 So, yeah, we want to start by introducing ourselves. This is obviously a community, an international community, I must say that is. So we would like for participants in the webinar with us to introduce themselves, their first and last names, their organizations if they are affiliated, and what inspired them to join us today. So yeah, please add that to that chat box when you're comfortable. And yeah, we just want to set the tone for this, for this gathering today, right? We want to obviously, as I said earlier, expose that these, that BlackRock is the top investor in weapon manufacturers, and that these weapon companies are used in military strikes around the world, resulting in deaths of innocent civilians and the destruction of the environment. These companies lie at the brutal heart of the military industrial complex. And as we will hear from our amazing presenters today, that is both on a national level and an international level, that's when they hit, they hit people on their economic side, they hit them from, they degrade their health situation. So we will also address many different aspects of how BlackRock affects a regular person's life. So that is, so I'm really excited about that. And also, as I am speaking, we are adding to the chat box more and more information about BlackRock in general. So yeah, we will get going with our very first presenter, which is Judy Evans. She is the co-founder and director of CodePink, and the co-founder of the after-school writing program, A26LA, and on the board of directors for Rainforest Action Network. Welcome to our general assembly before the BlackRock shareholder meeting today. I'm Judy Evans, I'm one of the co-founders of CodePink. CodePink started over 17 years ago when Bush was frightening the American people into war with color-coded alerts, orange, red, and yellow, and we called CodePink for peace. When Trump got elected, we were trying to figure out what to do when there's a president who's just Teflon. And it's to take it local because we need to build a movement to end war and create peace. And look, we need to learn that we're all war is like in the sinewies of our lives. It's in our cities, it's in our states, it's in our churches, it's in our universities, it's in the foundations that are meant to take care of us locally. So we need to divest from war, and they're right there where we can all engage with them. Then we had to also stop those investors that were investing in war and who was the poster child. But BlackRock, it had the largest number of assets invested in weapons and war. And they had a CEO named Larry Fink, who truly is a Fink. And he would give these speeches where he said they were the most socially responsible investor and he was very socially responsible and were like, what's socially responsible about investing in weapons and war and guns and fossil fuels and private prisons. No, you're a liar. So a few years ago, we started disrupting not only the shareholder meetings, but the offices around the country and around the world. So this year, the shareholder meeting has gone virtual. But we're still not going to let them get away with murder. And we're very happy you're here with us to engage with BlackRock today. So, you know, BlackRock is making a killing on killing with these investments. And we have to stop it and we have to call it what it is. Investing in these weapons are killing people around the world. But you should also know that your tax dollars, 60% of your tax dollars goes to weapons and war. And then that money is paying to weapons company that are returning an investment to these investing companies. Which basically means your money is going to make the rich richer and fun people. So we've been working at this for a while. I want to let you know that over the last couple of years, we've been able to get $550 billion of assets under management committed to divesting from weapons and war. So we thank you for being with us. We're moving the needle. We also want to make sure that you understand that this is about also building a movement. And that we're a big coalition. We're almost 100 groups that have been working on this together. And it's going to take all of us to stop weapons and more because it's about greed. So, security is not about weapons. And we're learning that right now. Security is about what's essential. Security is about taking care of each other. Security is about health care and food and education. And it is not about weapons. And what we do at Coat Pink is we move money. We inward and move money to the life-giving needs of our communities. What we're doing today is asking BlackRock and those members of BlackRock to move their money from weapons to the life-giving needs of our community. So now I'd like to introduce you to one of our coalition partners, World Beyond War, who's been deeply engaged with us since the beginning. And Mark Elliott Stein will tell you more about why divest is so important as a movement, as a tool for the movement. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you. This is Mark Elliott Stein. I'm going to try to share my screen now, right now. Okay. And sorry, this is as... Can you all see my screen right now? Great. Okay. And sorry, everybody, for... And thanks for hanging in. This is really a historic event. This is the first time I know of that anybody has used Zoom to disrupt a shareholders meeting. And that's what we're doing in case anyone wasn't clear. BlackRock is having their shareholders meeting. And this is a concurrent event. So thanks for... Thanks for bearing with us. I am Mark Elliott Stein from World Beyond War, which is a close partner and ally of Code Pink. We really love working with Code Pink on events like this. And I want to talk about why we're here. There's a very good reason why we're here in case anybody isn't clear about that. I really think we have to start with the very proud legacy of divestment. And to me, that means the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. So I just want to read this quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We, the South African people, could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world who, through the use of nonviolent means, such as boycotts and divestment, urged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime. And really important to note that this was not an easy struggle. This was a struggle that took decades. The divestment movement in South Africa began in the 1960s. It really was considered a struggling movement without much chance of imminent success throughout the 60s and the 70s. In the 1980s, it finally started to gather some momentum. And by the 1990s, this momentum had turned into success, victory, freedom, end of apartheid. That's how big the stakes are. That's why we're here. And that's why, when we're talking about divestment, we're talking about a success-oriented strategy. That's why we use divestment as the focus of protest, because it affects the economy and it gets results. So World Beyond War, as I said, is a founding member with Code Pink of the Divest from the War Machine Coalition. We do both small towns, large cities, and the whole globe. Recently, we at World Beyond War helped the city of Charlottesville, Virginia divest. And there's been other successes along the way like that. Also, Code Pink and World Beyond War just did a five webinar series, which was really informational. There's a lot to learn here. And that's all available on YouTube, permanently available. You can see the URL here, and we'll put that in the chat. Finally, now here's a picture with me and Nancy and some other of our folks from this was just last year. I want to mention why I'm here specifically for BlackRock, and I do have personal connection