. So there was this conflict over this mining of these tankers. There was the striking down of a U.S. drone over what territory it was being disputed. The UK seized Iranian oil tanker just a few days ago, and Iran tried to retaliate just yesterday by trying to seize the Iranian oil tanker. And it's rumored or believed that the UK was acting on some extent on the U.S. So obviously, this is a very dangerous situation, and I don't think it's surprising to say that the danger is heightened by the fact that the U.S. doesn't seem to actually understand what you're doing, right? For whatever you said about the Bush administration, Cheney was in charge, and he knew what moves were leading in what direction. And he seems to be conscious of what's holding him against you and the extent to which they're running Iran policy should be extremely Iran. That's the international and U.S. context in terms of Iran. I think people probably need to know what's happening inside of Iran. So from the Iranian perspective, there's no evidence, for example, in these mining of these tankers or supposed mining of these tankers. There's no evidence of Iranian involvement, but Iran did try to seize this oil tanker, and he said so themselves. They did shoot down a drone, but they have now gone about 3.6% enrichment of uranium, which means that they're exceeding the limits set by the JCPOA. Of course, they're legally entitled to, but the JCPOA has specific clauses that say if the other parties don't meet their commitments, which is illegal sanctions, which they clearly haven't done, Europeans haven't been able to do it because the U.S. has reimposed what we call extraterritorial sanctions, which means sanctions on EU companies. So Iran's allowed to cross that line, but they're doing it and they're doing these sort of military defensive, what they were labeled as defensive, and the U.S. is obviously labeled as offensive, because they have to shake things up. They're not in a position where they have leverage if the status quo remains. From the Iranian perspective, they have to shake things up and do what people in the Iranian administration used to say they were doing with Iran, which is force the other side to the negotiating table. All indications and all the Iranian analysts I follow believe that the Iranian disposition is towards reengaging in negotiations, but I want to say that that's not entirely what exists within the Iranian power establishment. There is an internal conflict between different forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Rodney speaking on one side and the sort of president of the other. Mazar al-Honest Camp is more engaging, internationalist. The IRGC is trying to monopolize Iranian politics, as much as they can. So some members of the IRGC, which is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is sort of sub-military for those of you who don't know, some of the commanders and leaders in it have a more aggressive policy. Some of them are closer to the centrist policy in Iran, which is negotiation. So what they're doing, they're the ones involved and it's like striking down the drone and this attempt to seize the British tanker. So IRGC policy isn't necessarily to provoke a conflict. The IRGC policy, at the same time that they're trying to sort of establish Iranian presence in the region, which is really what they care about, they're also trying to somewhat sideline their political opposition in the country. So they're playing multiple fronts and they're not necessarily essentially commanded people. So there is something that some people in the IRGC are much more willing to get to the line of war than others. So while on one hand the U.S. policy is clearly aimed by people at Pompeo and both in state for war, the Iranian policy is mostly against it, but with a few kernels probably within the state that wouldn't mind some more conflict because it serves them in their internal libelies politically. There is a theory out there that people in the Iranian state are in a war because it will allow them to do internal suppression of political opposition. I find no evidence for that theory, mainly because they're completely successful at eliminating the domestic opposition with or without them. So it's really more about their internal political struggles between controlling the economy and controlling the state with other rivals and the links. At the same time, to my last point, there's a lot of social rest and fatigue inside of Iran and with the Iranian diaspora that works within the side of Iran. So the economy is horrible. People who are fleeing can flee. There's a lot of hopelessness. And what it's created is a situation of increased polarization. So the international conflicts have been used effectively by a lot of courses within Iran, including the IRGC, to gain some sort of nationalist support from the state, even from sectors that might be unfavorable to the state because of the state's really bad human rights record. So some people are gravitating to the state. At the other side, there's a complete huge base of Iranian society that's very apathetic. And there's a side of the Iranian society that is blaming the Iranian state for even entering these conflicts. For example, why do we have a nuclear deal at all? Why do we have a nuclear program at all? You're wasting our money. Why are you involved in Syria at all? You're wasting your money. You're involved in really hurtful conflict. So Iranian society is very polarized. What is important about that for this room is that it creates problems for the U.S.-based anti-war movement because the U.S.-based anti-war movement must walk a very delicate line between not contributing to the false demonization, false exaggeration of the Iranian threat on one hand, but also not looking as if it's pro-government apologetic to human rights abuses. And this is a very key thing. So, for example, when Kote visited Iran within the Iranian community there's anti-war. I'm not talking about the side of opposition change. Within the Iranian community there's anti-war. That gives it very bad photo ops from this perspective of creating internal fighting. Why is this important? Because I believe for my years I've worked in anti-stations with anti-war. The indigenous voices are very powerful in the anti-war movement. So you need Iranian voices. And I'm telling you there's not a lot of Iranians. I mean, one of the few ones, a lot of Iranians will show, for example, a cold-pink meeting no matter how anti-war they are because when they return to the Iranian community they get slandered and vilified like crazy. So I'm just talking about that line as a strategic line that's important to war. And there's no way that you're not going to cross it one way or another and make these steps because it's an impossible line. But it's the line. Thank you so much. I'm going to pass this roll around. It's our feeling you can continue to share the message of peace with Iran. If you want more and more information including a lot of the report backs from the recent trip to Iran and if you want to go with us we're going in September and October and you can sign up on the Travel with Pupin to Iran page. So, um... Could I do a while? Yeah, why not? So next I want to bring up Claudia De La Cruz who is the co-ed of the space for Iran to hear the People's Forum. We're a community organizer part of the Poor People's Forum of Santa Venezuela and, you know, part of really the internationalist groups that are anti-imperialists are creating what I call the peace economy that we need to learn from. So, Claudia, welcome. Thank you for being here and thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you very much. How are you all doing? Good. Well, first of all, welcome to the People's Forum. If you haven't been here, make sure to come back. We are an unapologetically anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-hater-arqued space and very much about advancing the struggle of the poor and dispossess not only here locally but nationally and globally. And I'm going to try to speak as high-pitched as possible. Those days are surely over and some days more than others for me. But I was asked to speak a little bit on Venezuela and a little bit on Cuba. And if there is one thing that kind of makes a connection between these two countries is that they have dared to go against an empire and daring to go against an empire that is punishable by the United States of America who works freely throughout the world to strangle the economies of countries who dare stand against it. And so Cuba has been fighting and resisting in a very loving way, I would say, for 60 years. This year marks the 60-year anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. And this revolution has been under a blockade for 59 years out of the 60. And what it meant is that people haven't been able to have access to very basic aspirin equipment for different medical purposes. And still this revolution continues to be the lighthouse for many other revolutionary processes across the globe. And the reason that I say that is because sanctions economy or sanctions country continue to resist. There's no option. Venezuela has been under sanctions by the United States of America for a while, but most formally since 2014. And I know a lot of folks have, you know, some sort of endearment for President Obama. Some folks, not everyone. But not everyone. But it was under his government that Venezuela was signaled as what was the term? I'll write it down. An unusual and extraordinary threat. Can you hold this for a second? Unusual and extraordinary threat for the United States. Venezuela in 2005 I can speak to this because I'm from the South Bronx. The Venezuelan president at that moment was Hugo Chavez, came to the South Bronx and discovered that there were thousands of people that did not have heating to be able to survive the cold. In the richest country in the world people were dying of cold. And he extended the solidarity of the Bolivarian Revolution to people from my community. The poorest congressional district in the United States of America. And established Petrobros that provided thousands of families with heating oil. Is that a threat to the United States of America? So between 2017 and 2018 in a matter of a year because of the progression of the sanctions there has been more than 40,000 deaths in Venezuela. 