Today, I'm with Gord Eisman, and I'm excited. We're gonna be talking about videos, making videos especially for YouTube and how we can grow our YouTube channel. Before I introduce Gord and his bio, just want to say hi to you, Gord. Thanks for being here. Hi, George. It's a pleasure. I'm really excited for our discussion today. Yeah, me too. Yeah, we're coming to you from from beaches here, right? I'm on my beach. You're on your beach. Hope it's not too windy out there. It's always a beautiful day here. It's always a beautiful day. All right, so let me share your background with the audience and then we'll get going. So I'm just gonna read your bio first. All right, so Gord Eisman helps small businesses and entrepreneurs grow their businesses using online video. He's had a long career in IT and in the business intelligence and project management sectors. And then Gord pivoted and took up a more creative and fun process of making, producing, distributing video content. And now that he's been doing it for several years, he developed a wide variety of skills to be able to help entrepreneurs, small business owners and people on YouTube achieve their video goals and to solve their content marketing challenges. Gord offers clients a variety of services, including done for you, so you can make videos for you and also one-on-one coaching through every stage of your video brainstorming, creation, you know, marketing, including storyboarding, scripting, shooting, editing, all that stuff Gord can coach you through. So Gord, I'm excited to talk with you because I have some questions too that I'm sure you can answer and thanks for being here. Thank you. Yeah, I'll do my best. Yeah, totally. And before we go on, I actually want to mention that besides doing this video stuff that you're known for, you also have a book on Amazon of kind of spiritual wisdom, right? It's called Pedals of Life. Is that right? Pedals of Life, right? And I made that in 2014, and it was one of those projects that really just lit me up inside. You know how when you start a project from beginning to end and you don't know where the time went and it happened so fast. So I knew I was really in my zone and I actually even wrote my first poem in, I don't know, a long, long, long, long time. And I just love the process and that's where I started to really get excited about the visual side of media. And I was into photography for a long time and through a camera club I belonged to. And when I got to learn the teachings of someone called Almeen, who I really enjoyed her spiritual teachings, I found this was like a deck of cards and it had all kinds of joyful things on it. And I was going through the deck and I said, you know what, if I think I have an incredible library of pictures that could really add another dimension artistically to this, and I presented it to her and she was like, oh my god, I give you full authorization for the content that you're using and I want you to publish it. So there it was, I became an author. And yeah, and I want to mention that because you're not just somebody who knows all the tech and the marketing side of things, but you also have that spiritual element. So I think people in my audience would enjoy working with you because of that too. So let's get into this conversation. You have a lot more experience about making videos and especially on YouTube than most of the people watching this. But a lot of people watching this want to succeed with YouTube especially. We could talk about Facebook video too, but let's actually focus on YouTube now because YouTube is such a bigger place for getting views of our videos. So I'll just kind of let you start and I'll kind of chime in with questions. But like what's, you know, I've noticed this myself. Like a lot of people like they go, oh, YouTube, it's like the second biggest search engine in the world.  And they get one view or five views and they get so discouraged because like, I kept myself on YouTube and nobody is finding and nobody cares. So what's your coaching around that dynamic and that experience? Well, I'm just going to give you a little bit of background first. So before I dove into YouTube, I was, I don't know if many people know who Brian G Johnson is, but I took his course called Trust Funnel Academy and from that he started something called Tube Ritual, which was where we got deeper into video. So I was originally learning about product launching and things of that nature. And video was kind of something I was really interested in but haven't, you know, dive deeply and he said, we're starting out the Facebook group with a challenge and you're going on camera every day for like the next, it was for the month. Okay. And I was the kind of person that hid behind whiteboard sketch videos. That's what I had mastered at that stage because I thought, I'm never going on camera because I don't have to because I can give my message out through things like whiteboard sketching and hide behind PowerPoints and things of that nature. And then I realized, well, I love coaching and that's, you know, I eventually decided that I wanted to go all in on video and develop the skills to help people that maybe had the apprehensions that I had or the fears overcome those things. And because I have the project management background and consulting and I in consulting in my IT days, I just knew that it was natural for me to be able to do a lot of coaching to help people. So what happens is when people go to start out with YouTube, they're all excited by what I call the vanity metrics and the success of all the popular influencers and different channels that they love.  But the reality is I say to everybody pretty much it's a long game and it's a long game more than anything because you're going to learn so much about yourself in the journey because you'll start out, you're going to have to learn about the gear, you're going to have to learn about how to improve with each video you put out. This is again, if you have, it all depends on what your definition of success is. And I think that's why people need to think about that before they dive in and then, you know, spend a certain amount of time and then start scratching their head because they didn't really think about what the outcome was that they wanted to achieve. So a lot of people go go down the path that they dive in.  And there's all kinds of, you know, techniques and things that you can learn to help yourself get discovered. And they're different for people that are new YouTubers versus ones that have been around for a while. And it all depends on your niche and all kinds of other other dimensions. And so you're learning all the time. And I loved it because my career was involving analytics. Okay. And so YouTube provides tons of analytics. So I started to study YouTube SEO and all that stuff and apply the principles and with some good mentoring and coaching for myself. I developed the skills and decided to take my deeper dive niche after I did a variety of videos on educating on video, I started to dive into something called Camtasia, which is a very popular screencasting video editing software. And I chose that direction because I believe that 90 plus percent of the content you see on YouTube doesn't have to be done with, you know, Da Vinci Resolve Blackmagic Cinema Grade video editing technology for you to get a great result. So I want to help people get there more quickly, you know, and take on and learn more skills as they're ready if they want to. And that's why, you know, it's, there's so many dynamics involved that YouTube is, that's why it's a long game because it's a big self-discovery experience in the process. I know I went a little all over, but I wanted to touch on a variety of things which will unfold in our discussion. Totally. So you mentioned that people don't really understand what their goals should be or, you know, well, first it's like, oh, I'm going to put a video up and then I'm going to be famous or or get lots of views or whatever. But what is reasonable then for us to expect maybe just in terms of setting goals in the beginning? Yeah, yeah, this is very important. I actually learned the lesson that every video should have an intention and a goal in mind. So are you on, I'll give you an example, to appreciate what you're doing when you when you set out to do YouTube. Are you using YouTube to help you succeed in marketing a business that you have and YouTube's like just a part-time and augmentation thing? Or do you want to vlog and get into a whole different kind of level of video editing to do fancy stuff, to show people B-roll and experiences and travel and all kinds of interesting things? Well, is your purpose there to help business or is it to get YouTube famous? And this is why I say people should try to figure out, but they always say, discover your niche and focus down. And it's a challenge for a lot of people because if you don't have the passion for what that scope of your niche is that you end up pursuing, it's going to be hard to get consistent in publishing. And you talk all about consistency and I don't know anyone that's more disciplined than you, George, and consistent with that. And you know how hard it is to build that muscle to sit down and create when you don't necessarily feel like it's imagined. If the passion isn't there, you're not going to jump into because the work to continue to improve on the quality of product that you produce, whether it's tutorials like I do or vlogging or whatever, there's always stuff to grow and learn and change up to keep things interesting.  