CODEPINK’s Day of Action against BlackRock May 23 is part of a larger campaign to get America to divest from the War Machine Economy and to invest in a Green Peace Economy, by asking/pushing companies to divest from war and weapons. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, controlling more than $5 trillion. They’re also known as the world’s largest shadow bank. They own stock in almost every publicly-traded company around the world, so it’s no surprise that they have large shares in the world’s largest weapons companies. Included on that list are military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics, the top 5 military contractors in the U.S. BlackRocks investments in violence also include civilian arms manufacturers such as Sturm Ruger. At the end of 2017, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink issued a statement that he was going to start holding corporations accountable for being good global citizens.

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Afghan Peace Volunteers and friends celebrate the International Day of Peace in Kabul, September 2017.

By Kathy Kelly 

(This article first published in The Progressive magazine)

Here in Kabul, as the rising sun begins to warm our chilly rooms, I hear excited laughter from downstairs. Rosemary Morrow, a renowned Australian permaculture expert, has begun teaching thirty-five young students in a month-long course on low-resource farming. In war-torn Afghanistan, there’s a desperate need to rebuild agricultural infrastructure and help people grow their own food. People verging on despair feel encouraged by possibilities of replenishing and repairing their soil.

 The night before, over dinner, one of the students discussed news from his hometown in Afghanistan’s Wardak province about U.S. aerial attacks. “The blasts have become so frequent,” he said, “that people can’t find spaces to bury their dead.” During breaks in the class, I tell some of the Afghan Peace Volunteer students about the school shootings in the United States, and the remarkable determination of teenagers from Florida to demand that lawmakers take action on gun control.

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