 I'm an organizer with Code Pink and your co-host tonight with my colleague, Olivia. I'm calling from colonized Seminole, Taino, and Tequesta Indigenous Territory, which is now known as Florida. Yeah, I cannot stress enough how timely this webinar is. As we're seeing the four interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and ecological devastation at full force. With war profiteers making record profits as millions fall into poverty, our reproductive rights are stripped and deadly shootings become part of our daily reality as our environmental devastation worsens. Now is the time for us to be together and wield our collective power and organize so we can be protagonists of our collective freedom. That's why we have this webinar. This webinar is not just a call to envision what an alternative world could look like, but also an invitation to build the anti-war movement we currently need. So we're asking everybody on this call to join us in DC on June 18, to bring the anti-militarism message as we work to build a long-term intersectional movement. We will be posting information on how to get involved, including individual sign-up sheets, coalition forums throughout the webinar. There are many ways that everybody who is joining us tonight can be involved in this movement. So I just wanna give you a little bit of background about the structure of this webinar. First, we'll have the opportunity to hear from these leading activists that have overcome the fog of war and have a long history of working for peace and justice. We are so incredibly honored to have such a great panel tonight. Please feel free to share your questions in the chat. And we'll get to them towards the end. So now I'm going to ground us in the words of civil rights leader, Coretta Scott King, who forces us to analyze the overlapping injustices that impact working people. And then my colleague, Olivia, will introduce the speakers. So Shaye, could you help us with this video, please? Thank you. I remind you that starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her child is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical needs is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence. Even the lack of will power to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence. The violence of war is understood by everyone. There is hardly a family which has not been victimized by the effects of war. What a nonsensical and cruel way to try to resolve conflicts. We have come to realize and understand the broad dimensions of violence in our society. The problems of racism, poverty, and war can all be summarized with one word, violence, which seems to be fashionable in our society. If we do not stop this madness, we will suddenly destroy ourselves and the whole world. Far too long, far too long. Our town is hurting my brother and it's gone on. Far too long, and we won't be silent anymore. Far too long, and we won't be silent anymore. Thank you, Samantha, for starting us off strong. And thanks for everyone here. We are gonna get right into it with this great group of speakers. Reverend Dr. Barber is traveling right now, so it's going to be making an appearance here at some point. We're not necessarily sure when, so we're gonna get going with our speakers for a little bit of an introductory questions as I introduce them. That's gonna come from our scene, but we really want this to be interactive and bring you all in. So there is a Q&A button at the bottom of Zoom, and you can go ahead and click that so that you can insert your question there. And a little bit later on in the conversation, we are gonna be pulling some of those questions. And again, we are going to be putting the link in the chat to join us on June 18th weekend. There is going to be an incredibly powerful march bringing people in across issues and to really emphasize how intersectional the injustices of all of our issues are and that also that how intersectional justice is moving forward. Oh, and I do see that Reverend Barber is on and so it would be great for us to get him off mute. I think Shay and our tech team, maybe can we get Reverend Barber on to speak? Yeah, working on adding him now. Okay, great. And for those of you who don't know, which I assume is a very small amount here, Reverend Barber is the president and senior lecturer of Repairs of the Breach and the co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign. He is one of the driving forces of this movement and of the Moral Mondays, but also just the bringing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King into light decades later and carrying on the connected struggles. So I think we have Reverend Barber on and if you would go ahead and share with us some words. Oh, how are you? First of all, I think that can you hear me? That question today really doesn't deserve an answer, except to say not well. I'm just getting off the road and we were driving through Tennessee and right after we passed the monument to Nathan Forrest, the founder of the Klan, it came across the radio that 16 students now 18 have been killed, one adult teacher and the killer. I couldn't help but think how long we've been at this madness of violence from the foundation of the world and even in this country. It was violence and war that tried to hold on to people as slaves and sadly the system is so sick that it required violence from the former slaves to get free from the violence of slavery. We're caught up in this cycle and circle of violence, war. I think about the struggle that Frederick Douglass had to make. John Brown, John Brown made the decision to start a war. Told Frederick Douglass, but you can't do it. I need you to be free because somebody's got to try to put this thing back together. But this violence begets so much violence. I listened to Coretta Scott King early on the tape. I think if I'm not mistaken, those words were after her husband was killed when she was talking about madness because she knew that at the root, the same madness that would blow up people with nuclear weapons is the same madness that would shoot her husband through the neck and sever his spine and murder him for trying to be an instrument of love. It was the same madness that was pushing and promoting the Vietnam War and the same madness that was so mad, so crazy, so ridiculous that