And a lot of people do that just to post videos to share. But I get a lot of calls from people. They know they've established their small business and there's a lot of people in our MasterHeart community and they've done a bunch of videos and they don't really, really utilize a lot of the tools and features and capabilities that they have in YouTube to help improve their chance of discoverability in search. Because to be honest, many realize it can be overwhelming. But you know, this is where I say people are going to learn a lot about themselves in the process of trying to build out a YouTube channel. But knowing the reason you're there for and having intention with each thing you produce will make it easier for you to accept the big picture that you're moving forward on. Yeah. And so you mentioned some of the YouTube tools that people often are not aware of. Do you want to kind of go into do that a little bit? What might we be looking for in the YouTube tools? Okay, so well, there's there's tools inside YouTube, you know, like there's a lot of analytics data that's provided for you where you can do things like analyze how long people stay and watch a video. When do they actually drop off? You can see, based on how many times your video is shown, your thumbnail that you can understand how many click-throughs happen on certain number of impressions. That means how many times your thumbnails are seen, so that you can learn things about am I on target? How do I look compared to my competition? I will always do search searches to compare the content that I want to create. Even before I create a video, I go out and search. And you know, if you're out there with the intention of growing your channel, that's that's part of your goal. And maybe you want to earn some AdSense review and affiliate income through doing other things. Well, then you want to know what people are searching for. So there's techniques inside YouTube to actually, you know, use and search the keywords and understand the key phrases that are used and comparing videos with with competition and in the suggested list. And then, you know, I also use tools, third-party tools like TubeBuddy and MorningFame, which are also keyword search and analytical tools that that help me do that analysis. So I'll know, for example, pardon me. If I want to compete on a very popular topic, like on a YouTube video, I'm going to know, I know that I don't want to match a keyword phrase for like the most popular video. I'll want to do more of a long tail, extended version of the title and see if there's search value in that. And so that I can be found with maybe, you know, not having to match on the exact keyword phrase as the top videos. And, you know, I want, I want to give my videos a chance to be seen and be found. So you use the tips and tricks in the metadata and in your title and thumbnail, you know, these are things inside YouTube because think about it. It's like a bookstore, right? If you're looking at YouTube, you see the thumbnails, it's like your book cover. If that's not even attractive, you may not even look at what the video is about, right? So it's so important, the title and the thumbnail. And there are people that spend hours on perfecting thumbnails just to put those out, believe it or not. And so, you know, you'll get to learn the tricks and where to focus and how to evolve and do a good job on creating your branding style that will work on YouTube. And, you know, so there's a variety of tools that you can use. And I mentioned a few things, you know, YouTube's analytics, which there's all kinds of stuff to analyze your audience and your retention metrics. And then I do comparative, a lot of comparative analysis. So I mean, you can go into a lot of detail there, but that gives you an idea of some of the different kinds of tools that I use to help me, you know, and, and I think that's a very important thing is that once you've sort of focused on your nation, you know what you're doing. Now you want to learn about what topics you should be creating videos for if your goal is to compete and build your authority out on YouTube. And that's why I say a lot of small businesses want to be known and be shown and get discovered for their expertise in certain subject areas. And that automatically helps me because when I meet somebody new, they're likely coming as a lead from YouTube.  It's almost like they know me before we say hi. And so it can be a very powerful tool for you in your marketing to help you get discovered. Nice. Nice. So do you have any hardware recommendations for succeed on YouTube or just making, making good videos? Oh, okay. So well, that can cover everything from webcams to DSLR cameras to capture cards to lighting.  It all depends on what kind of budget because not everybody is going to want to invest a lot of money. Like I'm just now very close to upgrading my DSLR to a 4k DSLR. And it's, you know, fortunately, I just was the recipient of a grant and I'm going to be upgrading some of my gear. But I think this is where coaching and mentoring can come in with just like a little bit of consultation. And you know, someone like me discusses with the person to find out, hey, what affinity do they have with technology and gear? Because if they don't have that, you know, you're not going to go, there's no point in trying to convince them that they need a mirrorless or DSLR camera to run and do live streaming and have to go into all the nuances that's involved there and hooking it up through capture cards and other software to run your broadcast that's very sophisticated. You know, they may be, you know, a phone will be more than enough for them to handle. So you need to talk a bit about, you know, where they're they're at with their, with their skill level, what budget and, you know, are they willing to invest in what they're doing? And, you know, sometimes if their goal is something it may be beyond what they thought it was. So they may tell you that they know what they, they need, but what they really told you is what they want from what they've learned and seen from others. And, you know, it's like today I got asked, can you recommend a ring light for me? Okay, so a lot of people do use ring lights and they're great because they provide a nice big circle of light. But a few of glasses, you might have problems depending on how you're going to utilize and position that ring light. So I would have a discussion rather than just because somebody saw a video that uses a ring light, I got to have one of those, you know, just be sure that they're making wise choices for themselves. I didn't go into specific gear, but I'm just saying like I'm using a Logitech 4k Brio webcam now. I used to use the C920. I still have that here. So if I want to do multi webcam and, you know, the C920 is a great product.  So you don't need super fancy gear and phones produce more than enough quality to achieve that. So it gets into a discussion on, you know, what is it you're doing with your video? And, you know, so we have a discussion and we've worked through the variables and position, you know, what kind of gear makes sense for what they want to achieve. That's how I get about it. And that's one of the things you offer people is you offer, we're at this time anyway, as of this recording, you're offering those who are watching this, a 30 minute free consult with you. So that's really cool and grateful for you. And of course, obviously on a first come, first serve basis, I don't know how many you can do on this, but I'll be sure to put the link below so people can like contact you and do that. Another perfect example, by the way, some people just, you know, I know I want to improve my gear or my microphone, I want a little better quality, but I don't know what to look at.  