 Oh, he got it. My friend got it. So okay, thanks. Great. Well, it's 502. We have 63 people with us. So let's get started. And thank you all for joining us tonight. I'm Marcy Winnigrad. I'm the coordinator of Codepin Congress. And I'm just thrilled to be with you. And with our co-hosts, we have a honey. Hi, honey. I'm the adventure man, Jody Evans, Carly town. So it should be a great evening we have with us tonight, Dr. Molina Abdullah, who as honey will explain in a minute is the co-founder of the LA chapter black lives matter. Also Reverend Leo Theo Harris, who is the co-director of the poor people's campaign. She'll talk about a moral budget and Carly town who is the national director at code pink. She's the leader of our divest from war campaign. And of course, Jody Evans, who with media Benjamin co-founded code pink, code pink. So it should be a great evening. And we're going to start with some updates. So, honey, why don't you go first introduce yourself and tell us about Iran. What's happening with that. So thank you so much, Marcy. It's good to be here. Thank you. Our honorable guests and speakers. My name is honey and Joe that Barnes I am the co-founder, co-founder and president of Muslim delegates and allies as well as we are launching the first non geographic co chapter of PDA progressive Democrats of America's Muslim and Middle East alliances with the sister Nadia Ahmed, which are very thrilled and excited about. And so I want to kind of talk about exactly what my mom and I spoke about with the confirmation and talks about confirming Mali and there are some mixed feelings coming out of Iran directly that, you know, some are very happy that there's going to be an opportunity for peace talks as well as the joining back the JCPOA. But some are concerned that going straight into talks and lifting the sanctions would give the government of Iran the opportunity to continue to do what they have been doing for the past decades. In terms of oppression and violation of human rights. And so there are some concerned feelings but I know media is going to touch upon this I'll hand it over to media but I am a bit concerned that Biden doesn't have a policy in place to join. And, and, you know, it is concerning because these sanctions as we've spoken about them before many times they are they're they're really crushing not only the economy but the population of 80 million, mostly predominantly young under the age of 40. So media handed over to you. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think a number of people who have been working on this for years are concerned that Biden just didn't say immediately after coming into power that he was going to rejoin the JCPOA and backing down and saying that he wouldn't lift sanctions. He's saying that the Iranians had to go into compliance first is very worrisome. So we will continue and in our call tonight we've added in to the action to call on Biden to rejoin the JCPOA right away. It's the US that pulled out. It's the US that has to go back in and Iran has said very clearly that they will go back into compliance once that happens. So let's give an update on Yemen, a big shout out and thanks to many of you who have been working on this issue for a long time, and joined us in the calls on this in the last couple of weeks. We had some really great news from the Biden administration that they were going to stop the support for the Saudi led war in Yemen freezing arm sales to Saudi Arabia that were used for offensive purposes, and a call to examine the sale of arms to the United States and also to take the Houthis off the terrorism list. Those are all extremely wonderful things it speaks to six years of activism within a broad community here in the United States, but there are things we still have to worry about that the war goes on. The US has to do more to pressure the Saudis. We don't really understand what the extent of the US pulling back means because there was also a call that the Biden said would continue to support the Saudis in their territorial sovereignty, and that can be an excuse for continuing intelligence shareings with the Saudis continue to train them spare parts and sell quote defensive weapons. So, we still have work to do but it's a great victory so far so thank you all who helped get this far. I'm going to provide an update on two items one. I'm sure some of us were watching the impeachment hearings today just in short the Senate voted 68 to 44 to move ahead with Trump's impeachment trial and the grounds that he incited an insurrection. One of the lawyers is saying this is another witch hunt, and we had I think six Republicans voting with the Democrats to go ahead. Cassidy Collins Romney Murkowski sass, and to me. I also wanted to provide an update on the ICC the International Criminal Court last week. It said it had the authority to investigate Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians and the occupied territories the territories occupied since 1967 Gaza the West Bank and East Jerusalem. So, this is is could be monumental you know in terms of world opinion. Israel was all set to Israel was all set to go ahead with annexation this summer, you know so hopefully this will put a break on that further annexation and settlements the ICC prosecutor also may be investigating crimes by Hamas or alleged crimes by Hamas. The, of course, this has elicited outrage from the Prime Minister of Israel who's charging as the often does that any criticism or charge pertaining to Israeli brutality is anti semitism. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has also expressed concern about this and is saying that the ICC has no right to investigate Israel Israeli war crimes against Palestinians because Palestine is not a state. However, Palestine has observer state status in the United Nations it has been recognized as an independent state by over 138 UN members. So the ICC said, we're going ahead and we can't stop us. So I think it's really important that all of us weigh in. There is a way to contact the White House, just Google contact the White House and tell them that, you know, really disappointed that they are expressing concern. And now, prior to Trump leaving office, he signed an executive order saying that anyone who any lawyers who worked for the ICC or supported the ICC in any way, could be fined and travel their visas could be confiscated. The, some of the lawyers took this to court and the US District Court, Federal District Court recently ruled that in favor of an injunction and saying that this is not constitutional lawyers have First Amendment rights. So there is a clamor for Biden to lift this executive order in the meantime, the courts are not honoring it. So that's, that's good news. Stay tuned. Moving on, I'd like this point for Hania to introduce our first guest. Go ahead. Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Whoa. Right. What that said. Nobody needs to be needed. I don't know if Mary can figure out. Yeah, they've been, they've been removed. Thank you so much. Dr. Malina Abdullah, my sister, my mentor, is an American academic and civil leader. She is the chair of the Department of Pan African Studies at California State University Los Angeles and co founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter. She graduated from Howard University where she earned her bachelor's degree in African American studies. She subsequently earned her master's degree and doctoral degree in political science from University of Southern California. Dr. Abdullah is a self-described womanist scholar activist. She has said that her academic roles are connected with her activist role in fighting for liberating those who have been exploited many times. She serves on several boards, including Black community, clergy and labor alliances, Los Angeles community action network, and strategic concepts in organizing and policy education and just recently joined the board of Muslim delegates and allies, which we're very, very proud of. She was interviewed in 13th in 2016 documentary about mass incarceration in the United States and Malina Abdullah has served on the Los Angeles County of Human Relations Commission since 2014. Sister, it is an honor to be here with you and I want to welcome you to please take the floor. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be among you and to hear about all of the tremendous work that's moving. Let me find this court. Hold on one second. My computer is going to die. Hold up. I thought I was all charged up and then the alert went on. So I just want to I'm grateful for the opportunity to check in and kind of talk about the work that's moving in Black Lives Matter, which is something that I call my sacred duty. It's not my job as Sister Hania shared I have an actual job. But this is the work that I feel that my foremothers pulled me into. And so I have some updates for you. I also have spaces that we're asking for your support on. Even as we move into a moment where folks are feeling like we can read a little bit easier. We're not under the same kind of constant assault. We have to remember that the world wasn't just transformed when Donald Trump was ushered out of office that the systems that are in place continue to target a press and a sale black folks in particular. And one of the things that we lift up is that there's still a such thing as liberal white supremacy. And so some of the folks that some of you probably call friends right because they speak more gently. They have a black friend or two that come over to their dinner parties. And they point to kind of work that they've done in black community, usually in places like now I'm going to give away who I'm talking about. They were in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia they'll say right and so that demonstrates that they must not be white supremacists. That's actually false. And one of the readings that many of us have done recently is how to be an anti racist. And one of the things that Ibram Kendi says in that text is that you're either a racist or you're an anti racist. And if you just because you may have never used the n word does not make you an anti racist. So we're calling on all non black folks to be anti racist right we're calling on black folks to continue to do the work to struggle to end white supremacy and advance black freedom. And especially during Black History Month we're kind of looking to the past. The earrings that I'm wearing are of San Cofo birds right which is an African principle about looking to the past in order to move forward and really imagine an usher in a black future that's more free. Right. And so there's lots that's moving. So Black Lives Matter I'm also co director of Black Lives Matter grassroots which is the on the ground organizing work for Black Lives Matter chapters around the globe. And one of the things that we're moving are some demands for our lawmakers right so of course all of us are hoping and many of us were probably cheering as we saw the absolute abysmal job that the Trump lawyer did today right we want to see him both impeached and prosecuted we want him barred from ever being able to seek future office. But there's a set of demands that goes much further than that as many of you know Black Lives Matter is an abolitionist organization. We understand what scholar Manning Marible said that the systems under which we live were intentionally and deliberately designed to produce the outcomes that they do. And so as we talk about assaults on people around the globe. We have to remember that black folks in this country also experienced militarism all also experienced state sanctioned violence also experienced assaults as if we were enemy combatants rather than residents and citizens of this country. And so it's important that we fight militarism at home and the oppression that black people feel at home as well so Black Lives Matter is an abolitionist organization seeking to topple the systems of policing and prisons that have never brought safety for anybody. Even though they try to dupe you into believing that they do. We have to remember that policing in this country evolves out of slave catching just as ridiculous as it would be to say well we don't want to end slavery and chattel slavery. We just want to reform it. That's the same ridiculousness with which we must meet those who say let's reform police. You can't reform a policing system that evolves out of slave catching right. Similarly when we talk about prisons prisons don't keep us safe and Ava DuVernay brilliantly lays that out in the film 13. And so we're working towards toppling those systems and one of the things that Barack Obama was enlisted to say about us is that our defund the police call was simply a snappy slogan. We want to remind folks that that's not a snappy slogan that is a policy demand right. We don't believe in a world where you spend in Los Angeles we're now spending 54% of the city's general fund on LAPD. Most major cities are spending upwards of 50% of their unrestricted funds on police abolitionism says that one policing is not the answer to our problems. In fact, if you look at what happens police are not even qualified to do many of the jobs that they've been paid to do. So they're not qualified to be mental health providers they're not qualified to do homework in the park with our kids. They're not qualified to even play basketball with our children. We need recreation workers mental health workers. We need educators to be doing that work. We know in cities like Newark New Jersey where