she couldn't even take a breath and mourn. But before her husband's body was resting and settled in the grave, she had to be back in the street warning the nation and the world that somewhere, if we don't stop this, all will be destroyed, so much violence. I was sharing with Jody one day that my father was in World War II. And before any of you judge me or judge him, let me share why I bring that up. My father had gone to college at Elizabeth City State University. He did not sign up for the services. He was snatched out of college and drafted. He was drafted because he was in college and because the services at that time were segregated. But they decided to bring up black recruits because somebody had to cook for folks and somebody had to clean in order for the war machine to work. So they drafted him and put him in the neighborhood to teach black recruits. He was in line in attention format. And a racist captain saw him. Saw my father's very bright skin, straight hair. Went up to him and said, you're one of those uppity niggers. And I used that word intentionally. You're not going to be over hit teaching recruits. You're going to be empty in my bed pan and other things degrading. Snatched my father out of line, snatched him and put him on the submarine chaser. And for a year or so he was where he was until a black college president named Trigg from St. Augustine called to a white senator who at the time was a racist white senator in the south where he happened to like this black college president and they were able to get my father reassigned. And my father served until the end of the war and when they asked him to stay, he said, no, and after the war he became one of the greatest in my book promoters of peace because he knew what war could do. He knew how crazy it was. And so he had this strange reality and he taught it to me of having been both in the war and one who stood against war and struggled against it even though when he knew the country would go to war he said somebody always has to stand up. I was on plane a few years ago flying out of Atlanta and a general came up to me and said, are you Bishop Barber? And I said, yes. He said, I want to thank you. I said, why? Because I was just at Fort Bragg preaching against this war. Why would you thank me and your general? He said, I am a general. I joined the service because I was poor. He was white. But don't think that all of us just enjoy war. In fact, he said, I'm so thankful for folk like you and movements like you because there's no telling where we would go if somebody wasn't saying stop. This is crazy. And he shared a tear and he walked off the plane. I remember when I was standing in front of the gates of Fort Bragg preaching against the Iraq war and calling America to repentance. It was a crowd on the other side of the street hollering out epitaphs of cursing and suggesting that I should be dead or worse. And it was the pink brigade, a brigade of nonviolent gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who stood around me. People who themselves have experienced so much violence because of so much meanness. I just came on tonight to echo that in every age somebody's got to stand against this foolishness. Whether we win the battle or not, we win the first battle by having the courage to call for peace in a world that is too comfortable with war and too callous about other people's deaths. There has to be somebody in the world that says the world has to decide that war and violence is not an option because the continuation of it is to destroy us all, wherever it is. We have to point out the ridiculous inconsistencies when some people claim they have a moral foundation to support war, but then they turn around and don't say the moral foundation to fight for peace, the moral foundation to fight to make sure people are treated right and are not treated with what Corellis got king called the other form of violence, the violence of not having health care, the violence of not having living wages, the violence of not having access to education. She said that and then Corellis got king said there's another form of violence and that is an apathetic attitude that refuses to challenge all of the other forms of violence. She said that too is violence. So we must be non-violent and that's why we're gathering together on June 18th as a declaration and that's why even when early on in the Poor People's Campaign there were some who said, look let's just do poverty and racism. Let's don't add war, let's don't add the war economy. And we said Reverend Thothfield, Liz, there's no way you can talk about wanting to challenge the systemic racism and systemic poverty and ecological devastation and denial of health care and not challenge militarism and war. And there's no way you can challenge the false moral narrative of religious nationalism and not challenge the war economy because they all intersect, they are interlocking injustices. Dr. King said, he said anytime the budget and the decision of a nation are primarily determined by its war machinery, that nation is on a spiral toward moral and physical death. And what do we see today? 53 to 54 cents of every discretionary dollar today is spent on the war economy and less than 15 cents spent on education and health care. And what are some talking about right now? I just looked at the TV, what are they talking about? Even in this aftermath of these deaths, let's make more weapons, let's have more. Let's open it up more, let's put more weapons and not how can we have less? There is a bloodthirstyness. There's been a part of humanity, our body politic far too long and somebody has to stand in every age. Whether we win the battle or not, we win the battle if we stand. And so on June 18, 2022, Saturday at 9.30 a.m., can we all come together? Can we all come together and understand that the same forces that promote systemic racism and poverty and ecological devastation, denial of health care, the false moral narrative of religious nationalism, white supremacy, the great replacement theory and the war economy are the same forces and if they are cynical enough to be together, can't we understand that right now what we see is a crisis of civilization? The same forces that would allow billionaires to make $2 trillion over the last 24 months while 8 million people fell into