 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to transitioning to a peace economy pathways and perspectives. I would like you to I would like to know where everyone's from so please type in where you're from and your name so that we can get to know you a little better. My name is Katrina Canyon and I am the executive director of peace economy project. And I'll be the host for today's discussion. Before we get started, please note that this webinar. Is being recorded and will be available on our website later for viewing. We encourage you to submit questions at any time during the discussion via the Q and a function and after after at the end of the webinar, we will then. Pose your questions to the panelists. Now we'll start with a short poll that my friend Rachel here will put up. Do you understand the key factors of a peace economy? Yes or no. And it's okay if you don't, it's we just want to get a register of how familiar people are with peace economies. So, has everyone had a chance to answer the question Rachel. Okay, so it looks like 75% of you are familiar with a peace economy. Hopefully this webinar will help to enlighten your understanding and broaden your understanding of what a peace economy is. Today, we're honored to have two remarkable advocates for peace and justice. Michelle done of the Francis can action network and Jodi Evans co founder of code pink. Their extensive experience and passionate advocacy provide them with unique insights into the mechanisms of war economies and strategic approaches to advocating for peace and human rights. Now, without further ado, let's dive into today's session. First, we are going to start with me. Where I am going to provide you with a brief presentation on the foundations and principles of a peace economy. So, what is a peace economy? A peace economy is an economic system that prioritizes human and environmental well being and advocates for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. The objective of a peace economy is to reallocate resources from military spending to areas that promote public goods and enhance quality of life. And this is a very broad definition. I'm, I'm sure when Jodi speaks that she will have a different. I will let Jodi speak for herself as far as what a peace economy is, but this is very, very broad definition just to give you an understanding. The print the key principles of a peace economy have to do with sustainability equity and justice. Non violence and community and collaboration with sustainability. We with under a peace economy. We focus on renewable resources. And long term term healing of the environment. We want to ensure that there is fair distribution of these resources. And most importantly, in a peace economy, we like to focus on resolving issues through dialogue and in a non violent manner. And community and collaboration is also a very important aspect of a peace economy because we like to see things through dialogue and through diplomacy. The cost of military that now we're looking at the cost of militarization when, and when a, when a community or a nation or the world focuses on militarization, we see high expenditures. In one country decides that they need more weapons than other countries decide that they need more weapons and you see the, the, the spend rate go up really high when, when there's a focus on militarization. You see resources that are diverted from social programs to military spending and it's not just a few dollars it could, it goes into the billions where you'll see. See governments, instead of focusing that on education or the environment they're focusing on military spending. And it causes an economic inequality, especially when you think about how the money goes toward defense contractors instead of towards schools. And there's an extreme environmental impact when military activities significant and they significantly harm the environment. A prime example of is that the war in Gaza and its environmental impacts that it's having not only on the region, but on the planet as a whole. And now we're going to compare peace and militarized conflict. Oops, sorry, I went the wrong way there. In comparing peace with a militarized economy, we see that under under the main focus of a peace economy it's human well being in peace while under a militarized economy. It's national security and power under peace economy we have with conflict resolution we're focused on dialogue and legal institutions with military economy. We're focused on military forest and intimidation with resource allocation under a peace economy we're looking at public service and innovation under a militarized economy. We are looking at arms and militarization in a peace economy the economic priority is sustainable development on in a militarized economy we're looking at military capabilities. The benefits of a peace economy, you see social cohesion, economic stability, global reputation and environmental benefits. When with a peace economy you'll see things like higher litter literacy rates, better education. You have a country that is more stable economically. It improves their global reputation and they have usually have a really nice environmental impacts in those countries. Real world examples, Costa Rica, which is one of my favorite examples in 1949, the, the president of Costa Rica decided to get rid of all of their military, their military expenditures, and they redirected their funds toward health care. Peace economy project is currently working on a case study that we hope to have out and later in the year on Costa Rica. And there was Costa Rica is now at a 90 98% literacy rate, which, which happened after they decided to redirect their funds towards social and health care. Japan. They enacted