40,000 estimated there have been more. We've seen an increasing of people leaving Venezuela because of economic reasons. And this is a result of US sanctions against the Venezuelan people. When we talk about sanctions we hear about what sanctions mean and the impact that they have to human life. Sanctions is not just a word that is empty it actually has a strong impact in the people who are experiencing it. I think it's important for us to take on the call to strengthen anti-war movement. Mostly because we need to also identify the different ways in which weapons of war have been redeveloped and strengthened. It's not only boots on the ground that are affecting people now but Venezuela is under constant threat of being suffering a military intervention. We're talking about four different types of warfare that have been implemented in Venezuela. We're talking about political warfare with the sanctions that have been imposed on diplomats. So we're talking about economic warfare when we talk about the blockade economically that has kidnapped billions of dollars from the Venezuelan economy. We're talking about a media warfare where people are under the impression that people in Venezuela are killing each other and it's the complete opposite. The opposition has lost repeatedly in the streets of Venezuela because the people have dignity and respect and love for the Bolivarian Revolution. And the fourth attack that we all have seen has been part of a hybrid war when we look at the attacks on the electricity that have taken place. If the anti-war movement restricts itself as much engaged in studying these processes of war that establish a new way of killing people and not necessarily bombs anymore but you strangle the economy and you strangle people in different ways that you create an explosion. So the United States of America as a government are very diligent in figuring out ways of killing people and we have to figure out ways of proposing ways to keep our people alive and I'm very happy to see so many of you sitting here and working to make that happen. So thank you. I think there's a few people here who look part of the emergency protection team does anybody want to raise their hand? Thank you. What it means to stand up against injustice and that we can do that and that we can support each other in doing that not only what it does to change the information because it has to be addressed but what it does to the hearts of those that are being oppressed to know they're not alone because everybody wants to just sideline what's happening. So next I want to bring up and then we're continuing to do work on Venezuelan Cuba we have a trip to Cuba in November so we have a new Latin American campaign to destroy any cooking so we'll be working much more in Latin America and there's so many great things happening here at the People's Forum so make sure you come often, sign up, get on the list because we're also creating a lot of events here on Latin America. So next I want to bring up Henry Ferron he's a senior year fellow Oh Henry? Do you want to go there first? Okay We'll go to you on Diwali Diwali Salah is a Yemeni community leader of the United Yemeni American Association He's an organizer and speaker to end the war on Yemen Thank you Thank you so much for everyone for all the work you've done for the humanity at the home and the event at Diwali Salah our Coastal Women and Rights Organization for U.S. besides the United Yemeni American Association our purpose is our purpose is to stop the war on Yemen Thank you Thank you The purpose of the war we focused in we started our organization a few years ago and in the war all over the world but because I came here to speak about Yemen and I want to forgive everyone for what's happening in Yemen especially that we have the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and was led by the coalition of Saudi Arabia and by green light from the United States and I'm going to start by explain what I'm from you in the picture of Yemen and why in the war and how the war happened so that way it's like a brief of history and then I'm going to talk about the humanitarian catastrophe that happened in Yemen besides the calls of the human self that the war did in Yemen so Yemen especially is located in the at the south west of the Asian continent and the south of the Arabian the most strategic things about Yemen's location is the Al-Mandab Al-Mandab is right is the Karadah for the international commercial ships where half the world is transferred through it between the east and the west and this is one of the important is right in the whole world in what made the Yemen target or valuable for the war itself in 1962 taking you back to the history that way we understand in 1962 the revolution in Yemen happened against the role of the Imam or they call it the Imam's role what makes the Saudi Arabia mad because it brings democracy and Saudi Arabia and the rest of our neighbors is a monarchy rollers they want democracy to happen in Yemen so they started from the beginning after the revolution in 1962 until now to destabilize that country by creating ISIS, Al-Qaeda, etc to the end and then at the spring revolution coming up they find this is the chance for them to destroy what they couldn't destroy in 1962 and Saudi Arabia appeared from the revolution that happened in the Arab spring to be transferred so they used they used their conspiracy and agenda to break down the revolution until it has to this war today we have almost two thousands I mean two millions children in severe I'm talking about in severe militarization I mean they could be dying anytime soon and we have almost two million children out of school and we have almost 24 million people who can say under the poverty in starvation in the break of poverty in the break of planning in all these people in all these details and the United States is a part spate in this war as the Saudi Arabia part spate because they are the one they are the one to support them they are the one without the United States the war will not happen in 20 countries not only in India so what are and now by the estimated by the severe United States and Britain's almost two million and five hundred broken muscles bombs have what cause five hundred thousands public facilities to be destroyed at almost two hundred thousand rights since the war started today in average is two hundred forty rights a day and right now spate in India is the most important part that sport is spate everyone has to work in their agenda the human crisis situation ever happened and everyone many people be inside countries have sold to Saudi Arabia five hundred ninety million billion dollars to the United States more billions of dollars to Britain more billions of dollars to France more billions of dollars to Russia so everybody silent Yemen kids the people of Yemen had been sold to Saudi Arabia for their money but we are part spate in it but the propaganda of the TV I was right the propaganda I think we have no time thank you very much for coming Jay thank you everyone hold up you know aware about the situation in Yemen and is there any other way people here could be engaged or to get together yes we haven't protest from the United Nations it's going to be two weeks from now we organized a big protest and we have no movie I just have it back from Yemen show what's happening Yemen from the beginning of the war until now show that spate in India and stuff like that and I will contact great so if everybody signs up we will follow up and we are going to have it in two weeks for the exact date I am going to have it and Sarah and she is going to send it I am not sure exactly but I am going to do it in two weeks I am just going to get places for the protest one day and I will try to put that movie I have it and I will try to organize it we should do it here what are you going to do and why are you going to do it here I have everybody okay so I am going to talk to you we will see thank you so much I think you can hear me so we just want to say that also when we came to Congress when we had a war power there was something where we could get Congress to stop what was happening on Yemen Nancy Pelosi said no way we are never going to do that and everyone should know that Congressman Roe Kahn took that film and he was what happened what happened I don't know he wanted to say something I want to say something I think that you might be can you scooch over here we go I see nice the Senate was amazing and has to do with the capacity of the