poverty are the same forces that would get put more money in the Pentagon doing COVID and allow poor people to die at a rate of 2 to 5 times higher than other people. The same forces that would watch in Oxfam just said yesterday and my last word Oxfam said that in doing COVID, a billion there was made every 30 hours and every 33 hours over a million more people fell into extreme poverty and the same forces that will sit around and watch that kind of inequality are the same forces that would rather be than spend money to fix the world. And so let us keep our hope. Now, when I say hope, I'm not talking about hope that is naive. I'm not talking about the kind of hope that acts like this world won't hurt you because I just left the Lorraine Motel and I know that this world was that forces that will kill you for love. I've had numerous death threats in my short life. I'm not naive, but I'm talking about a different kind of hope. I'm a Christian and for me, hope is the kind of hope that you see a violent world, but you refuse to challenge it with violence even if it crucifies because the hope you have is the willingness to suffer non-violently in the belief that possibly if you were willing and enough folk are willing to suffer non-violently you can fundamentally shift, but you can't change violence with violence. It's the kind of hope that is willing to get underneath the despair on it and then not give into it and understand that we are the hope of the possibilities of non-violence and slowing down if not stopping militarism and saying to this world don't be so crazy that you kill your own self because that's where it's headed if you keep on building bombs and destroying and spending more in war than the things of love and justice so I love you all it's hard to talk tonight watching these death tolls come in and watching the way so many people are responding but the world needs you this country needs you and every so often the country needs a mass gathering doesn't happen often a mass gathering that can help reset the moral character of the nation and the mass gathering that says or says and sings a song my daddy taught me because he knew the ravages of war and he hated them and riding down the back roads of eastern North Carolina he would teach me this song and it was an ain't gonna study war no more ain't gonna study war no more ain't gonna study war no more let us have that soul's conviction and refuse to give it up and let us come together on June 18th as a day declaration and not a day and commit from everyday following understand for nonviolence over violence when it comes to challenging every policy of violence that exists in this culture God bless you all love to you today I hope you're crying today I really do because if we can't share tears on days like this then this culture has gotten a hold of us in a way that has made us too known to be human let's resist that so that we can lean into the better angels of ourselves thank you so much Reverend Barber for the profoundly moving and powerful way to continue to ground us not in just this hour we have together not just the time that we'll be spending together on June 18th but what we build moving forward and so the nature of how we're gonna move forward in this call is I am going to introduce our three panelists and ask them a short introductory question and we just had Reverend Barber who is at the forefront of the national level of the Poor People's Campaign we are so grateful to have Zilla Wesley with us Zilla is the DC base coordinator of the Poor People's Campaign and is a force in the DC local community really proving that organizing and change begins at the local level and Zilla I'm so honored to know and work with her she's been a long time friend of Code Pink and in different organizing spaces here in DC and Zilla as we talk about I would like for you to speak briefly on how we can like what conversations and approaches are lacking from the anti-militarism and anti-war spaces well I think real conversations don't even like why people join the military right because my family is very military just because of the draft in the 70s my uncles and my father were all drafted they even talk about how people who are local in DC like by MLK library on 9th street they would line up buses and put everyone in the buses and then they would also separate black youth and two different sides and then they would just drive off sometimes to be seen again and even from war like what happens after because now my uncle is slowly dying and has late stage Alzheimer's because of being sprayed by Agent Orange from his own country and all the cancers he had throughout the years and even how it trickled down and it's like I don't know if you can match it to both of his children after he came back from war have had some type of like cancer poll-up situations in their body since then so it's like a generational trauma from war like that's one thing also even just understanding our unhoused community and not being able to just have these hard conversations because some of these conversations veterans try to commit suicide on a higher level like the mental health poll because morality no one wants to kill anybody because we had a poor people's campaign meeting a while ago one guy was like he looked after he shot somebody he looked in his hands and looked at his hands and they were basically the same hands of like a farmer working hard just to make it and I say that in the sense of it's one time to have uncomfortable conversations about war and all the aspects of it and not necessarily nuance because the reality is we are just living just to live and to survive and not thrive and we can imagine this world and that's why June 18th is so important as a moral declaration to really say like I can't imagine to be anything I want to do like I don't want to have to be a murderer or a soldier or however you want to you know because I know there's different ways to use on the military to do that because I say that to say is that we are also we need to talk about the surplus of materials that end up coming into our communities right like D.C.'s always D.C.'s always a good example of it because when something happens tanks go rolling down the street helicopters are everywhere and all of this is leftover surplus from the military budget and