P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081-- brandywine@juno.com
2006 Good Friday Account & Full Observance, Stations, readings
The theme of this year's (the 29th consecutive) Brandywine Peace
Community Good Friday observance was "Mourning to Resistance:
Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace". The entirety of the
observance and the Stations were done in and around the main
driveway entrance to the Valley Forge, PA weapons complex of the
world's largest weapons corporation and the Iraq war's chief
profiteer, Lockheed Martin.
About 100 people participated under a cloudy day marked by
periods of light rain. Lockheed Martin security had totally shut down
the main driveway entrance with the head of security telling Bob
Smith, Brandywine staff person, "Its your's". More than the usual
number of Upper Merion police and police vans were present. At
the driveway entrance, there was an upright full size coffin with white
masks with blood red tears, pictures of Iraqi children, a large sign
with Lockheed Martin logo reading: "we're making a killing!", and a
stack of crosses each with a Lockheed Martin logo at the crucifixion
nail points and the name of Iraqi and U.S. war dead as well as victim
of poverty and the domestic war economy.
The stations and accompanying reading parallelled the last steps
and crucified death of Jesus Christ with the war, resurgent
militarism, and the trampling of human needs and rights beneath
the cross of war. After each reading, a cross was carried into the
driveway entrance with the cross bearer facing the main intersection
as hundreds and hundreds of cars passed the main intersection.
At the 12th Station: "Jesus Dies on the Cross", a bell-intoned period
of silence witnessed the sight of a line of crosses and cross bearers
across the entire width of the Lockheed Martin entrance way. The
silence ended with the broadcast of "Adagio for Strings", as those in
the driveway laid their crosses down, and began a procession down
the drive with a large cross overhead draped in purple and white
cloth with Lockheed Martin logos at the crucifixion nail points.
A solid line of Lockheed Martin security personnel prevented the
procession from delivering the cross to Lockheed Martin as Upper
Merion surrounded and began arresting the kneeling activists to the
continuing broadcast of "Adagio for Strings". The bearers of the
large cross being held upright were among the last to be arrested
and the last arrest was made with the security head of the Lockheed
Martin complex holding the upright cross.
Fifteen people were arrested, cited for disorderly conduct, and
released without court dates. Those arrested are: Theresa
Camerota, Tom Mullian, Dolores Magro, Maryellen Blackwell, Paul
Sheldon, MJ Gentile, Bernadetter Cronin-Geller, Ann Geers, Carroll
Clay, Joseph Clay, Fr. Patrick Sieber,OFM, Mary Joe McArthur,
Beth Friedlan, Jackie Baumann, and Robert M.Smith.
For a number of the participants, the Good Friday observance was
their first experience in civil disobedience. For others the
experience extends the three decades of the Brandywine Peace
Community. See the full Good Friday observance with readings
below.
LOCKHEED MARTIN THE PROFITS OF WAR
CRUCIFIXION TODAY
Mourning to Resistance: Good Friday Stations of
Justice & Peace,
April 14, 2006, Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA
Luke 23:33-49
Litany
Leader: Let us pray that we will break the chains of violence
and war; that we may resist the making of war, empire, and
the works of Lockheed Martin, with acts of Jesus love. May
the cross which over time was transformed from a means of
violence to a symbol of liberation and peace be our symbol of
nonviolence and justice, a sign of nonviolent resistance to
Lockheed Martin, militarism, and war.
All: May we face the worlds suffering with the love of
Jesus.
Leader: By the cross and resurrection...
All: We Stand Against war
Leader: By Jesus witness to truth...
All: We Stand in Mourning and Resistance
Leader: By Jesus passion and death...
All: We Resist Lockheed Martin
Leader: By Jesus victory over the grave...
