From Seattle to Palestine: Kshama Sawant on Building Socialist Power, Solidarity, and Ending Genocide
Hosts Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash open with a tribute to Assata Shakur and a call to support political prisoner Kamau Siddiqui, then speak with socialist organizer and former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant about her run for Congress against Rep. Adam Smith. Sawant argues that elections can serve mass movements when rooted in militant, independent working-class organizing—linking demands like an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, free healthcare for all, rent control, and higher minimum wages to strikes, general strikes, and rank-and-file power. As breaking news arrives of a Trump–Netanyahu 72-hour ultimatum involving Tony Blair, Sawant calls for coordinated labor action to stop the genocide in Gaza. The program closes with excerpts from Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s pro-Palestine address outside the UN and a rallying call for international solidarity.
00:00 Introduction — Tribute to Assata Shakur; stand with Kamau Siddiqui
01:08 Call to action — support Kamau’s medical/legal needs (FreeKamaoSiddiquiCampaign@gmail.com)
01:45 Guest intro — Kshama Sawant running for Congress vs. Rep. Adam Smith
02:28 Breaking prompt — reaction to Trump–Netanyahu ultimatum, Tony Blair role
03:06 Sawant: Blair’s record, Iraq War, neoliberal “New Labour,” imperialism
04:22 Sawant: Adam Smith’s votes — Iraq, bank bailouts, war funding, Gaza aid bans
05:40 Genocide, famine, and bipartisan complicity; demand to end U.S. aid to Israel
06:32 Strategy: use office to build movements, not make back-room deals
07:18 Lessons from Seattle — $15/hr, Amazon tax, renter protections via mass pressure
08:12 “Sawant’s army” anecdote — organized power beats corporate landlords
08:47 Reform vs. revolution — reject false dichotomy; build militant working-class fightback
09:37 Labor critique — business unionism, ties to Democrats, missed fights on cuts/layoffs
10:32 Path forward — strikes, general strikes, coordinated labor action to end genocide
11:11 Why elections now — leveraging the arena that can yield biggest breakthroughs
11:58 Movement-based campaigns — Occupy lessons; independent working-class party
12:46 Democratic decision to run; avoid careerism; issues over personalities
13:20 Campaign planks — end military aid to Israel; Medicare for All via taxing the rich
14:02 Mass participation — donations, phone-banking, volunteering, youth engagement
14:38 National program — rent control; $25 federal minimum wage ($30 in big cities)
15:28 Day-one pledges — inauguration rally; bills to end Israel aid & enact universal healthcare
16:05 Contact — kshamasawant.org; Oct 12 rally in Seattle / livestream
16:44 Transition — to UN protest audio and solidarity messages
17:02 President Gustavo Petro — UN-side rally remarks for Palestine; call for global action
19:03 Crowd chants — “¡Viva Palestina!” / “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”
19:36 Closing — Mimi’s reflections; rededication to international solidarity and action
Rough TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Mimi Rosenberg, and with Ken Nash, bring you Building Bridges. Our program this day is in tribute to a revolutionary whose name continues to inspire freedom struggles around the globe,
Asada Shakur, a former Black Panther and and a member of the Black Liberation Army, a freedom fighter and a symbol of courage in the face of oppression. Asada risked everything for justice and human dignity, and her example will continue to inspire generations. Standing with her legacy is Kamau Sadiqi.
Kamau, the father of Asada’s daughter, a comrade who helped Assata escape a contrived prosecution and false conviction decades ago. And for that act of solidarity, he was imprisoned. After serving his sentence, authorities explicitly demanded he betray Assata. He refused. For holding to his principles, Kamau was re-imprisoned. a target not for crimes, but for his unwavering commitment to justice.
Kamau’s health is deteriorating, yet his spirit remains unbroken. His struggle is a reminder that the fight for justice is ongoing today. not only for Asada, but for all political prisoners who resist oppression and refuse to betray their comrades. This is a call to action. Support Kamau Siddiqui’s medical and legal needs.
Join the campaign at. . . FreeKamaoSiddiquiCampaign at gmail. com. That’s FreeKamaoSiddiquiCampaign at gmail. com.