article nine of the Japanese constitution renouncing war and focusing on food and economic sustainability. Butan is a has a high gross national happiness at index because they also focus on cultural wealth and material health. Hectorino we can't hear you. How about now. Thank you. Thank you. In conclusion embracing a peace economy offers sustainable and just alternatives to a militarized economic system, shifting priorities can lead to improve global global health equality and true security. And it's important that we advocate for policies that support peace over war because and sustainability over destruction because that is the way that we're truly going to save the planet. And so that's it for our introduction into a peace economy. And now I will move on to our panelists and we'll start with Michelle done of the Franciscan Action Network. Michelle, could you share with us your thoughts and ideas on a peace economy, particularly as as the moral imperative and. An ethical imperative of a peace economy. Sure. Thank you so much Katrina. Thanks for inviting me to be with you. I'm really, really excited to have this conversation with you and Jodi. And, you know, I'm a learner here. So I'm executive director of Franciscan Action Network. Here are a faith based justice and peace organization. And I only came to this a few years ago. So true confessions. I was part of the national security establishment in the United States. I worked for the US Department of State as a diplomat for almost 20 years and after that in think tanks that were the Carnegie endowment for international peace. And although I personally always had a strong interest in peace and human rights. As a diplomat, you're really very integrated with with the military machine, you know, of the United States and everything. So there's a lot about this that I'm, I'm still learning. And as I mentioned, I'm speaking to you from a faith perspectives. I am a lay Franciscan also known as a secular Franciscan. I'm not a, I'm not a, not a nun. I'm a lay person, but I'm a member of a religious order. So I'm very inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clair, as well as Pope Francis. And what I have to say today, it's really about taking that, that perspective, and, and saying how that informs can informed a faith based, you know, way of thinking about a peace economy. Because sometimes there's the, the idea that, you know, people of faith or Christians are are not with, you know, a peace economy. So, and I will say, I'll say a little bit about a couple of initiatives, real world initiatives that relate to this. But I want to share a couple of stories from the life of St. Francis, which I think show a deep connection between spirituality and thinking about a peace economy. There are many, many sayings of St. Francis that, that are very important to me as a lay Franciscan. But if there's one, I had to just pick out one that I think has been the single most inspirational to me. Here is what it is. At some, at one point, St. Francis said to his companions, look brothers, if we have any possessions, we'll need arms to protect them. And, and, and, and these possessions will cause many disputes, and they having a lot of possessions in the love of God and neighbor. Therefore, let us decide we don't want to possess anything in the world. So, you know, very often when people think about St. Francis and his, his bow of poverty, they're thinking about it just he always a pious person he wants to focus on prayer. But he had this very profound insight about the connection between wealth and privilege and violence. And that is in the first instance, why he gave up his possession. St. Francis came from a wealthy merchant family. This is in Italy in the, you know, late 1100s and 1200s. What he thought is that when, when, when a person or a group or whatever cling to wealth and privilege, then they end up having to use violence to defend that, or, or have someone use violence on their behalf. And it was because Francis rejected the use of violence that he said, let's not cling to our wealth, our wealth and our privilege. And I think this can be translated, you know, it could go from the individual level to the national level or whatever, that clinging to the inordinate wealth and inordinate privilege will require violence, warfare, coercive policing, so forth, to protect that. You know, Francis had participated in warfare as a young man there were, you know, the city states in Italy were fighting. And so our warfare between social classes, he had participated in these things and been taken prisoner. And he was a prisoner of war for more than a year he suffered very deep health effects, as well as post traumatic stress disorder from that experience and it became totally turned against the use of violence. I just, I think that's something for us to think about, right? Why is the use of violence required? Why is warfare required? It is because of clinging to inordinate wealth and privilege and disadvantaging others. So another reason why Francis gave up his wealth is because he refused to participate in economic exploitation. And again, you know, there was this odd thing about saying Francis that he refused, you know, once he had his religious conversion, he refused to touch currency, coinage, right? Which, and he didn't want his brothers or sisters or those who joined his movement, wanted them to avoid contact with actual currency as much as possible. Why was that? It was because it was a tool of exploitation at his time. They had this system at the time that the value of the currency was deliberately manipulated to exploit the poor and benefit the rich through periodic devaluations. It gets complicated, but basically poor people would be stuck with the