to what's going on here, along with being the technology and social media director at World Beyond War and running the podcast with Brett Isaro. I also worked as a software contractor for government agencies, mostly during the Obama administration from 2011 to really 2014, actually 2015, Center for Disease Control, Department of Labor. I worked for a lot of different federal agencies and really got a look inside and saw a lot. I also, before that worked as a software developer at JP Morgan Bank on Wall Street. And really it was Occupy in 2011 that helped wake me up to what I was a part of. And it's been a slow journey to anti-war activism for me, but a really rewarding journey. The more I learned, the more I became an activist. What is BlackRock? This is the big question. And when I first started protesting BlackRock, I noticed that most people not only didn't think it sounded like something that was worth doing, but also had no idea what BlackRock was. So I'd like to tell you what BlackRock is. It is where many wealthy individuals and organizations privately manage their investment. It promises fast, but risk averse growth. In other words, it provides morals free investment for the 1%. You and I are not likely to get accounts of BlackRock. If we call up and say we'd like a customer rep to take our money, they'll say no, you don't have enough money. This is banking for the very wealthy. It is banking with a high rate of return again and low risk because that is how capitalism works when you have the power, when you have the money. So along with many diverse activities, some of them really designed to make BlackRock look like a do-gooder. They profit heavily off of war, guns, pollution, and prisons. The fact that you don't know about BlackRock is the whole idea. BlackRock wants to stay invisible. That's why they've been called the world's largest shadow bank. They don't need publicity. They're very busy actually doing the work, the daily grind of war profiteering. And as I mentioned, I've been inside federal governments. I've worked with many corporations like BlackRock. It is hard work. It's hard work to spend all that money and make the wealthy wealthier by building bombs. They consider that they don't really need us to be involved. They're doing their thing. Why divestment? Because we will not let BlackRock be invisible. That's why we're here. They want to be invisible. We are here to not let them be invisible. By exposing the financial operations of war profiteering, we are exposing the entire war machine and showing where the responsibility for it lies. And important point, that's not with them, that's with us. It's our money. The responsibility lies with all of us. If we live in a city, if we go to a university, our employers, all of these organizations are probably tied into BlackRock and to other war profiteers and weapons profiteers and pollution profiteers in many ways. It's our responsibility to find out how our money is being spent. Finally, I think this is a really important point. It's not about Larry Fink. It's not about Larry Fink as such a bad guy. We got to get Larry Fink, you know, off the board of BlackRock. It's about planet Earth. BlackRock is a symptom of the problem. We don't protest BlackRock because it's an unusual organization. I wish it was an unusual organization. We protest BlackRock because they are at the center of global power. And if it wasn't BlackRock, it would be another company just like BlackRock and it would be another executive just like Larry Fink. So this is not personal. This is not about pointing fingers at individual CEOs. This is about the war machine. It's about capitalism. And the type of financial transactions BlackRock conducts are the glue that hold capitalism and forever war together. BlackRock plays an essential part in our war economy. By calling out BlackRock, we are calling out the entire rotten system. And that's my little presentation. Here's just some URLs, which I will also put in chat. We have a very big divestment program and a lot of information at World Beyond War as well as a lot of videos. And we'd love to work with all of you. So thank you. Back to you, Yusef. Thank you so much, Mark. And exactly, we are here to make them visible. We are here to make them visible. That's for sure. Yeah, so we, on doing so, we will move to our next speaker, which is Susie Snyder from Don Bank on the Bomb. Susie Snyder is the managing director of the EX and the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons project. Don Bank on the Bomb. She's also an expert on nuclear weapons with more than two decades experience working at the intersection between nuclear weapons and human rights. Yeah, and we have her slides up. Yusef, and I hopefully you can all hear me. Great. Thank you so much for inviting me to participate today. It's really exciting to take this, to take this to the people because as Mark was so clear and saying BlackRock is hidden from view and BlackRock is a company that is known by many, many, many other investors, but not necessarily always for the best things from maybe my perspective. So you heard, I coordinate Don Bank on the Bomb. Don Bank on the Bomb is a, it's the only global research project that identifies the companies behind nuclear weapons. We have, we focus on nuclear weapons as part of our, of our contribution to the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. You guys may have heard of ICANN. We won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, which was overwhelming and incredible. And it's really a demonstration of the Nobel committee's identification and the engagement's matter. Right? We won because we are a movement of organizations and partners around the world. So, and we also got a treaty that makes nuclear weapons illegal, which is kind of cool. And yesterday the lease ratified the treaty. So now we only need 13 more countries on board before nuclear weapons are comprehensively outlawed forever for good, no going back, no whiffling, whuffling, pulling out because, oh, it was a bad deal. It's a treaty and it's going to be international law really soon. So we do this, my organization that I work for is called Pax. And Pax has a long history working with the financial sector to end weapons production and weapons practices that cause indiscriminate harm. So everything from fair finance guides that address how, how pension funds or banks can engage with weapons producers to work to produce stop explosive investments, which Lockheed Martin of the cluster munitions business. Right? So Pax has been involved in this for quite a long time. And we have a good track record with the financial sector. And we've talked quite a lot to BlackRock as a matter of fact, because we, you know, we think that there's an opportunity to work with BlackRock. And we think that there's some, there are some BlackRock is in a lot of ways, BlackRock is bad, but at least BlackRock is saying something. So I'm going to talk a little bit about, about Larry, about Larry Fink, because Larry Fink of the last several years, he publishes an annual letter every year to his, to the shareholders and his letters have power and influence. They have actually helped to create change. So I'm sure everybody remembers Sandy Hook. And after Sandy Hook, Larry Fink said, it's better. It's, it's time we have to do better. And we have a responsibility as investors to do better. And he said a few years ago that, that BlackRock will be looking into and pulling out of companies that made it easy to get, to get, for people to get to assault weapons. And it made changes. It made changes from Dick sporting goods who helped, who stopped selling those types of weapons. It made Walmart make adjustments. I mean, Walmart hasn't stopped