FreeKamaoSiddiquiCampaign at gmail. com. Stand with Asada. Stand with Kamau. Stand for justice. Free them all, as does our next guest for sure. We begin tonight with a tribute,
yes, to a revolutionary whose name continues to inspire freedom struggles. Asada Shakur, but another name that does the same, Kashama Sawant, an uncompromising fighter for workers and the oppressed. Kashama is stepping into the electoral arena once again,
this time running for Congress against establishment Democrat Adam Smith. Samhwan has been a beacon of revolutionary socialist politics. She has stood shoulder to shoulder with workers on the picket line, with tenants in the struggle, and with movements for racial and climate justice. While the ruling class would have us believe that the electoral arena is there to reign alone, someone shows us that when rooted in mass movements,
even bourgeois elections can become platforms for revolutionary politics. She’s a voice unafraid, unafraid to call out U. S. imperialism, to denounce Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine, and to rally us to build a a genuine socialist alternative. It’s wonderful to have you back with us. Thanks so much for having me, Mimi.
Well, I must start with the first question, and this is breaking. Your assessment of the Trump-Netanyahu ultimatum just issued today, just released, giving Hamas 72 hours to agree to dismantle Palestinian leadership and place governance under the foreign oversight of Trump and Tony Blair or unleash the hounds of war. Your thoughts today?
It’s absolutely no surprise, but at the same time, also just stunning, a stunning exposure of what capitalism is and what we see the Democrats and Republicans doing in appointing Tony Blair. I mean, let’s not forget,
Tony Blair was the architect of what came to be known as the New Labour in the United Kingdom, where he and other bourgeois leaders like himself engineered the transformation of the Labour Party from what it was for a few decades as a not perfect, but quite an important organ of working class struggle through which a lot of working class victories were won,
transforming that from that organ of the working class to a machinery of neoliberalism and the war machine. And he played one of the most pivotal roles in uh carrying out and you know launching and carrying out the war on iraq which let’s not forget cost more than a million lives not to mention i don’t know how many women children and elderly people so tony blair has blood on his hands of all those iraqi people who were slaughtered in that war
just as american republican and democratic politicians do including my opponent adam smith he has the blood on his hands also of the dead iraqis in that uh you know decade-long invasion and occupation and so this is this is even more of a naked uh show of imperialism and the the the declaration that the genocide and the occupation will continue unabated under the leadership of no matter which party comes into power as far as the democrats and republicans are concerned and the same thing in the european nations as well
and it also puts the lie into The performative gestures that many of the European heads of state and also Canada’s prime minister have carried out, which is recognizing Palestine as an independent state, which obviously they have done under pressure from mass movements across the world. But it also shows how hollow of a gesture that is when. .
. the genocide continues and also the genocide itself is in service of the ethnic cleansing project that goes on both in gaza and in the west bank so to me this announcement is a real what it really means to me is that it has to be a renewed call to action for working people for the labor movement we need more actions like the italian workers recently carried out where not only were the port workers shutting down
The dark work in refusing to carry out, refusing to load weapons that were headed to Israel, but also the working class in Italy as a whole carrying out a general strike and forcing a right wing head of state, Georgia Maloney, who’s actually a Trump like figure, forcing major concessions from her.
That is the type of action we need. This is a call to action for us to carry out a coordinated nationwide strike action, shutting down the profit machine of American capitalism in order to put real pressure to end the genocide. Kishama, as you take on Adam Smith,
a very powerful and entrenched Democrat, as you’ve already pointed out, what does it mean for socialists to step into the electoral arena without capitulating to its limits? After all, we’re not operating yet with the Workers’ Civil Rights Joint Party. the party of the working class. So how do you not capitulate?
How do you not begin to really eviscerate or self-censor your own message for the expediency of election? I think that’s a very important question you’ve asked, Mimi. First of all, just about Adam Smith. For your listeners, they may not be familiar, but as you said correctly,
he is one of the most powerful and entrenched Democrats in the US Congress. So he’s not an innocent bystander or some sort of newbie. He’s been in the US Congress for 28 years, ironically, longer than many of my campaign volunteers who are very young people, 25, 26 years old.
And he has a long track record as an establishment pro-corporate, pro-billionaire Democrat. His record starts all the way back when he voted yes on the war on Iraq. And then he voted for the bailout of the big banks in the wake of the Great Recession. And remember, that was a time when tens of millions of American working class people, including homeowners, working class and middle class homeowners,
were left in the lurch. He voted for bailing out the big banks many times, actually, because, you know, those votes happened both under Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush.
