The goal of the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition is to build a city in which all people enjoy the safety and abundance that all people deserve. Getting there requires radical transformations, including democratizing our city’s budgeting process and divesting public funds from cops and cages that prevent our collective safety and wellbeing. It also requires building participatory and economic democracy so that we can fully fund the public goods that truly make us safe: housing, healthcare, education, transit, non-police violence intervention and crisis response, and more.
But we can’t get there alone. That is why we stand in full solidarity with all people around the world struggling against the forces of state violence, captivity, and dispossession. This includes the people of Palestine who have endured 75 years of violent fascist settler colonial apartheid occupation at the hands of the state of Israel, and who are currently experiencing a genocidal escalation of that violence, funded in large part by the US.
The deaths of both Israeli civilians and Palestinians are absolutely deserving of our grief. And yet, we have heard almost nothing from our local elected officials about the nearly 10,000 Palestinians killed in the last few weeks with the help of our tax dollars, let alone the decades of mass state and settler violence against Palestinians that led to this moment. We reject selective grieving and condemn our elected officials who continue to remain silent in the face of genocide. Furthermore, we stand firmly with Jewish people locally, across the US, and around the world who, as part of the global movement against antisemitism, are calling for an immediate end to Israel’s genocide of the people of Palestine.
For the same reasons that we are in solidarity with all people opposing the war on Palestine, we also reject the fast approaching plans to construct militarized police training facilities in Nashville, one for the state and one for MNPD. Considering that law enforcement in Tennessee have trained with Israeli police forces, we have never been more clear that our struggles are intertwined. The liberation of people experiencing homelessness, exploitation, displacement, anti-Black violence, anti-queer violence, anti-trans violence, a mishandled pandemic, and mass criminalization in Tennessee is bound up with the liberation of people experiencing the genocidal violence and displacement of apartheid occupation in Palestine.
We will not achieve liberation anywhere so long as colonization, apartheid, and borders promote the illusion of a good life for some at the expense of others. These forms of violence advance the global fascist movement that is on the rise in Israel, in Tennessee, and beyond, a movement that includes white supremacy, militarism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression that aim to divide us when we are far more powerful together.
We believe in a Palestine, a Tennessee, and a world without police occupation and violence, a world in which everyone has what they need to thrive and be free. We are committed to working with others to make this vision a reality around the world and here at home in our lifetime.
Ceasefire now.
End the occupation.
Free Palestine.
Stop Cop Cities.
In Solidarity,
Nashville People’s Budget Coalition Steering Committee
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For resources to better understand the apartheid occupation of Palestine that led to the present situation, see: https://decolonizepalestine.com/
To learn more on Instagram, follow:
@theimeu
@uscpr
@sbeih.jpg
@elmahabacenter
@nournashville
@freepalinashville
@tn4palestine
@nashvillejewsforjustice
@jewishvoiceforpeace
Ways to Take Action:
- Attend the All Out for Palestine rally this Saturday, Nov 11 from 1-3 pm at Centennial Park
- Sign the “Nashville Stands with Palestine” form
- Follow @bdsnationalcommittee to learn about targeted boycotts against companies that support the occupation
- Call your representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire and end to the occupation in Gaza
- Attend a virtual phone bank, such as the weekly one put on by @centeringpalestine
- Call your council member to demand they stand in solidarity with Palestine
- Stay plugged in to our social media in the months ahead for ways to take action against cop cities planned for the Nashville area and to help execute our 2024 People’s Budget campaign
Nashville People's Budget Coalition 
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