Judging Freedom - NO NUCLEAR WAR: A Call for Reason [Live Event] - National Press Club (Part 2 of 3)

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

NO NUCLEAR WAR: A Call for Reason [Live Event] - National Press Club (Part 2 of 3)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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We have Garland Nixon, a well-known journalist, activist, former Fox News commentator, and currently just all-around good guy. We have Wilmer Leon, the host of Connect the Dots. Dr. Wilmer Leon, a man who has connectivity with urban America and all of America. We have Anya Parampel. She is the smarter half of the Blumenthal family, and as you said, the author of a fantastic book on Venezuela. And we have Jose Vega, who just, he's an activist well known for his interventions, and a man who has just run for Congress. This is the kind of activism we want. I'd also like to

invite up to join me Medea Benjamin. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of Code Pink. But more importantly, from my perspective, from my perspective, she's the person that made the intervention in Congress Thursday possible. She's the reason why I can sleep well at night. And for that reason alone, but also for her years of activism, I've asked her to moderate this panel. This is a panel about how we can intervene into MAGA and MAHA, make America great again, make America healthy again, and get them to take action to stop a nuclear war before Donald Trump becomes president on January 20th. Medea, the floor is yours. Well, I want to say how amazing it was to have Scott in Congress the other day. And I also want to recognize, and please stand up if you've been with us in Congress during this last year sometime, And let's thank these people who have been doing this work.

So I agree with Margaret Kimberly that the way we're going to make change is through a grassroots movement. But in the meantime, we don't have a lot of time and we have Congress that doesn't represent us. We have a White House that is in transition now. We have a president coming in who we don't know where he stands on these issues because he has such a crazy mix of people that he has brought in or is bringing in or trying to bring in to this administration. So I hope that as part of this panel, we can talk about how we can prevail upon the people who will be coming in to send a message to Russia, like Scott has been trying to do, that we do not want to go to war with them. And what we are going to do to build a real movement that will force the people in this administration who have instincts

that are more in line with ours to prevail as opposed to the others who have instincts like the traditional war hawks. So if we can start out with Garland, Garland Nixon, in your amazing radio interviews and the work that you have done for many years, you have looked now at the MAGA movement and also the MAHA movement, which is Make America Healthy Again. And do these have an actual mandate when it comes to the issue of saying no to war? Do they understand if they do have such a mandate, do they understand that this mandate exists and what could they do about it? Well, a couple of things.

I think that the people who supported change, whether they'll get change or not, we're not sure, but the people who supported change, I think there were numerous reasons why people supported Donald Trump and many people stayed home, just didn't vote for anyone. People were completely frustrated. But I think that the a lot of the people who took these actions probably didn't think I want this or that. Some did. But a lot of people acted out of anger, out of frustration. They're sick and tired of being sick and tired. I talked to a lot of people prior to the election. I predicted that Trump was going to win. And I went on the radio the week before. I said, I don't think it's going to be close.

The reason was I went to Baltimore City. I seen a brother driving down the street with a Trump sticker on. And I said, that's it. I never said that's over. The Democrats don't have a chance when I see a brother driving down the street with his hat, true story, had his hat turned sideways and a Trump sticker on. And I knew what that was about because I talked to people in the Black community. They were tired. They were tired of being lied to over and over. And they just wouldn't try

anything. As Malcolm X talked about the field slave, when someone came to the field slave and said, do you want to run away? Their lives were so miserable, they'd say, any place is better than here. And I think that's what a lot of people did. And now I think what the job that we have is to understand for all of the reasons that people had to. Drift away from or push back against what was what's the what's the main become mainstream politics. I think we have to understand that our job is to direct their energy now to understand that people were mad, they were angry, and now they're kind of in flux. They're looking at it and saying, okay, Trump won. I don't know what to make of what he's going to do. I'm looking at his tweets. I don't know what to think. And I think we need to bring people together and direct that energy in a positive way. And I'll say this right now. I think

this is important. Just before I came up here, I picked up my phone and I looked and I saw Danny Highfall, Judge Napolitano, the gray zone, myself, just five or six different YouTube channels. And I counted 10,000 viewers in literally it wasn't over 10 seconds that I scrolled down on YouTube and the live 10,000 viewers watching this. And I know that that's just a fraction of the numbers that are watching on YouTube, et cetera, on various other various other platforms, et cetera. So what I'm going to say is this. The people that are watching the literally tens of thousands of people that are watching right now, I'm going to say it's not good enough just to sit and watch this. We got tens of thousands of people this very second watching this. If you're watching on YouTube, click on that little thing that says share. And underneath you can copy or you can click Twitter, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, whoever the senator is for your state, whoever the member of Congress is for your state right now. We can only do but so much. But you are the force multipliers this very second, because we might not.