devalued currency and rich people would have a different form of currency that wasn't getting devalued. And so the poor would end up paying more than the rich for the same product. The question is, does that sound familiar to you? I think this is still going on today where the poor end up paying more than the rich for the same thing. Think about, you know, auto insurance, interest on loans, etc. Right, there are forms of economic exploitation like sort of baked into our economy. And then, you know, the third, and Francis, that's why he said, I don't want to touch that coinage because as a previously rich person, he understood this. And he said, you know what? I'm opting out of this whole thing. I'm going to participate in a barter economy as much as possible. I don't want to be part of this currency system that exploits the poor. And the other thing, of course, was that, you know, Francis actually stepped out of his social class, out of his wealthy privileged social class to live among the poor and the marginalized of his time. He physically moved out of the walled city. He moved out of his gated community, the walled city of Assisi into the countryside, which is where people who were poor and marginalized live. So, and that was, you know, a matter of solidarity for him. A more for us to think about. I also want to just read a very short quote about from Pope Francis on the issue of solidarity, and this is from Pope Francis encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Solidarity means much more than engaging in sporadic acts of generosity. It means thinking and acting in terms of community. It means that the lives of all are more important prior to the appropriation of goods by you. It means combating the structural causes of poverty, inequality, lack of work, lack of housing, denial of social and labor rights. It means confronting the destructive effects of the empire of money. I think that phrase, the empire of money is a very interesting one. It relates to me back to the issues I've been talking about. I want to add one more profound insight that St. Francis had about economics. St. Francis, you know, you know, he's famous as the patron saint of ecology. People have statues of him in his gardens. This is because St. Francis was a mystic and as a mystic had this profound insight that many mystics reach about the oneness of all humanity and in fact of all creation. And so he believed that all people and in fact all things, all created things deserve their fair share of the abundance created by God. Francis did believe in work and in fact he did not tolerate shirking work, you know, among his friars, but he did not believe that any person or even any living thing that needed their basics need should be determined by how much society valued the form of work. Because as we know, our society values some forms of work very, very disproportionately with others. He believed that in creation God had provided for all and that all deserved their share. So he required, you know, anyone in his order who could work to work, but that he felt that if a person, everyone's basic needs should be met, right? The basic needs of people who could not work should be met. And in many cases he realized that basic needs would go above what a person could earn. Are we seeing that, you know, in our society, in our economy, that people are working and still cannot meet their basic needs. So after, you know, the brothers or whatever earned what they could through honest labor, if that didn't meet the basic needs of their community, they were encouraged to go out and beg without shame. And that they should do that with their heads held high, knowing that I'm reading here from a book now. This is a new book on Francis of Assisi, my brother, Michael Cusado, a well-known Franciscan scholar. In the research that brother Michael did for his book, he found that the brothers were told that if they needed to ask for more, then they could earn to meet their basic needs. They should do so with heads held high, knowing that possessing sacred dignity of the creatures of God, they were inviting those better off than themselves to use creation in the manner it was intended by the creator, namely for the good of all. So to me, this principle has profound implications about how we should think about redistribution of income and wealth. And it could be through government programs, right? Just to list a few. Child tax credit, SNAP, food subsidies, healthcare programs such as Medicaid, TANF, welfare payments, and also more progressive concepts such as universal basic income. Do we believe, as St. Francis did, that all deserve to have their basic needs met? Those who can work should do so. Those who cannot work still get their basic needs met, and even those who work get their basic needs met when they're over and above what they can earn. They are entitled to do that. There should be no shame put upon people for getting their basic needs met. So, you know, these just, I think, leave me with some interesting questions as we think about transition to a peace economy. Because, so one question, can I shift away in my thinking from the mindset of meritocracy that prevails in our culture to one of universal kinship that all deserve to have their needs met from God's abundance? Can I learn more about what forms of exploitation of the poor I might be participating in, even unwittingly, and work with others to fix them? And can I think critically about what forms of wealth, privilege, power, national security that I participate in that require violence and coercion to defend them? What is wrong with these systems? If it requires violence to defend them, how can they be changed? Just very briefly, Katrina, I want to mention a couple of