they have made investments in community driven public safety options you actually see crime climate. But even in the jobs that police say that they're qualified to do. We see them being dismal failures right so a recent report came out that said police are only successful in solving 2% of violent crime. So why are we spending the majority of our resources on police. So we're saying that we want to divest from there so that we can invest in the places that we actually need the funds. We've issued demands the BLM demands are at BLM demands.org we're asking for everybody to sign on the demands include everything from barring Trump from further office through impeachment and prosecution to making sure that we read Congress of the Republican law lawmakers who were part of the failed coup on the Capitol. We want to make sure that we divest from police and prisons and invest in things that make community safe. We want to pass something called the Breathe Act which I hope all of you will read and advocate for and then locally we want to make sure that you do work to partner with your local Black Lives Matter chapters so that we can work on a people's budget in Los Angeles. Some of you know that we've been organizing for more than a year now at peoplesbudgetla.com where we've been exposing this overspending on police and demanding spending on the things that create safe communities. We did a survey that checked in with more than 25,000 Angelenos. We found that overwhelmingly the people stood on the side of Black Lives Matter. They said that we want to spend our first policy priority is making sure people have what they need, meeting what we call the universal needs of people, housing, mental health, other kinds of community resources. Their second priority was the built environment, parks and libraries and those kinds of things. And then their third priority was alternative approaches to public safety. Their last priority was the traditional approaches to public safety that we see come with police. And so they wanted to spend the support for police was at only 5.3% before George Floyd's murder and after George Floyd's murder dropped to 1.7%. So we can have conversations about how to build a people's budget. We're demanding that local and state and federal elected officials engage in a session and participatory budgeting sessions so that they can get from they can gauge from community. What it is we actually want to spend on and we can invest in those things I'll close with this. We're in the midst of an unprecedented health pandemic with an unprecedented economic fallout that has a vastly disproportionate impact on black people. Black people are dying at three to four times the rate of everyone else as a result of COVID right black people and black businesses are also suffering economically in fact black businesses 41% of black owned businesses already permanently shuttered as a result of this economic fallout. We should be investing our dollars and building strong black communities and by extension making the world and making our communities safer and better and more prosperous for everyone. And so we love to get your support on that work and hope that this is one of many conversations that we'll be having moving forward. Thank you so much, Dr Abdullah everything that you said resonated so much with me and you know it's such a parallel universe where we the answer to our communities from corporate politicians is policing the answer to make the world safer is you know, weaponizing the world. And so on two fronts, we have to be vigilant about pushing back and challenging all of this militarization so if you wouldn't mind putting the calls to action in the chat that you mentioned. And also if you can perhaps email honey those calls and I can include them in an email blast will go out tomorrow morning along with the tape of this event. Okay, and I think it's terrific that you're joining us and we look forward to our relationship. Great. All right, Jodi. I think you're next you're going to introduce our next guest, and we're going to take questions after we hear from our next guest. There are a number of questions coming in the chat so we're okay. Thank you, Dr Abdullah. Yeah policing and warmongering take a majority of our tax dollars. So both need to end to shift those funds to the needs of our communities. It's really great that Reverend Liz Theo Harris has decided to join us tonight. She's a brilliant strategist teacher writer political activists, Presbyterian minister and the co chair, along with Reverend barber of the poor people's campaign Reverend Theo Harris also writes op eds across the media landscape almost weekly to connect the issues of the moment to the needs of the people. And she was Shelly Barnes and the team at Institute for Religious Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary. She's the author of always with us what Jesus really said about the poor. She also writes op eds across the media landscape almost weekly to connect the issues of the moment to the needs of the people. And she was Shelly Barnes and the team at Institute for Policy Studies built the poor people's moral budget, which has been a blueprint to work with Congress on addressing the needs of the poor poverty racism militarism and the needs of the planet. This is like the la people's budget that we need to be through study. Oh, did you just freeze. No, you're back. You froze a little bit. Oh, sorry. This is a brilliant movement. Strategist who has built a movement of the poor and their allies who have already moved Congress far on the issues. And they are already affecting the Biden administration. Thank you for joining us tonight Reverend. Thank you so much, Jodi and it's so good to be with everybody. I love Code Pink and any opportunity I have to be with you all is a really a good, a good one. I was thinking a little bit about the words of Dr. Melina Abdullah, and wanted to share a quote from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King that I think I should speak to this moment and also speaks to the need of us as people of all walks of life that are working to demand justice and peace and doing so with with all types of direct action and other kind of tools and and Dr. King, you know, back in 64 talked about, you know, kind of critiquing white liberals. And I was thinking about that a bunch this week last week and and as we kind of see what's happening in the, in the national agenda, he said, we do not need allies more devoted to order than to justice. I hear a lot of talk these days about our direct action talk out alienating former friends. I would rather feel they are bringing to the surface latent prejudices prejudices that are already there. If our direct action programs alienate our friends. They never