You know, it's great to talk about all the wonderful things we would like to do, but we might not have that kind of time. So I am asking the people that are watching right now, and even the people in the audience, if you got your phone, pull out your phone, find it wherever you can, click share. And if you know who your member of Congress is, hopefully you do. If you don't find out real quick, you can search. Share this with Elon Musk. Share it with Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. Any name that you can think in the Trump sphere, the Biden sphere, any name that you can think of that you will be that will be a value. Share this. Tens of thousands of people can act this very second. And that's what I think is critical. So let me just say, as part of sharing that and contacting your congressperson,

I think what Scott had put forward as something so, so simple, just tell them to urge Biden to rescind the authority to use attackums inside of Russia. Very, very simple and must be done immediately. So let's see. Let's turn to Wilmer Leon, then, who in his many years of radio has tried to look at what the left is saying and what the right is saying, and where is there some common cause between them and we had margaret kimberly talking about the harris voters and then there's a lot of people who are not trump or harris voters and don't want to see a nuclear war how do we bridge those people who put themselves in different ideological self-determinations? How do we bridge them together to come together to say no and do something to stop nuclear war? Great question, first of all. Thank you. Before I answer that, let me say, in listening to Congressman Kucinich and in listening to Professor Kowalik, I have come up with a new concept called necrophilic nihilism, which is a fascination with human death while denying the fundamental aspects of human existence.

Thanks to the both of you for helping me create that. Well, you know, first of all, I think when we look at the dynamics of this election, one of the things that became incredibly apparent to me was there was very little daylight, Medea, between the Democrats and the Republicans. For example, we can look at the policy towards Cuba, and we can see what former President Obama tried to do in relieving a little tension towards Cuba. Donald Trump came in, reimposed those sanctions and pressure on Cuba. And even though Joe Biden promised to further the Obama policy, he doubled down. So that's just one example. We can look at, for example, the Iran nuclear deal. And we know what the Obama administration did as it relates to that.

We know Trump came in and put the kibosh on that. And then Joe Biden running on, we are going to reinitiate the JCPOA, which he could have done very simply with a pen and a napkin. He could have done that, but did he do that? No. So we also have this stereotype. It's probably not as prevalent now as it was when I was growing up, but we have this stereotype of Republicans being the warmongers, being the hawks, and the Democrats being the doves. And what we have now come to understand that Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas, they pay both sides of the equation. So understanding that, very little daylight between the fiasco that we now know as Ukraine was started by Joe Biden, a Democrat. It's interesting now that when we listen to the rhetoric from the campaign,

it was the Republicans that sounded sensible on this issue, even though I really don't. In fact, when you listen to what Donald Trump is proposing, allegedly as being some kind of peace deal, he thinks that Russia is going to relinquish what they've won and that he can get this. And we all know that that's utterly ridiculous. It's a non-starter, but he's proposing that. So again, what we have are two wings of the same bird that are basically working towards the same agenda. The rhetoric might be a bit softer, but the interests that are being served are the same. So what are we to do? Well, I think what we've got to do is what we're working or starting to do with this, and that is change the narrative. We have to take control of the narrative. You know, it was the it was the patron saint of the Republican Party or of conservatives, Ronald Reagan. If you all remember the Reagan Gorbachev statement, nuclear war is unwinnable.

Therefore, it should not be fought. I never thought that I'd sit on a panel like this and quote Ronald Reagan. But as they say, even a blind squirrel can find a nut in the forest sometimes. And on that point, he's correct. There's something about, what is it, mutually assured destruction that some people don't seem to understand what mutual means, what assured means, and what destruction means. And Professor Postle, are you still here? Have you done any research on whether or not radioactive isotopes and fallouts impacts Republicans differently than it impacts Democrats? Have you done any research in that area? Oh, well, is that something that you think is worth

looking into? Because obviously there are some people who see this in some type of binary construct as win or loss or win or lose. They don't understand mutually assured destruction. They think that there's some winnable element here when everybody loses. And that seems to now have just gotten lost in the conversation. This is a no-win game. And it's the other thing that I find incredibly incredibly frustrating is many of us sit here, not here, but here. And as though this is a new issue, we've been at this game since World War II. And we've been having these discussions since the end of World War II. Dr. King told us what? Now he wasn't talking specifically about nuclear war in this statement, but war is an enemy

of the poor. And that he watched the development of this ideology and this mindset and he now saw a country that has gone insane on the concept of war. And that insanity seems to only have multiplied, only has grown. It has not relinquished. So we have to, and Garland's suggestion about those that are watching this and sending this, that's a great way of starting to reclaim the narrative. Our politics, to a great degree, has become so tribalized that it's now becoming reduced in many regards, the dialogue is becoming reduced to the least

common denominators. We talk in sound bites. We don't even really engage in dialogue. It's so tribal. It's you versus me. There's very little interest in common ground. And so it has become very easy to lose control of the narrative through sound bites. Immigrants are pouring over our border and they're gonna rape and pillage and do all that kind of foolishness. And of course we have Haitians in Springfield eating dogs and cats and all the things that they do.