story to be told one of those horrible things are being done with U.S. weapons in Yemen even though it got vetoed we have to be able to say that that was a coalition of truth across the country that really made what Nancy Pelosi said by the miracle happened that she didn't get behind it and we should know that Roe Kahn was amazing and then there is another thing that I'm glad that you signed up that we'll send out is that there's a group of Yemen high school students NDC that just made a video for Bernie Sanders that would love everybody to see if them really speaking out in the same heart reach out our campaign currently on Yemen is our Lush campaign we have a boycott going we just got who do we just get to cancel her Nicki Minaj to cancel going to Saudi Arabia we have a Saudi boycott and right now we're taking on Lush so when you want to take on a campaign you take what we call the low hanging fruit as kind of what we have BlackRock is our when they say we're good guys and they're not really good guys they tell this story Lush has an amazing vision of who they want to be in the world and what they want to do and they have two stores in Saudi Arabia we talked to their international office they don't even make money on them this should be doable I just want to remind everybody we closed the Ahabah store in London it was closing the one in London that got finally Ahabah to disappear out of the occupied territory so this Lush campaign is important there's a bunch of places in the city just going in and delivering the message like shame on you why would you be there and even talking about what Nicki Minaj she articulate why she gave up that money and why she canceled it so it's a good easy way to be like when you're feeling frustrated we say cooking whenever you're feeling frustrated and angry go into action it's an easy go into action and because it's like they should know better another place to always be dropping a black rock and freak them out a little bit alright so let's move on to Henry Ferron he's a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy he focuses on legal security issues in East Asia and he's going to talk to us about North Korea and I have the great honor from North Korea to South Korea across the DMZ with Christine Ahn who is an amazing activist and someone who recommended that you come talk to us so thank you so much for being here thank you okay so thank you a lot for having me here it's always inspiring and energizing to see so many people of conscience and people of action in a room together so today I'm going to speak a little bit about Korea and so it's a country where we've had war for 70 years now we've had a nuclear crisis for 25 and it's really difficult explaining what got us into this mess but for now it's this slow moving train crash and we came very close actually to nuclear war in 2017 that was a time of fire and fury what triggered that was that North Korea had completed that's the way they put it that they have completed the nuclear program they have demonstrated that they had nuclear bombs 10 times the strength of those that fell in Hiroshima and ICBMs that could reach anywhere in the United States including New York and so if you only hear that part of the story it all sounds pretty scary of course but the other part of the story is also that they have been asking for a peace agreement for decades and that's really the root cause of the conflict really that the Korean war has not ended there has not been peace agreements to end it there has only been a ceasefire agreement in 1953 and after that we've just been waiting for decades for a peace agreement to happen of course the continuation of war is a justification for all sorts of things US bases in South Korea, a lot of weapons sales South Korea and Japan are the biggest weapons buyers in Asia and now that we're in the situation where for North Korea it's an untenable status quo so they're doing everything they can to grab attention we're in a situation where actually both Koreas now are calling for peace and the Pampam Don declaration last year in April even China is calling for peace and there is a lot of resistance in the United States so a particular challenge is that a lot of the people who are against nuclear weapons there are groups that are against nuclear weapons only point a finger at North Korea whereas of course nuclear weapons is a problem that it exists on both sides and it has led also a lot of people who are for instance a democratic party to be awkward bad fellows with people like Tony Bolton who would want to have a very hawkish attitude to North Korea so this is all sort of an ostrich approach that will only lead to further escalation fortunately there's been some initiatives that show and again representative Ro Khanna was mentioned before and he's been also really stellar on this issue of Korea by accepting to sponsor a resolution to formally end the Korean War and it's the first resolution that basically acknowledges that there needs to be a US involvement in the peace process directly for this issue to because to North Korea that it's the United States that's the real threat it's not South Korea and so we're hoping through that to have more than a peace declaration but actually binding peace agreements so that we would finally end the state of war that has lasted for 70 years and go into a state of peace where the use of force is not acceptable anymore and that there's a lot of confusion about what peace means in Korea there's a lot of anachronistic misunderstandings it would not break the US-RK alliance and it would not legitimize North Korean nuclear weapons what it would do is prevent or at least make illegal any further use of force in that campaign there's also been now regarding the appropriation act people who have managed to get an amendment again that was championed by Rokana to 17 it should be voted on either tonight or tomorrow morning so that if you want to get a quick call to your cumbersome it's maybe still time to do it but that would be inserting a sense of congress that there needs to be diplomacy to end war and that would be since we are not at the time where we are passing H.R.S. 152 yet if we can get the first amendment in then that would mean we have a sense of congress saying clearly we need to end the war those are the two actions now that are in congress and thank you a lot for your attention and I hope that if you'd like any more information on Korea I'm happy to give you more information thank you so thank you so much I just want everybody to feel like what it's like that it was the United States of America that kept families separated from each other like moms couldn't see their kids brothers or sisters for 70 years like imagine that imagine the person you love lives across the line it's the United States of America and you died without seeing that person that's what we just did so just to sit here with we heard about the humanitarian crisis it's another form of a humanitarian crisis we heard about Funglaudi about Venezuela and about that we're starving people we're starving the Mekuva and Venezuela and Iran that's basically what you're hearing is this behavior is atrocious and now we are also seeing it on the border so I want to rip a little off of what you said because what's interesting is that we're talking about peace with North Korea after 70 years and what happens is the progressives freak out North Korea we can have peace with North Korea and we saw a poll that came out around that and it was the first time in history that more women were against a peace treaty than for it so we kind of freaked out a little bit and said oh my god we're failing if this is happening so we've been trying to like nurture the idea of having a feminist form policy think tank because there aren't enough people speaking on feminist form policy so I want you to meet Katie who's been spending the summer doing research to help us create that and maybe Katie tell us what you're doing can everyone hear me alright I'm so glad that some people came out tonight because it's such an important event with so many brilliant amazing people and so much important information being shared my name's Katie as Jody said and I'm working with Jody and Code Pink if you're here at the People's Forum a lot or if you work here you probably see me in the code review space with my laptop just huddled over it so in the past few weeks I've been working on a new project that Code Pink is hoping to launch for the next year feminist form policy think tank so feminist form policy is something that has really just recently become a common talking point and if you Google it you'll see a lot written about Sweden and Canada which are two countries that have stated that they're going to put issues of gender at the forefront of the way they conduct their form policy and that sounds great right sounds being the keyword there but when we look a little closer at countries like Canada and Sweden we sort of start to see the cracks in the way that they claim to advocate for gender equality in their foreign policy I'm going to focus on Canada a little bit Canada for example has historically sold weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia which has a long track record of visiting women's rights activists bombing Yemen as we've heard and contributing to one of the most devastating famines of human history and murdering journalists as we've also seen very recently so