All: We Act for Peace
Except where noted, after each station and reading, a pre-
arranged person (others please remain on sidewalk) will
carry into and hold a cross* in the driveway cross-walk
(remembering the casualties of war, Lockheed Martin, and
domestic poverty resulting from the economy of war ) as the
bell is intoned and all chant:
RESIST LOCKHEED MARTIN THE PROFITS OF
WAR THE CRUCIFIXION TODAY
1st Station: Pilate Condemns Jesus to Death
(A cross will be planted in the grass near the
Lockheed Martin sign)
2nd Station: Jesus Carries His Cross
3rd Station: Jesus falls the 1st time
4th Station: Jesus meets his most afflicted mother
5th Station: Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus carry
the Cross
6th Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7th Station: Jesus falls the 2nd time
8th Station: Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem
9th Station: Jesus falls the 3rd time
10th Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the Cross
12th Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
(Period of silence and intoning of the bell
during which large coffin will be draped in white cloth)
When music begins, those doing Civil Disobedience proceed;
all others should remain on sidewalk
13th and 14th Stations: Jesus is taken down from the Cross
and laid in the tomb
Leader: We mourn all the victims of war and war-making. We
know that the profits of Lockheed Martin rest on war and
militarism. That is the awful business of Lockheed Martin. We
know too that people suffer and die, through war and the
denial of justice, so that a few may profit. We insist, however,
that where war is business, as here at Lockheed Martin, there
cannot be business as usual We resist war and the making of
war. We resist Lockheed Martin with acts of Jesus love and a
continuing commitment to the cross of nonviolent resistance.
All: May we face the worlds suffering with the love of
Jesus.
Leader: Jesus, by your cross and resurrection...
All: We Stand against War
Leader: By your witness to truth...
All: We Stand in Mourning and Resistance
Leader: By your passion and death...
All: We Resist Lockheed Martin
Leader: By your victory over the grave...
All: We Act for Peace
All: RESIST LOCKHEED MARTIN THE PROFITS OF
WAR THE CRUCIFIXION TODAY
********************************
Keep community. If you are not already, you should be
on the Brandywine Peace Community mailing and email
list. Just call or email us.
Thank you and have a joyous Easter!
BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY
P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA 19081
(610) 544-1818
email: brandywine@juno.com www.brandywinepeace.com
Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Potluck
Supper*/Program,
2nd Sunday of the month, 4:30PM, University Lutheran
Church, 3637 Chestnut St., Phila.
(*bring main dish, salad, or dessert to share)
May 14 - Mothers Day Concert for Peace
with Paulette Meier, singer-songwriter, peace educator
Summer 06 - 61st Anniversary Observance of the Start of
the Nuclear Age and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima &
Nagasaki, July 16 (anniversary of the 1st atomic test) -
August 6 and 9 : including Nonviolent Resistance at
Lockheed Martin.
1st Station: Pilate Condemns Jesus to Death
Reading #1
In a time of empire and military occupation, Jesus knew where
he stood. Betrayed, denied, tortured, facing death, Jesus knew
where he stood and what he faced. He faced the Cross, a
means of execution, a symbol of imperial rule, of Romes
might, an announcement of the empires will to maintain itself
the only way it can: violence and war.
Formed 11 years ago this month in the merger of Lockheed
and Martin Marietta and becoming at the very moment of its
incorporation the worlds largest weapons corporation,
Lockheed Martin announced itself with the slogan And This
is Just the Beginning! atop row upon row of pictured
weapons systems.
The empire of U.S. war-making has its cross. Lockheed
Martin is the common denominator in the production of every
major weapon systemnuclear and non-nuclearin the U.S.
arsenal and sold by the U.S. around the world. Lockheed
Martin annually receives from the public treasury more than
$32 billion. Lockheed Martin is the chief beneficiary of the
Bush Administrations policy of endless war on terror, of a
continued war of occupation in Iraq, of the resurgence in U.S.
militarism. around the world and even unto the heavens.
Lockheed Martinacross the country and around the world,
here in Valley Forge and throughout the Delaware
Valleymeans weaponry: nuclear weapons, Trident missiles,
cruise missiles, combat satellites and computers, Aegis
warships, the Airborne Laser System and a host of other Star
Wars missile defense weapons for the continued
militarization of space.