And so it's been, it boiled down to the least common denominators. And so that's why I believe it is imperative through events such as this, we have to reclaim the narrative. There is no winning side. The Secretary of State needs to understand. Anthony Blinken needs to understand. There is no winning side here. You push the button and it's game over. What part of that is Tony? Is Tony only being here. OK, Tony, look, there is no winning side here. You push the button.

Game over. And final point, I don't think President Putin is bluffing. Don't play that card. He's got two aces and I think there may be another one in his deck as well. No bluff, dude. Don't push the button. We all lose. So Wilmer talks about changing the narrative. And I think one thing that we can recognize that is brilliant about Donald Trump is that he taps into the sentiment of people, in this case, not wanting to go to war.

And we might not believe that he's able to solve the problem in Ukraine on day one, but certainly that idea that he could solve this is something that appealed to a lot of people. So, Anya, I think you are particularly in just a fascinating position where there are some people that see you as part of the left, like the book that you wrote about Venezuela and the work that you've done on that, versus being on Tucker Carlson's show and the connection you have to people who are seen as, quote, right wing. How do you see the ability to take that sentiment of people that Trump tied into and turn it into some real politically viable action? Yeah, well, I think, look at where Tucker Carlson

was this past week. Look at who he was talking to. He was talking to the individual, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, who Anthony Blinken should be talking to. And unfortunately, I don't think from the, if I'm putting myself in the Russian perspective right now, that there is anyone other than maybe Trump himself and people around him in the administration so far that I would trust speaking to. Marco Rubio is not someone who embodies the America first isolationist, paleo con style conservatism that Trump once attempted to represent. Instead, he's the opposite. He's the traditional neocon who went to Libya to cheer on the destruction, the native destruction of that country, who went to the border of Venezuela to cheer on the U.S. attempted

invasion there in 2019, when you remember they had those aid trucks that were really just going to be delivered by the U.S. military. And he's had this whole history, this very bizarre history, actually, that I write about in the book that people might not realize. First of all, Marco Rubio, he lied about his origin story. He claims his family fled Cuba under Castro. In reality, immigration papers show his family came three years before the Cuban Revolution. So his family actually fled the US-backed dictatorship. And yet he came up with this story in order to get elected in Florida. Not only that, but his brother-in-law, Orlando Celia, was actually jailed for running drugs, being one of the main, the primary Miami drug cocaine kingpins of the 1980s. And Marco Rubio

himself lived in the home when he was a teenager, out of which his brother-in-law was running this cocaine operation. This is all in the Miami New Times. You had former Miami police officials saying it's bogus for Marco Rubio to claim he had no idea that this was going on when he was living in that home. His brother-in-law later came out of prison, and Rubio even featured him on the stage at campaign rallies. But for some reason, while you have the media obsessing over Pete Hegseth for probably legitimate reasons, they ignore anything critical about Marco Rubio. He's not a controversial appointment at all, you notice. Instead, they have to bring up Tulsi Gabbard. Yesterday, I saw ABC wrote a report

claiming that she was, according to former officials, aides that worked for her that are apparently not very trustworthy. They went to the press and said, oh, she used to forward us articles from RT about the world, about Syria or whatnot. And even after we told her that this was not a legitimate source, she kept reading it and sending it to us. So that's what they target as something that's bad. That Tulsi now, who I think is probably the most encouraging appointee, the idea that's a good thing, because if you're dealing with the Russians, you should be getting their perspective on the world instead of shutting them out the way that we've been living for the past four years. in Ukraine or anywhere else is whether or not figures like Rubio are selected and going to work to undermine Trump, or if Rubio is selected knowing that Trump can replace him at any time. And if he betrays Trump, he can become like Mike Pompeo or any of these other dead political figures. He's never going to have a career afterwards. Or is he coming in thinking this is a big opportunity. I should probably listen to my

boss and not try to undermine him every step of the way? I mean, I would give Rubio the chance to actually carry out a foreign policy dictated by Trump, even though I'm not super confident that's going to happen. The other issue that I have, even with Tulsi and the nominee for health and human services, secretary, uh, RFK jr, who I think is actually, uh, I, I was encouraged to see him, uh, join forces with Trump. And there are a lot of things that I really like and appreciate about RFK. I think he speaks about Russia totally level-headedly. But what blows my mind is the inability for someone like him to grasp the reality of Israel, of Zionism and the occupation.

