by Matt Taibbi

Over two decades ago, I traveled to a city in the Russian provinces called Rostov-On-Don to interview a psychiatrist named Alexander Bukhanovsky.

Bukhanovsky, now deceased, was famous. If you've seen the movie Citizen X, about the capture of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, Bukhanovsky was the guy played by Max Von Sydow. He was the Soviet Union's first criminal profiler.

One of the first things he said was that both Russia and America produced disproportionate shares of mass killers."Giant militarized countries," he said, "breed violent populations."

Bukhanovsky at the time was treating a pre-teen who had begun killing animals. He told me this young boy would almost certainly move on to killing people eventually. He was seeing more and more of these cases, he said.

The Trump administration will soon announce its next move in the ongoing assault on diplomacy and human rights currently taking place in the United States. Through a plan dubbed “Buy American,” the administration is calling for U.S. attachés and diplomats to play a larger role in the sale of U.S. weapons, effectively solidifying their role as lobbyists for the arms industry rather than agents of diplomacy.

It was 30 degrees on Saturday in Dallas, Texas as we marched from Bank of America to Wells Fargo to Chase.  Even in the freezing temperatures, we held our “Divest from War” signs up high for passing cars to see.  We were marching with a mission.  To talk to each bank manager about their investments in weapons manufacturers.  We marched from Bank of America to Wells Fargo to Chase.

In recent budget negotiations, Senate Democrats agreed to a boost in military spending that exceeded the cap for fiscal 2018 by $70 billion, bringing the total request to an enormous $716 billion. Inevitably, this means more Pentagon contracts will be awarded to private corporations that use endless war to line their pockets. Democrats capitulated to this massive increase without so much as a scuffle. But the move hardly comes as a surprise, given how much money flows from weapons makers to the coffers of congressional campaigns for both parties.

In recent budget negotiations, Senate Democrats agreed to a boost in military spending that exceeded the cap for fiscal 2018 by $70 billion, bringing the total request to an enormous $716 billion. Inevitably, this means more Pentagon contracts will be awarded to private corporations that use endless war to line their pockets. Democrats capitulated to this massive increase without so much as a scuffle. But the move hardly comes as a surprise, given how much money flows from weapons makers to the coffers of congressional campaigns for both parties.

CCR is joining a coalition of groups in a Week of Action beginning today in support of the Divest from the War Machine campaign. The campaign calls on individuals and institutions to divest from companies that engage in and profit from militarism and war-making in order to reduce their influence in policy-making, support reinvestment in services and programs that meet human needs, promote human rights, and achieve a more peaceful world.

Vijay Prashad, author and historian, outlines that the only way to confront a war economy is to confront the culture of war

Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff Under Collin Powell, examines the need for a powerful long-term strategy to oppose the U.S. military apparatus

Andrew Feinstein, author of the book Shadow Wars, outlines the importance of divesting from the U.S. war machine at the Divest from the War Machine Summit