The No Trump Military Parade coalition of 250 organizations is holding a Peace Congress in Washington, D.C., on Saturday in place of the Trump military parade, which they helped to stop. Watch live on Consortium News, starting at 9:30 a.m. EST.
In a historic show of opposition to the glorification of war and waste of millions of public dollars, the coalition has gone beyond a traditional peace group to include anti-poverty, housing, the environment and more.
The Peace Congress is bringing together organizations and activists working to build a stronger peace movement that seeks to end the wars both at home and abroad.
The Peace Congress recognizes the following:
- Budgeting federal dollars for the Pentagon translates to less funds for necessities such as education, health care, transit, housing and more.
- The foundations of United States foreign policy are racism, violence and colonialism, which play out in our schools and communities.
- U.S. imperialism fuels suffering and death around the world that rebounds as hatred towards the U.S. and greater insecurity.
Saturday’s Peace Congress event will open with a panel featuring Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace, Angela Bibens of the Standing Rock Legal Collective, Bernadette Ellorin of BAYAN USA, Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign, Eli Painted Crow, a veteran and mother of veteran sons, Joe Lombardo of the United National Antiwar Coalition, and Netfa Freeman of the Institute for Policy Studies, who works on issues of African solidarity and police violence.
After the panel, which will focus on the current environment and building the peace movement, the Congress will be run as a general assembly for the rest of the day. Movement leaders and activists will identify obstacles to building a stronger and more effective peace movement, opportunities, goals and next steps.
The event seeks to build a movement to end U.S. wars at home and abroad. In the recent midterm election, despite record federal spending on wars and militarism as well as never-ending wars, the issue of ending war was absent from the political debate. That is because both the parties in power are…