Anti-war speakers ask protesters to organize

Presenter Eugene protested the U.S. takeover of Venezuela Jan. 3 and KEPW’s Todd Boyle was there. From the Federal Building Saturday afternoon, here’s the speaker from 50501:

Speaker from 50501 You are here today because of the egregious violent occupation of Venezuela. You are angry and heartbroken as war crimes are committed and more innocent lives are lost. 

What happened last night is a continuation of the many violent attacks perpetrated by our government, both abroad and domestically. In the last year, we’ve seen this regime send $20 billion to Argentina, fund militarized terror in Gaza, and build a golden ballroom in Trump’s name. They poured $75 billion into ICE so that masked secret police can kidnap our neighbors and tear families apart on a daily basis. (Shame!)

Meanwhile, we as Americans can’t afford basic health care or groceries. Hospitals in rural areas are closing and farmers are going bankrupt across the U.S., and our loved ones and neighbors are being disappeared. 

Trump is stealing our tax dollars and using them to accomplish his fascist agenda. This is not some distant reality. Many of us here have experienced the impact firsthand. This is our collective struggle felt here in our communities and in our homes.

In this last year, more than 1,000 people were kidnapped from Oregon. Back in June, ICE kidnapped almost 40 people showing up for routine check-ins from this very building where the ICE office is located. (Shame!) 

Starting July 1, the community started showing up to this building, first on a weekly basis and now on a daily basis (Yeah!) And this communitywide defense strategy has contributed to ICE kidnapping fewer than five people from this building in the last month. (G– d— right!)

We are in this position because our institutions have failed and continue to fail us. We cannot rely on them and instead must take up the fight ourselves. 

And being here today is not the fight. It is the starting point to the continued action that is necessary to protect our most vulnerable and defend our democracy. So I am asking you to show up to this same building this week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, when we are here, eleven to four, to further show the regime that we do not consent to this senseless violence and to further discourage these senseless kidnappings. I ask that if you’d like to get more involved, please come talk to myself or this guy or this guy over here.

 It’s time to take action. It’s time to move beyond words and beyond simply showing up. This is the year. It’s the year of taking action. Thank you all for being here today. F— ICE. F— Donald Trump. F— this regime. Thank you.

Presenter The Green Party candidate for Val Hoyle’s seat in Congress, Justin Filip:

Justin Filip (Pacific Green Party) I woke up like a lot of you this morning: flipped over, looked at the news, and saw that the United States had carried out an act of terrorism against the people of Venezuela. 

This is not—let’s be clear here, on a few things. This is not a war. This is an act of terrorism. (Yeah!) We’re attacking another country, kidnapping its sovereign leader. And you can think whatever you want to think about Maduro, we do not have the right to do that as the United States of America. 

Our elected leaders represent you. These actions are carried out in your name as Americans. (No!) You have an obligation to stand up and try to stop it. 

Let’s be very clear about who the enemy is here. We have a Trump problem, sure, but bigger than a Trump problem:  We have an imperialism problem. 

We stood by and watched, late 2023, an entire 2024, at a Democratic administration carrying out a genocide. We didn’t stop it. No matter all these actions, these protests, marching in the streets did nothing to stop it. Let’s be clear. 

Today’s mobilization—which is great and very important, we need to mobilize—but only mobilize with the intention of organizing. (Yes!) All right? We must organize. 

If you think you’re going to correct the wrongs of this country right now by going right back to a Democratic administration, let me tell you right now, you’re sorely mistaken. A Democratic administration just stood by and helped Israel kill hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—by some estimates, 377,000 Palestinians have been disappeared, the last time I checked. 

And now we have a Republican administration ignoring the rule of law, ignoring international law, taking things into their own hands, and doing whatever they want. We do not respect sovereignty of any country. We talk about the sovereignty of Ukraine. We don’t care about the sovereignty of Ukraine, are you kidding me? We’re there for the same reasons we’re in Venezuela right now: Let’s protect the interests of corporations and billionaires whose interests have nothing to do with yours. (Right! Exactly!)

If you want to change this, we need an off-ramp. Because right now it’s the same cycle and cycle. And quite frankly, it’s just getting worse. Yeah. Your lesser-evil approach to politics has brought you more and more evil. (Yes!) It took you to a point where in 2024, you had to choose between an administration that said they were refusing to change policy on genocide, or go back to Donald Trump, who we know is a criminal and a con man. (Right.) Those are the choices you were given. F— that. 

We do not have to put up with it. But we do. We do, as long as we keep falling into the same trap of this lesser evil bulls—.

It might be hard for some of you to understand, but the Democrats are not the good guys, right? They carry out this kind of stuff just as much as the Republicans do. There might be some differences on other issues—wedge issues, cultural issues. Those are important too, right? 

But who toppled Libya? (A Democrat!) A Democrat, right. Who carried out all the harms in Palestine for the last year? A Democratic administration. So let’s just be very clear who the enemy is here. It’s the billionaire corporate class that controls both major parties in this country. 

And you’re never going to see something different if you don’t organize and get off that ride. You’re stuck on that ride right now. And until you decide enough’s enough—and I don’t know what it’s going to take. I thought a genocide would have been enough for us to say enough is enough. But apparently that wasn’t enough for some people. 