selling weapons to Saudi Arabia doesn't really add up in a feminist foreign policy it's also important to note that Canada itself has issues with gender equality missing and murdered Indigenous women make up about 16% of all reported murders in Canada but only represent 4% of Canada's population so Canada itself has issues with gender equality so it doesn't really have a leg to stand on lecturing other countries Hillary Clinton also comes up very frequently when we're talking about feminist foreign policy I'm sure we have a lot of fans here Clinton was the first US Secretary of State to say that she was planning on centering gender equality in foreign policy but that's when we have to ask is it really feminist to stage a coup in Honduras that ushered in political chaos and resulted in an increase of violence towards women and LGBTQ activists all because better to the purpose of the United States and which has led to the crisis of the border that we're seeing now so when starting off this project what we've been trying to do here at Code Pink is really see who exactly is thinking writing, speaking about feminist foreign policy and what exactly are they saying we're trying to find thinkers who really take an anti-imperial anti-war and anti-militarization stance on foreign policy issues specifically about the impact that these policies have on women we're hoping to get an amazing collective of thinkers together to really work on drafting tangible foreign policy that seeks to end war and work towards peace both abroad and at home and you know that includes people thinking about Palestinian liberation, immigration, US drone strikes Puerto Rican independence and US intervention in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and so in working with all of these different people and with all of these different policies and backgrounds and fields we think we can really create a feminist anti-imperial foreign policy that works towards peace both here and abroad both at home and abroad thank you also a key of our feminist foreign policy is that we're trying to end war but we're not going to end war until we get the war economy because it's serving the war economy so we will continue to work to end war but we also work to cultivate local peace economies because in cultivating a local peace economy we create the practices for the peace economy that will replace the war economy and if we think we're just going to end something without something to replace it, it's not going to have it and I have a friend who said more people think that the world is coming to an end then you can end capitalism and so we also work to end the war economy and build local peace economies and I want to interview Valerie there you are who's been for the last year, more than a year putting up two articles on what it is to cultivate a local peace economy and you can find them where Valerie I had said an immediate institute alternate from on how they dream and progress all over the internet so if you're looking for a buy line get inspired read about the local peace economy we all need to be cultivating a local peace economy economy means making home so a daily reflection on what kind of home am I creating and what is the energy of my life investing in self-med it's a nice reflection you'll learn a lot of things you can check out the cookpink website cookpink.org peace economy we're going to bring up Momo Manalan she's a Filipino-American writer from Miami majoring in human rights at Columbia University and has been witnessing the environmental devastation of her mother's village she's pursued climate justice organizing and she's a member of Gabriella, New York across the state of the nation did your son want to say something? did your son want to talk? I'm going off so I'll give him the floor before I talk Hi, can you hear me? Hi my name is Momo thank you so much for having me so to discuss the Philippine situation the human rights situation I'm going to go through the three different wars that the Duterte US regime has waged against the people and just to also think of the many ways in which war manifests in our respective homelands so the first war that is most notable across the world is the war on drugs and so far the Philippine national police has reported a very conservative number of people who have been killed under this operation which was around like 6,000 8,000 people but human rights research institutions and activist groups have reported upwards of 30,000 people mostly people who have been poor street peddlers and while big name drug lords like for instance the case of Peter Lim has remained untouched or has been able to defend themselves in court and just to give context we can imagine Madison Square Garden only fits 20,800 people so that would be overflowing with the bodies that have been ravaged after this war and so yes like all of these killings have been at the hands of police agents and death squads the president himself has also operated one the death squad while he was the mayor of the city also known as the Danvao death squad he has repeatedly admitted to even committing sexual violence against people who worked for him and has even admitted to murdering somebody in his past as well and has no shame for admitting those things just recently two weeks ago Duterte's youngest victim was a three-year-old toddler named that two weeks ago while her father was dis-expected of being a drug dealer and while the police have reported that he used her daughter as a shield against bullets the mother that has survived of her husband and her daughter said that the police actually barged in and ambushed them while they were asleep and her daughter was killed by an unwarranted bullet and so Duterte has also mentioned that many of these killings especially involving children he's called them collateral damage that police can kill up to hundreds of thousands of civilians without criminal liability and on the other hand while Duterte has made no efforts to safeguard the livelihoods of Filipino women after all these killings he has made an effort to prioritize US policies such as the visiting forces agreement and the enhanced defense cooperation agreement and obviously these operations so for instance under the visiting forces agreement US government can retain jurisdiction over their military personnel if they're accused of committing crimes in the Philippines unless they are deemed of particular importance to the Philippines the US can refuse or can also just refuse to have their military personnel arrested or in very rare cases they can also persecute them themselves but there's only been two cases that have been notable for under these policies which was a gang rape case that happened in the 90s and then in 2014 a trans Filipino woman named Jennifer Laude was raped and murdered by a US Marine in a US military base and among others that have not been tried or even given an investigation so there are many others that have not gained international I guess attention and then under the enhanced defense cooperation agreement the US military can erect bases around the Philippines anywhere rent free they can require the armed forces of the Philippines to access any part of the Philippines they can conduct activities that they don't have to report to the Philippine government yeah and just because of due to heightened militarization in the now which is leading on to the second war against the indigenous people in the Philippines the Philippines has also just been a strategic location for its resources it's fickle and obedient political assistance of the US and the scattered islands just make it ideal for warfare so since May 2017 this is the war against the indigenous people the southern part of the Philippines which comprises mostly of indigenous people the Philippines has been under martial law and it has had its second extension this year I'm going to fire through this one really quickly but basically what has not been reported is that there have been since 2017 30 aerial bombardment operations which have led to around 300,000 to 600,000 people being displaced killed and there's red tagging of schools who've been trying to defend their schools things like that on teachers activists who've also been detained and even questioned here upon arriving to talk about the stop the killings in the Philippines and I didn't get to the verbal but that one is against the activists which of course some of the things that I mentioned are examples of it but one of the things that I wanted to mention was the underground movement in the Philippines and just to also heighten the fact that the Philippine people are very resilient and that they are among themselves to again stop all this madness that is happening in their communities right so after hearing all of these things right it only makes sense that all of this violence has to be stopped by violence and so the national democratic movement which Gabrielle is also a part of what we're trying to achieve is the democratic rights of the Filipino people and sovereignty by ridding land lordism foreign imperialism from the US and not recently just China corrupt government officials and monopolies it's very multi-sectoral there's women, there's youth and students there's church leaders, there's peasants encompass most of the Philippine society and why is it that elections or reform isn't enough it's because well we've seen in the past we've had puppet presidents we've