We can come up with something fairly quickly as an example. Yeah. And one of the questions that people are, I mean, that's one of the things people aren't doing that is a lost opportunity is that they've created content, but they don't know how to repurpose it for YouTube. So maybe you can just talk for a few minutes about that. What is repurposing content? And why is that, you know, a great opportunity for people? Okay, so a lot of people love to be able to just go on and whether it's on YouTube, going live or on Facebook, just press the record. They feel fine to do their thing, serve their community, and produce a video. And there are some people that do, you know, half hour shows, hour long shows, and with intention, they cover a lot of points. Let's say they may cover a topic and they cover 10 points on it, or they may have an amazing interview with somebody and they've already planned for it and cover a whole bunch of things. And, you know, once you've produced that video or once it's been saved, you now have, I consider this kind of content a vault in itself because if I was to take something that was a longer stream, like, you know, half an hour an hour, on YouTube, you could create a playlist that broke down into certain strategic messages that you want. So for example, I did an interview with Evan Carmichael, and I broke it down into two or three videos with, you know, 10 nuggets on this.  And, you know, it's just easier to consume. And that's, that's what it is. It's about meeting your audience and not everybody responds the same. Some people like to listen on audio. Some people like to see video on YouTube. Some people like to just watch it in a Facebook feed with closed captions. And maybe they don't want to watch it, right? So, but people have that aren't like video editors at heart or don't want to really dive deep. Why wouldn't you want to repurpose or use something that you put some great effort into and chop it up into some meaningful segments that are more snackable and usable, right? So, as you know, George on different platforms, different lengths of time of video are more palatable and consumable, right? So, you can get away with much longer content on YouTube. You know, for example, I just did a 50 minute review video of the New Camtasia 2020 release. And it's doing extremely well. But wow, it took me a long time to plan that out. And it's like, literally a 10 to 12 mini tutorials brought together. But I did it in a way to build up something that I wanted to show. But now, if I want to, and I've already done it, I've gone on a few shows, I'll pull two or three of those segments out and I'll talk around it. So you can take things and use them in different ways. And, you know, repurposing on YouTube, some shorter segments and playlists, I think goes a long way. And that's why I think every piece of content you make, think about its purpose and repurposing is something of value in there as well. Yeah, that's helpful to hear. So thank you, Gord, for the work that you do. And I just want to mention again, you are offering everybody watching this a 30 minute one to one session with you if they're wanting to get serious video. Yeah, well, they want to get serious about making videos, they want to really build out a YouTube channel that can, you know, tap their potential. That that time with you is very valuable. And learn about video editing, because that's a lot of what I do and educate on my channel so that, you know, I say any topical area that I can help you with related to video can be of conversation. Yeah, awesome. And I just want to mention the kind of services you offer you do video editing and production for people. You help people get their YouTube channel set up and their strategy for growing on YouTube. You help them repurpose existing videos that they have, maybe it's long or short videos that can be chopped up into, like you said, more snackable content. You help people get video testimonials produced, right? And of course, video editing, you can you can train and coach people on that stuff too.  Sure, you're going to say there's just there's one other offering I'm going to be working on. And it's going to be it may be my first course or second, depending on the timing of things, I'm going to be working on a project to do to educate on live streaming and repurposing video. So sort of a combination, you know, we've touched on some of the angles there there today, because I think the timing is very apropos. And I've got someone that I can that's also a specialist. And I'm really excited about that because the timing is great for people to learn and grow with what's going on now through through learning. So yeah, that's that's one of the other things up next. Exciting. So of course, I'll have links in the video notes for people to schedule that 30 minute one on one free consult with you. And your website, of course, we're going to put your YouTube channel links so people can go and see actually, what kind of traction you've been getting. So that's exciting. Thank you so much, Gord for just being a resource, just for being so generous and sharing your knowledge. And I hope people will go and take a look at what you're sharing out there and schedule some time with you. Thanks, Gord. Thank you. Thank you, George. It's a pleasure. Thanks.


We have our artist in the building, he goes by the name Gobi and he'll be telling us about himself, his music career and he's super, super talented and what he has in so for us today and in the future. Welcome to the studio. Thank you, thank you. How are you? I'm good, I'm good. Hey, su chagam keki doba. Niko poa, niko poa. Because you were here after we were introduced. What happened? Niko poa. Okay, so kindly introduce yourself to our fans. Yeah, my name is Gobi. I'm an Afrofusion artist. Yeah, I fuse my music with vernacular music from my home in Samia. I'm from Samia by the Samines in Busea County. Okay. So I mix your vernacular sound with my music. Alright. So it makes it in Afrofusion. Afrofusion. Okay, so how has been the music, your journey in the music industry? Your hives, your lows. So far so good, but the challenges I had to face in the process. Yeah. Kama obviously the promotion of my music was hard, but it pushed me. It pushed you. Okay. Okay. So Ulian's music career, or rather at some point you were in a group. Yeah, I was in a group. So tell us a bit about that and how did you decide to go solo? When I was in high school with my best friend Anitwa Vega. So I went to Jita Veskobu. I went to Jita Veskobu. So like the distance, Bado I was back home in Busea. So I came to Nairobi. So your distance at Wiziwakuna. I love music. I came to music. See, it's a music obviously. I agree. I agree. I agree. And you were too mutual. There was bad blood. Yeah, there was bad blood. Yeah, bad blood. Yeah, bad blood ended up in music. Yeah, it ended up in music. Okay. All right. So there was a name Ulkuna Jita Kitambu. It's so catchy. When you changed, you could decide that. So Ulkuna Jita Skubi Skubi. Yeah, Skubi Skubi. So Mbono could decide that. You need to do, did you ulkuna rebrand or something like that? Yeah, ulkuna rebrand. A lot of Bado people feel you Jina Skubi Skubi represent music. They kind of music that I'm doing right now. Yeah. Nili filios Skubi Skubi represent. Like ni katagatuni tumi real, my real name Gobi. Yeah. Of which na filina represent piya musici nyanafanya. Yeah. When I was listening to your songs, I noticed something similar kwa musici ako. Yeah. Like Zote is correlated about mapensi. Yeah, yeah. Like there's somewhere in there malikuna love thrown, whether it's in positive light, kwaida challenges a love, but is it intentional? Yeah, it's intentional. Kwaiz, I really feel like love ni kitu ni universal love iko kila mahali. Na people like love songs, love songs ni songs ni kila mtu aneza relate na yo. Yeah. Mtum dogo, mtum kubua. Yeah. Yeah, I think love is something that is relatable kwa all ages. Everyone. Na na taka musici aungu kwa like, na na taka musici aungu kwa listen to with everyone. With everyone. Mtu aungu kwa. Is that something that unaintened kwainda kupustru na yo to your other projects? Kus when artist start out wakupanya assatin, kind of song mi bialia nziya na musici aki teseka, a kinda aka patampenzi, aka patampenzi, aka patampenzi na kawmoka na he's doing dance songs, inenda nga nafesis, but intention niya kwa is it kufanya love songs all through? Yeah, love songs na piya, si love songs peki ake. Piya, I think ni kono has so a lot of songs ze ni mandika, si piya love ni about things that are happening in the society or daily, ni witu zina happen daily kwa society. Ni I think mixture of love na witu zina happen daily kwa society. Are these things coming from personal experiences or my experiences about when you are close na ewe? Personal, zingini, personal zingini, you have to work around me. Za mapenzi ni personal? Ya zingini, zingini, what work around me mi. So ni ga nili kwa very personal kwa kwa from some of the songs that you've written? Personal ni kwa ma de nipe pombesong. I remember I was in high school, so you know everyone has that one person. Ya nili kwa crash na I was like same, nili kwa na gupa kumu approach. So I was just like, ni kikunya pombesong na kwa gana yo. So I just decided to write a song about it. Nipe pombesong, nipe kata yo. Ok, uli endika, uli endika song. Uli kunya pombesong? Ya, kunya pombesong, I don't even drink. You don't even drink? Did you tell her eventually that you had a crash on her? Ya, I told her. How was the response? The feeling is so... The feeling is so... What