And now we’re watching Venezuela be the victims of our imperialism and colonialism. I’ve got family in Mexico right now that’s worried. Trump’s talking about cartels in Mexico right now. I got family this morning that I talked to in Mexico City who said, ‘We’re going to have to stand up and defend our country.’

This is what the United States has become in the global eye. That’s how people view us now. We are the baddies. (America is a destroyer!)

We’re a disgrace. Our foreign policy is a disgrace. It’s immoral, and at some point, we’re going to have to put our foot down and say, ‘No more.’ Are we ready to do that? (Yeah!)

So I would encourage anyone—you’ve got to organize, though. Coming out here today is not enough. It feels good. We got a lot of good company here, right? We’ve got community here who all feel the same way. But it all means nothing if you don’t take the next step and organize and take these people perpetuating these crimes against humanity out of power.

Presenter A speaker from Veterans for Peace:

Speaker from Veterans for Peace This announcement of war. (Shame!) We’re at war. We’re not on the precipice of a war, we are in war.

Todd Boyle Don’t say ‘we.’ Don’t say ‘we.’

Veterans for Peace We are, all of us. I’m a veteran who served during the Vietnam War. And make no mistake, we’re at war. 

And I want to remind you all about some things that history teaches us. The Vietnam War did not end because politicians suddenly told and discovered the truth. (That’s right. Right.)

It didn’t end because the War Department found its conscience. (No.)

The war ended because resistance by ordinary people made the war impossible to continue. Resistance, first of all, by the Vietnamese people themselves, who died in the millions. Resistance by regular people here in the U.S. in solidarity—many of them arrested, assaulted, jailed and even killed. 

That’s the lesson. The lesson that we need right now. The resistance did what speeches in Congress never did. The resistance destroyed the war’s legitimacy. Students shut down campuses. (Right!) Workers disrupted business as usual. (Yes!)

Veterans stood up and said, ‘This is a lie,’ and we know it because we were there. Ordinary people were assaulted and even killed at protests. Ordinary people were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience. Ordinary people stopped going along and that’s when the war began to crack.

Our task is to reach out. Our task is to reach out to ordinary people. Vietnam taught us something else. People didn’t wait for polls to change, for public opinion to change. Ordinary people forced the truth into the open. People like us here today forced the truth out into the open. They made silence uncomfortable. They raised the political cost of continuing the war higher than the cost of ending it.

That’s how wars stop. 

Our task as activists is the same now as it was then. Expose the lies. Refuse the language. Bear witness to the truth. Talk to your neighbors, to regular folks. Don’t bother so much with politicians. Become grains of sand in the gears of war. Become rocks in the gears of war. And let’s all work together to bring this deadly machine to a stop. (Cheers)

Presenter Dahlia, from the Party for Socialism and Liberation:

Dahlia (PSL) Thank you all for being here. This imperialist invasion is the latest in the long history of crimes against humankind perpetuated by our government. 

The flimsy justification of narcoterrorism is the latest in a marriage of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, which have been long used as tools of mass suppression, primarily targeting marginalized groups and communities domestically right here in the United States. 

The machine of systemic oppression is domestically applied to boost the profits of private prison systems and bolster the military police apparatus. 

Federal organizations like ICE exist just to punish these communities, divide working people based on their traits such as citizenship or national identity, religion, and so on. 

And abroad, we now see the same baseless accusations justifying American empire’s bloody expansion. For what crime do Venezuelan people have to suffer bombing and sabotage and the threat of occupation? The crime is self-determination.

What justifies the illegal blockade of Venezuela? What justifies the illegal blockade of Cuba? Why are we attacking small nations? For wanting to determine their own destiny? Determine their own wealth? (Empire!) Because of empire, that’s exactly right. 

Now the crime of self-determination—this original sin in the eyes of our ruling class—is that the fruit of our labor might belong to us, rather than an American CEO. Right. 

And why do these small nations deserve such cruel economic warfare that our ruling class levies against them, such as the sanctions? Why are we spending so much money on these illegal wars, these illegal attacks, and to kidnap heads of state? 

The truth is that Cuba and Venezuela and other places, the people of their working class have developed systems which improve the lives of the vast majority, rather than lining the pockets of the wealthy few. 

Now, Venezuelan resources belong to the people they belong to Venezuelans, not to Trump, his cronies, or any of his billionaire friends.

Our ruling class is not the class that constitutes the broad majority. We do. We, the working people, the everyday folk, the blue-collar workers work and we make everything run. You, me, together, we can stop this imperialist system in its tracks.

We need to support our local Friends of the Farmworkers at PCUN who are doing solidarity actions. The day without an immigrant. Please speak to an organizer. We’re going to exercise these muscles before a general strike. But we have the power to withhold our labor. Yeah. Thank you.

Presenter From the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Kamryn Stringfield:

Kamryn Stringfield (PSL) Thank you, Dahlia. The general strike is our tool for fighting back when it comes to the war in Venezuela. The general strike is our tool for fighting back when it comes to the war on our immigrant neighbors. The general strike is the tool for fighting back when it comes to ending the genocide in Palestine. (General strike!) 

So please come out on Jan. 19 to the ‘Day Without An Immigrant’ action. And stay tuned to PCUN’s general strike actions leading up to May 1.

Presenter Speakers at an emergency anti-war protest in Eugene urge listeners to organize. Field recordings by Todd Boyle for KEPW News. You can watch the entire rally on Todd’s YouTube channel.