So you can see that screwing over working class people is a bipartisan project, but so is war and genocide. And so Adam Smith is one of the key figures who has voted for war after war after war. This guy has not met a war he did not like. And so Consistent with that, he is also one of the Democrats who voted,
and Republicans, obviously, it’s bipartisan, who voted for tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza. He’s also one of the people who shamefully voted repeatedly to ban U. S. funding from Gaza.
for united nations food aid in gaza and mind you this was done they were doing this at a time when already dozens of independent agencies uh were reporting already that the mass starvation had reached catastrophic levels in gaza and that it was headed for a famine which is exactly what has happened now So these are the people who represent the billionaire class, the weapons manufacturers, and all the super wealthy that we have under American capitalism.
This is the Democratic Party. It does not represent working class people. And that is why, and this goes to your next question, the other part of your question, Mimi, which is how do you not capitulate if you’re running as a revolutionary socialist,
as somebody who is fighting for workers? You do that by understanding that when you get elected, you don’t go there to administer the capitalist state except maybe a little bit kinder. No, when I was first elected to the Seattle City Council in 2013 and when I took office in 2014, I did that with the full understanding
that I was going there to fight for the working class of Seattle and also for workers nationally, which meant that all the billionaire class were our enemy, but so were the parties that represent the billionaire class. And in Seattle, there’s virtually no Republican establishment. It’s really Democrats who control the city. They have the full power in the city.
so all the other eight council members were always democrats for the full decade that i was on the seattle city council i was the only socialist they were all democrats and these democratic politicians opposed every single progressive measure that my office brought forward and so it really proved our analysis that that i already had before going into city hall which is that if we want to win anything for the working class if i want to not sell out and if I want to not be marginalized as a lone socialist and become
irrelevant if I want to actually win something for the working class then my power comes not from making backroom deals with the Democratic Party and trying to somehow convince them to do the right thing But my power comes from organizing and mobilizing tens of thousands of working class people. And that is the basis on which we, through our revolutionary politics, won unparalleled victories in our times,
which is the nation’s highest minimum wage, the Amazon tax that raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually for affordable housing. and unprecedented renters right we accomplished all this by having just one elected office and all of that the backbone of our victories was our political clarity that you don’t go there to make friends with the democratic party because they represent the billionaires you go there to fight for workers and that means that you will you
will by definition become enemy number one, not only of the billionaire class, but also of the Democratic and Republican parties, and of the many, many gatekeepers that unfortunately exist both in the labor movement, in the labor leadership,
I mean, and in the NGO leadership. And so you have to be clear that you can’t run, you’re not running a popularity contest with them. You are running to fight for workers, and that does mean that you will become unpopular among those who are trying to hold working people’s movements back.
And that is the That is the element, unfortunately, Mimi, that is missing in the rest of progressive politics in the United States. So you see, even when you have hundreds of Democratic Socialists of America elected officials,
no, not one of them has been able to accomplish what we did because in order to do what we did, you have to accept that it comes with, by definition, you will make some powerful enemies. And most leaders, whether it’s in elections or in the labor leadership or in NGO leadership or in social movements,
they don’t want to make enemies out of some powerful people. And that is why they end up selling out, even when they start with good intentions. And I’ll just share one very useful anecdote. One of the corporate landlord lobbyists who was working behind the scenes for corporate landlords in Seattle, he said that as long as I was, I was on the city council,
as long as our revolutionary office was in the city council, he said openly that the corporate landlords were unable to win anything. And he attributed that to what he called, quote unquote, Sawant’s army. In other words, he was recognizing that it was the power of organizing working class people that ended up defeating the corporate landlords and the billionaires again and again. Well, I love it.
I love it. How do you see, just to push a little further, how do you see the balance between building an independent socialist movement in the streets and engaging in campaigns like yours inside a bourgeois political system, or perhaps the question is the relationship between reform and revolution?
You’ve begun to address that, but let’s push it a little deeper. Yes, I think that’s very important to do. First of all, I would say that the way this logic of elections versus movements is presented, I actually think it’s extremely misleading and not useful in the sense that we are told that there is a separation between running for office and helping mass movements succeed,
and somehow there is a dichotomy between the two, and somehow. . . If you’re in the leadership of movements, that’s more revolutionary by definition. And if you’re running for elections, that’s not. I think that’s a false dichotomy.
And it’s a misleading type of logic, because what it does is that it obscures the more fundamental reality, which is this. that whether you look at elections as an arena of working class fight back, or you look at the labor movement as an arena of working class fight back, or you look at street protest movements as an arena of working class fight back, regardless,
any of those arenas, if you are looking to build working class fight back, then you will have to use the strategy that we used, which is you organize working class people in a defiant manner into a militant strategy. And that means by definition, a lot of people in power are going to be angry at you. They’re going to retaliate.
