I’m Phoebe Jones from the Global Women’s Strike. This is the 6^th year that grassroots women in 60 countries have taken actions on March 8, Intl Women’s Day, and now throughout the year, to press governments to "Invest in Caring Not Killing." We want the $1trillion worldwide military budget – ½ by the US alone – to go to the care of people and the planet, beginning with women the primary carers all over the world. We are here today with Payday, a multiracial network of men organizing with the Strike, to tell the world that we are the mortal enemies of terrorist Bush, his genocidal henchmen, their wars and their multinationals and their occupations. He had to steal the election on the backs of Black people in order to force his agenda – to invest in "killing, not caring" on the world. A grassroots network, mainly of women of color, worked hard to prevent this theft, and are still fighting these genocidal maniacs who are trying to rule the world. That’s the kind of network the Strike aims to make visible and to strengthen.

This year we add to the theme of the Strike, "Pay Equity in the Global Market" and "A Living Wage for All Our Work" because we are going for the end of poverty AND war, the twin terrors. Since women are the majority of the poor, to end poverty we must begin with women! The world survives on our unwaged work– from breastfeeding to subsistence farming, caring for people from womb to tomb, making all the workers of the world. Yet we, mothers and others who do this work, are not even considered workers though we do 2/3 of the world’s work for 5% of the income. We want a living wage for all our work, we want welfare as a right not charity, and we want pay equity for women and men, of whatever race, nationality, age, sexual preference. Corporations must not be able to find cheap labor anywhere – not in the East nor the West, not in prison sweatshops, not on farms, not in the home.

There has been a lot of hot air talked about eliminating poverty, doubling aid, etc. But they intend to change nothing, certainly not a military budget two weeks of which could feed, clothe, house and educate every person on earth for a year. WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who want to end poverty and war – which go together like Bush and Blair – by ourselves getting together across national boundaries. That’s what the Strike aims to do.

And listen to what President Chavez of Venezuela has said: any measure to address poverty that does not include the involvement of those who live in poverty is only a temporary measure. Well that’s serious. The grassroots there has three times beaten back the US to reclaim their oil revenue for their Bolivarian Revolution. Women have led the way, and now most of the population is moving ahead on all fronts. I just got back from Venezuela and the fight now is over land so they can have food security and not be dependent on imports. They are moving to take back unused and untitled land from the largest, wealthiest landowners and give the land to the landless, women and men. That’s why the fight against poverty includes opposing US intervention in Venezuela, in Iraq, in Haiti, in Iran, and never forgetting that the poverty draft right here in the US makes war possible. We say Invest in caring, not killing – globally.