initiatives. One interesting initiative, and I'll drop a link into the chat in a moment, is called the Economy of Francesco. This is a project initiated by Pope Francis a few years ago, in which he is reaching out primarily to young people, young adults, especially those who are economists, entrepreneurs, researchers to brainstorm and pilot new economic initiatives. And this is very much related to peace economy based on the teachings of St. Francis. Another one that I want to say that my organization has really become involved in, and I believe Code Pink is as well, is the Poor People's Campaign here in the United States. This is a revival of a campaign started during the time of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. But this is a campaign to try to address the interlocking challenges of economic injustice, racism, environmental destruction, and militarism with a broad movement that really is using two tools. One is to mobilize for and low income voters to vote in elections. And the other one is to raise consciousness more broadly among Americans about the massive size and cost of poverty in the United States, which, as you might know, is much larger. Then we have much more poverty and much deeper poverty in the United States than do other countries with a similar GDP per capita. Okay, and you know, something's wrong here. I'm sure, you know, we can discuss more. Why is that, but I'll stop there. I hope that, you know, and I really look forward to hearing what Jody has to say and what our other participants have to contribute. Thank you so much, Michelle. That was really informative and I really was moved by what you said about Empire of Money and I'm looking forward to discussing that later toward the end. And, but right now we're going to introduce Jody. Jody is a vigorous activist and co and the co founder of Code Pink renowned and she's renowned for her tireless efforts and promoting peace and demilitarization globally. Her deep understanding of war economies and her strategic approaches to peace advocacy have been pivotal in shaping discussions around peace economies. Welcome Jody. Thank you. Um, so Michelle, that was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing so many things that are part of our work at Code Pink, including the amazing Pope, who does celebrate a peace economy and his teachings, not just in his speaking out against war and weapons, but also in his teachings about how it is that we can live together. So for those of you who don't know about Code Pink, it was started as a response to Bush was frightening the American people into war on an innocent country using the color quit alerts orange red and yellow. So we decided to call Code Pink for peace. And it was, we failed at stopping the war on a rock we feel like we've succeeded in stopping the war on Iran but it's very dicey in the moment. We continue to work to move the money from war to the needs of a peace economy. And we've been trying to limit the military budget for the last 22 years, while we've watched $22 trillion be stolen from the American taxpayers to fund the war on terror, which also killed 5 million people in the Middle East and has to stabilize the Middle East. So, yes, to all of the moving the money, it's definitely a part of what Code Pink does. But in my, you know, our days of disrupting Congress and scratching at the war machine. One of those days I realized, oh, we're not going to end war until we end the war economy, because war just serves the war economy. And that realization had me thinking, Well, we need to yes continue to scratch at and try to pull back this war machine but at the same time, we need to be cultivating a peace economy for the future, that if we spend all our time just in ensnared in this violence, it takes our life energy away from being able to create what it is we desire. So the war economy for me is the extractive, oppressive and destructive economy killing you your community and the planet. And some to some it's called capitalism, but we're in late stage capitalism and it is destroying everything. It's kind of on a suicide mission taking all of us with it. So I call that the war economy because that's what war serves. All these wars are only about resources or power over so that there can be so there can be a hedge money which is the United States, which can force every other wave to its needs quite frightening and if you're not from the United States, you've kind of have the US boot on your neck. So the peace economy, as I started to look into it was the economy that existed before the war economy before the last like 500 years. And it's held, it's been held by the indigenous that have a deep understanding of long term thinking and of the connection to the earth to the connection to each other. And so the peace economy the giving sharing carrying thriving relational resilient economy, without which none of us would be alive. And that is because our first taste of the peace economy is parenting is mug being mothered being parented, all of that done in a relational way with no expectation of something in return with the abundance is available to serve life. So the peace economy is what creates conditions conducive for life. And I think about my own life. And I think of how many lives, how many people before me, strive so hard that I could have this life. But I'm living in a time where individualism and our culture of the war economy, we live in a war economy culture have really devolved us into not even valuing life, not even taking care of it. If we don't take care of the planet that's not taking that's not taking care of life because the planet is our home. The peace economy in Greek means home, and it really brought me back to this. How do we take care of