And the only way you can, you know, change the balance of power where you can defeat them is by bringing in thousands of people and fighting back. So my point is that regardless of which aspect you’re looking at, whether it’s elections or labor movement or street protest movement, you will need this type of revolutionary understanding. And just to give you concrete examples, right now, if you look at in the labor movement,
We have the potential. We have the potential to carry out mass strike actions, let alone general strikes. We have the power latent, you know, working class people, union members have the latent power to shut down the nation’s economy, shut down the profit machine of the billionaires and multimillionaires to force
concessions like the like the end of the genocide, like the end of U. S. military, you know, end to all U. S. military funding to the Israeli state, which is absolutely necessary to fight for taxes on the wealthy,
to fund the needs of working class people. But none of that is being done by the labor leadership. In fact, it’s not only that they did not launch any of these offensive tactics, the labor leadership even failed. And this is tragic. They even failed to mount any type of fight back against the horrific attacks by
the Trump administration, both on the savage cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, but also the 300,000 federal public sector workers that are being laid off. The labor leadership has completely failed to mount any kind of fight back. And the reason that they have failed is because they follow an idea which I would call business unionism,
which is basically, you know, it’s the idea that if you’re a labor leader, your main job is to keep the peace between the bosses and the workers and somehow sort of, you know, be a mediator.
It is a complete misunderstanding of the class relations under capitalism. The ruling class, the billionaires, the capitalists, they’re greed for wealth and their consolidation of wealth is diametrically opposed to workers’ needs to improve their living standards. And so there’s no peace between the two classes, the working class and the capitalist class. It’s always class war. The only question is,
Can workers fight back and defeat the capitalist class on some occasions? And that is the reality under capitalism. But you see the labor movement does not understand, labor leadership for the most part does not understand that. And that also means, business unionism also means that most of the labor leadership is tied to the Democratic Party.
And so they don’t challenge the Democratic Party leadership. They refuse to fight back. They end up giving a blank check. For example, last year, despite the fact that 15 of the first 24 months of this genocide on Gaza were under Democratic President Biden and the Democratic Party Congress members,
you saw labor leaders like auto workers leader Sean Fein giving a blank check to Kamala Harris. and uncritically supporting the Democratic Party. And worse yet, you saw the Teamster leader, Sean O’Brien, going and speaking in the Republican National Convention and cozying up to Donald
Trump. So as long as you have this situation, you will see it’s a massive obstacle to any working class fight back. So for us as revolutionaries, Mimi, the question is not should we run an election campaign or should we, the starting point is not should we run an election or should we
participate in a street movement or should we do it in labor leadership? For me, the starting question is, what is the avenue at this moment that allows us to make the biggest possible breakthroughs for the working class? And unfortunately, given the situation of the labor leadership, and also,
unfortunately, the NGO leadership, for us as revolutionaries, running elections and winning victories through our elected office has been the best possible avenue for the biggest possible breakthroughs. So I would not make a differentiation between these three arenas. Instead,
what I would say is that regardless of which arena is in front of us, we will need this type of revolutionary leadership. And in fact, just to add also to your question about, you know, what’s the relationship between reform and revolution? In fact,
what we have shown is that revolutionaries like myself make the best fighters for and the winners of reform under capitalism, because reforms under capitalism are never some sort of benefiting, you know, it’s not some out of kindness of the hearts of the capitalists. Reforms are concessions that we wrest, we wrench from the capitalists through a militant fight back.
That is how the New Deal was won. The New Deal was not won because FDR was a nice guy. FDR himself openly said that he was the guy who was protecting the interests of the capitalist class. And the New Deal was a concession that workers and Marxists won through the general strikes that they carried out in Minneapolis in 1934 and also the other general strikes in Toledo and San Francisco.
So how Do you see linking up and the correlation between the importance of movements outside the ballot box, the strikes and the protests and the uprisings? How can those struggles be linked to campaigns like yours to build real working class power? One part of it is to assure your ascendancy to the office in Congress and to defeat the Adam Smith.
What’s the other part of it, though, to complement that, to take these movements to coalesce and build a real base, a united base of the working class to ultimately really, I’m sure we both believe, establish a party of the working class to assume state power?