are crashes? That is my motto. Ya, by the way, ya, ya, ya. Crash abakia kwa crash. True story. Kus unendanga, yani expectations i kwa apa? Zina shuki shua. Gangsta points zina shuka. So tell us a bit about your most recent track, Mapanziu Laya. Ya, Mapanziu Laya is an inspiration from my friend. Ya, like, she was like, ali kwa ame kwa had broken sauna to a point that she doesn't believe in love anymore. So she was telling me how ame pigwa ma character development here and there. So pia ni kwa decide dukwa ni kwa ngoma. Ya. Ya. And I played it to her, she was like, wao, isong ni poa, isong ni poa, lakinu sijari buku ni tagia. Si seme ni mimit. Ya. Si ange kwa viksel basi. Amo tu ange jua ni halikwana imiwa. Ange jua. Ange jua. Ange jua story ilkwa ya. Ako ni ataka kuchoma. How was the reception of that song? The reception, so far so good. Ya, reception i kwa poa. Waise onapenda hi usong. Ya. Na people pia wa na, what wanna relate now is something that inna happen. Ya. What when you relate na love, that song schools, most of the people ume piti heartbreak, ukona crash maali, ume, I don't know, so much, it's so much. Ya. So what is in store for Gobi? Gobi, ya. Album, EP, collabos. Si ni single skwanza, alba mi taku jitu badae, kama ni me brandi me grow kiasi. Ya. Like ni say ni singles, mo music tu kamju, have a lot of recorded projects zene bado sija release. Ya. Na bado ni kona nguwa. More love songs? More love songs and more goma tu vitu zina happen kwa society. Ya. Okay. Alright. So kindly share your social media handles. Ma liwatoneza pata ma pendulaya, nipe pombe and the other songs. Ya. So YouTube ni Gobi, Gobi I, Instagram gobi.gram, Gobi I, Twitter, Gobi from SMA, TikTok, Gobi. Ya. Okay. So um, Vlumeske we had a question today for our audience and we were asking them, is karma a real thing ama ni superstition tu? Do you believe in karma yourself? Ya, I believe in karma. You do? Ya, I believe in karma. Why? I think ya, woneza fanyam tu kitu leo maybe something bad obviously. Ya. Lagini, it will take at maybe 2 years. The same thing maybe takuhapenia. Lagini uta notice. Outa notice. Oh, ikitu me ni hapenia. Nisha i fanyam tu mngine. Ya. Wola jwa tu, ah ni kitu tu ni unfortunate ni ni ni ni. Lagini, wuki fiki ria visuri, okitu maybe woli fanyam tu mngine. So fanyam tu mngine ma. Ya. Ok, alright. So thank you so much for coming through. Any shoutouts you have? For people in Busia here? Shoutout to my team, my editor, and our coach, my manager, all my supportive friends. Ya. Alright. Thank you so much for coming through Gobi. Thank you, thank you for having me. We wish you all the best in your music. Thank you. So right about now, we'll have, let's listen to Ma Penzi Ulaia by Gobi. Very talented.


tonight co-hosted by members of the Code Pink Youth Peace Collective, Rushi Sen and Aiden Cross. So in a minute I'll introduce them. Our guests are going to talk about transparency or lack thereof and arms control sales, focusing on what they call small arms, which are pretty deadly, semi-automatic weapons that we ship all over the world. So we'll take action at the end on that. Biden had pledged to reverse Trump's position on these, the exporting of small arms, semi-automatic rifles. He promised that there would be more congressional oversight, but so far there has not been. So we'll learn more about that, but first let's introduce our co-host. Okay, and I think I mentioned Danica as a guest. She's in the Youth Peace Collective and she knows all about arms control sales, and we're also very happy to have John Lindsay Poland, who coordinates the Stop US Arms to Mexico project for global exchange. All right, let's introduce Aiden Cross. He's going to be one of our co-hosts. He is an America's correspondent for the London Globalist and a member of the Code Pink Peace Collective, and he can tell us more about himself in a minute. And Rushi Sen is a third-year student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. So welcome Aiden and Rushi. Aiden, I tell us a little bit more about yourself, please. Good evening, everyone. I'm speaking from London in the UK. It's currently one past one in the morning. So yes, I am a correspondent for the London Globalist. I am also an undergraduate student studying international relations and Chinese at LSE. Now I have been instructed to explain how I found myself in the Peace Collective and thus written a script. So in a simplistic manner, I got very lucky. I signed up to some random event on Twitter, realised it was being hosted at midnight at UK time, and then subsequently joined the Peace Collective, where I found myself enjoying the splendid nature of the time difference across the Atlantic. Coming from a country, which is one of the core contenders for the title of the 51st State of the US, and prolifically involved with US imperialism, I found the Peace Collective's anti-imperialist stance extremely refreshing and have thus been encouraged to engage even further in the events hosted despite the impact of my sleep schedule as this event thus shows. I would strongly encourage every young person here who is even the slightest concerned about the action of status quo powers like the US to get involved with the Peace Collective, as well as being a joy to work with. Each member provides a diverse set of perspectives, and it is remarkable how much people know about even the most niche area of US and Western imperialism. So thank you very much, and I am once again grateful for the honour of co-hosting this event. Well, we are honoured that you're co-hosting, and testament to your commitment is that you're up at one o'clock and learning doing this, so yay. The Youth Peace Collective is for the youth. I think that the cut-off is what, around 30 or something? I guess I can't join, darn. Anyway, we're so thrilled that you're with us, and Rushi, tell us about you. Yeah, so I'm Rushi Sen. I am also extremely honoured to have been part of Code Pink's Peace Collective. I first got involved through Danica, who invited me to apply after I got involved in the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Fund. Throughout my time at the Peace Collective, I've been extremely grateful to have an outlet for my anti-imperialist politics and to have gotten the opportunity to work more closely with divestment campaigns and book club meetings, and I'll just reiterate what Aidan said. I've really found this to be an amazing opportunity, so definitely encourage all young people to get involved with this. And then with that, I'll turn it over to Marcy for an update on the National Defense Authorization Act vote in the Senate. Thank you so much, Rushi. We're really thrilled you're with us tonight. Okay, we know the National Defense Authorization Act passed, flew through the Senate. There were 88 votes for it, 11 votes against it. Some of the usuals, we thank them. They voted against it. People like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kristen Gillibrand, Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Alex Padilla in California, and then there were three Republicans. I think I'm forgetting somebody in there, one a Democrat. If you know who I've forgotten, please put it in the chat. Lee, Paul, and Braun also voted against the NDA, a $778 billion authorization for the military budget. That's the Department of Energy and the Pentagon. It's $25 billion more than Biden had asked for. And now Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, said there are still things to be worked out because if you can believe it, the Republicans want even more money for the military. Meanwhile, build back better. We can't seem to get that through Congress, thanks to Joe Manchin. But Congress is all too ready to approve an outrageous military budget that really makes them poised to spend $8 trillion on the military over the next 10 years. On the NDA, it is an authorization. It's not an appropriation. So there's been some discussion amongst anti-war groups what this means. Is there any way to cut it? Because the money has not exactly been appropriated yet. It's all up in the air. The NDA, as it was passed in the Senate, sets aside $28 billion for nuclear weapons for what they euphemistically term nuclear modernization, which is, as I said, a euphemism because they're really going to produce new nuclear warheads for 600 ICBMs in Utah and that area. It also includes several billion dollars for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to China. And so that means a lot more arms will be sent to East Asia. It does remove the prosecution of sexual assault in the military from the hands of the commanders. But it didn't go far enough for the advocate for doing that, Kristin Gillibrand from New York, and she voted against the NDA. It also does not include a removed portion that would have required young women to also sign up for selective service. So thank you. Thank goodness for that. And now I want to turn it over to Medea to give us an update. She's been very busy. I can't keep up with her. Medea, what's going on? Well, somebody in the chat wrote that Ed Markey voted against the NDA. So that was, I think, the missing one. And it is lovely in the chat for you to be saying hello. I see we have people all the way from Japan to Portugal. And it is very exciting that we have our two members of the Peace Collective hosting this tonight. And thank you so much, Aiden, for staying up to do that. I wanted to give two updates. One is on the Cuba work because many of you actually helped us on that. And we had a resolution or a letter to Biden that was initiated by four members of Congress. And we had a goal of getting 80 members to sign on. And we thought that was a pretty significant goal. And we surpassed that by far and got 114 members. And that is really because of the grassroots work.  