were really our friends. And so I, I wanted to bring that to start off the conversation. And then now to kind of move towards a little bit about the poor people's campaign, and especially the moral budget that Jodi referred to. So the poor people's campaign a national call for moral revival launched about three years ago around the 50th anniversary of the poor people's campaign that welfare rights leaders, native and indigenous leaders and, and Dr. King and others called for and called for out of really the kind of beyond Vietnam and analysis of the intersection of racism and poverty and militarism. We, we launched tackling five injustices, systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation militarism in the war economy, and then this distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism, Christian nationalism that we saw so prevalent at the capital on January 6 but have been, you know, really a reality of our, of our political landscape for a while. With what we, what we, what we see, and what we're doing is that by shifting the narrative around these issues, getting our nation to talk and act about the issues that impact 140 million people who are poor, or one storm one healthcare crisis one job loss away from from economic ruin, shifting the narrative that this is as good as it gets that we have to have constant war and conflict that that it's the, it's poor people, poor people and people of color and immigrants and women and queer people that are to blame for all society's problems, shifting the narrative that we have to just fight each other instead of kind of come together and power, and then trying to build up up the power up the influence of the force, the nonviolent force of the people. And when we launched, we put together an audit, we looked at the issues over the past decades of poverty of racism of the attack on voting rights on mass incarceration on the militarized budgets of both our state and local municipalities as well as our nation and world. We looked at, you know, the issues of pollution and of the destruction of the earth. And, and so that we could, we could put forward solutions to these problems and not just kind of curse the darkness. We then put together a poor people's moral budget, and in that budget and and that's still the kind of defining work that that we're doing. We say that we could cut our nation's military budget and have still have a larger military budget than the nations in the world, hundreds of them are combined, make our world a whole hell of a lot safer, that we can institute a fair taxation system, and we can invest in the kinds of programs and issues and safety nets that that actually lift people up, that actually, you know, we could build green jobs we could build up health care we could build up living wage jobs. And that that when we do this that that will kind of lift all of society we have a saying in our work that when we lift from the bottom everybody rises. And so, so, so that budget then helped us to pull together a legislative agenda. And we launched that this past June, when we gathered about 3 million poor and low income people and, and our allies and friends and for a mass poor people's assembly and moral March on Washington we had to do it online because of the pandemic. But it was a powerful assembly and, and, and digital March, and we are deeply committed to as soon as there is some amount of curbing of this deadly virus and people are more safe to be able to be out and get engaged in large scale protests that we will indeed be having to go to Washington DC and bringing poor people in huge numbers to continue to, to demand, you know, the, the, the needs of, again, more than half of the population be at the front and center of our of our of our country and and of the world. We put forth a 14 policy priorities that that are are what the poor people's campaign is organizing for for the first 100 days of the, the Biden Harris administration. And we try to see in those policy priorities everything from COVID relief to healthcare to the sort of demilitarization of our communities and of our country, and seeing that that that all of these issues are connected. And that, you know, again the weak point the Achilles heel of the systems of racism on a poverty of militarism of this war economy of the devastation of the earth and everything living in an on it. That the weak point of that is for people to come together across all the lines that divide us and build a powerful movement from below and so. You know, we have, and I can put in the chat, you know, for anyone that's interested, a bunch of these different documents. They're all up on our website. And, and right now we are indeed organizing, you know, we're doing online world Mondays on Mondays and looking at the different policy priorities, trying to make sure, you know, every week that people see the connections between a militarized budget, a war economy, and systemic racism. See the connections between the destruction of the earth and people not having health care, and see that it doesn't have to be this way that that it's going to take a massive movement made up of people like that are gathered here, but that we can change, and we can kind of lift from the bottom. So, so, you know, much of our work is about building this power to be able to, you know, again in the words of Dr King make the power structures of this nation say yes, when they may be desirous of saying no so far we've been hearing a lot of no to to health care no to paid sick leave no to actually including all minimum wage workers and some minimum wage workers in the razorway jack no to, you know, ending sanctions yes to more war, you know, yes to more militarization of our border and of the interior, and, and, and what it's going to take is for for those of us, you know, to be able to kind of come together and together and organize and so, you know, I, we are always looking for for partners in this work, the way the People's Campaign is organized is that we are in 43 states across the country run by local folk impacted leaders moral leaders activists advocates organizers from all walks of life, who are are seeing that it doesn't have to be this way and you know, we need to turn, you know, this, this kind of fracture democracy and war economy into into, you know, as we've learned from Jody and you all piece economies and so. So it's, it's great to be here I'm looking forward to us doing more work together and you know we say in our work for together not one step back and so I, I, I say that to you all now. Thank you so much Reverend Theo Harris is wonderful to have you and to know that we will be partnering with you as we go forward in this work. There are a number of questions in the chat honey if you want to read