Yes, absolutely. That’s very important. And in fact, I would even go farther than what you said, Mimi, that is that it’s not even only just a compliment and it’s important to for us as revolutionaries to run election campaigns,
not as an end in themselves, but as complimentary to working class movements. But I would go even farther than that and say that our election campaigns have always been based in movements in other words when we decide to run an election campaign it is from the standpoint of a movement building strategy in other words trying to answer the question as i said earlier what is the best tactic that we can use to give us the biggest breakthroughs at this moment and that is the basis on which for example
we launched our first election campaign for the city council in 2013 Because we recognize that in the wake of the Occupy movement, there was huge anger among the working class. But what was missing, and unfortunately still missing for the most part, is a strategy for fight back and any kind of principled leadership that understands that you cannot make unity with the bosses or the bosses parties,
but that working people have to build their own independent organizing and also, as you correctly said, our own new party. So we. . . The reason we launched the election campaign at that time in 2013 was precisely
because we wanted to push the Occupy movement forward rather than letting it die out. But the reason we did an election campaign versus, for example, trying to build it inside the labor movement and we considered that because I was a rank and file member of the American Federation of Teachers at that time.
I was very active in my union. I was a delegate to the local AFL-CIO organization, you know, the local labor council. And I was playing a big role there. And yet for us, it was important that we we reached this decision of running an election because we recognize that as a lone member of the labor movement,
myself, no matter how good my ideas might be or no matter how courageous I might be, it was reaching a brick wall because most of the labor leadership, quite unfortunately, tragically for the working class, is very compromised. I mean, the traditions of fight back
The whole understanding of militancy has mostly been lost because of the decimation of the labor movement over the last 50 years. And so we recognized that actually it’s best for us to run an election campaign. And the way we did it, is important the revolutionary method of running any campaign is whether it’s election or otherwise any arena the way we the revolutionary method of running campaigns for the working class is first and foremost to understand for the
leadership to understand that this is not about aggrandizing yourself this is not about making your career and that you know as as i’m sure many of your listeners will agree that is especially important in elections because we see an endless parade of careerist politicians, both in the Democratic and Republican parties, who wake up one morning, decide they want to run for office for their own aggrandizement.
That is not how we launched our campaigns. In our organizations, we have democratic discussions and debates about what kind of campaign makes sense to run, whether it should be an election, what the campaign’s program should be. and who the candidate should be.
And to be honest with you, unfortunately for me, it was a democratic decision that I should be the candidate. It was never my choice. And that’s important because. . .
Be careful what you wish for. I know, I know, exactly. Because if you run, if you choose for this, anything for your careerist reason, then the movement is doomed. Unfortunately, I think that’s what’s happened with AOC.
You know, if you become busy in building your own career, that also means. . . that you want to make your own life easier, which means you don’t want to make enemies out of the democratic leadership. You want to be at peace with all these powerful billionaires. And that’s how the sellout happens, even if you start out with good intentions.
So our approach, the revolutionary approach to elections is fundamentally different than anything else that’s on offer, even through the Democratic Socialists of America or other organizations. And so that is what we have proven. So because of that, it meant that from the very beginning, our election campaign was itself rooted in movement building.
And concretely, to give you an example, when we first ran for office in 2013, It was never, oh, just elect Shama because, oh, look how great she is. It was always, let’s fight for $15 an hour minimum wage. Let us fight to tax Amazon and other big corporations. Let us fight to win rent control and renter’s rights. And if you want to win any of these things, join our campaign because our campaign is fighting for this.
I also pledged that if I was elected, I would take home only the average worker’s wage. Right, and the issues were the message, not the candidate per se. Exactly. You were the vehicle. Exactly the issue. for their accomplishment with a mass base. Yes.
And that’s exactly just to close. Yeah, that’s exactly the approach we’re using for the congressional campaign. Also, Mimi, which in other words, you know, we are saying that if you want to end all U. S. military aid to the Israeli state, if you’re angry about the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands, then you should join us.