And during his presidential campaign, we got criticized for kind of drilling him too hard on this one issue, Israel, people would say, oh, it's not fair for you to just talk constantly about Israel when he's so good on other issues. We should give him credit. That's true to a degree. But for me, you can't talk to me about peace. You can't even talk to me about free speech and our rights here in the United States if you're going to side with the Israel lobby and the Zionists in the Middle East. You're not going to have peace and we're not going to have free speech and rights here. We're not going to have the right to demonstrate or to even speak about the crimes at Israel's committee in

Gaza right now. And an issue from even RFK Jr. and Tulsi is that there's this common thread of the influence of the Miriam Adelson money network, the largest donor to Trump. She spent $100 million, at least, that we know of on his campaign. And both RFK Jr. and Tulsi, for as great as they are, they both went and kissed the ring. Tulsi's taken money from the Adelson group in the past, taken pictures with Rabbi Shmuley, the now kind of infamous character. I think she probably regrets that photo at this point. And I think R.K. Jr. should regret it as well because he was doing campaign events with this individual and even participating in fundraisers to raise money for the personal security of Rabbi Shmuley

when he was running for president. So that's a little bit odd to me. The fact that there is this common thread, even when it looks like someone is alternative, or you could say that Tulsi and Marco Rubio are on opposing sides in the administration. Well, they still come together on this one issue of being part of the Zionist lobby influence. And look what happened to Matt Gaetz, one of the kind of more rebel nominees that Trump put forward for AG, one of the most outspoken members of Congress who has not taken money from AIPAC or the Israel lobby. He voted against legislation criminalizing anti-Semitism speech that's actually an attack on our rights as Americans. So I thought, hey, if this is the kind of Republican

Trump is going to put in AG, it's probably the best we can get. Someone that's willing to even say that they're not going to criminalize free speech. Wow. Well, he didn't last long as a nominee, you notice. And the person that they switched him out with, Tam Bondi, is really similar to Matt Gaetz in a lot of ways, except on this one issue, Israel. And so there will be no Make America Great Again if Tulsi and the team go in there and they are going to side with the lies that have come in the media and from Israel itself, because we can't have a coherent America first policy if we're putting Israel first. And the time to really break that egg or have that discussion is now because we don't have any time. I think there's too much of a, there's this, in MAGA conservatism,

you see people, I think they get Russia, they get Russia really well. And I'm impressed a lot of times when you hear people speaking on even Fox that like some of the mainstream commentators understand that we can't just go and poke the Russian bear. But there's this blind spot for them or pretty much like a rabid mentality, I think, where even those people say, well, it's because we have to peel Russia away from China and we have to pivot to China. J.D. Vance, the VP, to his credit, even though he wrote this excellent op ed opposing escalation with Russia, he did say, you know, we need some of those weapons or an arsenal in case we have to pivot to Taiwan and China. And so that's dangerous as well. I think MAGA is going to get it wrong if they think that they can drive a wedge between Russia and China. And so that's dangerous as well. I think MAGA is going to get it wrong if they think that they can drive a wedge between Russia and China, or if they think that these conflicts are

happening in a vacuum. That's, I think, the point that I want to end on. As you look in Ukraine, you have NATO at odds with Russia in the Middle East, everything that's happening around Syria and Israel, I don't think we should separate those wars. What's happening in Syria is directly linked to what's happening in Gaza and Lebanon. And then now you have even the US talking about the Korean peninsula being involved in this conflict,

claiming that there are North Korean troops fighting in Russia. And whether or not that's true, if that's the mentality that the U.S. and South Korea are operating on now that they're trying to push South Korea to directly arm Ukraine with lethal weapons, it really feels like a global war. And it also feels like these are all these conflicts that were frozen or supposed to be frozen in time after World War II, but that have actually just been roiling. And now it's coming to a head with World War III. You have Korea, which was one of the main hot points right after the conclusion of World War II. Then Israel, which was created right after World War II and has been in constant conflict with its neighbors since.

And then you have NATO, the direct outcome of World War II being pushed to the ultimate place that NATO was always going to lead, which is direct confrontation with Russia. And it's also interesting that these also happen to be points where Trump himself as president in the first, in his first administration, tried to actually make peace. He went to Korea. I mean, I thought that was a great initiative to see an American president go to the demarcation, to the demilitarized zone and meet with the North Korean president, talk about ending US military drills with South Korea. That was encouraging. That got overturned. I was in Helsinki when Trump met with Putin in, what was it, 2017 or 2018. That was, again, a very encouraging, hopeful, inspiring moment.