one we can take turns. Okay, I have a question first for Dr Abdullah, if you could say some of the positive things that you've seen so far from the Biden administration and maybe something you weren't expecting that has they've come out with so far and Reverend Liz, perhaps if you could talk about the, the poor people's agenda and compare it to the congressional with a progressive caucuses agenda where do they mesh and where might there be differences. Thank you so much. So thank you and not thank you for the question, because I have to admit that there's some things where I've kind of stuck my foot in my mouth on. I wasn't expecting a lot from the Biden Harris administration and before I go there I just want to say hi Liz. We have Alejandra Marchewski in common right yeah. Good to see you. Yes. So I think we weren't prepared. We were encouraging and hopeful that we would get to a conversation about ending white supremacy. And I think after the failed coup on the Capitol. Joe Biden's willingness to speak out and rhetorically at least talk about ending white supremacy as one of his top priorities is something that I wasn't expecting and I'm going to be very candid I was not a supporter of Joe Biden. I didn't even, I live in California so don't hate me but I didn't even vote for Joe Biden I wrote in Leon Castro as my presidential pick right. But again I live in California, right so I didn't, you know, I got to say that because my mother was really upset when I did that. I wasn't expecting the kind of narrative and language that he was using. We had also been really frustrated by the new administration because we requested a meeting. And the president confirmed that he was the president elect and he completely ignored black lives matter which was also problematic. Especially since we actually had a fairly cordial and even friendly working relationship with Kamala Harris. So we're hopeful we're in a space where we're hopeful that we can push them that we'll be able to push them on, you know, federal legislation like the Breathe Act, that we'll be able to push them on how do we end white supremacy and what role they can play right. We want to push them. Also some of the things that are being raised around international policy that is hugely problematic and one of the first things that they began advancing so it's not enough to just say we're going to end white supremacy. We need to think about and engage in policy work that actually ends white supremacy. And so those are the kinds of things that we're seeing in terms of engagement. We have since been reached out to by his administration and had preliminary conversations, but we believe that black people and black organizers on the ground, especially. And black lives matter specifically should be at the core of conversation around what racial justice means and what ending white supremacy looks like. Awesome so I'll jump into to the other question with the idea that you you post. People might be familiar that before the new year, the Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled actually alongside the poor people's campaign and then about 100 organizations. They're priorities for the first six months of the new administration of the Biden Harris administration, the 117th Congress. And, you know, I think one of the things that we were, we were quite pleased about was how much they, they relied on our legislative agenda and our priorities and our Jubilee platform and our budget. When they were working on their priorities. You know, I think part of what we've been calling for for from our beginning is for for elected leadership to take up the demands of the 140 million poor and low income people. You know, our job is to build power amongst the people to push. And, and so we were, we were pleased that that this was something we could help unveil. And that there wasn't much that was being asked for that was let we don't, we at the poor people's campaign don't endorse things that are less than our demands, which means, you know, our demands come out of the struggles and and the, the fights of grassroots leaders, whether it's folks that are fighting the privatization of their water and Detroit and Flint or whether it's folks, you know, trying to demilitarize the border in El Paso. And so, so, you know, all of this talk about like a regional minimum wage, you know, you know, low wage workers say that that's bullshit. And, and we agree with them. And so the, the progressive caucus, you know, did put out a pretty comprehensive, you know, set of priorities. I mean, it's about putting money in people's pockets. It's about, you know, protecting essential workers. It's about defeating the virus and making sure that we have universal vaccination. It's about, you know, funding of state, local and tribal governments to make sure that they have the resources to be providing critical services. You know, there's, there's some really good stuff there around, you know, renewable energy economy and giving workers more power. And what they will be doing over the next couple of months will be putting forward 15 to 18 legislative bills, you know, one is this around the raising wages. You know, I think our, our take on it is that we were able to be pleased that this was coming out, and it doesn't go far enough. And I think that that's constantly where we're going to be is that, you know, you know, what do we want, we want all of it, when do we want it now, right. And, but we still are pleased that, you know, that, that it that again that that that poor and low income organizing people could have such an impact. You know, one of the places that it didn't go far enough, and our estimation was around the militarization and demilitarization of our budget, right. You know, and, and I'm sure folks here are very aware of the fact that, you know, we have put out, you know, $350 billion have to be cut from the budget from the military budget. You know, some folks have taken that up you sometimes hear Barbara Lee say it or other people say it. But, but there hasn't been, they have not taken that part of our agenda up, let's say, in a big way, you know, we've heard that we've had an impact on the fact that a lot more people voted, you know, for the 10% cut. But we will keep on pushing, because, you know, the 300, you know the 50% cut is is is also not enough. You know, totally agree with you and in fact it could think we looked at your, your cuts and we adopted quite a few of them along with the project on government oversight and we're going to share later on in the zoom a link where people can look at your budget and our budget and we're all calling for, you know, substantive cuts, third or 70%. All right. Let's continue. Thank you so much. Next question. I know there are a lot of questions