 War is insane and stupid. Eighty percent of the people killed in wars are civilians. War is immoral, senseless, and illegal by the Nuremberg principles developed by the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War and by the Calabrian pact. There's millions of refugees and in addition wars don't work. They make more enemies than we can kill. They create more people who hate us and they sow the seeds for future wars. Wars are costly in terms of lives lost and in dollars. 180 million people were killed in wars in the last century and the killing continues unabated. The U.S. is presently bombing seven primarily Muslim countries and preparing for war with Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and trillions of dollars down the rathole of war and preparations for war. I had the opportunity to meet with John Kennedy in 1962 in the White House and he told us he'd been reading The Guns of August how before the First World War everyone was arming to the teeth to try to prevent that war from happening. And this is June, this is May of 1962. He said it's scary how similar the situation is now to what it was in 1914. We challenged him to challenge the Russians to a peace race and his response was you know a few folks are serious about that suggestion you need to go out and build a much more powerful peace movement that are going to encourage and support me to take that leadership. There are effective alternatives to war. Negotiation, mediation, supporting nonviolent movements, working for common security rather than national security. Common security meaning security for all of us, not one nation as opposed to others. We need to negotiate, sit down at the negotiation table and look at the legitimate concerns of all countries and all parties involved in a conflict and then look for common interests and concerns and submit to mediation or go to the International Court of Justice if we can't mediate or negotiate it ourselves. The institution of war must be abolished. The good news is that people all over the world are discovering the power of nonviolent action and nonviolent means of confronting dictators and governments which do not represent the people. Nonviolent people power movements have overthrown oppressive governments all over the world. India, Philippines, all over Eastern Europe in 89 including Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, in Serbia, Liberia, Chile, South Africa, Tunisia and most recently in South Korea where millions of citizens were out in the streets day after day for weeks and even months and have now and forced the the warlike president and corrupt president out of power and have now elected a president who's committed to making peace with North Korea. A great example for for the rest of us. It's also good news I think that the massive majority of people all over the world want peace and do not want war but our governments unfortunately continue their addiction to wars and military buildup as a means of finding security and resolving conflict. We the people of the world need to realize that we are the overwhelming majority of the world's people and I would guess maybe we're 95% of the world's people and we must demand that our governments end the institution of war and their addiction to war and put the hundreds of billions of dollars we presently spend on wars and preparations for wars into human and environmental needs including help make the transition to a renewable energy future so we don't need to fight wars for oil. This could create a better life for every person on the planet could be a giant Marshall plan and then instead of being at war with much of the world we could be the most loved loved nation on earth and much more secure. I wrote a letter to the Washington Post two days after September 11th of 2001 in which I said we've spent trillions of dollars trying to get security through the military and intelligence and it got us zero security on September 11th. Isn't it time that we tried something else and something similar to what I was just suggesting. Most of you probably know that Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stefan have written the book Why Civil Resistance Works in which they studied 323 violent and nonviolent movements over the past 110 years and found that the nonviolent movements are more than twice as likely to be successful as violent movements and are also much more likely to to end up in a democratic society and not revert to dictatorship or or civil war. We need to address the Russia phobia and the Putin phobia in this country. The deep state in the United States is addicted to war and preparations for war and are preparing for American war with Russia as we've heard and the U.S. and NATO troops tanks and fighter jets and planes loaded with bombs are on the Russian border. There is greater chance of nuclear war than anytime since the Cuban missile crisis. Instead of vilifying the Russians we need to put ourselves into the shoes of the Russian people and even of Putin. How would we feel if the Russians had troops and tanks and bomber planes on our borders? Instead of worrying so much what they might have done to try to influence our elections maybe we should also look at how much we've done to influence their elections and elections of governments all over the world and as we've heard something's very similar to what we're doing with Russia is happening with North Korea. So the very real danger of war with North Korea. As you may have heard North Korea has offered that if we make a peace agreement with North Korea and agree to recognize the existence of that state they will forego their nuclear developments. Well that would be much better than starting a nuclear war from my perspective. Unfortunately a perpetual state of war has become the norm with war with many Muslim and Arab countries preparing for war with Russia and North Korea ringing China and the U.S. with military bases preparing for a war with Iran. We the people must say no we will not put up with this madness. Johan Galtam who started many of the peace studies programs around the world and his work as a mediator in many conflicts around the world has predicted the end of the American Empire by 2020. That's good news but whether it's 2020 or 2030 or 2050 the American Empire will end just as all empires have ended. It's just a question of whether it will end by the U.S. fighting one war after another trying to hold on to our wealth and power and privilege our