Among numerous Pentagon weapons contracts here in Valley
Forge, PA, the Management & Data Systems division of
Lockheed Martin has a $116.7 million contract to build
Weapons Control Systems for U.S. Navy Tomahawk Cruise
Missiles which have been used throughout the Gulf Wars and
were the centerpiece of the shock & awe bombardment of
Iraq.
Every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means billions
of dollars transferred from the public treasury to private
wealth, from public need to corporate greed. Every weapon
produced by Lockheed Martin means another bombing run,
another cruise missile attack, another war.
What we see depends on where we stand.
In this time of war, military occupation, and the promise of
more war in Iraq, threatened war in Iran, we stand before
Lockheed Martin and see the cross of empire and human
neglect, of greed and environmental indifference. We see and
mourn the militarization of law and the denial of civil liberties
and human rights, even torture and war crimes. We see the
cross of war. Today we stand before Lockheed Martin pitting
our commitment to nonviolent resistance and peace against
Lockheed Martin, the face of nuclear weapons, the face of
war profits, in Iraq and around the world, the face of war-
making today.
2nd Station: Jesus Carries his Cross
Reading #2
The revulsion against war not too long hence will be an
insuperable obstacle for us to overcome and for that reason I
am convinced that we must set in motion the machinery of a
permanent war economy...It must be an ongoing program and
not the creature of some emergency.
So spoke the president of General Electric, Charles E. Wilson,
in July 1944, one year before the first atomic bomb was tested.
Today, we before the social order which Wilson called for - a
culture of weaponry and militarism, a permanent industry of
war.
Months before George W. Bush assumed office in January
2001, a report was drawn up by a group called the Project for
the New American Century (PNAC). The driving force behind
the report was Richard Perle, at the time head of the Defense
Policy Board, an advisory group to the Pentagon whose
members are appointed by the Secretary of Defense and
chosen from the weapons industry.. Lockheed Martin is a key
player in the Defense Policy Board.
Other founders of the Project for the New American Century
include: Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense
secretary. Among its outline for the New American Century is
the following: The United States has for decades sought to
play a more permanent role in the Gulf region. While the
conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the
need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The New American Century blueprint for the future is a script
for some kind of Orwellian period of unending war where the
pauses between bombings and wars are called peace?
Weeks after the start of the U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan
in October 2001, the Pentagon announced that Lockheed
Martin would receive the contract to build the Joint Strike
Fighter over the next several decades. At $200 billion, it is the
largest military contract in human history.
One week before the U.S. started the bombardment and
invasion of Iraq two years ago, the Air Force tested in Florida
the 21,500 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb
which sends a wave of fire and blasts hundreds of yards to
kill troops, flatten trees, knock over structures...and, in
general, demoralize those far beyond the impact zone. The
latter purpose is what Donald Rumsfeld summarized as the
psychological component.
Now, according to the New York Times Seymour Hersh, as
the Bush Administration is actively planning for attacks on
Iranian facilities related to the countrys uranium enrichment
program, one of the militarys initial options is the use of a
tactical nuclear weapon, the B61-11 bunker buster. The use of
tactical nuclear weapons has gained support from the Defense
Science Board. Theyre telling the Pentagon that we can
build the B61 with more blast and less radiation, one Pentagon
advisor told Hersh and then asked: What will 1.2 billion
Muslims think the day we attack Iran?
Jesus carried a cross of wood. We too carry a cross. We carry
the weight of empirethe weapons it builds, the wars it wages,
the lives it destroys.
3rd Station - Jesus Falls the First Time
Reading #3
It certainly didnt take long for us to see what four more years
of Bush would mean and what Lockheed Martin had in store
for us.
Days after the last presidential election, the U.S. began the
assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in the largest single combat
operation since the Vietnam War, what has since come to be
called the Slaughter of Fallujah. This in the wake of the
findings of a study conducted by researchers at John Hopkins
University, Columbia University, and the Al-Mustansiriya
University in Baghdad and reported in the British Medical
Journal, the Lancet, which concluded that the U.S. invasion
and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of at least
100,000 Iraqis - a human figure significantly higher than
previous estimates. The medical study, which was never even
mentioned during the presidential campaign, further revealed
that most of the 100,000 Iraqis who died were women and
children killed in violent deaths, primarily carried out by U.S.
air strikes.