Got overturned by his, you know, Bolton and Pompeo write about how they worked to overturn everything that was agreed upon in Helsinki. And then with NATO and or in the Middle East, I think that was his weakest point because he's got the Kushners in his ear there. And the influence of the Israel lobby, I think, will be the test that Trump faces now if he's going to especially wants to talk about driving out the deep state. So I think there's a chance that there could be some good because Trump's instincts, based on what I've read in the memoirs from some of his former officials, can be good. Even with Venezuela, Bolton and Pompeo write about how Trump was begging them to meet with Maduro directly. And they were like, no, you can't do that.

Definitely not going to happen with Rubio in power. But I think that if Trump learned his lessons and can actually get people like Rubio to carry out his policy and threaten them, say, I'll make you embarrassed and you'll never have a job in Washington or anywhere again unless you do what I say, that there's some hope that especially when it comes to Russia, we could see a resolution. But right now, I'll be honest, it's hard to be hopeful with that. I'm just so sad about everything that's happened in Syria over the last week, as if Gaza and Lebanon weren't enough. So peace can't come soon enough. That's, I guess, thea, for a pretty amazing analysis of even take on the icons of the left,

whether it's AOC or others, to push them where they're not good and to expose them. What are the best tactics that we can use as we go forward and thinking now in trying to influence people who will be part of a Trump administration? Is it confronting them directly or is it finding common ground and trying to work with them? Well, thank you, Medea, for that introduction and that question. And I want to thank all of the panelists. I guess I'm the last speaker of the day, so I won't make this too long, but in considering your question, I want people to think about the fact that in April of 2025,

it'll be the 250th anniversary of the founding of this country. And frankly, I am tired of hearing people berate our founding fathers when I don't see anybody acting like Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Paine or some of the better angels of our American history, like Gouverneur Morris, who was buried in the Bronx, who penned the Constitution. And you go to where he's buried today, and it looks like crap. His grave is all just eroded, and it's dirty, and it is in the poorest congressional district in the country. You can't think of a better visual

metaphor than what people today, Americans today, actually think about their own country. The reason we remember these people is not to remember the worst of them. It's to build upon what they actually left us. To be proud of American history is to be proud of people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said the choice today is no longer between nonviolence and violence, but nonviolence and non-existence. And I am a big believer in creative, nonviolent, direct action. I was 15 years old when I was on Carnegie Hall sharing a stage with Bernard Lafayette, of all people. I had no real business being up there. And he commanded everybody to take nonviolence internationally, in your own home and everywhere you can put it. Because that's the only way

forward. Because the real power is in ideas, and it's in thinking, it's in action, it's in the future. If you don't actually have a real vision for what a future should look like, that means you don't have a plan for now. See, I happen to believe that electoral politics can work because I ran as an independent candidate. I ran as an independent candidate and I found people who were younger than me, slightly older than me, people who are stalwart and passionate and brave, who stood up to people like Nancy Pelosi for the first time and called her out and yelled at her and called her like this crazy muck witch that she is. I am proud that my campaign was able to be a vehicle for people who were trying to do the right thing and didn't know

where to start as a way for them to say, you know what, I want to do the right thing and didn't know where to start as a way for them to say, you know what, I want to do the right thing and I want to go help Jose take down Richie Torres, one of the worst scumbags in the country and the world who is currently illegally occupying the congressional district in the 15th congressional district in the Bronx. Okay. So the entire point of running that electoral campaign was what we did, especially towards the end. The last two months of our campaign was the most powerful campaign, I think, that defined anyone in the country or defined any campaigns in the country. It was suggested to me by one of my dear staffers that we get up at four in the morning so we could be at the U.N. at six in the morning when all the world leaders were coming in to give them leaflets about updated briefings about the fact that there was a doctor who was being censored. His name is Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who's been trying to get heard by any U.S. official that would have

him. And we printed out a leaflet and we spoke to anybody who had a U.N. badge at six in the morning. We stood in front of the missions, the Algerian missions, the Nigerian missions, the Brazilian missions. We stood in front of all these missions. We flagged down anybody walking in, and we were talking to them. We were getting their contacts. That was us. When Mark Perlmutter wanted to speak at Mount Sinai about what he saw, a doctor who was in Gaza for three weeks who testified that he was on the phone with Chuck Schumer's office in Gaza as bombs were raining behind him. And he had to tell the secretary lady, oh, that noise behind me, those are bombs. I'm sorry. I can't do anything about that right now. When he wanted to be heard