here. There's an interest around the subject of capitalism and I'll post this to both Reverend Liz as well as Dr Abdullah fire sheet mentions that we cannot abolish police without getting rid of capitalism. What are your thoughts as well as Sarah Dean also wants to know how to how connecting capitalism to to police and how we can solve that issue. If we live in a capitalistic country. Yep. Yeah, that's right. I'll say this just the people's budget work is really important and I'm really grateful I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with the budget work that you've been doing very closely through the poor people's campaign but you know I've been present when you were here in Los Angeles and work with Pastor Eddie a lot here and sister Margaret and lots of other folks but I haven't been keeping up really closely with the budget work. And I think defunding the police is one of the ways we get to kind of weakening that structure. I agree that the capitalist system and policing are completely tied together. And I think that by weakening policing, we kind of also get to how unjust the capitalist system is and I'll say I'll say that and leave it there but we could have longer conversations maybe offline about what what that looks like I think defund the police though is a start in that direction. Yeah, I don't I don't have to jump in for too much longer I mean again our analysis is that systemic racism and poverty, ecological devastation and a militarized economy war economy, as well as this distorted narrative, all have to be done away with right and you know what Dr King talked about was that that would that would take a revolution of values, and that that the current system kind of couldn't hold, and that you couldn't get rid of one without getting rid of the others and but but that's why he proposed, you know, organizing and uniting for people across all the lines that divide us, because they could be a new and unsettling force right and so I think, you know, austerity, you know, triple down, we know that everything does not does not work. It never has but it's, it's, it's definitely more people are seeing that in this moment. And, you know, for sure. It wasn't just complicity and collusion at the Capitol with the police and law enforcement that that's that's what they're set up to do. They're set up to beat up us and to keep us out and they're set up to keep the status quo and white supremacy alive and well and so, indeed, they're, you know, we got to do something about that. But but how do you do it but but to organize, you know, from Bona. The next question is for Dr Abdullah and then I do have one for for Reverend Liz. Dr Abdullah does defunding the police means zeroing them out. And the next question would be from Stephanie who says in my experience it is more difficult to organize for people how do we do it. So defunding the police is a step towards abolition, right so there's different ways in which we defund the police. I think that what we're talking about in some spaces I want to use an example from la usd where our children have demanded the defunding of school police which makes logical sense right. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on police for schools that aren't even open. And so the children were brilliant in demanding that la school police be defunded they were able to get a 35% cut to school police, but they're now saying we're coming back for all of it. We want all of it so that we can spend those dollars on counselors and librarians and people to help them with, you know, having to go to zoom school, right. And so this is what the children are doing and they're demanding 100% defunding of school police. We've picked that up in the university system and I was fortunate enough to co author a piece with Angela Davis and Robin Kelly. That's saying in the university system beginning with the public university system we also want to defund the police. More general police departments, we can defund as much as we can. And when we cut them back I think there's almost universal agreement, no matter where people are on the political spectrum that's spending 50% of your money on police fund on police is simply outrageous and unacceptable. And so I think we beat it back as far as we can go but we also recognize that when we say defund the police we're coupling that with reimagining public and investing those dollars in community driven approaches to public safety. So yes, the prize for us the win for us the ultimate victory for us is completely defunding police and abolishing policing as we know it, and building up community driven solutions to public safety. I mean I think about organizing. I mean I think I'm on a call with organizers and so we all know organizing is hard, you know, you have to be persistent, it takes a long time you got to keep on doing things over and over and over again, right. And definitely organizing among folks that, you know, don't have enough, you know whether it's that people's utilities have been cut off and the internet is down and there's not enough food for food for for meetings and not enough money for transportation. But you know again if we follow history, and those who have, you know, actually brought about significant transformations and in this country and around the world, you know, I follow the words of Frederick Douglas, those who would be free must strike the first blow those in pain to leave. And, and across the country in this moment. What we're finding is that for and low income people are not waiting for other people to organize them. They're not waiting to be saved by politicians in Washington or anywhere else, but that people are taking bold action. And the words of a fight for 15 worker who has been fighting for a long time for us to, you know, be getting 15 and a union, you know, our backs are against the wall, and all we can do is push and, and I think, you know what we're finding is that when you put out a framework, when you put out a, you know, a vision. When you when you pull people together in ways that they haven't been pulled together before and in also ways that is what you always do in organizing that that you indeed, you know, can can organize especially from below and so, you know, if, I mean, there's a lot to say, and I'm sure folks here have a lot more to say in terms of how do you organize, let alone how do you organize amongst those who are who are struggling, except for there's powerful organizing if we are appreciative of the fact that there are, you know, moratoriums on evictions, it's because poor people organize for those and for appreciative of the fact that we have, you know, you know, any workers rights is because poor people organize for this. So much of the gains that have been made in this moment