even like how you know the military tries to get into everything and just shows you know some of these companies you know that made billions and billions of dollars and still are are like everywhere you know in elementary schools like Bowling has a like elementary school program to teach people how to do aviation but we don't talk about their other side of Bowling right so I just say that to say it's like time to have real true conversations and really do like go on our website we have like our Jubilee budget and our other moral documents that really show like if we put the money there and invest in our community then like what can happen you know and we have seen that if we can call for it can happen like we saw how there's a little off subject but like build back better and really investing in our money I mean in our communities have really uplifted people because child welfare of the child oh god what am I having to bring for it um tax credit has really like it got like over 20 million children out of poverty right and to take that back from them and then put that money into war says something so those are some of my thoughts off the break for that so thank you thank you so much Zilla and that actually lends itself very well to our next speaker Lindsay is the program director of the National Priorities Project through the Institute of Policy Studies which has been an incredible resource Lindsay like the work that you do allows for us to do have the conversations as Zilla was just talking about I know that every flyer I hand out at Codepink has National Priorities Project trade-offs that are used and also this breakdown Shay is going to drop in the chat her recent article that was just published that points out that less than 1% of the current $782 billion the biggest it's ever been until next year's of course Pentagon budget is marked for Ukraine which is about 50 times as much that will go to profit weapons contractors so Lindsay thank you so much for being here today and based off of what Zilla was just saying what concrete actions can individuals be taking oh I'm sorry that that is not the question that I had for you yeah what concrete actions based on the tools that you use through NPP can individuals be taking in their communities to target the war machine if you could talk a little bit about your work and the tools that you have yeah thank you Olivia so Olivia mentioned and some of you probably are familiar with National Priorities Project work our primary work is about cutting military budget and I'm gonna say a few words more about it but we've expanded to cutting what we call the militarized budget and I'll explain what that means and why it's important but cutting that budget and putting those into human needs so for example our annual military spending is more than four times what the annual spending would have been under build back better that Senator Manchin killed for being too expensive but he voted for the military budget so those are the kinds of things that we look at and then you know if we cut the military budget what could we spend it on but over the last years we have increasingly looked at the cost at the Pentagon budget which is still a huge part of our work and a huge part of the spending but we've also started to look at how militarism in the world and US militarism abroad and our colonialism is connected to militarism here so Zilla talked about for example the program that sends surplus military equipment unwanted military equipment to local communities and that can be everything from there are tons of guns that go out into communities which definitely comes to mind in light of what's happened today and I really so much appreciate Reverend Barter first starting with this shooting I found out that it just you know not very long before this call and I was actually at my children's elementary school when I saw the news and it's all connected it's you know we have these weapons coming into our communities they may not be using that particular instance but they're coming into the communities they're being used by law enforcement law enforcement is certainly using them to to commit crimes and to commit aggression against people and their communities so there's that we also have militarism of our border we have not only US troops at the border but we have what are effectively troops in Border Patrol who have military weapons they use military drones it is just an extension of the military at our southern border so there is that and that's not typically counted independent on budget then we have the militarism militarization of federal law enforcement and of local law enforcement federal law enforcement so like the FBI comes and gives training to your local police department how to use weapons for example and that's another part of it but it's not part of the military budget so all of those things come together and we say a lot that and Reverend Barber mentioned that you know 53, 54, 52 somewhere in there percent of the federal annual budget discretionary budget goes to the military every year but if you look at all those things other pieces that I was just talking about it is two thirds of that budget that goes to militarism so it's a huge difference so one of the things that we want to do and that is so important on a local level for people is to connect those issues but also to connect the movements so we've started to work more with our friends and allies and the immigration movement and started to work more with our friends and allies and the movement for Black Lives and all of these things because it's all connected and we all recognize that it's connected and that we have to stop all of it the other way it's connected of course is that it's stealing the money that we need for human needs it's stealing the money we need to end poverty it's stealing the money we need for climate change and that's where mostiya I think I saw this and where people might actually have search questions are described right many of the wrongs of white supremacy over the years all of these dollars should be going to other things and that's where most of NPP comes in and that's where you can use our work at our website and I think I saw someone put it in the chat she put it in the chat thank you Shea local movements, if there are local immigrant rights