at Mount Sinai, it was planned a month ahead and it was canceled 24 hours before, where the hell were other people trying to get him another place, another venue? Why did it have to be the LaRouche candidates who got him another place so that he could actually have a place to be heard and speak? That was because we ran an electoral campaign on the basis of nonviolent creative direct action. So I happen to think that it can work. I'm tired of the whining. And I look at people like AOC, who should have been talking to people like Mark Perlmutter, who was in Gaza,

or talking to people like Dr. Feroz Sidwa, who published this article in the New York Times about what the doctors actually saw. And when there was all this slander and all this dishonesty coming out from Zionists saying, well, it's all fake. You know, the article said, you know, that there were bullets found in children's head, but it was all fake. And then it turns out that it was independent forensic analysis done on the evidence,

and it turns out it was all real. So, you know, where was AOC calling that out? Talking about trans bathrooms is what she was talking about at the Capitol. Oh, no, this is the biggest civil rights issue of our time. How about the civil rights issue of not getting blown up in a mushroom cloud? Okay? Okay? blown up in a mushroom cloud, okay? So I'm gonna have to unfortunately stop you and we don't have time for the lightning round,

which is very unfortunate because I did wanna ask you all what you would say if you were in an elevator with Marjorie Taylor Greene. But I say that because Scott and I did have a chance to meet with people on the left like McGovrin, and we got a chance to meet with people on the right like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And we were quite astounded that with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, we found that she was totally in sync with us

about wanting to stop the use of attackums in Russia, about wanting to find a negotiated solution to that war, about wanting to stop sending U.S. money to Ukraine. And yet, as we were going into her office, she had a sign that said, there are only two genders, male and female, trust the science. And the day day before she had gone out to the Supreme Court to yell at people for wanting to support trans rights. So when you have people that you don't agree with on a lot of other issues, what do you do to find common ground? How do we work in this next period is so important. So I think in the lightning round, I want to ask you all, the elevator with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and where do we go as we are looking, as we are seeking, and it is so necessary to find that common ground, how do we do it?

You know, go back to something I said a second ago. You know, I was looking on my phone and what I saw was there were people who were on X sending out, I guess they're still called tweets. And they had at Elon Musk, at Marjorie Taylor, Marjorie Taylor Greene, at all of these names. And I would say this, that we if any of them are watching, hopefully they are. You know, Elon Musk, you're the richest man in the world. If you don't act, you'll be the richest man in a graveyard. That's not a fun place to be. That you'll be. What good is it to be a member of Congress when you're dead? And there's no Congress. People are you know, one of the things we doing, and we have to keep in mind here, is there's a discussion about what's going to happen after Donald Trump becomes president.

I think we've got to make that discussion, what's going to happen if Donald Trump becomes president, because we have an issue right now. Look, what happened recently in South Korea last week, the South Korean president declared martial law and they were able to stop him, et cetera. I suspect Tony Blinken had something to do with that. South Korea is a colony. That didn't just happen. He didn't do it unless he was given permission or told to do it. In the same way that they've got a race going on to January 20th and they're trying to start more trouble in Ukraine and they're trying to start more trouble in uh Syria rest assured they want some more going on in on the uh Korean Peninsula and there's nuclear weapons there too so we saw how the people of Korea came out immediately in the middle of the night

and they surrounded the national parliament and they demanded that there be an immediate end to martial law. And that was incredible grassroots power that they and the members of their parliament came back in and reversed it within eight hours. Quite astounding. So Wilmer, how do we do that kind of thing? How do we get that gumption that the people of South Korea had to demand policies that are good for us? I'm going to speak to that from a very, very limited perspective. I'm an African American political scientist. And one of my mentors, Dr. Mack Jones, wrote a piece a number of years ago called A Message to a Black Political Scientist, where he said, it's our obligation to do our analysis through the perspective of our lived history as African Americans. So to answer your question from a very narrow perspective, in 1964, a group of

three Japanese writers in a group of, and I hope I don't mispronounce this too badly, Haibakusha, who were, thank you, Haibakusha, atomic bomb survivors. They went to Harlem, and they met with Malcolm X. And Malcolm was very clear in 64 on where he stood on this issue. We've had since 1945, we've had W.E.B. Du Bois, we've had Bayard Rustin, we've had Coretta King, we've had the Black Panthers, we've had Dr. King, all of these individuals in Black leadership that were on the right side of this issue. Margaret mentioned former President Barack Obama. I think he was, one of the reasons why he was elected was to sell neocolonialism, colonialism, and American imperialism. So to answer your question, to use that as the preface, I ask Black leadership today, I ask Vice President Harris, where are you on this issue?