completely, but there were some changes. Why? Because it was in one of Larry's letters. And it seems like a little thing, but these, these types of things have huge ripple effects. And recently, and this letter from, from 2020, Larry really started to focus on the issues of environment, social and governance. And to use that as a new type of criteria. So as an investor, and Mark Elliott knows this very well, I also spent some time at JP Morgan in the nineties. We may have bumped into each other, but knows that, you know, your primary primary goal is to make money. Right. You need to turn around. You need to make money. But since 2008, since the last financial crisis, and now looking at the market sees last few months, what makes money funds that have high ESG ratings funds that are stable that have good, that pay good attention to what their impact is on the environment that have good social systems that are not human rights abusers and that have governance structures in place that avoid corruption, for example, or seek to have some gender equality or seek to, don't necessarily have it, but seek to. And so this year, Larry really focused on, on ESG a lot more in his letter to investors. And he talks about how BlackRock will be incorporating a lot more screening in the decision making process. But just saying that is, frankly, it's just saying that. And you can say that a company that has actions that damaged with a damaged society will catch up with the company. But if you don't actually withdraw your investments from that company, words are words. And we all want to see action to go with those words. So Larry has the possibility to do better. BlackRock has the possibility to do better already. They are applying certain types of types of criteria and types of screening. They're doing exclusionary screens. They look at kind of thematic areas. They look for broad, broad impact, but they have yet to address the questions of bombs, tanks and guns. And then that doesn't trigger an automatic rejection. It could. Really could. And it would be great if BlackRock could adopt some policy changes that would actually involve a clear and specific and transparent. We need to know what their engagement trajectory is with companies that are producing weapons that are used to cause harm. And now, not all of BlackRock's funds are profiting from weapons, right? I do want to give them a shout out because they have a, they have a fund called the SDG fund, right? So I share a fund and this is the, it's about the sustainable development goals. Now you may, I know the sustainable development goals don't get a lot of press, but this is, you know, a few years back, every country in the world signed on to a 17 point action plan to help build peace and poverty, achieve gender equality. There's 17 goals altogether. And under that, their brunch is a sub goals. BlackRock said, okay, this looks kind of cool. Let's make a fund available called the SDG fund. And it's companies that are involved in helping to achieve those sustainable development goals. Now that should be the norm. That should be the priority. It should be hard to invest in more profit gears. You shouldn't be able to take your, the money you're putting for your retirement or for your kids, college and profit from companies that put in the world as we know it. That's just, that's not acceptable. So that should be really difficult. And at front and center should be companies that are involved in building a better world. So that should be the priority. And that should be really important because there is a lot of activity in the private sector to help us achieve a better world. We found BlackRock has about $61 billion invested in, in assets in the companies behind nuclear weapons. 61 billion. That's a drop in their overall bucket of assets under management. A tiny, tiny drop. Their biggest single investment is in Boeing. Boeing is, is 40% or more weapons. And Boeing should be treated as a weapons producer. It should be everything this, they should take off people's ESG criteria. Alarm bells should be ringing because Boeing is not good. Boeing helps kill people. So wouldn't be great if BlackRock took the 25 billion it has invested in Boeing directly. And use it for something else, for sustainable energy technology, solar, wind, use it for, I don't know, high speed rail companies, like critical infrastructure development, use it for water purification companies. There are companies all across the world who are trying to bring safe and clean water to people to desalinate because we're seeing a huge salination of freshwater supplies. This would be a great investment for Boeing to take, for a BlackRock to take its Boeing money and put it into an alternative. Or they could do something completely different. They could spread that money around to, I don't know, the trappist monks that have been brewing beer in the country next door to me for the last 800 years and are now worried about having to shut down. Like they could take that money and, and give it to vineyards so they could go organic. You know, people, I don't know, I like beer and wine. I don't know about other people, but you know, there are a lot of alternatives. And I think it's about thinking creatively and making it really hard to invest in weapons and really easy to invest in something sustainable for us and for our society. So again, I want to thank you all very much. It's so cool to be a part of this and to get the chance to work with Code Pink, to work with World Beyond War. You guys are great. And I'll leave it there. Thank you. Well, it's so great to have you, Susie, on the General Assembly this morning, or I guess this afternoon in the Netherlands. So just a reminder to everyone, I'm Nancy Mancias, a campaigner for Code Pink. If you're just joining us, thank you. And I'm about to head into the BlackRock Shareholders meeting. So, but before I do that, let's make sure BlackRock can hear us. We're going to use this time to amplify our voices, to take action on Twitter and to take action on Facebook. So we're going to drop the social media toolkit in the chat box again. And we're asking people to tweet at BlackRock and Facebook bomb BlackRock's Facebook page. You can even compose your own messaging. We just want you to use this opportunity to take action against BlackRock. Yesterday, our brothers and sisters at BlackRock's big problem, Hal Day General Assembly, and they asked people to tweet, it is time to come clean pink and tell us how you voted on Lee Raymond at the J.P. Morgan Chase Shareholders meeting. You can tweet that. You can tweet that BlackRock lines its pockets with blood money by pumping funds into weapon manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Today as shareholders meet for the General Assembly, we urge BlackRock to stop making a killing on killing. But like I said, just tweet at them, Facebook bomb them, code pink, world beyond war, BlackRock's big problem. And allies across the globe have been on the streets protesting BlackRock from California to our crew in New York and New Jersey to Susie in the Netherlands. We've been out protesting them, exposing them for who they really are. Some of us even called out organizations like the International Rescue Committee for giving Larry Fink a humanitarian award. How crazy is that? So like I said, I'm about ready to head into the shareholders meeting. And I think some of our allies are doing that as well. So I'll be back to give a report back and we, you know, we can't do this without you. We're so grateful that you all joined us today. And you know, we have to get in the face of power. So we have to keep chipping away at BlackRock. We have to keep chipping away at capitalism. So let's use this time to take action