 All right. Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Good evening, depending on where in the world you are. My name is Sunnyvie Brighton. I am the digital managing editor here at Free Speech TV today on Facebook Live with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink. Thank you so much for joining us, Medea. Thank you, Sunnyvie, for having me on. It's great to be with Free Speech TV. Thank you. So let's jump right in for folks who may not know about Code Pink. Tell us a little bit about what you are, who you are, what you do. Well, first let me go back to when we started, which was right after the 9-11 attacks when the US had just invaded Afghanistan and was getting ready to invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11. And we, like many, many people around the country, organized, mobilized. We took the name Code Pink because the Bush administration had this color-coded alert system. And it was yellow, it was kind of metal, yellow, orange, get scared, red, get really scared. And it was keeping people in a state of fear that would justify the invasion of not just Afghanistan, but Iraq as well. And we chose Code Pink. Originally we wanted Code Hot Pink, but it was taken by a porn site. So we were Code Pink to say there's another way to deal with the 9-11 attack, which is go after the individuals who attacked us and not use it as an excuse to attack entire countries. And we did our job as citizens. In fact, we mobilized as a movement, millions of people in the United States and many more millions of people around the world to say no to that war. Unfortunately, George Bush didn't listen, went ahead. And here we are going to be 16 years later and in the case of Afghanistan, over 17 years later, and look at the mess of the Middle East, the disasters of these wars. So we continue to oppose U.S. interventions overseas and to look at how we can move the money from our military budget into things at home that are needed for improving people's lives on our planet and for helping people overseas as well instead of invading their countries. And certainly the invasion of Afghanistan, of Iraq absolutely contributed to the current state of things that we see in the Middle East. It was of course not the only thing. Western nations particularly have been intervening and mucking things up in the Middle East for kind of forever, yes? Oh yeah, you know, when there's all of this talk now about Russian interference in U.S. elections, I tell people, let's look at the history of U.S. interference in other elections. And why don't we look at Iran as an example where the U.S. actually overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953. And you can see over the decades how that has affected the situation. It actually led to the reimposition of the Shah in an incredibly repressive regime that led to people trying to overthrow the Shah, that led to the overthrow of the Shah, and the only place where people had to organize was really through the mosques. And that's why it became an Islamic revolution that was very anti-U.S. for good reason. And now fast forward many years today, and you look at the U.S. talking about another war in the Middle East in Iran, I say let's look at our history and learn from history for a change to see how our meddling in other countries has consequences that go on for decades and decades. And certainly speaking of history and the ways that we tend to repeat ourselves in history, you know, we're only 48 hours through out of the election day 2018. We did see some historic moves there, particularly when it comes to women, and I know Code Pink is a women-led organization. So I'm interested to get your take on what the historic influx of women, particularly women of color, LGBTQ women, we have our first Muslim women, we have our first Native American women in Congress. What are your hopes for kind of how that might shift the conversation at that legislative and federal level? Well, we're very excited that more women are in Congress and that we have moved from being one of the countries with the lowest number of women, at least to getting close to 25 percent women. But of course, it should be over 50 percent to reflect the population as a whole. But it's the issue is the quality of the women and some of the women are just spectacular. We are excited that in the new Congress, under Democratic control, we'll have more of a chance to bring up a lot of these issues about militarism that have been swept under the rug for the last two years. Let me be clear, though, the Democrats are not all that much better when Republicans, when it comes to support for militarism. They just passed an enormous military budget of over $700 billion for 2019. That is even more than the Trump administration asked for. And there were very few members of Congress. In fact, it was only 10 in the Senate and I think it was 54 in the House out of 435 who opposed that budget. And part of that is because so many of the members of Congress get money from the very weapons companies that benefit from the large Pentagon budget and frankly benefit from these wars. So we have a lot of work to do with the older members of Congress and the new members of Congress to highlight the stranglehold that militarism has on our political system and on our foreign policy and how bad this is for not only the countries that we invade, the places, the repressive regimes that we support, the countries like Saudi Arabia that we sell weapons to to create the disasters and neighboring Yemen, but it's also robbing money from us at home that we need for so many other important things. And I hope that in this Congress we can get some of these new very progressive members to highlight the importance of really talking about foreign policy in a new way, advocating for a different kind of foreign policy that supports diplomacy and nonviolent conflict resolution and goes at the issue of the military budget, which has been one that most politicians have not wanted to touch. Right, and certainly that question of the military budget and the massive scope of the U.S. military industrial complex does indeed seem to be one that most folks won't touch. It becomes very quickly devolves into a question of your patriotism and how much you love this country and don't you want us to be safe? So, you know, given that kind of historical weight and the shutting down of the conversation that tends to happen about that, you know, as an organization that's been around for a minute and has been having these conversations and organizing direct actions, what have you all at Code Pink found to be effective ways to move that needle and to break through into that conversation and make people start thinking critically about our priorities? Well, you're absolutely right. It's a conversation that unfortunately gets shut down too much, and we feel that now is the time to push for a conversation that talks about who is benefiting from all of these wars. I think a lot of people have suddenly become aware of Saudi Arabia, for example, as a country that shouldn't be a close U.S. ally. It took the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post correspondent or a journalist for people to open their eyes and recognize how bad this alliance is, and we hope that it will mean that they'll really see the disaster that the Saudis are causing in neighboring Yemen, where millions of people are either dying from hunger right now or about to die from hunger if we don't do something about it. And so we want to highlight that issue, and then we also want to get down to the issue of, you know, who really benefits from these wars? And there you have to talk about the weapons companies themselves, what we call the war profiteers, and we have a pretty new campaign at Code Pink that we're very excited about called Diversed from the War Machine, where we are asking our politicians to commit to not