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2009 INAUGURATION AND MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY EVENTS
A summary of days just past. Celebrating a commitment to a new day, honoring Dr. King's legacy, resisting war and Lockheed Martin! On January 17, Obama boarded a train in Philadelphia for Washington, DC. Area peace activists paraded and then on King Day headed back to Lockheed Martin.
On Saturday, January 17, just after 11a.m., Barack Obama boarded his whistle-stop inauguration train at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia that would conclude in Washington, DC, three days before his historic inauguration. Obama held no public event in Philadelphia before boarding the inaugural train. However about 100 people paraded through the sub-freezing temperatures of Philadelphia celebrating the hopes and demands of this new day in U.S. politics with the very public message of: "Honor King's Legacy, Stop the War (s), Yes We Can!". The parade concluded right in front of the 30th Street Station and was preceded by an indoor rally at the William Way Community Center The Brandywine Peace Community, along with Coalition for Peace Action and Penn Action was one of the chief organizers of the United for Peace & Justice - Delaware Valley Network sponsored rally and parade. Thanks to all who attended, helped, paraded with signs, banners, puppets, chanted, and made for a a representation of a new day of justice and peace. Photos more photos
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Inaugurate Justice, Make War No More...Resist Lockheed Martin! MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY OF RESISTANCE to War and Lockheed Martin, Mall & Boulevards, Valley Forge/King of Prussia, On Monday, January 19th, on the eve of the historic inauguration of Barack Obama and for the 32nd consecutive year, the Brandywine Peace Community organized a time to memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and on the King Day national holiday remembrance, to walk in Dr. King's steps of nonviolent resistance to injustice and war at the corporation which today is the very face of war-making, Lockheed Martin. In front of the main driveway entrance to the Valley Forge complex of the world's largest weapons manufacturer, about 50 people gathered in a driving snow, holding banners and signs listening to a compilation of excerpts of Dr. King's sermons and speeches. Of particular note and appreciation over the years at the Martin Luther King Day of Nonviolent Resistance at Lockheed Martin has been the participation of New Jerusalem Laura, a program of recovering addicts in the African-American neighborhood of North Philadelphia. After hearing the loudspeaker broadcast of the words of Dr. King echo around the Lockheed Martin complex and surrounding shopping mall, we partook in a litany built around Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1964. See below. In Dr. King's "A Time to Break Silence" at Riverside Church, delivered on April 4, 1967, one year to the day before his murder, he drew the connection between social injustice here at home and wars fought around the world, calling for resistance to the "evil triplets of U.S. society: racism, materialism, and militarism." As the King Day litany came to an end, the words of Dr. King at Riverside Church echoed around Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin security set-up their security line to the weapons complex while Upper Merion police stood in wait in anticipation of civil disobedience. Those prepared to face arrest then stepped into the driveway entrance with a series of banners reading: "Honor Dr. King's Legacy", "Stop Lockheed Martin", and "Yes, We Can!". Of particular reference at this King Day action was Lockheed Martin's arms partnership with Israel and therefore its role in the attacks on the people of the Gaza strip. Across the driveway were the pictures of Palestinian children killed in the attacks. There were also large appliance size box signboards reading: "LOCKHEEDVILLE: Many Suffer, so Few May Profit"; "LOCKHEEDVILLE: War Profit$ = Slaughter in Gaza". At the conclusion of Dr. King's words at Riverside Church in 1967, those who stood in resistance to Lockheed Martin turned and walked toward Lockheed Martin at which time the activist resisters where stopped and one by one arrested and transported to the Upper Merion police where they were summarily released on disorderly conduct citations. Those arrested and cited were: Vinton Deming, Mary Jo McArthur, Bernadette Cronin-Geller, Beth Friedlan, MJ Gentile, Sylvia Metzler, Sister Margaret McKenna, and Robert M. Smith, all of Philadelphia; Father Patrick Sieber, Camden, NJ; Tom Mullian of Media, PA; and Theresa Camerota of Wyncote, PA.
Litany of the King Day Memorial (*from Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech, 1964) Reader: Today, we remember a martyred prophet, a “drum major for justice”, a peacemaker, and nonviolent revolutionary. Today, we stand before Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons corporation, remembering all the victims of war and weapons building, remembering all the casualties of social and environmental neglect, remembering and mourning all who suffer and die on the altar of corporate greed, empire, and violence. Today we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the eve of the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s 44th president. Today, we celebrate the hopes and possibilities of a new day in U.S. politics, while insisting on and struggling for a fundamentally new day of justice and peace, a day when war will not occupy the central place in our society and no one will be “left out in the cold”, victims of an economy devoted not to human community and justice but to war. Response (all) *“...Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love...Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... I refuse to accept the view that humanity is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace can never become a reality...” (Dr. Martin King, Jr. 1964) Reader: In 1967, Dr. King called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. Nothing today signifies the threat of global violence more than the U.S. nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 nuclear weapons. Lockheed Martin is the U.S.’s chief nuclear bomb contractor Nuclear weapons have poisoned our earth, our spirits, our imagination and claim on the future with the threat of unimaginable death and destruction. Response (all) *...I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality...” (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964) Reader: The U.S. Military Budget is now nearly a trillion dollars annually for war and the Pentagon’s global reach. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been financed through additional spending bills. Economists believe the cost could reach $2 Trillion. The culture of militarism and war, and the economy of war which sustains it, is the very existence of Lockheed Martin. The economy of war is the proverbial “elephant in the room” of the current world economic meltdown, the worst since the 1930's. Whole communities have become “casualties of war”, more and more suffer for the profits of a few. Response (all) * “...I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of our present nature makes us morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. I refuse to accept the idea that we are mere flotsam and jetsam in a river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround us...” (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964) Reader: Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest arms merchant. Lockheed Martin to certain nations around the world, like Israel, is more than an arms supplier, it is an “arms partner”. On December 27, 2008, Israel launched brutal attacks on the Israeli controlled territory of the Gaza strip, attacks which were way out of all proportion to the Hamas missile attacks suffered by Israel. More than a thousand Palestinian residents, mostly children, have been slaughtered in what most of the world considers war crimes. F’16's, produced by Lockheed Martin, have for most of this past month rained death on the impoverished, densely populated territory, making Lockheed Martin a partner in crime and Israel a violator of U.S. law which bars the use of U.S. supplied weapons except in the course of self-defense. We cannot be silenced by arguments of who did what to whom and when. Peace in the region and security for Israel cannot indefinitely lie in being an outpost of the U.S. and U.S. arms makers. Justice for Palestinians means an end to Israeli occupation and a real Palestinian state. Bombs may win wars but peace and justice, there or here, will never be achieved with bombs, missiles, and F’16's Response (all) * “...I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nation, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among all...” (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964) Reader: Today at Lockheed Martin we honor the legacy of Dr. King and the struggle for justice and peace. We choose to walk in the memory and steps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We honor Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolent direct action and his opposition to injustice and war. Our memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and our commitment to a new day of justice and peace is our continued nonviolent resistance to the injustice that is war, and the making of war that is Lockheed Martin. Response (all)* “...I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered people have torn down other-centered can build up and that one day humanity will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will be proclaimed the rule of the land...and I still believe that We Shall Overcome...” (*Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1964)