Peace Groups Demand Diplomacy Not War in Ukraine

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar / Pro Bono Photo

This Thursday, October 4th, those who will not compromise in their repudiation of war intersected those who seek to profit from it in front of BlackRock's San Francisco headquarters. BlackRock profits not only from arms sales to Ukraine but aims to profit from Ukraine's reconstruction at the war's end.

Peace activists held signs demanding that BlackRock divest from its investments in "defense" industries, that NATO reverse its expansion , and that Russia get out of Ukraine.

Shouting anti-war slogans, the protesters marched to the Montgomery BART station where others had set up a sound system for a rally. Numerous speakers then blasted the US pursuit of war and apparent disinterest in diplomacy. Fliers were distributed to passers by.

Participating groups included Answer Coalition, Code Pink, Veterans For Peace, The Communist Party, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Worker World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation and Defuse Nuclear War.

Prospects for negotiations appear dim. The Ukrainians are suffering the outrage of armed invasion and Russia sees an existential threat in a major country on their border joining NATO, a hostile military alliance.

Before Russia's invasion Putin made a speech that was not available in the US. Along with various conservative imbecilities about the West's blurring of sexual identities, he noted NATO's expansion to Russia's borders despite promises to the contrary, in exchange for German unification. He noted the US routine disregard of international law as with its invasion of Iraq, killing over 700,000 people, and based on a fabrication.

The US subverts, and if necessary, attacks any country that refuses to assume its US-assigned place in the international order. Most of Europe usually plays along and in this instance is complicit. Russia, the biggest country in the world, with all its corruption and criminality, nonetheless refuses to be a second rate power.

Sometimes the US "wins" as in Iraq and sometimes the US "looses" as in Viet Nam and Afghanistan. The results are similar. The leader of the subject country is killed or exiled, the subject country is demolished and its people are subject to generations of destitution. However, in due time, having learned their lesson, they can do business with us.

Western sanctions against Russia have failed to China's great advantage, having replaced the West as Russia's source of consumer (and some military) goods. The war is working out well for the US and Europe. The armaments industries are booming and it's just the Ukrainians and Russians doing the dying. The bad news is that both Russia and Ukraine see themselves in a struggle for existence and each side's commitment is so large that anything short of "victory" has become unpalatable.

The peace movement, bless them, has much to do.

See all high resolution photos here.