Where are you? There were very few policies you were able to articulate on the campaign trail, which is one of the reasons why you lost. It had nothing to do with people didn't want a black woman president. It was you didn't have anything to offer anybody of substance. Where's Congressman Hakeem Jeffries on this issue? Linda Thomas Greenfield, the American ambassador in the UN, where are you on this issue? Y'all's silence is deafening. You're on the wrong side of leadership. You're on the wrong side of history. You're on the wrong side of the issue. Where is the Congressional Black Caucus? What is supposed to be what is supposed to be the conscience of the Congress? They're unconscious. So if we want to coalesce, you coalesce around positions of strength. Otherwise, it's called capitulation.

It is imperative that the black community, African-American leadership, get on the right side of this issue. That's how you deal with the MAGA people. That's how you deal with the other knuckleheads that can't wait to push a button and end the world. So, Anya, you are in an elevator, and in comes Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. Now, she led the effort a long time ago now, almost three years ago, at the end, well, just three weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to get 30 members of Congress, the most progressive members of Congress, to sign a letter that said, thank you, Biden, for your magnificent work getting economic and financial support to Ukraine, but it would be good to start a process of diplomacy that might lead to a ceasefire within 24 hours that was rescinded. And she, as the head of the Progressive Caucus, has not said a word since then, nor have any members,

not only that signed that letter, but Democratic politicians. So you're in the elevator with her. What do you say? See, I struggle to speak with these. Maybe it's because I used to think that the Democrats were the party that represented me or represented peace. So now when I see them, I just want to insult them. I'm like, why did you crush everything that I believed it? I mean, you go, what is it going to take for you guys to grow a spine? You know, better. That's the thing about these. And that's what Obama frustrated me so much about Obama was it's the sense of they know better. They are aware that that their their administration, the Democrats are stifling peace and are acting as as belligerent. So what is it going to take for you to have your moment in history?

I think that's really the only way to appeal to some of those people. In some ways, I would have an easier time approaching someone from MAGA and just making a case about hard US interests, because that's, I think, the most convincing argument. You can't convince anybody with human rights, these things. A lot of people in power don't really care about that. But if we were just saying like, look, we don't want to die, it's not in our interest to have this war, That to me should be the easiest case to make. But the frustrating thing about progressives is that they know better. So I would just say, look, it's time for this party, if it wants to survive as a party, because honestly, it almost seems dead at this point. It's time for people that stand for peace to retake the reins. And this is actually

an opportunity for you to define the party as progressive once again, and to elevate the principles that she and other members of the progressive caucus claim to stand for. Otherwise, they're going to go down on the Titanic, which is the Democratic Party, if they want to just keep, if they want to become the party of war and they want to be the progressive. This is what's so interesting. The populist base of the Republican Party actually took over that party through Trump. But the Democrats completely sidelined any progressive or grassroots base. They actually are just so undemocratic, right, that they pretty much just had consistent elections that were rigged in order to prevent the populists and the progressives from coming into power. So I think if they don't, if people like Pramila Jayapal don't do it, then it's going to be up to others to probably just start a new party.

And if that's what she wants her legacy to be, good for them. I mean, I don't have much hope in the progressives, to be honest. Just a very specific thing for those of you here are watching this. If you will do us the favor of contacting your member of Congress, especially these ones that had called for a ceasefire early on and became afraid of it tell them to sign on to this bill that was put forward by a conservative Republican and we don't care that it's a conservative Republican do we it is HR 10218 prohibit the transfer of ATAKOMs to Ukraine, and prohibit the U.S. from supporting the operation of these ATAKOMs inside of Russia. So, Jose, you are in that elevator. And who walks in that elevator but General Lloyd Austin. He comes in there. This is a general that you know

used to be on the board of Raytheon before he became U.S. Secretary of Defense. But like a lot of people in the military, they know what's going on and they don't want to go to war with Russia and certainly don't want a nuclear war. So what would you say to him? Wow. It's not really my style to find someone in an elevator. Usually I figure out where they're speaking and then I'll stand up and denounce them. You got lucky. I got lucky, I guess. What do you say to somebody who's actually tried to kill their conscience? And I really mean that, right? Because, you know, you have people like AOC who I would like to think has a conscience, right? So the way I intervene on her was calling her a coward, a hypocrite, saying she supported Nazis in Ukraine.