Like the thousands and thousands of Iraqis killed, each of the
more than 2300 U.S. deaths in Iraq and the more than 17 ,000
wounded and maimed are not only victims of a particular
policy built on lies but also the casualties of a far deeper
disease - the ambition of empire and the greed of militarism.
Thats the real business of war and the weapons makers.
Thats Lockheed Martin whose reach in weapons production
and impact on war policy is without parallel or bounds. We
now know that Lockheed Martin oversees the hiring and
management of the civilian interrogation units at Abu Ghraib
and other prisons in Iraq.
For the last fiscal reporting period, Lockheed Martin
announced that its revenues rose by 41%, with an astounding
$8.4 billion in profits for the quarterly period alone. It is
Lockheed Martin, not Haliburton or the Carlyle Group -
names commonly associated with profiting from war in Iraq -
that is by far the wars chief profiteer. Meanwhile, the weight
of empire is making our society literally dysfunctional. The
New York Times conservatively reports that more than 34
million people in the U.S. live in poverty, what Gandhi called
the greatest form of violence, that one in five children under
the age of five in the U.S. are poor. Health care, mass transit,
housing (an estimated 3.5 million Americans experienced
homelessness this winter), disaster relief and Gulf Coast re-
building from Hurricane Katrina, are every bit the casualties of
war.
4th Station: Jesus meets his most afflicted
mother
4th Reading
There are (according to the US State
Department) 190 independent countries
in the world. Last year, 154 countries
either took delivery of or signed new
contracts for US arms. Thats about 80%
of the world receiving arms made in the
USA by arms manufacturers, the largest
of which is Lockheed Martin.
The US policy on Foreign Military Sales
explicitly states that the benefit to the
arms industry will be considered when
deciding on arms sales. The profitability
of arms sales is assured with the US
government providing loan guarantees
and assistance worth of billions of
dollars.
There was an adage of the British
imperial construct that said, Great
powers have no permanent friends or
permanent enemies, only permanent
interests.
Oil. Weapons. Markets. War is nothing
but a market for Lockheed Martin.
5th Station: Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus
carry his cross.
Reading #5
Lest we ever (ever) forget, it was the
United States that created and unleashed
the very definition and reference for
global terror: Nuclear weapons.
One Trident submarine (there are 18)
carrying 24 missiles, with eight nuclear
warheads per missile, is capable of 1,000
Hiroshima. Lockheed Martin manages
most the US nuclear bomb complex and
is the manufacture of Trident missiles.
Ninety-nine percent of all high-level
radioactive material in the US has been
generated by nuclear weapons
production. Plutonium, which fuels
nuclear bombs, has a toxic life of
240,000 years 10,000 human
generations.
Bushs Nuclear Posture Review, affirms
the centrality of nuclear weapons in US
war planning, urges resumption of
nuclear testing and production of new
lower-yield (i.e., useable) earth
penetrating nuclear warheads to destroy
underground bunkers, and removes the
taboo of using nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear nations.
Nuclear weapons have poisoned our
earth, our spirits, our imagination, and
our judgment with the threat of
unimaginable death and destruction.
Oh, how The Christ cries out for our
forsaken humanity.
6th Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
Reading #6
Curt Weldon is the vice chair of the House Armed
Service Committee and represents one of the largest
Congressional districts in the country. He represents
the 7th district which stretches from Delaware County
to much of Montgomery County and includes both
Boeing and where we stand today, Lockheed Martin.
Weldons Congressional committee oversees a U.S.
military budget that for fiscal year 2006 will rise to
$452.4 billion20% higher than anytime during the
Cold War, $95 billion more than when Bush took
office in January 2001.And the $452.4 billion figure
doesnt even include the $81 billion supplemental
bill just approved for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bush Administrations fiscal year 2006 increase
in military spending ($48 billion),is (in real dollars):
the largest increase since 1966 and the height of the
Vietnam War.. The increase alone is larger than the
military budget of any other nation on earth.