only been able like we have Gabrielle represented in congress but has the conditions of women in the Philippines improved it hasn't and yes and so to be able what we see in the Philippines is that people are combining armed struggle and legal struggle to be able to regain their sovereignty and to protect the people who are really ravaged by all these three different wars that the US regime has waged against them and I think when you talk about wars we don't think about a people's war because that's not originating from the US war machine these are people arming themselves to protect their villages from being bought from their children being killed it's through violence that we can end violence I think it's just important to bring up this quote by Chairman Mao he says we are advocates of the abolition of war we don't want war but war can only be abolished through war and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun and we see that in Mindanao that the armed struggle is also very real Mindanao is also very much an example of how successful armed struggle has been through Spanish colonization through US imperialism up until Japanese occupation and yes, I've already laid examples of how the US, the state of the regime has bombed Mindanao and they know how strong it is because they have not been completely colonized by the Spanish so there is remnants of our sorry but if you want to get involved and if you have any questions I do have flyers we have five events coming up this month to denounce China from attacking Filipino fishermen there's also a people's state of the nation address that we're also organizing around and you can also just come to the planning meetings and you can also join Gabrielle in New York if you'd like so next I want to bring I think we can or do Q&A with those I think let's go through and then we'll do a Q&A at the end it's so sorry you want to come you got a babysitter Hi everyone, I'm Sam one of the local co-peak organizers I'm Laura, my little baby who has experienced a lot of protests divestment related things and the auntie that told her is one of the producers of the Iraq Tribunal if you ever wanted information that you need on the Iraq Tribunal Sierra was one of the producers it's a hundred testimonies on the costs and the lies around the Iraq and it's on the Q&A so we heard about the issues that are going on globally and the US's role in creating these conflicts and fueling these conflicts and exacerbating these conflicts so what do we do locally how can we make a difference in the New York area in ending war, preventing war intervening in war and what strategies do we have as just everyday people as organizers, as activists what can we do to make a difference is one of those strategies so we'll hear from a lot of expert leaders who are working on very different divestment campaigns we've had a lot of successes and also a lot of challenges divestment is a long game it's not, we don't have a lot of flashy victories all the time but when we do have the victories it's amazing why are these conflicts persisting why is the US continuing to fuel war across the world because it makes money, because it's profitable all of our institutions locally are invested in war our universities, our banks our pension plans every institution you can think of is invested in weapons manufacturers so here what we're trying to do is to divest our everyday institutions, our everyday actions our individual lives from the war machine so you're going to hear from a bunch of amazing people on how to do that and then we also want to have an open forum Friday once I come up to ask questions to talk about the work that you're doing and to hear from all of you so first we're going to hear from Mark Elliott Stein who I can let you introduce yourself but he's going to give us sort of a big picture of what is divestment and why is it important awesome thank you this is such an amazing gathering I'm so inspired to see all of the people here so I'm Mark Elliott Stein I'm with a group called World Beyond War we work closely with Code Pink we love Code Pink and it's great to meet you finally Jodi I don't think we've met before but work with Sarah on BlackRock it's on investment actions which were just amazing so World Beyond War is a group that tries to work with other organizations we don't try to be an umbrella for all-piece organizations but we do try to publish a lot of material organize activities we have an annual conference next year it will be in Limerick, Ireland not this year it will be in Limerick, Ireland in September sorry in October last year it was September in Toronto so anyway the annual conference is really amazing I also have kicked off a podcast there and what we're really trying to do with the podcast is connect the peace activist community and we're trying to really emphasize the human side of anti-war activism because it is it's rough out there for all of us as anti-war activists in the United States of America or wherever else you're from and it's great to hear from international people as well here but it's rough out there for all of us we face a lot of division we face a lot of skepticism most of us like myself our own closest relatives don't understand what we're doing they may believe us that we're serious about it but they don't quite understand it and I think it is so important right now that we avoid being demoralized and I know we all struggle with that so honestly that is the I hope you'll all check out the podcast that we do, I do it with another a woman named Greta Zara who some of you have met and we're really trying to reach out I'm sure we're going to be interviewing many people here on the podcast but anyway divestment is to me something that we need to do as really one of the core activities of the anti-war movement and it is I just wanted to remind everybody that divestment is not just something that started in the 1960s with the amazing movement in South Africa but actually really is connected to what Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks did economic boycott has deep roots within the peace movement and we all need to really embrace this movement as something that is an activity that shows that we can work together shows that we are strong together and again this is what I think in our critical times when we face so many challenges we need to prove that we can work together and I sometimes ask especially as this country enters into an election season some of my friends say we really need to get out the vote sometimes I want to say no we need to get out in the streets I'm not sure I mean you know are we living in a failed state we have to ask this question are we living in a failed world are we ready to take over well it's us who are newer so anyway um that's really all I wanted to say the main divestment actions that I've done with political parties switch to the teonics because it's a private prison institute so we saw their faces now my friend Jan who was there with me you actually recognized Larry Fink as he walked by and we saw the look on his face and I'm not sure a lot of people knew that he walked by and looked at our protest this is the CEO who we were protesting so you know we have impact in big ways and little ways and this is what we do so come to our world beyond world conference again October Ireland it's going to be amazing um thank you um I wanted to ask is it okay if I switch it for you to go next because I wanted to kind of you can also not so before we have two awesome city council related campaigns that I wanted to go into first I actually wanted to bring up the defund hate campaign which is a divestment from private prisons because it's so timely and there's such recent successes that just today there was an amazing protest of the amazon tech conference and it goes to show how all facets of our society are invested in war and it's not only military conflicts around the world it's the paging and surveillance and killing of immigrants and refugees here in the US um so I wanted to actually bring that up first as a success before we segue into ways you can plug into current campaign sorry to switch it up a little I say people you say power people power people power I say people you say power people power people so a little bit of why I do this work I'm an immigrant trans man who's been dealing with the system and stuff so that's why I do the work I do a little bit on the campaign that we have been working on for the past two two and a half years so backers of hate is a campaign to really come after different corporations that have been financing pain that have been financing the murders of our communities and what I mean by that is that this came out of like whenever we were doing worships around like prison, district complex and pension district complex we kept talking about the cycle of okay so there is there's a leg that gives the money to the year group and to court civic and then that money goes into positions and then that becomes a new jail or rather right but one of the things that we started thinking about is like well some of the folks that are given that money who are lending that money to court civics and year group will actually expand those private prisons and private detention facilities so I want to ask a question to you all how many people do you think that we're being detained for night for immigration purposes in 1980 you can say a number huh 20 okay so it was between 