If you want to win free health care for all funded by taxing the rich, then join us. Become active with us. you should absolutely donate to our campaign but that’s not enough you have to get involved we are going to need tens of thousands of working people young people to be involved and that’s the basis on which we have won all our elections and that’s from washington state to washington dc so how do we get on board and i really do insist that people get on board to everything from end the genocide in gaza no
military aid no occupation to universal health care, to really doing away with the issue of or the reality of business unionism and to turn our unions into the political vehicle, the mouthpiece and sentiment and heart and soul of the working class to accomplish its own empowerment and empowerment of the state. And that’s what this campaign, at least,
at least, represents. We’re going to have, with her permission, Gishama Sawant back. But right now, how can we all get involved? Because this is a seminal campaign that we haven’t seen perhaps since the advent years ago, which I hope to have you back to talk about at some point. the Communist Party efforts to assume leadership of the country and through,
in that instance, the presidency and the like. But how do we make sure that Kashama Sawant, the unwilling but popularly pushed candidate for revolutionary socialism to take hold, winds up winning against the retrograde Adam Smith. What do we do?
How do we touch base with you? Yes, I’ll share many of those avenues for how we can do that. But first of all, Mimi, just to say I would be absolutely delighted to be back anytime you would like to have me. It’s such a pleasure talking with you.
This conversation is such a pleasure. But as you said correctly, Adam Smith is an absolutely retrograde politician. In fact, he has the blood of Palestinians and Iraqis who have been killed and slaughtered in these wars and genocides on his hands. And I believe he needs to be on trial for war crimes. But the minimum price Democrats and Republicans like him need to pay is to be
thrown out of office. So I really urge everybody who’s listening to this to join your message, Mimi, that this is a seminal election campaign and that everybody should get involved, regardless of where you live. It doesn’t matter where you live. If we are able to win this election,
And honestly, we have a real chance to win. But in order to bring that to fruition, we will need tens of thousands of people to get involved. But if we can win, it will be nothing short of a political earthquake. A revolutionary socialist has never been elected to the U. S. Congress.
And we will use our office if we win. And note that I’m using the pronoun we and not I. because it has always been a movement-based strategy and but if we win we will use our office congressional office in exactly the same way that we used our city council office which is to use it as a vehicle to build mass movements except this time it’s going to be even more you know million times more historic because it will be on the national scale we will use our office to build mass movements to win
victories along the lines of the demands that i’ve already shared on free healthcare for all to end the genocide, end U. S. military funding, to win national rent control. Let’s not forget that the national minimum wage is still a disgraceful $7. 25,
and we are calling for a national minimum wage of $25 an hour, and we think that minimum wage should be at least $30 an hour in major cities. So there is a lot at stake. We have a lot to fight for. And the way we will do it is exactly how we did in Seattle. And just to quote the Seattle Times, which is not my fan,
you know, they’re a bourgeois newspaper, but sometimes your enemies give you the best compliments. And they said correctly that we, our office, one lone socialist city council office, We brought so much firepower of the working class that we succeeded for 10 years. For 10 years, we succeeded in commandeering this entire city’s political agenda. That is the kind of working class firepower we can bring.
to Washington, D. C. , where we will turn all the politics of Washington, D. C. upside down because my office will be dedicated, our office will be dedicated to be used as a builder of mass movements without which we will not win anything.
And so I have pledged that if I’m elected, I will turn my inauguration in Washington, D. C. into a mass rally of 10,000 people and I will immediately bring a bill to end all U. S. military aid to Israel, and also a bill for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich. And the way we will build the fight back is not,
I’m not going to sit and do vote counting or who’s going to vote yes. I mean, most of the Democrats, let alone the Republicans, are not going to be on our side on day one. But the way we will force them is by organizing mass rallies nationally and also bringing rank and file union
members into action and forcing the labor leadership to also carry out mass strike action. That is how we will do it. How do we get in touch with you to make sure that all that happens? Yes. So please, first of all, go to my website, kshamasawant. org.
That’s my name, K-S-H-A-M-A-S-A-W-A-N-T dot O-R-G. And sign up to volunteer, first of all. And we have about 30 seconds left. Okay, we’re having a big rally on Sunday, October 12th. If you can be here in the Seattle area in person, join us or else watch on live stream. But we need your help, your donations. We need you to help us phone bank and we need you to come and help us campaign here
in the city as well. Kashama, somewhat revolutionary socialist, reminding us that elections can be a battlefield of ideas when tethered to a militant and independent movement from below. And not only do we have to get the U. S.
out of, we used to have a button that said U. S. out of everywhere. Well, certainly U. S. military also out of our cities. From Seattle to Palestine, the call is clear.
We cannot separate our struggles. Thank you so much for the time you spent. And now we’re going to race on to listen to the president of Colombia on Gaza. Thank you, Kisama. It’s really great to have you with us. Thank you so much, Mimi. Well, now there is breaking news.