The Bush Administration projects the spending of
$3.5 trillion on the military over the next 10 years, at
a time when State governments are running a
combined deficit of $35 billion and anticipate a
shortfall of $11.3 billion in education funds.
Lockheed Martin is the chief beneficiary of the surge
in military spending. Curt Weldon is one of
Lockheed Martins chief benefactors and, in turn,
has benefitted from Lockheed Martins political
contributions.
The billions and billions of dollars, nearly half a
trillion dollars during the current fiscal year, that go
into the making of weapons, that go to Lockheed
Martin, means war and the theft of resources from
those who need. Last year, Lockheed Martin boasted
the receipt of a $ 4 billion to engineer targets for
Star Wars ballistic missile defense.
In the face of every homeless person, of every person
that hungers for community and justice, in New
Orleans or Biloxi, Chester or Brazil, is the face of the
Jesus ignored in this time of war, the time of
Lockheed Martin. In the knowledge and presence of
the poor, the tortured and imprisoned - all those on
whom, and at whose expense, war is made, whether
that be in Afghanistan or Iraq, Colombia, or North
Philadelphia, is also, paradoxically, the presence of
the child born without dwelling, who would die the
tortured death of a political prisoner
7th Station: Jesus falls the 2nd time.
Reading #7
Were going to fight in space, said General Joseph
Ashy, former commander-in-chief of the US Space
Command. Were going to fight from space, and
were going to fight into space.
Plans for Star Wars missile defense are but the next
big step in a much larger plan for the full militarization
of space. Lockheed Martin knows full well what Star
Wars means because it is working on the extremities
of the scheme, everything in between, and beyond.
The Navys Theater Missile Defense plan is to use
Aegis cruisers, like the ones which three years ago
were firing cruise missiles into Iraq as part of the
shock and awe terrorizing strategy. With specially
designed missiles adapted to shoot down missiles in
their boost-phase, Aegis cruisers, produced by
Lockheed Martin in Moorestown, New Jersey and now
being sold to Taiwan and Japan, would be deployed off
the coast of North Korea and China. This first step in
Star Wars missiles is now being called Aegis
Ballistic Missile Defense
Further down the road but no less underway for
Lockheed Martin is the development of the Space-
Based Laser that harkens back to Reagans Star
Wars Strategic Defense Initiative plan to knock out
satellites and missiles in space with laser beam
technology.
Beyond Star Wars, though, theres the larger and more
chilling outline for the militarization of space
summarized by the US Space Command in its Vision
for 2020 document: The globalization of the world
economy will also continue, with a widening between
the haves and have-notes...military forces have
evolved to protect national interests, both military and
economic. During the rise of sea commerce, nations
built navies to protect and enhance their commercial
interests. During the westward expansion of the United
States, military outposts and the cavalry emerged...The
emergence of space power follows both these models.
Plans for Star Wars and the militarization of space
swept aside the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (and with
it, international law). The Bush Administration has
combined the Fortress America of National Missile
Defense with the imperial designs inherent in the
militarization of heavens. And thats no movie, its the
real Star Wars.
8th Station: Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem
Reading #8
A Poem by Daniel Berrigan:
Some stoof up once, and sat down.
Some walked a mile, and walked away.
Some stood up twice, then sat down.
I've had it, they said.
Some walked tow miles, then walked away.
It's too much, they cried.
Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for dummies
they were taken for fools
they were taken for being taken in.
Some walked and walked and walked.
they walked the earth
they walked the waters
they walked the air.
Why do you stand?
they were asked, and
why do you walk?
Because of the children, they said, and
because of the heart, and because of the bread.
Because
the cause
is the heart's beat
and the children born
and the risen bread.
9th Station: Jesus falls the 3rd time
Reading #9
A veteran of World War II who had seen the ravages of
war, Philip Berrigan became a Catholic priest. His
earliest ministry among African-Americans opened his
eyes to racism and social injustice. In 1968, as part of the
Catonsville 9, he burned draft files in resistance to the
war in Vietnam . Phil Berrigan became the first
American Catholic priest jailed for reasons of conscience.