30 and 50 people in 1988 how many people do you think we're being detained for night in 1996 150 or 150 and I was sorry in New York City and I think you should remind us who's the president in those times too okay okay so it was Reagan, it was Reagan in 80 just so we know it was a Republican and it was the birth of like neoliberalism right like the 80s right so it's 8600 before in 1996 by 2012 we have 35,000 vets that are filled per night with communities that are being detained and today we have 46,000 vets so we have we started with 30 to 50 in 1980s we're up to 46,000 right now and there is a massive expansion that brings in money right and because there is social control we're not able to put our communities behind bars and so we started looking into which were the banks that gave the money to Corsivics in Europe and the two that came out the most two minutes oh shoot that was fast well the short version of that so Chase and Wells Fargo and so we decided to really go heavy on Chase here in like in the New York area to make action more than a hundred more than a hundred people in those 12 actions and one particular action in May day with over 500 folks we went to Jamie Diamond in the early bright morning to say well fuck you they're fucking up our community we're gonna wake you up until you wake up and so it was like bright in the morning we did direct actions we interrupted one of the largest financial conferences where Jamie Diamond was speaking after all that pressure that we were able to put in Jamie Diamond Chase decided to say we're not gonna renew any contracts with Corsivics or Deer Groups or any companies that actually are expanding other prisons and so and so what he said is that which is really awesome is that all their banks that we also have so we were also targeting Wells Fargo they also decided to go on on record and this was a two year campaign but there are all their banks that are now following through right and so US Bank is following as well as Sun Trust is following and we are pushing really hard so that part of us can also say that they're not gonna be giving any money or finance any of this to massive developers right so that's part of the work and you can have any questions one thing I was gonna mention real quick just because it's happening soon this campaign was successful because of people's testimonies and this campaign particularly was successful because of friends, women that weren't the tensions who spoke about their experiences so loudly and interrupting insider or their meetings and so if you want to film and support our communities there is a Pushwick Pride event it's in July 28th it's a Pride Parade but it's also like our assistance, anti gentrification parade to reclaim the streets Pushwick right now is becoming very white so what we're doing with this parade is that we're gonna say well trans people of color that having here for a really long time for people of color that having in Pushwick who were welcome here and this is our neighborhood we're gonna be taking back and join or give this information so that folks can see it and we can see the question yeah we're gonna so I wanted to actually put that first because it's such a great success that we want to be inspired by the private prison divestment movement to continue our weapons divestment movement so I wanted to bring up Kathleen from ICANN NYC to speak about a way that you can plug in to get involved with a clear weapons divestment movement locally sitting there with Sarah's gorgeous baby and hear about all these children dying in Yemen and sorry my name is Kathleen Sullivan and I'm the director for Hibakusha Stories which is a group here in New York City that brings atomic bomb survivors into New York City high schools primarily we work in public schools and over the last eight years we brought first-hand witness to around 45,000 New York City high school students and what I was starting with was just to say and we're a member organization of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons and there's a group of us here in New York that are working on the divestment campaign which I'm going to get to momentarily but I just wanted to start by acknowledging how difficult it is to be in this room and hear about the struggles that are happening all over the world and I fell in love with Sarah's baby in about two seconds and let me think about all the children all over the world who are suffering from the kind of world that the people in this room want to create is an inspiration I do want to take issue with the idea that violence can cure violence I'm very interested in hearing more about what is happening in the Philippines and we have active ICANN members who are doing outstanding work in the Philippines but I do think that hearing the testimony of atomic bomb survivors and thinking about the fact that we have nuclear violence in the world, there is no bigger gun than a nuclear weapon and I think that really what that speaks to is the fact that there's always going to be a bigger gun there's always going to be a bigger boot that is stomping on our collective heart minds and we really need to think about the efficacy and the inspiration of non-violence so I just, I wanted to briefly I have three minutes, okay so which is not to take away from the excellent work that is obviously being done by Momo and others here so I hope that that is not, I just needed to say that right what we are doing in New York City is very exciting we are working with the City Council again reflecting on all of the comments here in the room New York City has a very progressive City Council at the moment and we are being championed by council member Daniel Drom he is from Jackson Heights and Queens he is a very important person on the City Council because he is the finance chair so a lot of people like to kowtow to Danny so that their regions can get the budget that they are looking for Danny is was a high school teacher he was also very involved in the anti-nuclear movement in the 80s so this is something that is very, very dear to his heart we have two pieces of legislation before City Council and I've got a flyer to pass out so that you can be conversant on this we are encouraging everybody to call their council members we have ten co-sponsors so far on both of these bills which means that we are a third of the way there the first resolution is Resolution 976 which essentially reaffirms the nuclear weapon free zone of New York City but it also calls on the Comptroller to divest New York City pension funds from nuclear weapon producers we have a pension fund totaling around 92 billion dollars and there are about 20 companies that the pension funds invest in that are part of manufacturing or processing nuclear weapons so that is part of this resolution it also calls on the New York City Council to endorse the ICANN cities appeal which I can give Sarah all these links so that you can look this up later so that is very exciting that's a resolution but what is even more exciting to our mind is the bills 1621 this is a local law that would establish a committee that would meet for five years at least four times a year producing a report each year and this committee could suggest different things that could be researched different policies that could be implemented that all have to do with reaffirming our status as a nuclear weapon free zone so for example many people in this room may not know that there are places throughout the five boroughs that once were storage facilities for uranium that was used in the Manhattan project some of these places may not be remediated from their radioactivity to appoint the communities one of these buildings now houses the High Line office on 20th Street in Chelsea which back in the day was a little bit of an outback wild west of Manhattan and now we know what Chelsea is like we want to send people in with their Geyer Pounders to make sure that the communities are safe from these places where uranium was once stored there are other things that we can do that further the divestment project that a group of us are taking to the Comptroller last year Danny sent a letter to the Comptroller suggesting that New York City divested pension funds and we had support from 25 council members to low hanging fruit New York City would be the first city in the world that would have a commission that was not only from the city council but also from the mayor's office including at least five different experts, activists, academics that are working in this field to suggest ways that New York City can sound the alarm about the unraveling of nuclear arms treaties that the Trump Administration has been going through I'll just say one more thing which is that just last month on June 11th the Pentagon published a paper that actually argued for the efficacy of using nuclear weapons in a war fighting capacity I just want to read you this quote that the Pentagon published a document on June 11th called Nuclear Operations asserting that nuclear weapons actual views would quote create conditions for decisive results and restoration of strategic stability I mean these are, that's insane but that is part of the federal policy right now and if we have the successful divestment campaign which we're moving along with and if we also have a committee that reaffirms New York City to keep submarines and surface weapons out of the ships that come in from Fleet Week there's a lot that we can do