empire or will the American people join the world's people in making the transition from American Empire to a much more just sharing of the world's wealth and resources as peaceful as possible. In addition to ending the institution of war I see this as the greatest challenge before the American people. On February 15th 2003 probably most of us here joined 15 million people of the world demonstrating to try to stop the war with Iraq before it started. The New York Times called this the world's second superpower world public opinion but the problem was that that one day demonstration or any one day demonstration is not going to stop wars. We need sustained nonviolent resistance people in the streets and blocking arm shipments and blocking war maneuvers day after day after day. So if we want to end war we need massive nonviolent resistance and non-cooperation with the war machine. An example is Norberg actions out at Concord Naval Weapon Station where many of us blocked trains that were carrying bombs to Central America in the 80s. We blocked every train for two and a half years. Many across the country are refusing to pay taxes for war the 50 percent of our taxes that go to war and if Trump's budget goes through it'll be 57 percent of every tax dollar goes for war. So they need young bodies to go and fight the wars and they need the money from the rest of us and they need the silent you know stepping aside and letting them fight the wars well we have a say in what what what we do. There are peaceful alternatives to create security which could work. A global security system which World Beyond War has has has written and is on the back table there lays out what we see as a an alternative to war as a means to trying to achieve security and as I said before it be concerned about common security not just national security and it would be committing ourselves to negotiate our problems. World Beyond War has on our website the two trillion dollar choice before the world's people. Each year the world spends two trillion dollars for wars and preparations for wars. So we can either put continue to put two trillion dollars a year into wars and preparations for wars or we could put that two trillion dollars into creating a better life for every person on the planet. We the people of the world have that choice and we must demand that our governments listen to the will of the people and I encourage people to look at the 10 minute video that's on the top of our website worldbeyondwar.org. We need to build a broad based movement of all the groups which could benefit by choosing against militarism and war and for the needs of people in the environment. This includes people concerned about global warming, poverty and inequality, police brutality, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, student debt, concern about the loss of civil rights and civil liberties, terrorism and terrorism threats. We're really one need to see ourselves as one movement and we need and we need to see that our nation's addiction to war is a major cause and contributor to all these problems. I believe that our greatest enemy is people sense the powerlessness and hopelessness. We need to realize that we do have the power to create change even to end war. Martin Luther King said 50 or so years ago the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice and in a church basement with just 35 people he said we have the power in this room if we mobilize it to completely change the future course of America. Well King believed that and he helped other believe other people believe that too. I think we need to believe that. I've written this book Waging Peace Global Adventures of Lifelong Activists because I wanted to share my involvement in nonviolent movements and peace and justice making in this country and around the world over the past 60 years with the hope that these stories will inspire people that we can make a difference, that we can help make history. And just one of the very briefly one of the stories that I tell in here is when the United States started bombing Hanoi and Haifeng in December Christmas time of 1971 a bunch of us just tried to put ourselves in the shoes of the families in Hanoi and Haifeng and what it felt like to them and decided somehow we have to put our bodies between these bombs and the people in Hanoi and Haifeng. Well we did a little research and found that there was a navy base just about an hour and a half from Philadelphia where we were living and we found some canoes and it was 26 canoes and 52 people began blocking an armship that was taking bombs to Vietnam, the USS Nitro. Well on the sixth day we were out there paddling madly just straight right in front of the ship and seven sailors jumped off that ship and began swimming toward our people's blockade. Well those sailors got picked up by the navy and put in the brig but they told us later and this was on evening news and the New York Times etc. Those seven sailors told us later that when their ship went through the Panama Canal all the other navy ships had also all heard about the USS Nitro and those seven sailors and gave them the fist of solidarity. And about that time the resistance by U.S. soldiers to carrying out the orders in that war really intensified. So I like to believe that our courage gave courage to those seven sailors to do what they believed was right and their courage gave courage to a whole lot of other American soldiers to stop cooperating with the madness of that war. And if you've seen the film Sir No Sir you'll see that a major reason that war stopped was the American soldiers were no longer fighting it. So my hope is that these stories will inspire people that we can make a difference that we can help make history and put an end to wars and create a world with peace and justice and a sustainable world for our children and grandchildren and all future generations. I'd just like to end by reading a declaration of peace that over 60,000 people in 153 countries have signed and over 400 organizations that you can sign either on our website or there's a clipboard back on the table or several clipboards actually. It says I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protecting us. That they kill, injure, and traumatize adults, children, and infants. Severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies siphoning resources from life-affirming activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace. So thank you for joining us.