How do they do that? It should be in the chat, the link that they can click on and sign up. We have 75 congressional liaisons, point people in different congressional districts. And we do believe that it's very important that we have strong advocacy from the constituents. And I put in the chat something that we're doing tomorrow night, which is a fabulous group called Belly the Beast that has been doing some of the greatest about 10-minute videos on U.S. Cuba policy. And their last one was just spectacular. We're going to be showing it tomorrow. And the star of the show will be with us from Cuba. So if you would like to, the link is there for you to RSVP. It's at, I think it's 7.30 Eastern time tomorrow night. And then on the Afghanistan front, a number of us who were very concerned about the result of U.S. freezing the assets of the Afghan people once they pulled out started out in August, focusing on trying to get members of the media to talk about the impending catastrophe. Well, that has happened. And I'm just amazed at the good reporting that's come out from New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Al Jazeera, the daily podcast that the New York Times does. I mean, incredible reporting. Just heartbreaking. You couldn't watch or read this stuff without feeling how miserable the U.S. empire is and that they bombed people for 20 years, then get out and take revenge by stealing their money. And this is over $9 billion that belongs to the Afghan people that we are not giving back to them. And it's causing the collapse of the economy. So we were involved in two letters in Congress that were sent to Biden at the end of last week, urging him to unfreeze these assets and also be more generous on the humanitarian aid front. And we will be continuing to push people to call the White House to tell them to unfreeze this money, let the Afghan people have the assets that belong to them. Yes, we posted in the Google group, if you're not a member, please let Shane O'Shea of CodePink.org. We posted an action alert. We do ask that everybody on this call email the White House to say it's time to unfreeze these assets. We don't want to go from occupation to starvation. Thank you. All right, Rushi, back to you. Yeah, so thank you, Medea. So next we have Danica. So Danica Katowicz is the Middle East and Peace Collective Coordinator for CodePink. Danica graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor's degree in political science in November 2020. Since 2018, she has been working towards ending US participation in the war in Yemen. At CodePink, she works on youth outreach as a facilitator of the Peace Collective, CodePink's youth cohort that focuses on anti-imperialist education and divestment. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Aiden and Rushi gave such great pitches for the Peace Collective. It really warmed my heart. Literally such an amazing group starting divestment campaigns all over. Highly recommend. If we also wrote a manifesto, if you're not under the age of 30, you can support us by going to read that. I put the link to our page in the chat. CodePink.org forward slash Peace Collective. Please go read our manifesto. It's called The World Without Empire. It's very great. All co-written by us. And also, Marci mentioned the draft, draft expansion being taken out of the NDAA. I will brag humbly that the Peace Collective did publish a co-written article in Truthout calling expanding the draft. Called expanding the draft is not feminism, abolishing it for all genders is. It was very great. It got circulated on the hill before the before the NDAA got voted on. So props to the Peace Collective. But anyway, I will be talking about arm sales. I'll make my presentation a little shorter to give John more time. But I will be going over the very basics. Can everyone see my screen? That look okay? Cool. Very basics of arm sales. How the US sells a weapon to another country. My focus will be mostly arm sales that go through the State Department. Because the issue that John Lindsay Pollan will be talking about is the shift to the Department of Commerce, which the problematic nature of that will make sense very soon. So to this very basic, I'm not going to get into all the weeds. So everything is a little bit more nuanced than I'll be describing. But so there's two main ways the US sells weapons to another country. Foreign military sales or FMS and direct commercial sales. So for foreign military sales, the US government sells weapons to another country. So it's like, if you hear the US sold weapons to Israel or the UK sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, two things that have been often those two examples. And then direct commercial sales are a US company to another country. So Boeing can directly sell weapons to Israel or Lockheed Martin can sell directly to Saudi Arabia. So both ways happen. Two pieces of two laws kind of govern arm sales, help give procedure to arms sales in the US. There's the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act. Some highlights from these two laws, Arms Export Control Act, it requires end use monitoring, which I'll get into in a second. It requires the State Department to notify Congress of a sale if it's over a certain threshold. So when arms are sold from the US to another country and it's under a certain threshold, then Congress does not need to be notified about the sale. We don't often hear about those sales. The information does come out eventually and it does add up to billions of dollars. So they're not like, it's not insignificant, but there is less transparency there with sales that aren't absolutely massive. And then it gives rules for the State Department to license a sale. Then the Foreign Assistance Act. I think the most significant part of this that I love to emphasize because of Jeff Abramson, who is here today with us, I believe I saw his name in the chat. Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits security assistance like arm sales to foreign governments if they regularly and consistently violate human rights. So that's something we don't talk about enough, but our own law like bans us from selling weapons to countries that regularly and consistently violate human rights. So like for example, would it technically be legal for us to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia? Like the US just announced a huge sale of missiles and we have to ask the question, does this go against Section 502B? Is Saudi Arabia regularly and consistently violating human rights in Yemen? Code Pink would say yes. So this is very basic. Okay. So it's more nuanced than this, but here's sort of the process for how the US would sell weapons. So there's a negotiation between two countries or a private company and a country. Like I said, those two sales I mentioned earlier, there's a period of negotiation. What does that country want to buy? How much are they going to sell it for? Et cetera. The Arms Export Control Act requires the State Department to notify Congress if the sale is large enough, like I said. So Congress will get notified of the sale. Then Congress has 15 to 30 days to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the export license from being issued by the State Department. So 15 days for Congress to do anything is kind of a very short window of time if you've ever had to work with Congress on anything. It seems like a very short amount of time, but it's 15 days for NATO countries and Israel close allies, 30 days for other countries like Saudi Arabia's 30 days. Then if a joint resolution of disapproval is not passed, the State Department can issue the export license. But important to emphasize delivery weapons can take years. Have they been manufactured yet? If they haven't, they have to be manufactured. It takes a long time. So up until delivery, Congress can block a sale at any point. So it's not just a joint resolution of disapproval, but that's usually when organizations like Code Pink kind of hop on Congress to take action within those first 15 to 30 days. So a little bit more about the joint resolution of disapproval. It can be introduced in the House or Senate. For example, one