and it would be educating the public it would be sounding the alarm and it would be continuing our work together to abolish nuclear weapons and abolish war, thank you 5 minutes so we can have Q&A and like make a link networking so now we have Tom from the not a divestment campaign this is a parallel campaign that has a lot of the same overarching values and goals so I'll let him and it's a great way to plug into a coalition of activists here in the city Hi everybody can you hear me okay in the back? Great to be here thank you Code Pink for putting this together thank you to the people's forum also for this amazing space which is a real resource for the entire movement the movement money campaign New York City is relatively new we got rolling officially last year when we found one city council person who was willing to take the idea that we need to reduce military spending significantly and move those monies into our community what does that mean to move it into our community they're talking about all the public services that are provided in New York that we need more of we need to fix our schools we need to fix our subways we need to make everything more affordable we need the housing that people can afford public housing has been under under attack for 40 years private housing we all know about gentrification there's none housing that's available for most working people in the city and what we're trying to do and what we are successfully starting to do is put together a broad based coalition as we can a loose coalition of all kinds of city based organizations that are focused on any of those issues that are peace groups that are veteran groups that are you name it I think it's one of the one of the organizations here in New York is one of our co-sponsors I see ICANN I think it's a co-sponsor and we have a bunch of different neighborhood based groups as well we need to continue to expand out we're doing our best in the People's Republic of Brooklyn we need to do better up in the Bronx further out the way up in the boroughs so we still have a ways to go just today we learned that the 8th city council member has come on board as a co-sponsor of resolution 747 I'm passing around a little flyer I'm passing those postcards out in hopes that you will actually fill it out and print if you do it and then turn it back in after we finish look for me what we're doing with those postcards it's a combination of things it's a way to get out in the street and to reach people it's a way to when we get enough of them for any particular city council person to walk in with a delegation and say we've been working a lot of people in your district feel strongly about this and so we're continuing to do that in the meantime we are already filling delegations to the various city council members some people are reaching out individually some have written letters some have fallen their city council people and bit by bit we've built up a little head of steam but why are we reaching out to the city council some of you might ask they're not the ones in Washington who are passing these budgets the answer in part is the peace movement has been reaching out to congress for years and for years we've gotten pretty much the same results we want to change the narrative we want that movement to start at the grassroots where the people are we're working people are we're poor people are we're even middle class people are we all of us suffer a bad subway system for example many of us suffer what our kids are and over crowded schools two minutes right see so we want that the narrative to change the people at the base have to get their city council people those who are closest to our communities the ones that should be speaking up on behalf of our communities they're the ones that should be making a lot of noise and putting pressure on the senior politicians who show up as the congressional representatives and so on we're starting at the city council also because the city council can hold hearings public hearings and we want the public to come out for those hearings we want the public to testify about the conditions and what we need and we want to establish a record how much do we need to fix the schools how many billions of dollars is going to take to fix the subways what is it going to take to provide mental health care what is it going to take to provide proper care for our veterans who are also victims of these wars there's so many different needs seems like we have a big budget of $10 billion not a small amount of money but what can we do let's say with an extra $10 billion a year for example we could do a lot and it would be a step towards moving the military budget in the opposite direction starting to shrink it down and the last thing is we are in the communications headquarters in the United States here in New York if we can get this movement rolling into New York other cities are going to want to do it too in the past there have been moved by resolutions but they never held public hearings they never called for public hearings I think we can learn from the ICANN people because what you are trying to do is establish an ongoing process that will happen over a period of years I think we will probably learn from you so that's what we are up to I hope you will be supportive of it and we ask each and every one of you who likes this idea if you are part of an organization and the flyer I passed out you will see an e-mail address at the bottom and it is also printed in very tiny print on the postcard but use your flyer it is easier and you can reach us and we will reach back out to you so thank you thank you great job speaker but before Rose goes we wanted to ask Abdul Ali's son wanted to say something do you want to speak what's your need go Thomas go Thomas and maybe give him the mic so cause yeah just hold it close to your mouth so today I am going to be in war if you don't if you can see that kids have been dying everywhere and the war it's been taking they have been fighting for a long time in this war and then all the kids parents dying and they have dreams that we all want to dream we all have dreams but they can't dream what they want to cause they need to go over the country they wanted to take over they wanted to take over steal all the food and everything if you can feel in your heart imagine if that was you imagine if that was your shoulder or imagine if that was and you are going to feel with all your heart nothing and emotional thank you hi everybody my name is Rose I usually hear pronouns I am taking off my coat pink hat putting on my former student organizer hat I just graduated NYU and I am going to talk a little bit about boycott divestment sanctions movement at NYU if you have been following it it's been a little bit of an eventful year for us to say the least in eventful few years so I am just going to talk about what BDS is, why it matters what we have done and how you can get involved if I show of hands can I see who is familiar with the BDS movement so mostly everybody which is good so the way I think about BDS is that it's kind of the rule of threes it's for the three ramified groups of Palestinians those who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinian refugees who live in exile who were displaced at some point during Israeli colonialism and then Palestinians living in the occupied territories and BDS is a movement where these three groups have come together to put forward three collective demands that addresses specific problems that be said each group so the first demand of BDS is that Palestinian citizens of Israel be granted full equality that's not the case right now there is a de facto apartheid system happening not only in the West Bank, not only in Gaza but in Israel itself where Palestinian citizens are second class citizens and then the second demand is that the occupation, the 52 year military occupation in West Bank and the siege of Gaza comes to an end and then the third demand is that Palestinian refugees be given the right of return the context for this is that in 1947 to 1949 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes by early Zionist militias and then what became the Israeli defense forces so Palestinians in 2005 called upon the international support of BDS is an explicit act of solidarity it's not just a normal divestment campaign it's listening to the people who are most directly impacted and saying this is what you have asked us who are not Palestinians who are not directly impacted to do and we are answering that call and this movement has gained a lot of traction on college campuses and that's where my work and the work of NYU students for justice in Palestine and Jewish boys for peace comes in so first it's difficult to try to work towards a divestment campaign in an institution that is apparently unjust NYU is a very evil institution they've been eating up they've been eating up lower Manhattan since they've been there they've displaced so many residents who have been there for generations gentrification is kind of the name of the game with NYU and it's just getting worse so we have to reconcile what it means to work within an oppressive institution while trying to better it so that's something that we organizers always juggled and then so that's just context so our BDS campaign definitely a marathon is not as great it was a three year campaign it began three years ago our divestment resolution passed December of last year with