 peace in the future. Before we go ahead and get started, I do want to acknowledge the land that we're on. This is the land occupied by the Scadaway, Anacostian, and the Toast Chunks land. And also the building behind us was built by slaves. So the things that we're up against, white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, um, are all fueled by militarism. And instead we are, um, and while they're all fueled by militarism, our Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ plus, plus, disabled, um, undocumented and stateless friends will suffer the front even more, both here and abroad. Militarization, um, militarism, we want to cut this budget, and, and doing so build a coalition with many of the organizations that are represented here, um, here, which you can also see them over there. Um, and some of those people are going to be represented here today. Our coalition is building, um, we want to be an umbrella, a tent, um, more so than, uh, militarism is a tent. Um, we, the, our communities are, oh, thank you so much. Um, a lot of this work happens at the grassroots level. So that's why we're especially excited to be working in partnership and amplifying the groups here in D.D. to support your actions creatively through direct actions, teachings, also through the Mutual Aid Initiative that a lot of you are, um, doing already. Um, so we're not here to recreate the wheel, but instead amplify and build power together, um, and do so. So you're going to hear a little bit today, um, and I'm going to introduce the first speaker. Oh, actually, before I do that, I am going to, um, introduce my co-conspirator, co-MC, Sean of the Answer Coalition. Coalition, which means act now to stop war and racism who are in it with us, you know, and ain't always been no easy task. Coalition came together on September globalization movement. Some of y'all remember the anti-globalization movement, ending attack on September 11th. That's right. If you push opportunistically frustration that people in this country felt seeing that attack, that's your consent for what became across the globe. Aspects of the peace movement that was critical of answer for organizing that Washington DC to be a part of those anti-war and anti-imperialist demonstrations being carried out. Coalition and the anti-war movement in the time since we've been running for, we need to take a slice out of the war machine. Well, let's talk about Washington DC. Thousand empty around DC. You see the homeless encampments growing and you see new ones popping up whether it weren't any before. There shouldn't even be a homelessness issue in the city of Washington. There shouldn't be a homelessness issue and because there's more empty housing in this country than there are homeless people. And so why aren't these folks housed? Why doesn't every human being have unrestricted access to food, clothes, shelter, healthcare, quality education, gainful employment and all those other things because you can't make a buck if everybody has all the things they need. If everybody got a place to live and some food to eat and some health care. You and I didn't get the support we needed. Yeah, they gave us a couple of trifling little so-called stimulus check. Didn't stimulate nothing. All it did was keep disaster at bay for just a little while longer. And now what has happened? An unelected thritch has said that they are alien people out on the street during a global pandemic. And did you all read their decision? What they said was very revealing. Let people stay housed during the pandemic. We can't just cancel the rent because if we cancel the rent, then people may expect the government. If we if we house everybody, folks might expect the government to take care of people when they sit. Imagine that God forbid that the government that holds itself of democracy and human rights and all these other high sounding things. God forbid that country actually take care of its people. Matter of fact, that extension of that eviction ban was a breathtaking overreach. Imagine that keeping 11 million people mostly children housed during the pandemic. The idea of that literally took their breath away. This is what they're saying. This is the depth of inhumanity of the folks that called themselves our leadership. And it's no that these folks are down with canceling the rent and keeping people housed because they're down with these corporate developers. And so for them to advocate for the cancellation of the rent and housing homeless people, that means they can't line their pockets. So we should be clear the interest of the folks in the Pentagon, the interest of the folks in Congress and in the White House, their interest run contrary to ours. And so what does that mean? That means we have no help coming from them. It means 6.5 rental assistance under this pandemic. 89% of it has so we see very clearly we're in a situation where profits are being put under the we put over people Wall Street been doing good under this pandemic. The billionaires got richer. We got a whole new people now pandemic profiteering. And speaking of pandemic, when we talk about the Pentagon, we talk about what's talking about just talking about boots on the ground to also talk about the hoarding of vaccines that's happening not only the United States of North America has enough vaccines right now to vaccinate its population five times over. Meanwhile, the developing world in Latin America on the African continent in Asia are struggling in many places to even have one vaccine. And I mentioned sanctions. You want to talk about the military machine? This brutal war machine that is already causing incredible suffering in these countries that the US government deemed it was already causing suffering with its sanctions in Iran, even a globalist government to alleviate those sanctions despite calls for just that from the international community. And you want to know why their conscience wasn't break because they ain't got no conscience. Making ice cream because the struggle is sweet. And this is how we keep our spirits up. Government in this system tries