passed under Trump through both Houses through the House and Senate for an arm sale to the United Arab Emirates, Trump vetoed it, but Congress didn't have enough votes to override the veto. The joint resolution of disapproval has been not useful really in blocking sales, good at raising moral outrage, I kind of think. Most recent example actually is very, very recent, only a few days ago, Senator Rand Paul introduced a joint resolution of disapproval to block a missile sale to Saudi Arabia, and it didn't pass the Senate. So a huge bummer. But other mechanisms, like I said, an arm sale can be blocked at any point until delivery. That can take years. So other legislation can be introduced in Congress. It wouldn't be a JRD. It would be something different. It would be a law like directing the sale to not go through. The State Department could revoke the export license technically if they should if they could revoke it, and then a president can stop an arm sale at any point. He could just be like, nope, we're not doing it anymore. Okay, now I'm going to talk about end-use monitoring. And this is a very detailed slide, but so that, like I said, the Arms Export Control Act requires the government to do end-use monitoring, which is exactly what it sounds like, monitoring the end-use of a weapon that we sell to a different place. And it's not great. It's not very effective, because, like, for example, I mean, John might get into this a little bit more. Let's say we sell a batch of weapons to another country. And the form that they have to fill out at the beginning says, you know, who are we selling it to? It could be filled out as the military of Saudi Arabia. We don't know what unit it's going to, which makes it hard to monitor the end-use of a weapon that we sell somewhere else. So it's not great. It's not very accurate. It definitely needs to be improved if we're actually serious about fulfilling our human rights obligations to the rest of the world. Okay, now this is where I turn it over, and this is where I'll wrap up. More recently, arms sales of small arms, so things like semi-automatic rifles and that kind of thing, have been taken from the State Department and moved to the Department of Commerce, which, like I mentioned when I was talking about the Arms Export Control Act, and when it requires the State Department to notify Congress of sales, this thing doesn't really exist for the Department of Commerce. There are other rules around arms sales in the Department of Commerce. So it's less transparency, which is problematic. So kind of a huge issue. And President Biden has promised to move some of these sales back to the State Department, so there's more transparency there, but that hasn't happened yet. So that's why we're having this event today. And with that, I will let John talk to you all more about this issue in the Department of Commerce. Thank you very much, Danica, for the happy reminder that human rights mean nothing to Washington, especially when war is so profitable. Now, I am happy and honored to introduce John Lizzie Lindsey Poland, who coordinates the Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico project of Global Exchange and works for police demilitarization with the California Healing Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee in Oakland, California. He has written about research and advocated for human rights demilitarization of U.S. policy for more than 35 years. His research has focused on U.S. foreign military assistance and military bases and respect for human rights. And he produced a documentary and companion report, Where the Guns Go, U.S. Policy and Human Rights in Mexico. From 1989 to 2014, he served the Fellowship of Reconciliation as Latin America Program Coordinator, Research Director and Founder of his Columbia Peace Team. He studied as an undergraduate at Harvard University. He is author of both Emperors in the Jungle, The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama and Planned Columbia, U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community Activism. Take it away, John. Thank you so much, Aidan. And it's so great to be here. I really am so thankful for this space and I'm sure I will be coming back. So one thing, a couple of things I want to say at the outset, I'm going to show you some slides as well. One is that I think a lot of times in arms exports, people focus on the big things, focus on the expensive things, things that cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. And of course, some of the Middle Eastern clients of the arms companies are purchasing that much. But firearms actually cause most of the harm in armed conflict and other types of violence around the world. And they don't cost as much per unit or on the whole. They are much less expensive than these enormous systems that so much attention is put on. Typically by Congress, but often by activists as well. The other thing I want to mention is that a lot of times this conversation happens in a space like this where people are talking about international issues. But as you know, within the United States, there is a vigorous, shall we say, conversation about firearms in general within the United States. That conversation usually doesn't include how US firearms are being used in other countries. And yet, just taking Mexico, let's just take the example of Mexico by itself. The number of gun homicides in Mexico with US sourced firearms is probably greater than the number of gun homicides in all of the United States. So when we're looking at the US gun market, the impact overseas or just in other nations and other communities outside of the United States is at least as great as it is here. And here we have this principle of background checks. It's not universal. It's very, very poorly implemented in many parts of the United States. But the principle is this.  And yet that principle is not being applied when we look at exports of firearms to other nations, particularly police and military units. So I'm going to show you a few slides for a moment. And one of the things I want to know is that the markets, the export markets for US firearms have been growing dramatically. So this one, and my thing is blocked here, this is showing you in the last 15 years, the number of semi-automatic pistols that have been exported by the United States. And you can see that there's been steady growth. Now, the other thing I want you to notice is that 2020 was a banner year, the regulatory change that Danica talked about in which pistols are now, the export of pistols are now being regulated by the Commerce Department, which wants to sell things. Instead of the State Department, that regulation came into force in March of 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning. And you'll see, of course, that the number of semi-automatic pistols exported in 2020 and actually particularly in the second six months of 2020 was a record high. But I also want you to notice that this is not just because of this rule change. This is a result of an ongoing loosening of the rules and a practice in export of these weapons around the world. The same applies if we look at military firearms. So this is military long guns, rifles and shotguns exported over the last 18-year period. And again, 2020 was a record year. Now, I do want to note that in the first 10 months of 2021 for both military long guns and for pistols, the numbers have gone down there. They're still at relatively historic highs, but it has not continued to grow after that first enormous growth in the last year. So what does this look like in a particular country like Mexico? This is legal exports, which is just part of the overall flow of firearms from the United States into Mexico. We know there's an enormous, enormous flow of guns illegally trafficked from purchases within the United States over the border into Mexico. 