a super majority of the student government which was really exciting but the process to get there there are a lot of steps that go into a divestment campaign and the most important thing that we did at first was just laying the groundwork for it and creating coalitions because you're not going to be able to convince an institution to divest if the people whom the institution governs or who belong to the institution aren't all actively calling for it so we built a coalition of 70 plus student clubs totally over 10,000 students at NYU who all came out and supported BDS and their clubs all signed onto our resolution supporting the boycott divestment and the next year we did a different resolution regarding NYU's campus and Tel Aviv which we do have which is inherently discriminatory against Palestinian students and also students who support BDS because Israel actually bans people to support BDS from entering the country so also direct contradiction to academic freedom so we laid this groundwork we showed massive support for BDS on campus and then we did a targeted campaign of General Electric Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar which are all three corporations that commit really egregious crimes particularly in the occupied territories and what it really is about is showing our own institutional complicity and showing that by belonging to these institutions we are all complicit and we have to take accountability and not only hold our institutions to account but also holding ourselves to account and recognizing the role that we play in perpetuating these systems of violence so after laying all the groundwork and getting all these groups in support it was a huge fight to get it past allegations of this and that were coming our way people saying that were terrorist synthesizers that were anti-Semitic, that were this and that ironically half of us working on it are Jewish myself included but at the end of the day when you make the case to people that human rights are at stake and that we have our hands dirty by this it's too compelling to ignore it's too compelling to say that I am actively engaged with these human rights violations and I'm just going to look the other way and this case resonated with our student government it passed by I believe it was 34 yeses 14 noes, 14 abstentions and yeah that's kind of the point of which we're at now and why you obviously are not divesting any time soon but you know the argument that we make is that even though we don't expect our institutions to divest the first time around with South Africa it took 15 years for a university to actually divest BDS was very damn BDS was founded in 2005 and right now we're laying the ideological groundwork that then becomes material they heard on the road and if any of you want to get involved in activism around Palestine I just wanted to recognize Fatima if you want to raise your hand she doesn't like public speaking but she's involved in a lot of the on the ground stuff that's going on that you can talk to her after and I think we're at our last speaker but you don't want to mention our BDS campaigns do you want to talk to it? well Elbit so CodePink has an Elbit campaign which is the largest military contractor in Israel and they're actively involved in the militarization of the US border in terms of surveillance and detention and they're also actively involved in the siege of Gaza and a lot of the violence that's going on in the occupied territories they hold numerous contracts within US government and we're working on basically protesting them pressuring them any way they can to sever their contract so that we are not complicit in these human rights violations yeah, so we have our last speaker right? so he's going to try to loop everything together and talk about congressional divests, talk about some other things and we also we have some time for Q&A and mingling and we have some food left so he doesn't need to can everyone in the front row hear me? you're going to have to use the mic because you actually have a light voice I'm going to speak loud enough I'm going to speak loud enough I am working with CodePink's investment in the war machine I'm heading up the campaign to get Princeton University to examine their investments in government and industry also field prison industrial complex it is going to be slow-going and it's going to be absolutely torturous Princeton University has 25 billion dollars in their endowment they earn one billion a year from their investments the students who in the public policy department of Woodrow Wilson School pay $60,000 for their program their ambition is to be in government to be in Wall Street but their parents who said oh we're going to pay the $60,000 for the people from the endowment when they're interviewing the students none of the students when they interviewed for the school say I want to be like Jan Weinberg when I grow up and be a professional in hassling the government because they'll never be admitted the head of the Princeton University trustees is Joshua Bolton not to be confused with John Bolton Joshua Bolton is the chairman of the business round table the most powerful wealthiest lobbying organization on the planet earth I met my match and I'm going to harken back to something that conversation that I had 15 years ago with Ralph Mayer because I met him many years ago and I spent an hour with him when I was 22 years old we got back together and I said Ralph after all of these years are you doing what you're doing as a consumer advocate just about everything that's worse what keeps you going and he said Jan I want you to know something you're one of the few people who never ask you for anything or any connections you're one of the few people who are really out there just doing it all the time but I have to tell you what keeps me going you have to enjoy hassling the government and I said yes thank you this is what I need to keep me going I really enjoy harassing the government and I do it every single day the things that Princeton University students are not taught I'm going to go over a few things I like it when you do that I sit in a lot of lectures at Princeton University and I know a lot of the professors there and I challenge them all the time is the endowment and your position here curtailing the education for the political science students and they say to me as long as you don't tell anybody yes it does we'll only go over some starting examples of things that are not taught and that we do not hear presidential candidates speaking about it all a month ago Bowen gave 10 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation excuse me to the Obama Foundation I'll get into the whole thing let's circle back the Clinton Foundation was established in 2014 when Obama was the city president that is unethical going back to 2009 Obama assigned James McNerney the chairman of Bowen, the CEO to be the chairman of the president's export council to advise on international trade while James McNerney was the chairman of the business round table completely unethical that's not a revolving door that's simultaneous positions fast forward it's not quite pro quo because it's done many years later 10 million into the Obama Foundation a little sidebar Marilyn Houston from Rocky Martin was assigned by Obama to be on the president's export council to advise about international trade what did they advise about they advised about how to sell weapons systems versioning market these are things that are not talked about one other thing if I have just one more minute Congress has basically no say so when the president wants to sell weapons this is how it works it's completely unconstitutional because Congress advocated their authority President says I want to sell weapons systems to a specific country Congress then has 30 days to object if they don't object the sale goes through now only Congress according to the constitution can regulate international trade so sanctions, tariffs weapons sales is all unconstitutional that nobody who's running for president right now is calling out anybody on this if we examine who's on the senate on services committee it is astounding how much money historically has gone into their coffers and the promises of revolving door the positions once they leave office because they're assured from the business round table a board position in a different market sector that had been million a year to be on those boards I'm going to cut it off right there it's absolutely astounding what our government is doing but we need to understand why we're looking at the divest campaigns because of the corruption in government government corporate collusion leading to war fear environmental degradation etc you don't want to say anything about black rock? black rock black rock black rock is setting up a chorus in Saudi Arabia black rock is not going to listen to what we have to do until there's allies within our government it is absolutely astounding how black rock will say we need to have conscientious corporations for us to invest in which is completely critical and when Larry think walks by I recognize him and I like to say I hold up my divest from the war machine sign and I say hi Larry and he takes a look at it so yeah and people can join us at black rock at least once a month because we have to keep reminding them that they're making a killing on killing and Jody you notice I said that without any foul language yes thank you