Happy New Year. Thank you for supporting us in 2018. We were able to successfully deliver over 10,000 signatures urging the International Rescue Committee to rescind its humanitarian award to BlackRock CEO and war profiteer Larry Fink. We met privately with the IRC CEO David Miliband and directly handed him your petitions. Even though the IRC and Mr. Miliband were unwavering in their decision, they were made fully aware of the hypocrisy in rewarding the world’s largest investor in weapons of war with a humanitarian award while simultaneously providing social services to war refugees across the globe.
Nancy Mancias raised concerns about awarding Blackrock CEO with a humanitarian award with David Milliband personally in October 2017.
We promise 2019 will be another year of taking action and encouraging Congress, pensioners, institutes of learning, and faith-based groups to divest from the war machine. We are urging Thrivent Financial and CEO Teresa J. Rasmussen to work towards peace and divest from weapons of war.
Thrivent Financial, an organization founded by Lutherans, represents over 2 million members; however, it invests millions in weapon manufacturers BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, and BlackRock--the largest investor in nuclear weapons in the world. As a Christian investment firm, Thrivent has the opportunity to provide leadership and promote peace. In 1995, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly adopted a social statement on peace, which states:
We also affirm that governments should vigorously pursue less coercive measures over more coercive ones: consent over compulsion, nonviolence over violence, diplomacy over military engagement, and deterrence over war.
We are urging Thrivent Financial and CEO Teresa J. Rasmussen to follow their Christian-values by working towards peace and divest from weapons of war. Join Winona LaDuke, Jodie Evans, Nina Utne, Marian Moore, and faith leaders in the Lutheran Church in signing the petition to Thrivent Financial.
Towards peace in the new year,
Nancy Mancias
Divest from the War Campaign Organizer