70% of all firearms recovered in Mexico are sourced to the United States. But what we see here, and Medea asked this thing in the chat about leji law, which applies to assistance. And most people are paying attention when they look at military relationships with other countries. They're usually looking at assistance. But this is just a graph of sales. And we can see that when the formal US-Mexico drug war began in 2007, the so-called Merida initiative, we had an enormous growth in the sales of firearms to Mexico. And even after assistance went down in 2011 and 2012, the number of firearms and the dollar value of those firearms has continued to be extraordinarily high. And we've also seen that the number of gun homicides in Mexico has continued to increase over that time period. In the last three years, it's plateaued at historically high levels that have never been seen in that country before the drug war was declared or before the flood of US firearms into the country, both through exports and illegal means. And Mexico is not the only neighbor that is being impacted by these exports. So Honduras, which is in a severe crisis, has been for a long time, but is even more so. We'll see what happens with gun exports under the new government. But the armed forces there are also being armed with exported weapons. Now, how does this actually occur? I think Danica, it was great how you laid out the mechanisms of this, how this occurs. One other thing I want to mention is when we talk about migration, and we talk about the people who are fleeing Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, other nations, Mexico, and they're seeking safety, they're seeking asylum. And they typically, if they're going to get into the United States, they have to cross through Mexico, particularly if they're poor. And in crossing Mexico, they have to go through these areas that are either controlled by criminal organizations or controlled by state forces that are going to deport them. And frequently, those state forces and criminal organizations are working together. And migrants have been particularly targeted for violence within Mexico. So the ways in which migration policy and gun policy and practice by the United States are reinforcing the toxic and violence, toxicity and violence that people who are migrating and others are experiencing is especially heinous. So there are two pieces that I want to say about what can be done here. One is that Senator Leahy, who after whom the Leahy law was named, has inserted a provision in the coming years foreign aid bill known as the state and foreign operations bill that would begin to identify who are the end users at least in Mexico and Central America of U.S. exported firearms. Because right now, the State Department doesn't even have the information about who are the police and military units that are going to be the end users. They don't even have the capacity right now to apply that kind of principle, the Leahy law principle that says, okay, if a foreign military or police unit has committed a gross human rights abuse, if there's just credible information leading us to believe that, then they can't get U.S. assistance by law. It's broken a lot of times, yes, but there is a law that can be invoked. It can't be invoked for assistance, and it can also be invoked without the information about where the weapons are going. That principle of background checks for buyers of lethal weaponry also can't be applied if nobody in the system knows where they're going, except for the government's where they're coming. This provision, which has been passed through the Senate, would at least require the identification of those end users in Mexico and Central America in order to apply this principle of not allowing firearms to get to individuals or units implicated in serious crimes. That is now at the House. The House version did not have such a provision. Both of the foreign aid bills are going into conference between House and Senate. I'm going to put some of this information in the chat because a very particular thing, action that would be really helpful right now, is for the House appropriators to hear from people that this is an important provision. The one last thing I want to mention is something that Danica said. This is the promise that Joe Biden's made in late 2019, before the regulatory change around gun exports went into force. At that time, he said he will ensure that the authority for firearms exports stays with the State Department, and if needed, reverse a proposed rule. Now the administration is saying that if needed, well, maybe it's not needed even after it's happened, but this language came before the rule was actually promulgated, was put into effect. That if needed actually speaks to whether it's going to go into effect. Now the Biden administration is trying to back pedal and say, well, we don't really think it's needed. We do want folks to contact the Biden administration, and I believe there's information in the chat about how to do that. So I just want to conclude with thanks, and I know that Jeff Abramson and other people who know a lot about this issue are in this event, and so I invite you to also speak up in the chat, and here is where you all can get some more information. I'll put that in the chat as well. Thank you very much, John. Now I'm going to introduce the Q&A section of this Zoom call, so as has already been stated, if you could please post any questions into the chat, and then I believe my fellow co-host will then direct the questions to our two guests. Yes, Aiden Roussi. I wanted to ask a question. This is so scandalous. You think about the debate that we have in this country over firearms, and all the while nobody is talking, very few of us are talking about arming the entire world with some automatic weapons. There seems to be a total lack of awareness, so I'm really appreciative of the work that you're doing, John and Danica, to bring this to our attention. What do you think is Biden's motivation for going back on his word to move these small arms sales from back to the State Department in refusing to do so? Is it the money from the arms brokers? What's going on here? I don't like to speculate about motivation. I'm much more interested in people's actions. It could guide us maybe if we knew what was motivating the administration. I would say that the Obama administration under the Obama administration, the number of gun exports grew globally. There was rhetoric around stopping the flow of weapons into Mexico that was not matched with any kind of action. I just think that there's not a lot of political will there. I would also say that the gun lobby does have a big impact. Even in Congress, it's not just in the administration and the executive branch, but a provision in the NDAA that did not get through an amendment that did not get voted on or accepted from Noto Matores would have at least restored congressional notification for proposed firearms exports that did not get through. I think the political will in the Democratic Party in general on this issue is not very strong. They would like to see it happen, but it's not very strong. Thank you for that, John. Then we have a question from Gustavo in the chat. Who proposed the recent sale to Saudi Arabia? Was it a Congress member or the president? Danica, if you wanted to answer that. Yeah, it was the Biden administration. It was the State Department. It was President Biden. I don't know if there's room to elaborate that. I think it's a pretty straightforward answer. I'm sure the companies, the production companies had a hand in it as well. Yeah. Marcy, how much time do we have for questions? You're muted. We have a good 10 minutes. Okay. Yeah. So, are there any other questions? Yeah, so then Sharon asked, is Mexico suing U.S. arms manufacturers? So, yes. In August, the government of Mexico filed an unprecedented lawsuit against 11 U.S. gun companies in federal court in Massachusetts because of their negligent practices in promoting the illegal trafficking of guns across the U.S. border that are estimated to be 250,000 firearms a year illegally trafficked across the border. And the gun companies know this. It has to be part of their business model. It will be a challenge for those gun companies that have eluded any kind of legal liability for many aspects of gun violence within the United States. And I think it's also opened the conversation so that it's not just about the violence in Mexico is not about drug trafficking or even the drug war, but it puts the spotlight on the producers of these guns that are profiting so much from bloodshed in the U.S. and Mexico and in many other countries. Yeah. And then kind of related to that. So, Medea asked, can U.S. companies legally sell weapons to businesses in Mexico or Central America, for example, Walmart that used to sell guns? So, in Mexico, the only legal seller of firearms is the Mexican Army. So the Mexican Army imports firearms and then sells them, but mostly to police forces. It's very, you know, the United States is one of the most open markets in the world in terms of the ability to obtain a firearm. Mexico is much more strict, like many other countries. In Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, the rules vary. There are some private sellers. Many of those private sellers have contacts with the national militaries. And they're also private security companies that obtain firearms. So it's a slightly more open system in those countries, but also more controlled by a small number of actors and also not very transparent at all. Yeah. And then another question, probably also for you, John, how are the lawsuits in the U.S. against the illegal gun trafficking by U.S. gun manufacturers fairing? So, they were filed in August. About a month ago, the gun companies gave their formal response. And then the government of Mexico will have its formal response by the end of January. Many groups and actors are being asked whether they want to file amicus briefs in support of the lawsuit. So I think that if people are interested and groups are interested, that's something that especially organizations will be able to sign on to. I think those will be circulating probably in the first part of January. And I think that the more support that can show, this is not just a legal action. And the legal outcome is not the only thing. It's also a political and narrative action. So I think there's opportunities for really building a movement in addition to the legal outcomes. Yeah. And then there's also a question for Jennifer. So I think this one can go to either of you. Could someone speak to small arms sales in South Sudan? I'm not actually familiar with the U.S. if we're selling weapons to small arms to South Sudan. Do you know, John? I don't know. But we could probably find out. So why don't we park that question and try and respond to it? Yeah. And then if anyone else has any other questions, we still have a couple minutes. I'll feel free to put them in the chat. I actually did have a question. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Did someone have a question? This is Marcy. I have a question. Do you think the members of Congress have any idea how these arms sales are conducted? Majority. I think most are not paying a lot of attention. But I do want to make one. So I think there's been some increased interest, like we've been working on arms gun sales to Mexico. And there was a letter from eight senators that was signed earlier this year sent to the Secretary of State Blinken, really calling for a suspension of gun sales to Mexico until these end-use controls are really effective. That's a new step. There have been letters about the illegal flows. There have been concerns about human rights in Mexico and in Central America. But senators calling for a suspension of that flow is new. And on the House side, there is a proposed license that is still under State Department oversight of fully automatic rifles from the gun company Six Sour, located in New Hampshire, of $5.5 million that would go to the Mexican Navy. The Mexican Navy is particularly implicated in torture and force disappearance in the context of the drug war. And Gregory Meeks, who is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who we disagree with on many things, has held up that license because the State Department has not adequately responded to the question, how are you going to prevent these fully automatic rifles from going to human rights abusers in the Mexican Navy? The State Department can't answer that question. And so far, this license was proposed in July and I believe is still held up. So that point that Danica made earlier that it can be held up until delivery is key. And I do think that we need to support those actions when members of Congress take them and keep educating them because the staff person for Gregory Meeks was like, you have to tell me more about this because they have a million issues on their plates. And so getting their attention and educating the staffers and letting the members of Congress know that there's constituencies that are interested in this, that it's not just the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation that are interested in this, I think is super important for moving the needle and reducing the harm. Very good. I see that Max had a question. Let's see about, or Sharon said, can you talk about arms sales to Israel? Certainly there are lots of human rights violations. Yeah. So I think our most recent big arm sale to Israel was from Boeing in, I believe, May of this year. Something like $700 million, I believe, in Boeing weapons. Of course, Israel's committing human rights violations against Palestinians. And kind of going, circling back to, I know there's about the Leahy Law in the chat. And we also, so we have the Leahy Law, we have 502B in the Foreign Assistance Act. We have great human rights safeguards in U.S. law, really, really great safeguards. It's whether we can like enact it. And are we asking those the right questions about it? So it's like, if this were to go to court, could we prove that Israel and Saudi Arabia, for example, are committing consistent human rights violations with U.S. weapons? So it's less about, do these law, do the safeguards work and more like how we're supposed to be using them? And how do we get members of Congress to raise questions about these kinds of things if so many of them are taking campaign contributions from the weapons companies that profit off of those very sales, right? Their campaigns are funded by the companies who profit off of selling weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia. So it makes it a little mucky, a little complicated. Thank you, Shea, for linking call to disarm. We're working on stopping that, by the way. We just got Representative Ilhan Omar last week signed on to Code Pink's pledge to refuse money from weapons companies. She was, I believe, our 13th member of Congress to do so, where we're working on a bunch more campaigns across the country to get more reps and senators signed on as well. So. Great. I see there's one question. Maybe we can end with Max's question about arms sales to the Horn of Africa. Do we know anything about that? Okay. So Aiden and Rushi, maybe you can take us through the action. Yeah. So before Aiden leads us in the action, I just wanted to thank our guests, John and Danica. It was really good. If everyone wants to unmute and thank them as well, I'll let them know how great they were to do that. You were great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Excellent job. Thank you.


So let's have a look. In Julia, we enclose strings in double quotation marks. You see here one, two quotation marks, everything inside because we're using the notebook here that does this red color for us and we just type in anything we want. I've typed in this is a Julia string inside of these double quotation marks and indeed if I execute that cell we get the whole lot. This is a Julia string and we get those quotation marks. Now we can add that to a computer variable. I've introduced a variable here called str1 and inside of that variable, inside of that spacing memory, I'm going to put the string. This is a Julia string. I'm using the semicolon there, so it does not get printed to the screen. And now note the difference. I'm going to do two different things. I'm just going to call that computer variable str1 and then I'm going to print str1. Now look at the difference. So if I do that, I get back exactly what we had before with the quotation marks. But if I print it, let's see what we get back there without the quotation marks. So let's have a look at that. So if we print it, it loses those quotation marks and we only have the text. Now you might ask, what do we do if we want quotation marks inside of a string? For instance, yeah, this is a Julia string and I've put the Julia inside of quotation marks. Well, one way to get to do that is to use these triple quotation marks. It tells Julia that we might use quotation marks inside of our string and it is these triple quotation marks in the beginning and the end that delineate the actual string. So we've got the new variable called str2 and look what happens when I call it. There are these backslash. Now these backslashes are what we call escape characters. It actually tells Julia that whatever follows this is not part of the code. You have to escape it and use it as you would in a regular language. So let's print this and just have a look. See the difference there. This is a Julia string and the Julia now has quotation marks. So see the difference. This up here is what Julia is doing. It's inserting these escape characters. Now you'll remember from when we did functions. This is execute this execute the cell a equals one hundred and we use this shorthand this placeholder dollar a and then a was equal to a hundred. So this is going to say this value is one hundred. But what if I wanted to include that dollar? That would be akin to using the quotation marks that we did with Julia before. So what do we what do we do? In fact, this is what we do. Here you see the escape character. So escape dollar whatever comes after this escape. It says well dollar is used for something else. It is actually used as code. But in this instance, don't use it as code. Don't use this as code. Just use the literal meaning of what is there. It's just the dollar sign and then dollar a which was a hundred. And if we execute that you'll see this value the value of this item is a hundred dollars. Now it prints this dollar here is this dollar here. It is just escaped to tell Julia to ignore its use as code. A better way to perhaps to do it is to use this notation where we use this placeholder variable the dollar, but just put whatever the variable is in parentheses. So we know that you know, we know what this is all about and we know that this is the escape. Now we're going to get exactly the same thing. So there's your introduction to two strings in Julia. Next up we're going to look at parts of a string or substrings.