so much to crush our humanity. The next person we have at line three fighting the pipeline over militarized state of the indigenous of people in northern Minnesota is also an organizer with Extinction Rebellion, one of our partners who knows how to do some creative direct actions as well and has written several of her middle and junior high papers around what we could do instead of the militarism budget. So she's they are beyond their years. Here you go, Rev. I spent on the military for a while asking why are 32 million dollars every hour for war since 9-11? The astronomical amount of money being spent on the US military makes no sense for so many reasons. The US military is one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis in the world. Not only are drones and jets and nuclear weapons directly destroying the lives of people in other countries, they're also using an enormous amount of fossil fuel and producing a massive amount of carbon emissions. The climate crisis is happening now and already hurting so many people and it's going to get a lot worse if institutions like the military keep up their polluting. But it doesn't have to continue like this. Spending the money being spent on the military instead renewable energy affordably. Some people say that the military provides a lot of jobs and boosts the economy, but instead by putting the money for the military in the Green New Deal we could provide more jobs while people in our country and around the world have a better life with stable housing and enough food to eat, we can be using energy from the sun instead of the energy that's destroying the earth. We should be spending so much money on the military. We should be spending money for the betterment of all people. For jobs and pollution in our co-sponsors standing today after the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attack saying we need to cut is a global project. So we don't need ravages of the US war machine in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, on the world today. Dr. King, we talk about a peace movement. You know what Dr. King said about peace? Tension, but a true peace that's the presence of justice. This is what we're struggling for here today. And so in welcoming our next speaker to talk some more about the impacts of the US war machine in this hemisphere of least Salvadori and Desher. That's another 9-11. Before jobs and education while we're waiting on Patricio to set up nicers here in Washington D.C. Someone who has been since last summer during the rebellion against racism following the racist police killing killing of Antoine Watson and so many others. I want you all to be out here and see your grassroots abolitionist org out here doing mutual aid and direct aid in the community. I'm also a contributor on front hand and leftist, so please check us out. But yeah, I'm not gonna lie, didn't get to write my little notes down, so excuse me. Where do we start? Like, we are literally standing in the middle of a pandemic and we're still arguing about what we should and should not be investing in. We're still asking demanding healthcare when that should not be something that we have to organize around. But yeah, here we are. They want to bomb Somalia. They don't they don't have to do a mass action. They just decide to do that with our tax dollars. Country that goes into disrupting governments that like that's what's in right now. A global violence for somebody that is out here trying to figure out what you can do to organize. The best thing you can do is invest in mutual aid and invest in your communities, building trust within your community, building that that relationship with the people that are right next to you because I can promise you the motherfuckers that are in this fucking White House all those fucking pigs that are on the street and the fucking Pentagon and the department of so-called defense when they only think they fucking defend is a rich and powerful years in Afghanistan and that is not including all the money that we give to Israel and covert operations and other places. We should go back for women's rights or y'all fucking serious left them alone in the 80s when before we started training up the Mujahideen that does not benefit us to do this shit anymore in Afghanistan. They can invest 20 billion dollars to house everybody just a one-time investment. They can invest in a universal anti-racist healthcare system so black women like myself shit does not stop here. Shit's gonna get a lot fucking uglier before it gets cute. Understand that in the way that we are ready for that shit the way that we get ready for the for the revolution is by investing in mutual aid by building those infrastructures outside of the government by holding these motherfuckers accountable and not in two years to election in your district because fuck you. So much for being here. Talks about something important that this is a coalition we want like organizations like theirs freedom fighters DC that is out on the streets that's doing mutual aid taking care of their neighbors as well as speaking truth to power in the ways that she is. So please if you're interested in your organization or you want to be part of an organization reach out again my name's Olivia but we're gonna have some time and space at McPherson Park to have a little bit of a brainstorm to how we build this collective power together and now Patricia is going to go and do some music joy in the revolution. Thank you so much my name is Patricio Zamorano long name I'm very happy that we are inviting the Latino brothers and sisters to be part of this common effort I'm the director of the council on the methetic affairs coha coha.org I invite you to write with us to read us and we are here also to support this effort from cutting and so many coalitions because well I have here everybody knows this this person right this is Salvador Allende who actually died yesterday 40 40 or 50 years ago I don't remember no 1973 September 11 1973 that's that's the first September 11 that this planet had to suffer it's a it's a crazy crazy crazy coincidence it's