loudly on social media and I'll pass it back to you. So thanks everyone. Thank you Nancy for doing this for all of us, for being there for all of us to expose them again and again. And I would like to reiterate and encourage folks to please engage with our Twitter and Facebook. Storms. And I would love to introduce at this point our our cultural worker and coalition member, Hassan Ataib, who's the legislative manager of the Middle East policy at the French Committee on National Legislation, as well as a very talented, very talented musician. So we are very happy to have to have him with us here. And please enjoy the show. How's it going everybody? I'm Yousef. My middle name is Yousef. I don't know if you knew that. And my dad is also Yousef. So funny, small world. I'm really happy to be here with you all. I really support this coalition's goal and happy to be part of the peace movement with you all. This is a tune. It's an old time peace song called Down by the Riverside. I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside Down by the riverside Down by the riverside I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside I'm gonna study war no, no Gonna study war No more Ain't gonna study I ain't gonna study war No more Ain't gonna study war No more Ain't gonna study I'm gonna sit down by the Riverside Down by the riverside Down by the riverside I'm gonna put on my long white robe Down by the riverside Thank you so much Hassan and for everyone who enjoyed this as I did please stay with us until at the very end he will also perform for us again thank you again Hassan and this is lovely and I'm glad we have you with us. Really appreciate it all at the end if it's okay I wrote a song called the COVID-19 blues and I would love to share it with you it's a brand new tune it's about the political craziness and a lot of people are you know really hurting right now so you know me too I got the blues so I want to share it with you. Thank you so much thank you so much so yeah please stay tuned everyone and I would love to introduce next Debbie and Maddie who are the representatives of Black Rocks problem a global network of organizations that are pressuring Black Rock to align its business practices with a climate-safe world. So I'll share my screen and if there is any problem which this time should not be please do let me know but should be fine. Hi my name is Mary Cerule. I'm Debbie Neu and we're both from Climate Finance Action and we're calling from Boston Massachusetts. We're one of the many organizations participating in Black Rocks big problem campaign. It's holding the world's largest investor to stop funding coal, oil and gas and deforestation companies. We jumped into this work on finance campaigns after visiting some of the communities in Pennsylvania that have been the hardest hit by fracking. We were tracing the source of the gas we use in our homes here in Massachusetts and we spent three days visiting fracking pads and compressor stations and we met people in their homes and pizza joints and we talked to people in bars and we heard their stories. And there was the constant roar of the 16 wheelers going down those little country lanes and there was the lights from the compressor stations and the fracking pads. I don't understand how people could live there. Yeah and the communities themselves were fractured. We saw how our government and even tons of media stories had failed to protect these people from the gas industry. So six months later we traveled to Green Mountain Power in Vermont and we saw firsthand that that company was using utility scale solar and battery storage technology. These two trips were like bookends. They showed us the extremes that possibilities and the problems and that we need to stop the money that's going into the problems and wrecking our planet. I'm not a finance expert but I can help translate what's going on in the finance world into opportunities for regular people to take action. BlackRock's big problem campaign and its financial, policy and shareholder advocacy experts are working in a dynamically changing landscape. The work is really fast paced. It's collaborative and it's exciting to pair this deep research and strategy with grassroots power and it's working. In January of this year think blinked. Larry think the CEO of BlackRock wrote a letter to the world that acknowledged the financial risks of climate change and then after he blinked he didn't do much. So far BlackRock has only dumped a fraction of its money in coal which is not enough. There's no way to confront the enormity of the climate crisis without confronting BlackRock. BlackRock's big problem campaign is open to all groups and all grassroots organizations. Want to know more and get involved? We have monthly network calls and there's more. You can check it out at blackrocksbigproblem.com. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks. Okay we would like to thank them for for joining us today and we would like to introduce next Dalit Baum who's the director of the American Friends Service Committee's Economic Activism Program. She's the co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation and of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. I will be also sharing the screen again with you. Everybody I'm so glad to be here on the alternative shareholder meeting for BlackRock. My name is Dalit Baum and I'm here with my colleague Norm Perry. We both work for the American Friends Service Committee and our job is to collect information about companies that are complicit in human rights violations and in state violence. So what we do is we look into which are the profiteers that actually maintains those systems of oppression and militarization that would include all the companies that profit from the militarization of the border or from mass incarceration or mass surveillance and all the companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, Syrian lands. We are doing this so that investors can take this information and use it. What we're asking investors to do is to invest in the common good, invest in the well-being of our communities and not invest in those companies, not invest in war and oppression and racism. And this is exactly what we are here to do today. We are here to ask BlackRock to invest in our communities, invest in our well-being and not invest in the companies that profit from violence, war, occupation and prisons. Yeah, so unfortunately, as you all know, BlackRock is invested in all of these things in not only in state violence, in fossil fuels, in all the harmful industries because BlackRock is actually invested in everything. So main activities is managing funds and investments for their clients and they're invested in every harmful industry you can imagine. I'm going to show you something that you can actually look up later at home if you want. Can you see this? This is our website to investigate. This is where we store all the information we research. So if you're interested in a specific company, you can look it up here to see if it's on our database. We have about 200 companies involved in, like I think the little he said, in military occupations and in prison industry in the United States, in building the wall on the US Mexico border, stuff like that. And here on the right side, where you see, look up a fund, you can look up mutual funds and see what they are invested in. So BlackRock manages many, many mutual funds. So I'm going to type in BlackRock and you'll see 173 funds that BlackRock manages that we have on our website. And you can see a lot of these funds have many companies that we recommend for divestment. You can click on any fund you like and you can see how many companies they own that we recommend for divestment, which