our home sweet home, our planet, our communities, and the place where we live, and in the sense that it is a space of nurturance of care. We've forgotten all those things that have been taken away from us by the war economy culture. So, we definitely use activism that could pink to work on changing the system. We also have a deep realization that that system itself is the war economy culture that is violent. And so, when we are trying to change it we're also being used by it. It's not changing if anybody hasn't noticed I'm old I'm 70, but I've been doing this for a very long time it's getting worse by the day. And in all the ways that it can so yes we scratch out what we can, but what it should be doing what our tax dollars should be creating for us is, you know what you described is that care for the children for each other for those that can't. That that's available that abundance is available, but the privatization and the of all things that should be commons and of the sucking of the resources away to the few. I do know there's a billionaire made every 18 hours, that is money sucked away from the needs of the people. And this whole process is dehumanizing. And so, we, you know, what I saw is that with the war economy, creating climate change in the way that it is and not stopping and the thing is is that we think we're going to be able to stop these things but we can't it's a monster it's eating itself and it's eating everyone in its path. And it's not conscious there's not a rational thing we're dealing with. We need to be creating another system that we're agreeing to, because we all agree to the system and we all participate in the system. I, you know, and I call the ways that keeps us as the addictions to the war economy culture that are forced on us. So those we, we call the pivots to peace. And if we're going to create a piece economy it's going to take all of us and we need to be grounded in that ourselves, because otherwise we're being used by the war economy our lives are being used by the war economy for for itself so they're the pivots to peace. The war economy thrives by us feeling alienated. And, and so we need to be in connection to break ourselves out of that alienation because it affects our thinking. It affects how we treat each other. We're directed instead of community engaged. Well, you know, we're community is how we survive that is in the survival of the fittest. That was what the survival of the fittest meant was those who had a community and created in community competition to interdependence. The competition keeps us separate keeps us, you know, separated from each other, where interdependence is how life is formed that's, if we look at to nature, which all of these come from nature thrives on interdependence, transactional to relational. This is one of the big ones. The war economy has us all in transactional to survive in the war economy. We survive by being transactional. So, we, we, that's one of the hardest ones I think the code pinkers have breaking, because it is so deep inside of us we have we don't even realize it. We don't realize any of these how deep they are inside of us and how they take us away from life and take us away from each other and take our own selves away from our beautiful humanity and the relationship we could be having with each other and the planet. So, these are the pivots to peace. And I don't have time to go through all of them, but you'll, you know, take a look at them you'll recognize ones that fit with you that you recognize deeply, you know, like urgency to wisdom, you know that urgency being in that urgent state takes away our capacity to even build wisdom, which, which is so desperately needed right now. One of my favorites is probably problem solving to managing complexities. And this is one where I've really talked to a lot of people about this one recently, and so many people understand that they were trying to solve problems and they created more and more problems. And that managing complexities is really about being in relationship with reality in the constant change that is life in all the pieces of the complexity, because we solve problems without recognizing the whole. And really, the managing complexities is what nature does, and how we need to be in relationship with each other and nature, and then individualism to self responsibility. Self responsibility is at the core of all religions. And yet, we're in this church of individualism in the war economy that is destroying us and the planet, and not serving anyone it doesn't we can see it doesn't make anyone happy. And I'm actually talking to you from China. And one of the things I was really recognizing today is the crazy amount of joy and laughter and possibility that exists here. And it's this culture 3000 years old and Confucianism and Buddhism are all rooted in when I say these are indigenous. Well, that's one of the things that's indigenous here is Confucianism, where everybody understands a relationship to the earth and to each other and values that and thinks about the whole, not their individualism, and it's quite a stark difference when you come to the United States and you're here in that you can you can actually feel it. I call it the cloud of despair doesn't seem to hang here. So those are our pivots to peace but let me just give you a little more overview of, of, you know, how you can be yourself, pivoting from the war economy to the peace economy. So Emily if we could have the next slide. So yes, the local peace economy is all around us. And when I started this in my own community. So one of the things we say is create your community find your community, but the first thing you do is always operate in community. And so I pulled together my community in