movements, if there are local movement for Black Lives chapters or other racial justice chapters to make sure you're connecting to those places and not just talking about the Pentagon budget but talking about the whole thing. And you can use our website to see, for example, if you cut the ICE budget, the immigration deportation budget, what could you buy in your own community? Not just for the whole country, but you can choose your town. There's a little calculator on our website. You choose your town or you choose your congressional district if you're going to meet with your legislator. And then you see what else you could buy for it. How many nurses could we hire? How many teachers? How many kids could get health insurance? How, you know, what are all the different things that we could be doing with this money that we're not doing right now? And that can be a really powerful tool. And it's also a tool that really speaks. And, you know, I think we're all here tonight to talk about the Poor People's Campaign in June 18th. And it really helps make the connections between issues too, right? It connects. It makes the connection of poverty to militarism or of climate change to militarism. And there are so many other connections there. But one of the big connections that people care about is the dollars. And so that's what we do. And, you know, so I would encourage you to use those tools. They are there. And to also tell us if you want something that you don't see there. Because we have responded to that kind of thing. And we have definitely changed those tools over the years, according to requests by activists who are using those tools. But I think the thing is how you use them, right? And it's really making these connections because we're in a tough moment right now. We've got war in Ukraine. We've got Pentagon spending that's going through the roof. We've got mass shootings that never seem to end. We've got all of these things, immigration policy that did not take the turn. A lot of us were hoping for when we got a new president and a new Congress. So all of those things, I think it's just, I would just encourage you to get involved in those other movements because we need to tie it all together the way the Poor People's Campaign does. Thank you so much, Lindsay. And the link that Jay is dropping is for to join us on June 18 as the peace contingent that is really wanting to emphasize and make these connections that you're talking about is that we are not separate from immigration or climate or racism or economic injustice, but in fact, that we are fueling all of that militarism in the war machine and to bring us together, like Reverend Barber said, that we have to address the military industrial complex in the war economy. And I really love how Lindsay and Zilla both talked about the local. And our last panel is a veteran, Herman Mahia, is from Dallas, Texas. And he is a veteran after the age of 18 in order to support his family and list in the Marine Corps. And in 2003, participated in the initial invasion of Iraq. Over the past 10 years, though, as a member of About Face, the veterans against the war, he's also a national anti-militarism organizer with Global Grassroots Justice Alliance. And, Ramon, I would love for you to talk a little bit about how we can frame the goals of the anti-war movement to center intersectionality, because I know that you have a feminist foreign policy approach that JJJ does, centering the intersectionality in interlocking injustices, especially from the global to the local, as we address things like perpetual endless war and the climate crisis. So welcome. And if you could speak on that, I know it's a very large question. Yeah, I think when it comes to answering kind of like what are the goals of the anti-war movement and kind of centering intersectionality, I think what we really need to do is learn how to talk to people and see what resonates with people. I think that one of the most difficult things to do is to actually engage community members on a one basis to actually have these deep conversations that where we're struggling to not only grow consciousness, but then in turn develop, like identify the role for each of us in this movement. Because my role as an anti-war veteran that's organizing grassroots organizations throughout the country looks very different to what my role is, to what the role of my dad, who is a retired mattress warehouse employee. So I think that in wanting to grow the consciousness of everyday people, because I think a lot of people always ask this question like, where is the anti-war movement? And I think that the anti-war movement is each of us. Reverend Barber was talking about hope. And I think that for a lot of people, hope has become hallucination. It's like a hallucination that's not possible, but it is possible. Hope with the experience of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, the role of the anti-war movement at the beginning, at the onset of the Iraq war and into the global war on terror. These are all learned lessons that we need to come to terms with and we need to study. I'll say it plainly, our quality of life from housing, health care, education, having a good, paying, clean, green job will see no significant change if we don't come to terms with the reality that having an annual military budget of over $800 billion and over 790 military bases is not only sustainable, but as at odds with what we're trying to work with. So it's about coming to terms with this reality and pushing back against it, right? Too often times, people place veterans on a pedestal and thus they hold back from criticizing. I don't think so. Criticize this. Me, as an Iraq veteran, deserves to have criticism for my role in participating in a horrible crime that destroyed countless of lives, not only in Iraq, but within the United States as well. But is that criticism and the urgency that I bring to this movement in order to try and to not only right the wrongs that we've committed as a people, as a community, as a nation, but also to be able to build with our community members. And I know I don't want to go too long-winded, but it's interesting to have Lindsay on here with me because when I joined, when I became on staff as a national organizer with National Global Justice Alliance, I was given this task as