means they are really the worst actors, how many are invested in prisons and occupations and borders, more information about the fund and then see the actual companies. So you can do that with any fund that you are interested in BlackRock or maybe in other funds that you have for your pension fund or your other interests. And BlackRock also uses its power to do bad and I think that it will. Yeah, the thing is, it's not just being invested in those companies. When you have a huge corporation such as BlackRock that is invested in all these harmful industries, they also use our political influence to sustain those industries so they can continue profiting from them. That is the greatest risk to our safety from companies such as BlackRock. Another thing that they do, I don't think many people are aware of that, but investors also get to vote. They have a vote at the company's shareholder meeting. They get to vote with the company or against the company on all sorts of shareholder proposals for resolutions. And BlackRock consistently has a policy of always, always, always voting with the company. In other words, whenever shareholders that have any kind of social or environmental concern want to propose something from the outside, trying to challenge the company to do better, BlackRock, which is a huge institutional investors, will use their shares to vote with the company. In other words, to strike down all attempts as at social justice and environmental justice. So we ask them to do better and we hope you will all join us. Thank you very much. Thank you. We are all certainly to do better and that's why we're here. I would like to thank them for joining us today. And I would like to introduce next Amanda Gomez from Pizzer College, BlackRock Campaign. She's an honorary student, activist and an artist in Southern California, where she's studying political and media studies. She helped lead a campus campaign calling for her college to divest from BlackRock. So I would like to give the floor to Amanda Gomez. Hi. Yeah, so I'm Amanda Gomez. I'm a student at Pizzer College. And just as some background, Pizzer College is located in Southern California. It's one of the five Claremont Colleges. And it really prides itself on its more progressive values and its more progressive roots. And it's a really large selling point for the school and honestly one of the biggest reasons why I chose to attend there. I'm currently a first year, I guess, going into my second year now. And going into my first year at Pizzer College, I researched and came upon the startling realization that we were invested in prisons and detention centers, which were myself as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and someone of a farm working background. That was something that was major to me and I was involved in immigration reform and anti-detention efforts. And so finding that the college that I planned to attend that fall that prided itself on its progressive values was actually invested in one of the most difficult and horrible things for me to witness was startling. And so we, as a coalition, myself and other students have organized and we have worked across generations, across administrations, staff, students, alumni. And we have brought a divestment campaign together and we have brought it to our Student Senate who has immense power at Pizzer College. And we have passed a full divestment effort from BlackRock 16 to 1 in our Student Senate, which was a wonderful, totally earth-shattering thing to have done. And now we are currently waiting for returning in the fall, having our staff and faculty vote on the issue as well as our president. But if I could just share screen really quick and show everyone kind of what we started with. I don't know if this is available for everyone to see. Yes? Yeah. So this is what we started with. We had a full divestment effort that we wanted to put out there. And we have a free graffiti wall at our school and we made sure our voices were heard. And we put out there that not only were we invested in this, but our board of trustees was invested in this. I mean, we wanted to make it very well known that not only is this a pertinent issue, but this is an issue that people are profiting from. And having a school that wanted to provide progressive framework for education and then turn their back and invest in these things, we saw it as hypocritical and we saw it as lying, as untruthful. And so we went out and decided to use art, to use community organizing and popular education as a method to create change in our local community and knowing that we as students have power. And as we heard earlier, the immense power of the Southern African anti-apartheid movement, the divestment campaigns done by students, as well as anti-war campaigns done by students throughout the 70s. We saw those as wonderful frameworks to work behind. And we are now currently just waiting to get back on campus and to further our push for this to happen. But yeah, we've brought this issue to the forefront and we wanted to make it very clear to everybody that regardless of if you will have financial investments yourself as an individual or the company or institution you work at or the institution that you may attend, every aspect of your life can be impacted by BlackRock. And BlackRock impacts every aspect of the most arguably the most evil things on this planet. So the failures of the global elite, the government elite, and capitalism on the working class, those are only exacerbated when you allow BlackRock to have control over your investments. So that is a lot of the work that we've been doing. And I want to thank everybody for your time and thank you for allowing me to come and speak. And for anybody who is interested, we are at SDC period or dot coalition at Instagram. And I can leave some of our social media stuff in the chat box. Thank you, Amanda Gomez. Thank you, Amanda. This is really refreshing because we often hear that at the end we hear a lot of things about young folks, right? But here we are seeing an example of someone who just was going about their lives but then saw something that they didn't like and did something about it. And we appreciate all you being here and that's also doing something about it. And I would encourage you to be active with Nancy. She just, they are about to start voting right now as she put in the chat box. So maybe also be active on the social media while this is happening. But I would love to introduce our next guests who are also young activists from the MoMA diverse campaign. I would like to introduce Sophia and Alma. The floor is all yours. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for being here today as well. Yeah, we're young activists out here in New York City. Thanks, Sarah. We care about public culture and want to see our institutions run by community, not by violent building and excuse the left. Our most recent intervention with a group of Iraqi artists at the closing of the MoMA PS1's Theater of Operations in early March addresses their board member Leon Black's investment and the private mercenary contractor, Nostelus, which was responsible for the New York Times Square Massacre in 2007, which killed 14 Iraqi civilians. So in response to this intervention, the museum effectively silenced the artist of the US by preventing us from altering his word while he was down the wall. This is one of the things we're trying to call out. Just like everyone here today, we're trying to get a call out, black one off, and we won't have a board member. There are things specifically. We all want to expose these various ties to a number of destructive enterprises around the world, which includes immigration tensions, private prisons, with black rough being the second largest shareholder in private prisons, course of the NGO group, and the displacement of people and exploitation of natural resources that we see every day. All of this he tries to hide behind his philanthropy, but we see through. Yeah. What's more, in early April, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the moment indefinitely terminated contracts for its freelance educators, claiming it couldn't financially support the staff, despite its $1.7 billion in damage. So this is a blatant example of just toxic wealth and a lack of care for workers which is in running, which, with money, could be effectively boarded. And the firing of MoMA's workers is actually on the back of federal government being linked to BlackRock, who's been tasked in helping the government stabilize the economy following COVID-19. In 2019, BlackRock's assets accounted for $7.4 trillion US dollars, imagine what that is now. Considering the many violent investments, the fact that our government bodies tied to BlackRock should raise mass concern. This is our opportunity to make accountability through divestment. Thank you, guys, on this monster that operates in the shadows. Because, yeah, when it comes to supporting arts institutions, which Bank and his other comments that BlackRock want to do, there's so many other positive alternatives that look like offering scholarships, donating arts supplies, ensuring investment opportunities for these communities that they've helped disenfranchise. So if you'd like to connect with us, please reach out through our email or Instagram or Twitter. I'll link the YouTube that we have as well that has a couple short docs on our intervention at MoMA PS1. But, yeah, this clearly is a really expensive network of people, and we need to attack this from all angles. We're artists, so this is where we're coming at it from. And we're targeting MoMA specifically because what I think is on the board. But also, yeah, it's one of the most powerful arts institutions in New York, if not the world. And that's not an accident that he's invested. So, yeah, we're a growing group of organizers and two-generational, of course. So, yeah, if you'd like to connect with us, Instagram, Twitter, we're at MoMA Divest. And, yeah, our biggest thing is we just want our institutions run by our community. Those are the people that matter. Those are where everything comes from. So we want to shift our cultural institutions out of the hands of money. Thank you. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Sophie. Sophie and Alma. Sophie and Alma. Yes, I'm here in MoMA. I'm here in MoMA. OK. I'm here myself. I'm here myself. I'm here myself. Good because we are just going a couple of decades back and introducing our amazing and long-standing peace activist, Jan Winberg, the founder of ShowUp America from its inception. Jan has organized with the Divest from the War Machine Coalition. Jan has also organized with the United National Anti-War Coalition, UNAC, World Beyond War, Coupin NYC, Peace for Okinawa Coalition, People's Mobilization, Peace Congress, and the Movement for People's Party. So please, as was said already, this is an intergenerational as well as an international struggle. So I'm very glad to introduce and to have Jan with us. The floor is all yours, Jan. Van Siemen see us. And I met for the first time on the morning on November 1, 2018, at 9 AM at the headquarters of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, for it turned out to be a 45-minute meeting with David Miliband, their esteemed president and CEO. That evening, IRC was holding their annual fundraising dinner at the New York Hilton Midtown, where Cote Pink and friends, a lot of friends, were out in full force, right in front of the hotel lobby to protest the fact that IRC was giving BlackRock CEO Larry Fink the John C. Whitehead Humanitarian Award. In full regalia, chanting, banners waving, we gave out our own humanitarian awards. As Larry Fink got out of his limo, I personally greeted him. Hi, Larry. He looked right at me and took notice that I was holding my sign divest from the war machine. In the IRC announcement for the Gala fundraiser, they stated, quote, this year, the IRC honors his legacy referring to Whitehead by presenting the award to Mr. Fink, a global business leader who has been at the forefront of efforts to promote responsible long-term business practices. The evening program will celebrate two visionary pillars of the philanthropic community for their pioneering leadership and significant contributions to IRC's mission, end quote. The IRC does a great deal of good work, including focused humanitarian relief aid in Yemen, a nation that we all know has been decimated by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with weapon systems supplied, for profit by United States Armament Industry Corporations with permission from the United States Congress, the very same corporations that BlackRock has stacked high in their portfolios. During the meeting with David Miliband, I had the liberty to take exception and point out the hypocrisy. I read from a quote from the IRC website, quote, International Rescue Committee President David Miliband recently visited Yemen where he heard harrowing stories of aid workers being evacuated from the city of Hodea. He also saw the dire impacts of malnutrition and the dearth of health supplies and the country the United Nations says is threatened by the worst famine in 100 years, end quote. I pointed out that while BlackRock is making a killing on killing, International Rescue Committee is busy cleaning up the mess. I pointed out that the Robert Barron industrialists became most adept at whitewashing their abusive reputations, changing public perception through theranthropy. Reputation wandering sounds about right, doesn't it? I pointed out that Larry Fink is a member of the lobbying organization, The Business Roundtable, whose purpose is to affect governmental policies, consisting of CEOs of the most lucrative American corporations, including corporate media, big agriculture, big pharma, finance and banking, and the war machine. I pointed out that the IRC 2017 report shows that BlackRock made half a million dollar plus contributions to IRC. And this year, coincidentally, you're giving Larry Fink a humanitarian award. In turn, the IRC 2018 report shows that BlackRock and Larry Fink each made one million dollar plus contributions to IRC. I read out loud to David Miliband from Pope Francis' address to the September 24th, 2015 joint sessions of the United States Congress, quote. Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves, why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals in society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply from money. Money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of the shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade, end quote. Thank you, Pope Francis. I close by saying to David Miliband, do you really want to disagree with Pope Francis? Code pink and me? I left him with a hard copy of BlackRock's analysis, what's next for aerospace and defense, which included their featured armament industry funds. He handed me his business card and agreed to stay in touch. The protest that held him that night was, to use the wrong word, a blast. Again, I'm Jan R. Weinberg. My email address is Jan at showupamerica.org. For my provocative Twitter messages, follow me at showupamerica. And now back to World Beyond Wars, Mark Elliott Stein, who will take us through the Q&A sections of BlackRock Stakeholders Virtual Protest. Over to you, Mark. Right. Well, thank you. And by the way, I was standing next to you when we were at the protest, I think it was a year ago, and all of a sudden, Jan said, hi, Larry. And