and in history is, is because of that organizing. I want to thank both of you so much for joining us. We have another speaker and an action that we're going to follow through on. And please, we encourage you to put anything that you want in the chat or how people can follow up I'm sure there are a lot of questions that people didn't get to answer. We certainly want to have you back and continue this relationship so thank you so much, Reverend Liz Dio Harris and Dr. Malin Abdullah, it's been terrific and so informative and inspiring to have you with us tonight. At this point we're going to turn to one of our own code pink staff members and media says thank you to everybody wants to if you want to unmute people. Thank you to mute quickly to give a big shout out. Thank you to wonderful amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so Carly town is the national co director of code pink. And she's the leader of our divest from war deep on the Pentagon campaign. So Carly is here tonight to tell us about that campaign and what we can do to advance that campaign welcome Carly. So much Marcy and hi everyone. Thank you again to Dr. Dylan Reverend Dio Harris always amazing to hear you speak. I'm going to start off just by sharing my screen with everyone here. I have a short presentation to just kind of go over some of those next steps I think that all of us I think a no are so important so let me just get that started here. All right. Okay, so as Marcy said, my name is Carly town and I do work on our divest from the war machine campaign at code peach, which works to divest our schools, our cities, our politicians and other financial institutions from the war machine, as well as work to defund the Pentagon which is something we're going to talk quite a bit about today. So first though, our divest from the war machine campaign operates from a really simple premise which I think everyone here will agree with. If we're going to end war, we need to stop allowing companies to profit from going to war. Right. So, you know, one key aspect of our campaign involves understanding how war profits years, and that includes companies that produce the weapons of war exert so much influence over our politicians right so you know weapons manufacturers in particular use their huge profits to fund the campaigns of politicians, and those same politicians vote to extend existing wars, engage in new conflicts, and really importantly steadily increase the Pentagon budget every year. Right, so it's the cyclical process that we see. Obviously this doesn't capture all of the ways in which our politicians are really heavily influenced by war profits years. But I think importantly, as Reverend Theo Harris said as as organizers it does offer us, and anyone who wants to end war for profit reduce the Pentagon budget and end the militarization of the police. It offers us a really important site for intervention. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit more today. So first right let's just take a step back and just kind of understand the scale of the problem and how campaign contributions from weapons companies present such an enormous and just extreme conflict of interest right so in 2021. The Pentagon budget is $740 billion, which means we'll spend over a million dollars a minute on the Pentagon. And you can see here half of that budget will go directly to private defense contractors, including weapons companies like Raytheon North up Grumman, Boeing, etc. Right. And also this represents 164% increase in spending on private contractors since 2001. Super important to know. Okay, but also right given that we're having this conversation about demilitarizing our police forces. We have to understand that we dedicate so much of the Pentagon budget to creating and maintaining weapons. But the US military has enough excess quote unquote excess military grade weaponry to send to local police forces through a program called the 1033 program. The 1033 program was created in the 1990s during the war on drugs, and since then has transferred at least $7.4 billion in excess property, including weapons to police forces around the country. And people can see that's, you know, a heavily militarized police officer at protests over the summer, May of 2020. So, you know, we've been code peak members and people here supported efforts to eliminate the 1033 program in 2020 will continue to do so moving forward. But you know, given just these outrageous statistics about our politicians and how they vote and spend more and more every year, really to line the pockets of private defense contractors, and how those same military grid weapons are then used in the streets against some of the most marginalized in our communities, people of color, poor people around the country. What can we do, right? That's obviously why we're here today. So, a recent study from the Security Policy Reform Institute found a direct correlation between contributions from the defense industry and voting to maintain or increase military spending. So you'll see on that chart that correlation between these companies donating to our politicians and them deciding to every year increase the Pentagon budget. So what are we going to do today we're calling on everyone to reach out to their congressional representatives to sign the code pink pledge to commit to stop taking campaign contributions from weapons companies. I want to show people the pledge. So this is our pledge that we're sending to our politicians, calling on them to commit to refuse money from weapons makers around the country and also from the NRA. So I want to show you who has committed to stop taking campaign contributions from weapons companies so far. You can see them on the left there. The representative signed our pledge, likely not, right? We need so much more work to do around this and that's why I'm really excited that everyone here is ready to do that today. And, you know, having your congressional representative sign on to our pledge to stop taking campaign contributions from weapons companies is really, really important, right? But as Marcy mentioned earlier, we also need to show our politicians that we have really concrete ways they can reduce the Pentagon budget and invest in our local communities. So up there is the URL to go to our code pink guide to Pentagon budget cuts. But I also want, and we'll post that on the chat as well. But I also want to make sure people get just a quick sense of what this entails. So as you can see, if you go to that webpage, you'll see the cuts that we're proposing. These are, you know, you can see a couple of them here and how much we could save by cutting various programs in the Pentagon budget. And the total potential savings that we have calculated is $540 billion a year or