being an anti-militarism, anti-war veteran, to be able to deepen the consciousness of our members who come from a cross-sector of fights, housing justice, environmental justice, immigrant rights, anti-police brutality. And my role was to be able to deepen the consciousness of the intersection between the extractive economy and through militarism and the National Parties Project, that no warming, no war primer was actually something that I hold till to this day. That's the first thing that I read when I came on this position. And it's something that I continue to refer to. So National Parties Project is definitely a resource that provides a lot of information and a lot of tools to be able to continue to kind of deepen with one another, right? And so over the last two years, that's how I've been approaching each of our members, is that they each have, we're in an alliance of over 60 member grassroots organizations around the country. Their programming looks very different from an anti-war and anti-militarism organization. They have a base that they're needing to support and to do goals that they need to bend. So it's about trying to weave our movements and identify space and ways that we can kind of continue to build together. And I can talk a little bit more about the climate change and the climate movement and the connection to anti-militarism. But I can hold that off. But that's something that we saw recently that Bill got not only a lot of momentum, but just with the growth around climate consciousness, that that was a good intersection to be able to bring these two movements of anti-militarism and anti-war and the climate justice movement that oftentimes tends to stray away from criticizing the military. Chuck. Thank you. Thank you to everyone for those initial questions. And if anyone wants to build off of what other folks said when we open up this next one, please go ahead. We want this to be conversational and again, interactive with the audience and they've been sending in some questions. But one that has come through is how do we overcome the current political and media narrative of US exceptionalism and the war economy as an inevitable aspect of our reality? So whoever would like to start, and again, you can build off of what you said prior or what others said as well. Can I start real quick if that's okay? Because one of something what Lindsay said, it's like echoing in my mind of like, they're taking money like from us, right? And like that, just like my little mind just blue because it's so true and people really relate and follow the money. So sometimes like, and even to Ramon's point, you got to meet people where they are because like, I think that's a few things we need to work on just as a society is to have uncomfortable conversations where we don't necessarily have to like, we agree to disagree but compromise to come to some type of communal understanding, right? Of like what it is because if not, we will never hear each other because sometimes we're saying the same thing, but we're just so passionate about it that we forget to really understand the human cause. And like, I joined the military for X, Y and Z, like I didn't join the military to like just go kill people, you know? And so, yeah, so that's one thing when you said that that really thought to me is just like, we really need to just like even just show people like, and that's also goes with like, one thing about the campaign is like, let's change the narrator of some of these things, right? Cause a lot of the books that we study are from people who are pro military. Cause, you know, I just finished school in 2022 and like a lot of the people that we like read and research are very like pro war, pro this, pro the golden age of war when the US was like whatever, you know? And so like changing some of the books we read all of, and all of that. So that's some of my thoughts on that. Thank you so much. I also, again, if you all wanna build off of that, I'm just, I just put the question again in the chat as well. And also about the media stuff, we need some like true media, right? And I say that in the sense of like, a lot of the media that's out there now is very like partisan or liberal conservative, but we just need some like facts, you know? Sometimes of like really what it is, what it isn't, you know? How much money is really being spent here? Like what can that money do here? So like, I do love co-pink, how you have a radio station and amplify voice. Like that's one thing that we can do is really amplify voices that are out there speaking a different narrative that we hear from everywhere else. So that's a lot on that. Yeah, I love that. So, you know, I'm thinking about the exceptionalism part of this and one thing I wanna say just for like a little dose of hope is that we have polling and we know that younger people in this country are not sold on US exceptionalism in the way that older people are. And so there's hope for the future. We gotta get those young people though and we gotta get them involved and keep them with us. I love Zilla talking about meeting people and Ramon talking about meeting people where they're at and listening some. You know, I think right now with Ukraine it is an especially difficult moment because people who, I know people who are generally anti-militarist but this is an exception for them, right? We all know those people. And I think it's important not to just shut it down right away. Like maybe you tell them what you think about it but don't shut it down. Because we're gonna lose a lot of people that way. So I think that's one thing sort of on an interpersonal level is making connections and realizing when people agree with you and asking ourselves why there aren't more young people here maybe. And you know, where are they? What are they doing instead of this? Is that should we be where they are? Is that like what should, how can we make this work? Because I don't think there's ever been meaningful social change without young people. So I think there's that. And then the media is a huge problem. I think one thing is that there's a little moment right now where people still remember how badly the media messed up on Iraq. And I wanted to use a stronger word than messed up but I will say that people still remember that including people in the media remember