the same September 11 that made this country suffer well Chile suffered before that because of disguise because of the pentagon the pentagon spent a lot of money in trying to overthrow Salvador agendas government 3,000 more than 3,000 people Chilean people were killed directly by the military dictatorship that that was financed by the pentagon more than 100,000 people were tortured more than 800,000 people were exiled those are real victims we're talking about real real cause of of human Italian issues because of the pentagon the pentagon also is responsible through the southern command of the suffering of so many people threats to nicaragua to venezuela to Cuba those are governments who enjoy the support of their people it doesn't matter what the mainstream media says here they are there because their people want them to be there period the lies against the nicaraguan government the nicaraguan people support the nicaraguan nicaragua has the lowest crime rate in central america the best social indexes poverty equality of life nicaragua is a poor country but full of dignity that's why the government is still there not because of other reasons not because of the lies that the mainstream media is trying to portray do not believe the lies so the same situation with venezuela with Cuba Cuba has been fighting the pentagon and the and and the u.s. government for 60 years and they're still there and they're gonna be there for a long time because they they are supported by the latin-american people so uh i'm also a singer-songwriter so they asked me to sing something so i'm gonna sing a little song i compose specifically for all the victims of september 11 is chilean september 11 also the u.s. september 11 so i'm gonna i'm gonna sing this thank you man and i also want to invite you to another important event tomorrow at five p.m. in front of the in front of congress of uh the capital five p.m. against intervention in nicaragua five p.m. tomorrow morning thank you so much for everything i want to say i'm dot org if you go to it we have an action calendar there so all of our coalition members actions that they're already doing we're wanting to uplift and amplify unlike we know organizers activists are doing the work so action that was just said uh tomorrow at five p.m. outside of the capital also tomorrow at 6 30 outside of cabana's house um to demand abortion reproductive rights for all um we'll be up there as well so as we continue to expand our coalition we will put that on the calendar event so please sign up take the pledge cut the pentagon dot org echo of korean uh for peace network in grass roots dc thank you for this space and thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in cutting the pentagon today um so my name is echo i live in fairfax virginia i've lived in this area for over 30 years so the global um at the rally that took place 20 years ago i was here the anti-war movements i was here um glad that i'm near dc that i was able to participate so that we are calling for peace and not war and occupation um i am a coordinator for korea peace now grass roots network so many people still don't know that korean war is actually the longest war the u.s has been in we've been in the war for 71 years since 1950 even before my mom was born way before i was born now if we ended the korean war how much money would we save a lot of money right a lot of pentagon budget will be cut most of the south korean people don't feel the threat of war they don't they don't feel that there's gonna be a war breaking out anytime soon now north koreans they do feel threat of war because they are in a war with the u.s unless u.s signs the end of the world uh treaty and peace treaty north korea and the u.s are still technically in the war south korea was not at the armistice table um to sign the armistice so they have no say unfortunately so u.s needs to end the war with korea um when medea was inviting me to this event she asked me i could speak about if the panic if we didn't have the pentagon budget what would be useful for i have two children my older one when uh when she was a baby i had to pay $100 a month for daycare i couldn't afford to have a second child because i'm paying almost all my salary paying for the daycare in south korea you might be paying maybe $300 per month and this is a country with way lower gdp than the united states um so that that is one thing that i would like to see that we get um healthcare we get the the childcare for more affordable so that people can freely um have babies and be able to raise their kids um i do have a chance that i would like like to participate for youtube join um and uh if you want to visit my organization it's koreapeacenow.org so please visit our organization my email is up there if you want to get connected and um come and join the korea um action so um korea peace when you say korea peace now okay west out of every west out of everywhere out of everywhere machine marches forward so much the week to cut the pentagon and to stop the ravages of the military industrial complex all over this earth we see it even now you see it in this hemisphere we see it in api epiopia asia the middle east a square inch of this earth that has not felt the wrath of washington in some form of fashion and for many of them their only crime was refusing to kowtow to the white house refusing to bow to the winds of the millionaires in comes and so make no mistake this struggle against war is a struggle for humanity right libya is going to give some logistics and it's going to break that down for us we work as well as someone who has inspired that it's one of the co-founders of coaching uh we while we are doing a lot of things in dc actions every day she also are going to be doing them all across the country and she's going to talk a little bit about that thanks olivia thanks everyone for being here this is this awesome kickoff but it's a kickoff it's about actions every day so you can check the website cut the pentagon to find out what you can engage in in a day and which john said do you add that and so tomorrow details are always a