Venice Beach, California, and we said, Well, where does the war economy most felt by the people in our community. Who's suffering that the most. And what we found out is that 1500 homeless kids lived in our neighborhood. And so that became where our attention was, and that, you know, the peace economy is love, the peace economy is care is that creation of home sweet home so how can we start to have that care for these young people in our community. And so we made sandwiches on Saturday and we fed them out of the back of our car and then we ended up bringing out of a Baptist church around the corner and he gave us the church for a day and then we brought people who you know could do therapy with them in a local clinic that could bring in healing and close and we would ask them what they needed. And so the whole community would be serving the needs of these young people. And that's, you know, the way that you get everyone into the relationship of what it is even to be homeless, not from a place of oh they're bad I'm good, but from the place of how do I serve those who have less than me. So that was the one we did in our community. But here are some others that we've listed. You know, at the local peace economy website, we have a whole wiki full of stories from around the country and around the world about how you can engage as a practitioner in the local piece economy, whether it's, you know, in your community or coming up with an issue that you have, and building a co op around it or building a collective around it, or creating mutual aid. You know, I want to say something about a local piece economy, where that kind of culture is more prevalent than a war economy and one of those is like Asheville, North Carolina, which has many of these projects, and it's very relational. And during the 2008 recession, it suffered the least. And so, you know, a study into see this and other local piece companies. What does that mean it suffered the least, the less amount of people were kicked out of their houses, the less people lost their jobs. Why, because if you're, you know, at a bank in a small community that's connected, you're not kicking somebody out of their house, you're not hearing it out. And the same with the jobs, people in the jobs, figured out how to job share figured out how to take less hours so that everybody can have a job. So you figure things out because it's relational. And, and, and we could see this in in 2008 in the communities that already functioned closer to a piece economy than war economy than some of the other cities. So, you can find out more about all these different ways to be finding a local piece economy near you finding a community near you at our wiki at the local piece economy page and I'm sure that Emily is posting some of these links. Emily, can we have the next slide. I don't think I can do it. I'm on the next slide is it not coming up. Great. Thanks. So, there's capacities also in a piece economy so we're pivoting out of our addictive habits created by the war economy but there's also capacities and building the piece economy and creating a piece economy. And I just also saw a recent study that showed with both AI and climate change, those that would survive would be those that have created piece economy structures. One of the most important ones is listening. War economy doesn't like listening. And so how do we listen to the earth how do we listen to each other how do we listen to our needs and need is is also a very key word it's like, how do we serve needs. Instead of the ones that are created by the war economy to keep us on that endless hamster wheel. We're also mapping really like grounding ourselves where we are. So much of our culture has as I call us as little corks on the ocean. We've been unrooted from our values from our communities from where we live even. So, how do we we root ourselves so that we can be strong and flexible like those trees that can move. But, you know mapping really helps us understand where we live who we are who related to, and even where do we want to go. So mapping is one of the things we do and you can do it in so many ways from our history to what we have to give to the present community, cultivating community being part of the community and and seating with a community what you can be doing, you know, in creating local piece economy projects organizing. So, once you have a community is like how do you organize beyond your community and bring people in to understand to learn and organizing we say we educate inspire and activate centering culture. Another like reference to China that I was, we were talking today with a friend that I was walking with, and there's just so much rich culture. I was just walking from the train station to the hotel. And there was, you know, a Chinese ethnic group doing a dance in their costumes with umbrellas and there was another Chinese group doing like a square dance kind of thing. And then there was another group doing drumming. And then there was another group doing chai tea, and then somebody was playing bad bad mitten, like in the middle of the square. So, the, if we think that our culture is a war economy culture if you look at those pivots. It's also devoured culture itself. So that art music isn't made for the to touch your soul. It is isn't made for that moment of, you know, awakening of connecting. It's made for commerce, which makes it devoid really of culture, and devoid of that connectivity to the ephemeral to the oneness that that is and has been what cultures been and in so many in our past and is around the world. So, centering culture and letting that space of what, how do we sing to each other, how do we play music that moves each other, how do we create theater and storytelling in ways