Trump and Netanyahu have issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Hamas, demanding the dismantling of Palestinian leadership and placing Gaza under the control of what? Say what? Trump and Tony Blair with full Israeli U. S. military backing if Hamas refuses amidst
this escalating crisis. We turn now to an exclusive from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who spoke directly to the thousands of protesters outside the United Nations, demanding a free, free Palestine. Let’s hear from the former guerrilla leader, as he addressed we the people in the streets for a free, free Palestine.
Now, Colombian President Gustavo Petro. We want justice to stay now. We want justice to stay now. We want justice to stay now. We want justice to stay now. We want justice to stay now. We are here at Derrick Hammersfield Plaza, tens of thousands, to demand an arms embargo.
To demand complete sanctions on Israel. To demand an end to this genocide. We are kings of thousands and we will not stop! Look around you and look at this energy. Every single flag, every single nation, every single sector of society united by the Palestinian flag.
United by what is now the flag of all people who fight for justice. Who refuse to be silenced by the Trump administration and AIPAC. And we will keep struggling until every single nation in the General Assembly meets our demands. with two things we must commit to for the people of Palestine, for the people of Gaza, and for all of us. On October 4th,
an International Day of Action, at the same time with the two years of this horrific United States Israeli genocide, we will march all over the world. in Washington Square Park. And so I’ll ask, will I see you in Washington Square Park? And so we commit to being the generation of liberation.
You commit to staying united, every nation in the world, every sector of the society under the banner of Palestine. To get organized against AIPAC. To get organized for October 4th. To get organized against mass foreign arms embargo. And for the complete concession, concession of this genocide.
So tired, let’s show them we’ll never stop. Let’s show them the people of North America, of the entire world, are with the people of Panama. So the Caliphate of Córdoba is part of Colombia. And that’s why we have similar cultures That means we have a lot of legacy of the Arab world that make us so similar. That’s why the Colombian people, the Latin American people,
even the Argentinian people, is with the Palestinian cause. We made a proposal before the General Assembly of the United Nations two days ago. I truly believe that after the last veto of the USA before the Security Council, the diplomacy is over. The history of humanity has shown us for millennia, When the diplomacy ends, we have to go to another phase of the struggle.
The history tells us that once the diplomacy is over, the humanity has to come to another kind of struggle. What happens in Gaza is a genocide, we can’t say it in another way. What is going on in Gaza, clearly, out of discussion, is a genocide. And this genocide is not just to rise Gaza, it’s to delete all the humanity. It’s a genocide, that the Jewish people suffered against the German Nazis.
And in that way, in the tribunal of Nuremberg, the Nazis genocide must be judged today. And those Nazis are dressed with a flag that does not belong to them, with a history that does not belong to them, which is the history of the people of Israel. The same level that happened during the Second World War is going on today. That’s why, like in Nuremberg Tribunal, has to act. The people who are committing the genocide has still a history that doesn’t belong
to them, a symbol that doesn’t belong to them, a flag that doesn’t belong to them. Y de esa manera, de esa misma manera la humanidad That’s why this is a crime against humanity and the response should be led by the humanity as all. We have to answer in the streets.
We have to answer with the words. And we have to answer with the weapons. That’s why we need to create an army bigger than the army of Israel plus the army of USA. I don’t have anything against the Jewish people or against the Israeli people. Some of them are my friends. We trained very young people with the Palestinian Liberal Organization in the Libya deserts. We received a training with the Palestinian Liberation Organization years ago.
We were part of the M-19, a guerrilla movement in Colombia. We were solidarity with the Polisario Front and other struggles. And that’s why I made the following proposal. For the General Assembly of the peoples in the United Nations, we are going to present a resolution that says that the United Nations unites the configuration of an army of the salvation of the world that has as the first task to liberate Palestine.
That’s why we propose to create, under the mandate of the United Nations, based on our resolution proposal, our resolution draft, a war-sold army to release the war. And the first task should be to release Gaza. Yes, the two third parties of the nations
If you vote in favor of this resolution, we will be in a process called United for Peace, but for Palestine. If we succeed to join two third parties of the General Assembly, we will start a process called, as you, as the President mentioned,
Uniting for Peace for Palestine. The nations that vote, if the resolution is approved, and here is a great job for two third parties of the nations of the world vote, yes, they will have the responsibility to configure with their own armies In that case,
the two third parties of the General Assembly which support the resolution should bring troops in order to guarantee the respect of international law and the mandate of the United Nations. The people and the nation should be involved to create this great army. The people and the nation should be involved to create this great army. Tiene que ser más grande que el de los Estados Unidos, por eso desde aquí,
desde Nueva York, le pido a todos los soldados Then I ask from New York, I ask to all the soldiers of the USA Army, don’t put your hands against the people, not against the humanity. Obedezcan la orden de la humanidad.