that. And so there's a moment right now to say, hey, don't do that and remember that, don't do that again. And just try to hold them to account and where they're a little bit more cognizant of it, they're a little more aware. And I think one example of that actually is the New York Times has been doing a bunch of stuff on drone killings as part of the war on terror. And I think that is something that may come out of that sort of sense of like, oh, we messed up. And so I think encouraging more of that, using that and calling them on it when they go back to the old way of doing things. Lindsay, I have a quick follow up on that just because you had mentioned this and this question came through from Medina in the chat of, saying not shutting people down directly, but the questions here with the war specific to Ukraine, how do you talk to people who say we should give weapons to give people of Ukraine a chance to defend themselves and their sovereignty? Yeah, so I mean, I think you just tell them the same thing really. I mean, I think you tell them what you think. I don't think there's a special message. And part of that is because I think there are a lot of people who are not gonna be persuaded. And I think, you know, Bisha Barber talked about, hope doesn't mean that we're naive, right? So we have to be able to like say the right things. And Medina, I don't know, I would love to hear what your response is to this sometime, but we have to be able to say the things that we believe and then not persuade people. And I think that is just unfortunately, that is a lot of what's gonna happen with Ukraine. Yeah, I wanted just to add on a few of the things about the work with young people, right? So just to kind of push back like, I mean, I pushed back to go back like, I remember when I joined the military was purely out of economic necessity, right? It was purely to support my family. That was the option that was placed in front of me was to join the military, right? And I think that on one hand, I agree with Lindsey saying as far as that the youth are not sold on the military, right? It's the absence of knowing that's what's hurting us in the sense of like, before the Iraq war, I didn't know about like the wars and the military industrial complex and kind of like that impact that my choices on wanting to provide for my family was at the expense of Iraqis, of Afghans, of people that are being, the war is being waged on by the United States, right? So I didn't know that afterwards after Iraq, then I made the decision not to ever not know again, right? That that was not an excuse for me not to know. And I think that is because of the way education school are then the system, the government, everything, right? It's trying to put as many barriers from deciding your own fate and our own fate as a community that we have to continue to support and broaden the movements that are already out there that are doing this work, right? So for, I think about when they're talking about youth the amazing work that like organizations like the centers is doing that is going to college campuses throughout the country that are providing workshops around strategy, creative resistance, tactics, practicing how to like carry campaigns and tactics. And I think that those are some of the making sure that we're supporting like the efforts that people are already engaged in communities and throughout and also just connecting it back to I think the history, right? I think we have so many powerful stories from all our communities, right? And also through history, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he talked about when he talked about the bombs in Vietnam and how they explode at home they also destroy like the hopes and the possibilities for creating a better world. That's during the Vietnam War, during the Iraq War a lot of what the organization part of about Facebook back then it was called Iraq Veterans Against the War they carried that legacy and kind of pushing that every bomb that was dropped in on Iraq was exploding along the Gulf Coast as they related to the hurricane Katrina and the lack of resources and support that communities along the Gulf Coast and especially in Louisiana and how they were left to fend for themselves while billions and billions of dollars were being spent to wage war. That's happening today in the sense that we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to continue waging war and the military is not gonna be the solution. So it's important that not only do we engage community members but we also engage people that engage our politicians, right? They're politicians that claim to be progressive and can claim to be anti-war but yet still continue to vote for and support and ever increasing military budget. So I think it comes back to trying to meet people where they are but there's also to staying firm on our principles and our values of trying to create a better world and the one we exist and echoing or continuing to become accessories to crimes that are being committed or to something that we have to continue to push back on, yeah, check on this up right there. Thank you all. And there's been so many questions that have come through the chat but as always the hour went very, very quickly. I wanna give everyone an opportunity to say something before we move into our closing, closing and as this is, even despite, the word hope is active as a discipline we've been hearing that a lot but what is something that you all wanna get out of the poor people's campaign and I'm sorry, the poor people's march, the assembly, thousands of people we hope and will be there. And what do you want to see as like a takeaway from that day that is related to the anti-war movement? I guess I can go first. So yeah, I just wanna say cause what Ramon said is kind of key, right? Cause it's like really talking to each other, right? And I say this cause like, I don't know if anyone's seen a new commercial about the army and how like they make military look fun and it's like multicultural people. It's like Martin's dream but in like an army fatigue. And like, I say that to say it's time for us to do our own re-imagination of what our society can be, right? And that Juneteenth is a declaration of a day that we are trying to manifest transformation of this country that can potentially