a 73% reduction in the Pentagon budget. So those are all really important ways to show our politicians that we have real ways to cut the Pentagon budget. So now I want to turn it over to Marcy. We're going to take some action together. We'll post all of these links in the chat box, but just so everyone can see them on the page here. And I will go ahead and stop sharing my screen and pass it over to Marcy. Thank you so much, Carly for all the work, incredible work you're doing on this divest campaign. It's impressive to see that we have a core group. Now we just need to build on that. So tonight, Mary, if you could please post again in the chat, the action that we're going to take. Maybe we should also share our screen. We have 132 people still with us and we basically what we're going to be doing is calling our reps, leaving a message, your congressional representative, asking your representative to do two things. One, two, we'll give them a way to do that. Perhaps somebody can. Notice if you can please mute yourself, that would be wonderful. Thank you. So we're going to ask our reps to sign the pledge by contacting Codepin. And then we're also going to give them a link to the Pentagon, our recommended Pentagon cuts and ask them to look at that. We also want to relay the urgency with which we want them to speak up about Biden, not rejoining the Iran deal and lifting those sanctions and I don't know what he's doing, you know, he appointed Robert Malley the 2015 negotiator for the Iran deal so that was a positive sign, but lately he seems to be backing off from his commitment to rejoin. So we want to make sure that our representatives speak up about this, you know, he's jeopardizing world peace in, and not doing so. So, Mary, are you able to post that in the chat and maybe maybe we could share the screen to I will share my screen and they did post in the chat and I also posted the links to the page on our website where you can automatically be connected to call and email. Okay. All right, so there's a Capitol Hill switchboard. Want to call your rep there's a call script. And then we ask that you also email your representative tonight you can use this put it in your own words whatever you want to do. So those are the actions for tonight and we ask that you follow up with your representative so now you're asking them for the first time to sign this pledge. They can find out in a week or two did they do anything and follow up and ask your friends please whatever whatever actions we share with you. We do so in the spirit that you will share it you will in turn share them with your lists of friends or on social media. All right, let's make some calls. Oh, and just one other thing that the link that Mary just put in the automatic one. If you do that as well, you'll get a chance to send an automatic tweet and put it on your Facebook so please do that. That helps to spread the word. Thank you. Done done done. And before we lose anybody let's tell them about next week, Marcy. So next week, we are going to have Barbara Lee and Mark. They were going to join us earlier but then the impeachment impeachment issue came up and certainly they had to be on the floor for that, but they will be with us to talk about the their caucus, the defense spending reduction caucus and and we'll be following up with our reps on that too. So without further ado let's all get on the phone or send an email I'd like to see everybody moving forward with this action alert thank you so much. And people are asking if the offices are open for calls during COVID you'll get a machine machine all the time so you might as well call now. And of course follow up another time but yes, they'll take messages. So everyone it is wonderful to see you all saying in the chat that you have taken action I'm so glad that you all are, you know getting involved with this and it seems to be working out well hopefully. Enough of us keep doing these actions, our voices will be heard. So, I'll leave the screen up for a few more minutes if you're still still. Is, please post a link directly to the pledge. Yes. And I love all the people saying how happy they are to be doing the action. Yeah, action ours. Mary, this is Carly. Yes, you can find the pledge it's right there actually if you click on it right there it's right on your screen. I know but I just wanted to get the URL so they can everybody can have it. But it's it is linked right on the action. So this link I've sent to you times I can send it again down here you can contact automatically and also it's linked to the pledge. And I did link to the pledge in the chat but it's kind of a scary link so this one is nice and easy to remember. Thank you Mary that's great. So we can go ahead and start to kind of wind down now I will leave up the action still for a few more minutes, but thank you all for coming it has been wonderful to see these events be so successful and so well attended. Okay, maybe we can just stay stay on a little bit longer. I think everybody a chance contact their representative and senators. And again, please do talk up this pledge. Share it with others very few may know about it. And it could be a powerful tool. Thank you Sarah Dean. Yes, what the message. Okay. Sarah said where can I easily grab the text for the email. I'll be sending out an email either tonight or tomorrow morning. And I'll have the text of this action alert in the email along with recording a link to our recording. In case anyone didn't see the last link that was just posted. There's a part where you could just put in your address and then it'll automatically do the emails so that was super convenient. And I just say sorry I was late and it's great to see you all. Right are we good. Yeah. All right how many are still with us Mary, you know I can't even see oh I 53 that's great. 53 terrific. And I see John right. Okay. We'll be in touch. Oh also finally I know Gonzalo responded. Please Mary, you could before people leave post the signup sheet if they want to be a liaison in their congressional district. I'll leave that link. And if anybody wants to isn't in the Google group and wants to be you can just email me mercy at code pink.org. Okay, yes, Gonzalo maybe you can email me tomorrow. Marcia code pink.org and I'll send that off to you. Okay. All right great. Fantastic thank you all for joining us tonight. Honey I can't hear you. Oh, here we go. I'm going to say another successful event. This is really great. So on behalf of all of us that could paint thank you again, and we'll see you next week same time. It's the same zoom link. I see if you use that again. Thank you. Thank you everyone for participating being here. We can unmute and just say when we organize we win. When we organize. Thank you. Thank you all. Good night. Thank you.