Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming. I am happy to be here today with you. My name is Anthony Tinaro. I work for my living. There are other details, but you've heard them all from a thousand other friends. I've cleaned up parks, I've written essays, I've been in bars. I am young - I graduated from college last year. I've seen a few things a young man shouldn't see. I've seen some things that the ruling class has tried to prevent me from seeing. And even if the powers that be try their hardest to blot out my future, with their war on our climate and their war on our freedoms, I can still see the future. My parents are teachers, and when I think about the future I always think about the children. I can't imagine a future without them. I think that the reason I can still get up in the morning is because I'm trying to act like there's gonna be a next year for them.
I didn’t come here to teach you. I didn’t come here to preach to you. But I have a lot to learn. The more I live, the more I see that. The longer I look into your eyes, the more I realize how vast people are. People are living history. The strength of people is the weight of history - the mind of the people is the sword of class struggle. What moves me to act is what I call the heart of the people. The heart of the people knows justice. The heart of the people sees truth. One tear shed by a working man for his brother is worth a thousand artificial-intelligences feigning human interest. A working woman's beating heart is a thousand times stronger than the blood of any so called "master" race. I do not heed the kings who lay claim to the halls of fame, the slaveholders who wrote the narratives with their whips, I do not believe the sinners who tell me to dig my own grave and carve the pathway to Hell with my own bare hands. I will not build weapons for genocide, I will not build walls for apartheid, I will not repeat the devil's lies.
I have ripped the devil's tongue out of my mouth, and if we have accomplished anything by bringing you all here it will have been to inspire you to do the same. Whenever you tell yourself that the way you feel on Sundays right before you go to work is laziness, rip the devil's tongue out of your mouth. Nobody who works for a living is lazy. I wonder what would happen if you took everyone in this room and asked them how many hours they worked last month and added it all up. I wonder how many years it would be.
If you've ever been cut off at a union meeting, or if you've ever been disrespected by a pervert, or if you've ever been insulted in front of your coworkers, or belittled by your boss, you have a legitimate grievance that's worth tearing the whole fucking place up over. And from here on out, if I hear anyone telling you to stay quiet over anything or to just call a representative or a cop about it - I'm telling them, get behind me! Get behind me and get out of the way!
At the end of the day, we just can't accept the fact that people do the work and someone else takes the pay home. The government's going to rob you to fund ICE this year. Then ICE is gonna rob you of your neighbors. They robbed you last year and the year before that to drop bombs on Palestinian families, hospitals, and churches. These bills are gonna come, every goddamn year, looking more outrageous each time, and the snow's gonna pile up so high you won't be able to smell the bodies anymore. You'll have frostbite and the doors to all the clinics are gonna be locked. Your hometown parade is gonna stop having the firefighters and little league teams show up and you're gonna see more and more cops every summer and start wondering why the hell you're just sitting here mowing your lawn and watching it all like it's happening on TV. What kind of world are we letting our kids grow up in?
This is the kind of thing my great-grandfather landed in Normandy on D-Day to stop. It took several enormous armies from both the East and the West to defeat fascism in World War II. What will it take today? The enemy today is the State - the police, Homeland Security, the state unions, the Republicans, the Democrats and the Constitution - all of it! That's not the America we belong to. I didn't come here to talk to CEOs and entrepreneurs, I'm not talking to Trump, I'm talking to you!
I'm talking to America. And I'm telling you, you are invincible.
I'm telling you. Leave the talking to the people on TV. And move quietly at first. Start by watching them. But move so that you are in position. Move that you may flank the enemy here, and nail him in the jaw, and bite him in the heel before he knows what hit him! Fight to disarm the police! Fight to destroy their capabilities and their power!
Fight to bathe in clean water again! Fight for your right to read and speak what you will! Fight for peace of mind, for security, and for the general welfare! Some of you might have taken off your uniforms and nametags three Fridays ago and gone on strike. How did it feel to hold your chains in your hand? This is a heavy thing to do, my friends. But we have carried greater burdens.
"Civilize the mind, and make savage the body," for nations are not made with mettle alone. Test your will and your might against that of the enemy's. This is the only way I can show you how powerful you really are. I can only tell you what's ahead, but you have to take the step forward.
My friends and fellow organizers who will speak and perform after me are delighted to introduce themselves to you. You will hear today from (this organization) and (that organization). Later in the afternoon, you will be hearing from (another organization) and so on and so on.
My friends have all come here today to offer you a path forward. The final thing I would like to leave you with is that I am confident in your intelligence, your instincts, and your willpower and I know that no matter which vision of the future you decide to go with, the choice to move forward is yours. Remember that, and keep each other close.
Thank you and good luck!