manifest the world, right? And I mean that in the sense of we really need to, especially when it comes to the military, like this system is so violent on so many levels. We're having global violence. We're having national violence. We're having local violence, right? And we need to like really stand up and say this violence is like no more, we can't do this. Cause like we can't continue to be numb to the fact of all of this, you know? And I know cause as we're doing this the helicopters are flying by my house right now, you know? So I say that to say is that I just want to call everyone there to really just say like, we're here. We know this is a new world. Let's invest in our communities instead of investing in this war machine. Let's stop monetizing, killing and having collateral damage be okay, you know? Cause nobody's collateral damage because who knows what this generation of war will lead to in the next generation. We need to like finally just say stop enough is enough and June 18th is a call for that. Cause once we start, sorry. Cause you know how like once people claim something or say it out loud it's bound to happen, right? So like that to me is what June 18th is about. We're claiming it so we can change it. Yeah. So two things. One is I think a lot of people will and I hope that people will come away with a lot of learning. I mean, one thing I know is that the purples campaign pulls in a lot of different people from a lot of different places. And people who's with a lot of different concerns, right? There are people who might be primarily worried about housing or there might be people who are primarily worried about drinking water or safety in their community or there might be people who are primarily concerned with like being a veteran and what that means that all of these different people. And I think the June 18th will be a chance for all those people to hear the message that these are interlocking injustices. We have to solve them all and for that to really sink in for people. So that's one of my hopes for that day. And the other thing about it is, I mean, I think we all know that mass marches don't directly change anything, right? We're not gonna show up on the Capitol steps and everybody in Congress is gonna say, oh, there you're right, I'll do what you say. But it's a community building. And that is something that the poor people's campaign, if anybody hasn't, and listening to this call hasn't been to a poor people's campaign event, you have to come because this is what the poor people's campaign is the best at. It's making people feel the hope. It's making people feel tied and accountable and responsible to each other in a way that makes it so that when you're down and when you're losing and when things are not going the way that we want them to, you still stay in it because you're in it with the other people. And I think that's what gives movements lasting power a lot of the time. There is dedication to the cause, but there's also dedication to your other people that you're working with and that you're striving and struggling with. And so I think that's another reason to come and also for the music, like you got to come for the music. Poor people's campaign has the best singing, best music, hands down. Yeah, I think the mobilizing and coming together is definitely like a community building space and opportunity to be able to build with movements and sectors from across different spaces to be able to kind of one get to know each other but then also to learn about not only about the topics that each organization or each effort is kind of pushing forward, how they're all intersected and kind of seeing ultimately what role folks have. I think one of the biggest kind of things of how my hope for organizations and people that participate is kind of continuing to keep a lot of, I know I didn't speak about it much but keeping some of the lessons of like the Feminist Peace Initiative that are brought together by GGJ and women cross DMZ and Mallory is about being in a right relationship with people in the planet. So it's kind of like as we're there having those conversations is like, one, what is our role in the belly of the beast? What is it that we're attempting to doing? What should we seek to do? We have to also identify like the leadership from diaspora communities and kind of build an internationalist solidarity and cooperation both from the local to the state, to the national to the international rights. It's not enough to ask for a reducer redress but to put a stop to the harms that are being perpetrated by the US government and US policy. So I think that ultimately it's a way for us to continue building together. And one of my other hope is that each of the different alliances and organizations that are participating, that they all have this as a poor people's campaign has so greatly been able to interweave is how the impact that the war economy has on each of their communities and what's being stolen from their communities in order to be wage violently on other communities. So I think it's, yeah, that's what I'm hopeful for and I can't wait to see how it turns out. All right, thank you so much for everybody who stayed with us throughout this whole webinar. Thank you so much to the speakers for your wisdom, for your courage to speak out against war, especially during this time. And yes, I do feel a lot of people on the chat too feel that we didn't get enough time to answer all the questions and talk about everything, but this is only the beginning of the conversations that we must continue having and the conversations that we must have when we're all together in DC on June 18th. We will have spaces for these conversations. So please come, we need this human warmth, this human connection because the system works in ways that makes us feel lonely and makes us feel hopeless. So by just being together and coming together is resisting that system. So I'm so excited that everybody came on this webinar and we will have the recording of it on our YouTube page. So if you wanna share it with your friends, with your family, with people who think might be interested in joining us in DC, please go ahead and share. And we will follow up with an email with all the links and all the chat. So yes, thank you so much everyone and have a good rest of your week.