I looked at the person Jan was looking at and it was Larry Fink about a foot away from us. And he had come out to see our signs. I mean, he was walking into the building, the BlackRock building, but he clearly could have snuck in through a side entrance, but it was clear that he wanted to see the protest. And I wonder, Jan, if you hadn't recognized him, if none of us would have. But that was cool. And it was cool to see the look on his face. So, let's start with a question from Tom Gogan. What about the way our tax dollars are invested in war? How can we better link private funds, divestment campaigns to public funds, move the money campaigns aimed at our federal government? Who would like to answer that? I could take a quick stab. Sorry, this is Hassan. Please do. So, I think we need to do all things. I think the, you know, trying to divest, I mean, there's so many tentacles to this beast that we're trying to do, trying to tackle. One thing I think people should be aware of is that there is a lot of momentum right now to end US support and weapons sales for the Saudi war in Yemen. And that could be one potential avenues. You know, Raytheon just got hammered in the New York Times for the weapons sales that they're sending to Saudi Arabia. And there's bipartisan support. So, and we have a chance this year in the fiscal year 2021 National Offense Authorization Act to actually cut off weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. So, that's a way to kind of, you know, work on ending US support for a war and our taxpayer dollars that are going to support the war in Yemen, because we're also not just selling them the weapons, but helping them with the logistical support and the intelligence sharing and everything that Saudi Arabia needs to actually conduct these airstrikes. And while we're doing that, we can also try to, you know, cut off the actual physical weapons going to the war. So, that's a way to sort of combine both and also help, you know, alleviate the suffering of the world's worst humanitarian crisis on the planet with 14 million people on the brink of famine, 14, yeah, just, sorry, 140,000 children under the age of five have already perished over the past five years because of the war. And I think that could be one potential avenue. And I put some links in the chat already for folks to learn a bit more, but I'm sure others have great ideas as well. Yeah, if I could also just step in and speak for a second, just as an immigration activist too, knowing that so much of our connections are connections to these issues are due to the fact that the government is willing to partner with corporations. You have the prevalence of private prisons and detention centers, you know, BlackRock is currently invested over, or has over a 10% share in the geo group in Corsivic, two of the largest private prison and detention center managers in the country. And that's due to the fact that they are partnering the private sector and the government are partnering and willing to exploit the detention and mistreatment of migrants across the country in order to make a quick buck. And so, you know, if the US government is to continue at the current rate, it needs to actually represent the people and the people's interests. And it's become very present and aware that, you know, the people are not in favor of locking children up, of separating families. But due to this Wall Street and detention and prison and congressional revolving door, all the people who are at the heads of these financial institutions are also at the heads of, you know, overseeing private industry, you know, they're the heads of, you know, Trump's transition campaign, I believe Larry Fink was majorly involved in that. And so, knowing that it is a revolving door of the same people being involved, it's very difficult to separate the private industry and these people profiting greatly from the government aspect of it because the people in government are also profiting greatly from this. So just throwing that out there and, you know, knowing that there are cities and towns that their own financial entanglements are with BlackRock and knowing that you can take individual action and making sure that you know what, you know, your city, your state is invested in. Could also, and Amanda really laid this out here and reminded, I think it's really important to remind us, this isn't for US citizens, this is an election year. And while everything is a little bit up in the air right now, you know, it's an opportunity, especially right now to ask candidates and ask your very, very local candidates, your congressional people, your city hall people, what would they do in this situation? How would they change to get involved in, I mean, gradually I live in a country where there's a lot more political parties and a lot more opportunity for actual democracy. But it is an opportunity to do that because those decisions made at the congressional level for budget allocation on war, budget allocation on weapons, those are elected people and they are accountable to the citizens and they can't get away with it. And it's worth going in and saying, yeah, we see your donations, where they're coming from. We see that you're taking money and are gonna make decisions based on this and challenge it, you know, go and, you know, send them letters, break the facts machines through never ending facts, I'm just kidding, that's an old school tactic, I've been doing this for a while. But, you know, send, you know, flood their Facebooks because this is a question and it has to, if they don't hear it from you, they're never gonna hear it from anyone. So I just want to throw that in there and thanks Amanda for making me think of it too. Yeah, just to add to that. Yeah, so much of what we're hearing is just about like educating yourself and engaging, right? In New York, especially, that's a lot easier for us to do and that's especially why we do it when we're like, since we're here. But yeah, talking to your Congress people, they're actual people that like have to engage with us and they need our votes in order to get elected. So, yeah, put it on the radar as much as you can. Yeah. And beforehand, like even just like having conversations with them because they are people, like I've been at events where I see like our local Congress will and you can't like, there's been people who talk to them. So keep something, you know, but yeah, definitely engaging with them, calling, emailing, letters, but engaging as much as possible and definitely educating yourself on how everything works. I'm a pretty new organizer. I've been in this game for like two or three years now. Yeah, and so much of that was just like meeting with people and just like even this, like hearing like a presentation from everyone, like gaining that information finding the like places to find the access to the numbers, because that's what's going to take place. Yeah. You can leave numbers, you can leave things right in front of you. And seeing them for what they really are, you know, us recognizing things, investments and the MoMA is not just philanthropy, it's to wash his mind, right? But they'll make it look really nice and pretty and they'll market it as something else, right? Market it as the new MoMA when they renovated for $500 million in the middle of the housing crisis, right? So it's just like really seeing those connections for, see it like making the connections yourself, right? And then calling out for what it is. But yeah, hope that added something. Okay. I'd like to bring up another question. So from Mike Levinson mentions the War Resistors League encourages everybody to become war tax resistors. This July 15th, please consider not paying your war taxes. Here speaking of USA, federal