because it too has been co-opted and storytelling is core to being human, but it's been co-opted as a distraction and as a tool of the Empire as a tool to the State Department. So, you know, how do we break ourselves out of the co-optation of our brains that's been happening into the reconnection of life and on storytelling, and then what stories are we paying attention to the stories of the war machine, or the stories of the peace makers, like, you know, we heard, we heard earlier. So, and I know I'm probably over is the other thing is, is when we do this work, we start to grieve what we've lost grieve what our lives have been used for. We call it our circle of reconnection, our cycle of reconnection, where we go from grief to care to joy and celebration over and over again, as we learn our space of resilience and reconnection and understanding and into the creation of the future that we all dream for. And I think, yes, if you download our free book and give yourself nine months, you will be blown away by who you are and what you have to offer the new world. So, thank you. Thanks, Emily. Thank you so much, Jodi. This has been a really informative conversation. And I really appreciate both of you for sharing what what you have about peace economy. We have one question here. It's a little long. It says, I don't expect an answer now, but I am thinking that looking into you making this transition. How might some of the ideas from my writing, the energy paradigm shift transferring fear into a green energy economy, COP 26 edition fit into this important peace endeavor. In my writing, I discussed that unless we solve the climate crisis, nothing else will matter. And then it goes into the benefits of growing green energy economy, far outweigh the waning benefits of a dying fossil fuel industry and outmoded old paradigm energies, including fracking and plastics, mega dams and nuclear power. The old fossil fuel industry is fighting tooth and nail clinging to old ways that are killing the planet. All those who profit from these outdated models. Industries are exacerbating the climate crisis, leading us to total annihilation and disturbing the peace. So, they're talking about mostly about how to to integrate some of these ideas into their own work. Feel free to reach out and come join one of our, we have a call every other Wednesday. Come, come join us. I mean, we all do that work on the side, because it's still that's the war economy we're talking about the extractive economy. And many of us are super engaged in that. But also war is the greatest contributor climate change. It's the greatest user of fossil fuels. So we have a huge campaign it could pink, called war is not green to try to end wars for as they are the greatest users of fossil fuels and they're usually over fossil fuels. But again, I go back to these. These are monsters and stopping them we haven't been super successful at and building the building the better and moving people off of the war economy will will be will be a different kind of transition. Because, you know, a lot of us, we, you know, we say we want to transition off but we ourselves aren't transitioning off and I say this to the could pinkers all the time. It's like when they are asking a member of Congress to do something. I'm like, but you haven't done it yourself. You know so much we have to look at ourselves and see what what are we doing because we're asking a member of Congress to do that and we haven't done it. So it's really bringing it back to the self responsible to take it to the top. I mean we live in a structure. I think we lost Jodi. There we go. Sorry. The, the structure is allowing a genocide. The very, we're talking about peace, things that have been held peace together for thousands of years, like not bombing an embassy. These things. That's not recent. That's thousands of years of peace have understood what an embassy is has understood what diplomacy is. We live right now in a, in a country that does not use diplomacy just drives war. And we're all going to have to learn to be building what we need together because it has failed. And we're watching it fail. And I think it's for us to instead of being demoralized by it, we should be inspired to be creating and creating ourselves away from and into. Yes, away from fossil fuels and into alternative forms. Thank you, Jodi. In thinking about this and what you said had me think about what back to what Michelle said about the empire of money and I can't help but course. Compare it to like a community of peace and what you were talking about. Michelle, can you talk more about the empire of money versus a community of peace and how we should transform from one to the other. Sure. I mean, look, I think there's, you know, there's, there's a lot in common here I mean to pull a few threads out of Jodi's presentation, the whole issue of relationality versus transactionalism, you know, in in relationships. That is, you know, and Pope Francis talks about this a lot, you know, in his encyclicals in Laudato si, as well as Fratelli tutti, he talks about cultivating a culture of encounter and relationality, instead of transactionalism in in relations among people. There's, you know, there's a lot there in terms of, you know, how we value and what we value and I think we have to be honest with ourselves that we are kind of prisoners of our of our culture and our cultural programming and updating and getting to the kind of thinking that we're talking about here is a real journey for all of us. You know, Jodi mentioned a couple of things about our addiction to the war economy. And our our need to shift to thinking about serving needs, rather than wants or desires that are created, you know, by our culture. I wanted to raise one