And I just, like like denounced her because what you see it when she looked at me, she's like, there's a, there's a crisis in her mind where she knows I'm right, but she knows she's also selling out. And there's like a conflict where she's like, well, you kind of have to keep selling out in order. If I ever want to get my green new deal passed. But I think with Lloyd Austin is it would be similar.

Like when I confronted Mike Pompeo, I made a mistake where with Pompeo, I think with Lloyd Austin, it would be similar, like when I confronted Mike Pompeo, I made a mistake where with Pompeo, I said, you know, you're a killer, you're bloodthirsty, you're this, you're that. And I think somebody like Lloyd Austin might be the same way where he'll say thank you. You know, it's like, yes, like, I love being bloodthirsty. You know, I would probably start to ridicule Lloyd Austin in some way or another. That's actually how you kind of get at them, is not by calling them the things they want to be, but you ridicule them. But I would say something, and that's what I would just kind of like end on the note here, is that, you know, silence is consent. The truth defies silence. Stand up, intervene, declare your independence,

and be like Medea Benjamin, who has done interventions for decades and has proven that to be true. So as we wrap up this panel, I want to say that you don't have to wait for some serendipity to be in an elevator with one of these people because Anthony Blinken himself will be testifying in Congress this Wednesday at 2 p.m. in 2172 Rayburn, the number of the room. If any of you want to come and join us and have a chance to try to say something to Anthony Blinken, please join us. And you can reach us, any of the people here that go around with Code Pink. We would love to have you come. And Larry Wilkerson is going to join us on Thursday in Congress as we go around meeting with different members.

So thank you to this wonderful panel here. Yeah. And catch him in the elevator. We might get lucky and catch Anthony Blinken in the elevator. So everybody think of what you would like to say to Anthony Blinken. Thank you so much. Yeah. You remember Seth Blinken in Thank you so much. Yeah. . And he changed his boat. Yes, yes, it can happen. So let's give a big round of applause to this panel.

And Scott will round us out here. Well, thank you very much. Again, Garland Nixon had to leave, but a big round of applause for Garland Nixon, Wilmer Leon, Dr. Wilmer Leon, Anya Parapel, Jose Vega, Medea Benjamin for coming in and doing the panel, and for the other members of the panel,

Theodore Postol, Larry Werferson, Margaret Kimberly, Dan Kovalec, Dennis Kucinich, the great Dennis Kucinich, and Max Blumenthal. We love you, Max. I just want to say this to Elon Musk. When I gave Max the shot at the 30-second thing, it was supposed to be humorous. But after listening to him, if you don't give him the equivalent of what you gave Tucker Carlson to start his X channel, you're failing America.

That's the kind of journalist you want. So I want to appreciate everybody who came here today. You made this possible. I want to give my thanks to the people who are watching. This was fantastic. The panelists, the organizers, Jeff, Norman, Morgan, everybody who came together to make this happen. You know, we learned some things today.

We learned that working in Congress is hard, but we learned that being a good American citizen is harder, which means we have a duty and responsibility as American citizens to work harder. We've heard from Jose, Margaret, Wilmer, Garland, the works on what we need to do and what we can do. And it's very important that we do it. Medea mentioned a bill. This isn't just a bill, ladies and gentlemen. This is the equivalent of the cure for cancer. If you want to stop a nuclear war, you must stop the Atacom's missiles from being launched against Russia.

This bill will do it. I don't know what everybody here and watching is doing between now and January 20th, but if you're not every day picking up the phone and calling your congressional representatives, calling your senators and saying, what are you doing about this bill? Make them lose their sleep so that you can live forever. This is the cure for cancer. This will stop a war. Let's bring it to life. Make those phone calls.

It's what we need to do. Now I'd like to do something in closing. I want to address the Russian people and the Russian government. Put this here together, not just for the American people, but for you. Today you heard voices, voices of Americans who said said we don't want a war with Russia. Voices of Americans. Voices of Americans who are demonstrating through their presence here, their words and their actions, that they're not just saying this, they're living this, they're breathing this.

We don't want a war with Russia. We heard a lot of voices, but there was one voice that I heard throughout this thing, this event. It was the voice of a little girl. Her voice is the most important. Because if we fail, she dies. That little girl and all the little girls and little boys out there.

It is our responsibility as humans, as parents, as adults, to make a better world for the youth of America, of Russia, of the world. Please, to the Russian people and to the Russian government, listen to that little girl's laughter. Help me help you. You help me help you. Let's find a way out of this mess. We are in a bad position. It looks hopeless sometimes but we had voices up here today they were saying we are going to work until the last dying breath of our bodies to ensure that there isn't the last dying breath of our bodies so we can keep little voices like that little girls sounding our ears bringing joy to our

lives thank you very much thank you for coming god bless you