income tax. So that's a big topic. Would anybody like to say anything about the concept of tax resistance? Does anybody have experience of that? I think it's a very powerful method and a very worthwhile method just in dealing with the fact that, you may receive pushback that, oh, well, your taxes go to good things. And in reality, around 60% of your taxes are going to the war machine. That is a really wonderful stance to take. And if you're able to take that stance and willing to do that, please do. And especially if you come from a place of privilege and a place of higher income, because the more people with a very high income that can't be taxed or refuse to be taxed and refuse to fund the United States oil wars, the more impactful it is. So kudos to everybody engaging in that, really. Yeah, I also, that question strikes a chord with me too, because I often wonder if taking it to the level of tax resistance is a successful strategy because clearly we need to take whatever measures are going to get our message across. And if we're protesting the way our taxes are spent but still paying taxes, we maybe are not doing everything we need to do. With that said, it's obviously a very difficult life commitment to stop paying taxes. I'd like to, I'll go ahead. Did somebody want to say something? Oh, I just had just one thing to add. I think also as we've seen with the rent striking here and the housing strikes here, mostly what I've just gathered from that is definitely requires a lot of organizing and a mass effort, which we're seeing like in New York, I think it's about 40% of ventures are unable to pay rent right now. And it's, and we're still like pushing back and saying they're not doing anything as much as they should be, they're talking about it right now, but like if we keep showing up with the amount of people and pushing it like out of like the Congress people and representatives, that's gonna be the difference. Yeah. And like even like uninformal, like the number that it is like now, that money is your tax money, getting taxed again once you get it. Yeah. It's just like a repetitive cycle of them pulling your tax money off of you off in the war machine and then trying to like funnel it back to us is like showing like a good phrase, but we know, we know what they're doing. Yes. Yes. Well. That's their time, time for that for sure. Yes. Well, it sure is the cycle that we're all seeing. I'd love to turn this back over to Nancy. And also I do hope Hasan will get a chance to do that second song as well, but I'm really excited to hear back from Nancy. Hey everyone. So I'm back, of course, I much prefer being with you all than at the BlackRock shareholders meeting. So just a couple of things to report back on the voting. All 16 executives were reelected, no surprise. The Larry Fink once again will be the chairman and CEO of BlackRock. Since 1988, he'll continue to maintain that role. Proposal on executive compensation passed. Larry Fink defended their vote against the As You So proposal. You can probably read more about As You So's proposal online or if you go to their website, but they are really great allies of ours. They partnered up with us in building the Weapons Free Fund website, but he spoke passionately about how they defend voting against this proposal, really disgusting. And right now they're just taking general questions. They took a couple of questions from some key stakeholders. And then the voting should be posted publicly in about four business days. But they didn't talk about fossil fuel divestment. Yeah, so those are some things that we're missing, but I just have to tell you that our work is not done. Just listening to this sick gathering of capitalists just makes my stomach turn. So our work is not done, and I hope that we can keep up what we're doing as activists and keep chipping away at BlackRock. So that's my update. Thanks. Thank you so much, Nancy. And yeah, thank you for being there for us and for reporting back to us. And most certainly, our job is not done. Extremely happy to be with all of you here. But we are to push and push and push. They claim as they always do. But as Susie said earlier, words remain words unless they have teeth and actual action that follows. So we would like, and the chat box now will be floated with a couple of links. So we'd like for you to bear with us. We would love for you to sign this bell, which is to use taxpayers' money to bail out people and not the weapon companies. Also, if you want to learn more about the investment from the war machine, there will be a link there. There will also be another link specifically about BlackRock. Because again, as we've been learning, their tremendous interference in our day-to-day life is honestly unacceptable, or should be unacceptable. We also recommend that you check and will be there as well in the chat box, the Human Rights Report on BlackRock and other asset management firms. You will also have BlackRock's big problem, May 20th General Assembly, which was yesterday. And it was beautiful. We extremely recommend you guys to check that out. Again, one of our coalition members. Please also check the World Beyond War and CodePinx seminars. We're posted already, but also will be posted again. And yeah, if you want to organize or join a peace caravan that's happening on the 25th, the link will be there as well. It's for the International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament. So folks are going in some peace caravans, obviously maintaining safe distance and healthy practices with one another. Also, on June 20th, the Poor People's Campaign is having a virtual gathering. They had big plans to be in DC and a lot of organizations. Some of them that actually participated in the 70s were planning on making it. But unfortunately, due to the situation, it's going to be virtually. So we encourage you guys to make it as well. I'll put the link in a few minutes. But without further ado, thank you all for joining us. This is amazing. We continue to educate ourselves and each other, as well as work together. Because again, this has to be a collective effort. But as promised, we'll end up with another amazing performance from our lovely Hassan Al-Tayyab, who's dedicated this to us since I don't think he played it to many people. So I'm very appreciative and thank you, Hassan. And thank you, everyone, for being here with us. And stay tuned and share this webinar when it comes out. Share it with your circles and organizations and friends. Hassan, take it away. Thank you all for being here with us. Cruel world, we're living in a cruel world. Here we've got to get stronger. Like we don't got longer. Here we've got to get stronger. In the future, we're with 19 politicians on TV. And this shouting match is just too much to comprehend. I wish we'd make up like we'd be the same. We've got to get stronger. Like we don't got longer. We've got to come together stronger. To stay at home till it is safe again. Presidents on Twitter pre-training the lockdowns got to win. And it's like, way strange world getting stranger. We've got to come together stronger. Like we don't got longer. We've got to come together strong. Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for joining us again. And we would love for you guys to share this one comes out. Again, a special thanks for every single one of you for being here. Either you are in the US and waking up early or from abroad and joining because it's convenient. Still, thank you for making the time. This is extremely important. Again, this is an intergenerational. And certainly an international struggle that we all are here for. So thank you so much. And I look forward to continue working and building with all of you forward. Thank you so much.