point and I'm actually really curious what Jodi would say about this. So Jodi, in my organization, we screened the the film you might be familiar with it called the letter about Pope Francis, and and his his encyclical Laudato si, and so forth and it makes a really impassioned for a kind of transition right away from fossil fuels to sustainable to a sustainable way of living and it's it's all there to have a discussion after the film and there was one woman in the group, and I really appreciated her honesty, because she said this all sounds wonderful but, but it scares me, I don't understand she said, Are you talking about we have to go back to a free industrial revolution standard of living is that how we're going to need to live to get back to sustainability and relationality, and she said frankly, I don't think I can make it without air conditioning. So I'm just curious, you know, how do you, you know, respond to it was a very, very honest, you know, fear. Okay, but I mean, that's a little bit about individualism. Free quarters of the world lives without air conditioning. So, to speak to that's you that's we live a very privileged lives that are destroying the world for others, like the climate change is going to affect the poor that we've stolen from across the world as the hegemony of the United States. So I'm sorry for that woman that she's going to be without air conditioning, but I want to go back to the people don't change because they create these fears. And I want to just talk about people who've changed, you know, who've done the nine months. And, and I talked to Reverend, I was part of the founding of the poor people's campaign and way at the beginning. He talked about how moral Mondays was also nine months, and that it was nine months before the person would then get, Oh, I get it. I'm being lied to, and I'm, you know, my votes being used against me, you know, that's how he was using it. So, it's more saying everything points to, and including today, you know, with the UN saying we have two years and if we don't change it's we don't. It's like, there's no changing we've got we're past the 1.5. And so we are going to have to simplify. You can do it. Electrically. And I would say whenever we change individually, it's always better to do it electively than have that accident forces to do it right. So it's think about it as like a choice. It lets you choose all the way there. But if, you know, if she's talking about losing her electricity, I'm going to tell you worse things are going to happen than her losing her electricity. Because if you don't have a community, if you haven't figured out how to live together in your community, it's going to be worse than losing your electricity. It's going to be scary. It's going to be really scary. But security, which is what we spend all our tax dollars on, you know, 65% of your tax dollars on security, which is making the world insecure and taking security away from us. But security is in relationship. And so, you know, we, the government, you know, the State Department does this to us it like gives us all these fears like, you know, everybody's afraid of Putin, you're made afraid of Putin and then they get to go to war, you know, it's like, we're used by these fears. That's why we started cooping. Oh my God, Saddam Hussein, which had nothing. It was like a country that had nothing. We should be ashamed of ourselves for even dropping a bomb on these people who had nothing that we'd already start them and killed 500,000 children. It's, you know, gross. So we get set up in this way the work economy uses us with these big fears, instead of living into it, because people who live into it. When I say, we know, what have you learned for the work on me that like, Oh my God, I've, I am so happy, I am so full of joy. And I've never worked harder in my life. But I've never been happier. Like, why are we avoiding work? Because work is what gives us our humanity is what gives our meaning is what gives us our connectivity. It's what gives us our things to give away, you know, it's like, so it's like, instead we're enslaved. Instead of doing what all people have done throughout history is a form of work that brings them joy. Another thing I'm seeing in China is like, nobody's anxious about the work they're doing, nobody's complaining, they're doing their work and they're living their lives. But we, we now live in this like contortion of what work is. Instead of what is the work of being alive of being human of moving our bodies and serving each other of like creating home. So, you'd be surprised what you can do without when you're happy. Yeah, I just one word on this Katrina, I think a lot of this comes down to whether we are living in a fear and scarcity mindset, or in a mindset of, I would say, relationality and abundance. Right, I mean, it just everything, the way you see all these things is, is, and, and so that's, that's a big issue. And I'm, I'm sort of assuming that's what your nine month process is about is helping people to transition from one of those mindsets to to another. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you both. Princess and spirituality is about, although, you know, in a in a different, in a different way. Thank you both so much. I believe that your you've all added, you've all added your web pages and everything into the chat. And it has been a wonderful discussion. And I'm adding piece economy projects. Web site as well for people if they're interested in more of these programs go to our site and sign up for our mailing list and don't forget to do the same for code pink and the Francis can action network. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thanks so much. Great to be with you. Peace. Peace and all good. Bye.