Yo mismo me arrodillé como cristiano ante las tumbas de miles de soldados norteamericanos que murieron en los campos de Europa luchando contra Hitler. Myself, I was praying before the grave jars of the USA soldiers killing during the Second World War fighting against the fascism. Esos abuelos de los hoy mariners y soldados del ejército de Estados Unidos deben dar ejemplo y comprenderlos.
Ellos en una gran alianza con pueblos de todo el mundo, con resistencias dieron and wrote a page of heroism. These people that was, the granddaughter and grandson of the people that was killing the Second World War, were writing a great face of heroism. That’s why they have to be, let’s use my own words, in the correct side of the history. And they defeat Hitler and all the risks against humanity leading by the fascism.
Today is the same and the grandson and granddaughter has to fight to defend the freedom. This is the the cause of the freedom should be the leading agenda of the soldiers. Then, the invitation is that the soldiers should Use your weapons, point your weapons, not against the humanity, but against the fascism. Me dirijo a una reunión que llamamos Diálogo de Civilizaciones. Allí volveré a hablar de esto mismo para intentar que dos terceras partes de las
naciones del mundo voten a favor de una fuerza armada para liberar a Palestina. I’m going to the Civilization Dialogue in the United Nations. I will say the same. I will try to collect all the countries to create this solution, this proposal, and the support of the Great Resolution of Colombia. It’s not a matter of the Palestinian Authority.
It’s not a matter of the Arab peoples. This is not a challenge just against Palestinian authority. It’s just not a challenge against the Arab people. It’s a challenge before the humanity. If we don’t stop this, this bombing will happen in other cities in the world. If Palestine disappears, humanity disappears. If Palestine disappears, humanity disappears.
Therefore, we invite all nations and their governments to invite volunteers and volunteers who want to train immediately to configure Then we invite all the soldiers around the world, all the voluntary people that want to be trained to create and to make stronger this army for the salvation of war. Okay, I’m a civil musician.
I have very little to say except to support my friend Gustavo Petro and the people of Colombia for invoking Uniting for Peace in the General Assembly of the United Nations. The big day is coming. It may not be tomorrow or the next day, but it will be during this session of the convening of the United Nations in the General Assembly.
And we have to thank Gustavo Petro and the people of Colombia for that. When that day arrives, we must make sure that the representatives of our governments understand that it is the will of the people to end the genocide in Gaza. And the people of these United Nations not just in the global south, but in Europe and even in the United States of America. The vast majority of we the people demand that we send a protective force into the
occupied land of Palestine to put an end to that occupation. it’s been going on for 77 years enough is enough okay now this is going to take some diplomatic work behind the scene with our brothers and sisters in the diplomatic services talking to one another and trying to fend off the big stick and the bunch of carrots that the United States of America will be brandishing over our heads and waving under our noses. No!
The people have had Enough! All over the world, but especially our brothers and sisters in Palestine. We never stop thinking of you for a single second, and we will do everything that we can all day of every day for our lives until you are free. Thank you.
¡Viva, viva Palestina! ¡Viva, viva Palestina! ¡Viva, viva Palestina! ¡Viva, viva Palestina! ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! ¡Viva, viva Palestina! ¡Viva, viva Palestina!
Well, that wasn’t the finality that President Gustavo Petro brought to the exuberant tens of thousands who had gathered in protest. early in the morning to march to the UN to say no more genocide in our name, but our time has run. What a powerful and courageous address from President Gustavo Petro standing with the people demanding a free, free Palestine right outside the United Nations.
His voice reminds us that international solidarity matters. As the crisis in Gaza unfolds under Trump and Netanyahu’s ultimatum. It’s leaders like Petro and the movements around the world that keeps the fight for justice alive. And we who must double our commitment and actions for a free, free Palestine.
Oh yes, from the river to the sea. I’m Mimi Rosenberg for Building Bridges. Free, free Palestinians. No, no more genocide in our name. Thanks for listening. Stay well, stay strong for yourselves, for Palestine, and to push back against the juggernaut of fascism.