taking money from the weapons industry. Sudevi, if you look at every year how they vote on this massive Pentagon budget and how much of that budget goes right back into the pockets of the weapons industries who give our politicians money, that sounds pretty corrupt to me. I don't know how you see that. And when we talk to our members of Congress, we say to them, this is an absolute conflict of interest, and we really need you to commit to not taking money from those weapons companies. But this campaign goes way beyond that because just like the folks in the environmental movement have taken trillions of dollars out of the fossil fuel industry, we need to do the same thing around weapons. We need to get our pension funds, our cities, our universities, our places of worship to commit to not being invested in the war machine. Cities, every city could pass a resolution and look at where the money is invested and make sure it's not invested in weapons. And this is something that crosses not just the folks who are concerned about militarism overseas, but about all the weapons that are flooding our communities here at home, whether it's the militarization of the police or the weapons that lead to these mass shootings that have become almost a weekly occurrence in the United States. So we can divest from weapons at home and abroad. And as you're talking about this conversation, I have two points. One, I want to invite anyone who's watching on Facebook Live to please post your questions in the comments, and we'll pass them along here to Medea. But also, as you're talking about this kind of in-depth nuanced conversation that needs to happen and that really we're talking about looking at the structural impact of the war machine and how deeply ingrained it is, Code Pink actually moderated and hosted exactly such a discussion that we'll be airing on Free Speech TV on Sunday, November 11th at 8 p.m. on what some folks call Veterans Day, but Code Pink recognizes this Armistice Day. So you can tell me a little bit about why Code Pink makes that distinction between Veterans Day and Armistice Day. Well, first let me say we're really, really excited and grateful to Free Speech TV for having worked with us on this town hall and militarism, and we think that people are going to learn a lot when they tune into this and have this very in-depth discussion about such a critical issue. In terms of the Veterans Day, the first day that this program will air, we do call it Armistice Day, which is what it was called from the time that it was first declared in 1926 after World War I as a time to remember those who died, both the soldiers as well as the civilians, and really a call for finding ways to live in peace, finding ways to end war. Unfortunately, as part of the buildup of this military industrial complex, it was changed in 1954 to be Veterans Day, and we find that today it is really part of the glorification of the military. It's not a time to reflect on how do we end wars. And even those who say that Veterans Day is to thank the Veterans, I think Veterans Day has become so much of a time that has things like shopping for Veterans Day, sales on Veterans Day. People don't even use the time to reflect about war. So we think it's important to call it what it is Armistice Day and to recognize that around the world people are really hungering for us in the United States, particularly to rebuild a strong anti-war movement and what better time than on November 11th to reflect on the horrors of World War I, the horrors of World War II, the horrors of war in general and figure out how we as a nation can be a part of this global effort to move towards nations that learn to live in peace. And then one final question, I know that on the town hall that airs on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern, you do have at least one veteran, a former Army Lieutenant Colonel, or Colonel I believe, who who joins the conversation. And so I'm interested to hear kind of what you've heard from if there are Veterans who are members of Code Pink. We did a Facebook live with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabard a few several months ago, and she actually spoke about how Veterans are often some of the most outspoken activists for peace. And I wonder if you found the same thing in your organizing and if you have Veterans who are members of Code Pink and are going to direct actions with you and what that looks like. Yes, certainly in fact on Sunday we will be joining the Veterans who are doing a silent march in Washington D.C. from the Veterans Memorial to call for exactly the country to reflect on how we can build peace. And we have Veterans within Code Pink, we work very closely with groups like Veterans for Peace and some of the other Veterans groups like the one called about face that used to be Iraq Veterans against the war. And we think the voices of Veterans are so important because we need to show that the call for living in peace and focusing on diplomacy not war is not something that is anti-Veteran, in fact it's pro-Veteran. I just met a Veteran the other day who told me about how she had to leave her family five different times to go on tours in Afghanistan and in Iraq and how horrible it was for her, for her family, and how excited she was to learn about the movement of groups like Code Pink. So this is really for the people in the military to work with them so that they can really defend us at home and not be used as pawns in a foreign policy that keeps us in a state of perpetual war where the only ones who win from this are companies like the weapons manufacturers like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin or Boeing or Raytheon, General Dynamics. These are names, these companies that people in the United States should know and that their image should not be one of these great citizens because let's face it they use our tax money that they get from the Pentagon to tell us how good they are but they should really be the way Pope Francis talks about them seen as merchants of death. Well I think that that that gives folks a lot of a lot of material to think about. So we certainly thank you so much for your time. We invite everyone to join us for the Code Pink Town Hall and militarism on Free Speech TV and Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Premieres on Sunday November 11th Armistice Day at 8 p.m. Eastern and immediately following the conversation the premier will be participating in a live Twitter chat with you Medea and Code Pink and some of your partners using the hashtag divest from war and that'll begin at 9 p.m. Eastern on Sunday so we invite all of our viewers and everyone tuning in today to join us for that conversation and ask your questions about how you can get involved as well. Any closing thoughts Medea before we sign off here? Once again to thank Free Speech TV and say how important it is that we have these conversations and these town halls about militarism how we're excited about using Armistice Day as a time for people to really reflect and how the new Congress is an opportunity for us to say time to stop the weapon sales to the Saudis time to stop giving three billion dollars plus a year to the Israeli military that it's using to oppress the Palestinian people time to stop giving so much of our military support to repressive government like the one of Egypt and really to look at how we can turn our foreign policy around and lastly to say we think that anybody who calls themselves a progressive in Congress must join us on seriously looking at how are we going to cut our military budget and free up hundreds of billions of dollars for things like health care and free college the kind of things we really need in this country so thank you so much for having me on and thanks again to Free Speech TV. Thank you so much Medea and we'll see everyone on Sunday. Thanks for your time. Okay, bye-bye.