On September 9, 1980, along with seven others in the
Plowshares 8, Phil entered a GE [now: Lockheed Martin]
weapons plant just a few miles from here and with
hammers committed the first plowshares act of nuclear
disarmament by hammering on Mark 12A nuclear missile
casings. Again, Phil went to jail. Again and again,
plowshares action after plowshares action, Phil acted for
peace and went to jail. In all, Phil Berrigan spent a total
of eleven of his 79 years in prison for acts of nonviolent
resistance. The following is from a reflection at the
funeral memorial for Philip Berrigan by his daughters,
Frida and Kate, on December 8, 2002.
Over the years, we had many occasions to visit our Dad
in countless prisons....But our Dad never seemed touched
by that weight. Even in prison, even in those awful
spaces, he was free. In prison, as in the outside world, his
work and life were to resist violence and oppression, to
understand and try to live by Gods word, to build
community and help people learn to love one another...
He is still very present to us. The work that all of us do,
today and tomorrow and for the rest of our lives, will
keep our Dad close to us. He is here with us every time a
hammer strikes on killing metal, transforming it from a
tool of death to a productive, life-giving, life-affirming
implement. He is here with us every time a member of
the church communicates the central message of
Scripture - You shall not kill - and acts to oppose killing,
rather than providing the church seal of approval on war.
He is here whenever joy and irreverent laughter and
kindness and hard work are present. He is here every
time we reach across color and class lines and embrace
each other as brother and sister. He is here every time we
risk our freedom in an effort to secure justice and peace
for all. He is here wherever children are loved and
respected and listened to, but not idolized or sheltered
from truth or used as an excuse for not doing what is
right. He is here when we challenge comfort, silence,
complicity, the easy way out. He is here when we believe
in every persons potential for good...He is here when we
unlearn the violence and greed we are inculcated with as
Americans, and practice peace-making and
reconciliation... He is here when we live in community,
live simply, and share...
10th Station: Jesus is stripped of his
garments.
Reading #10
Like the child who was able to see that the
Emperor was without clothes, can we see
whats before us today?
Can we see the greed, the lies, the violence
that lay before us? Can we see the illusions of
security that come from making war?
September 11, 2001, all of our imperial
illusions of security based on nuclear
weapons, or Star Wars shields, or
corporations, shattered in a wink. We were
vulnerable, just like everybody else on this
fragile planet. If there be such a thing as real
security then it must rest on something more
than what we can do for ourselves with muscle
or weapons, something that has to do with
relationship with others and the earth, with
fairness, with honoring the commonweal and
the commonwealth, with being neighbor not
the overlord. And that means justice.
Bombs may win wars and bring the false peace
of victory, but justice will never be achieved
with bombs and cruise missiles nor with Star
Wars and out of this world plans (however
profitable) for the militarization of space. The
only victor in war is war itself.
No, if you want real peace not dominion or
wealth or empire then work for justice.
11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the Cross
Reading #11:
Non-cooperation with evil, Gandhi preached, is as
essential as cooperation with good.
There is an uncompromising difference between the privileged
wealth secured through every weapon built by Lockheed
Martin and the faithful demands for justice and peace. It is
nothing less than the difference between crucifixion and
resurrection, cooperation and resistance.
Exactly one year to the day before his death on April 4, 1968,
Dr. King spoke out against the war in Vietnam from the pulpit
of Riverside Church in New York City. In that speech, he
described the relationship between US global policies and the
domestic violence of poverty. Calling the US government the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world, he called for
resistance to the evil triplets of American society: racism,
materialism, and militarism.
We resist the war-making of Bush and Company, and his
corporate patron, Lockheed Martin
The Dover Air Force Base is located 50 miles south of
Philadelphia just outside of Dover, DE. It is where all U.S.
troops killed in action are returned in anonymity. Since the
end of the Vietnam War the press has been banned from the
Base. Families of the dead, also barred from the Base, must
wait on the military delivery plan of their loved ones who
arrive not in coffins or caskets, but in transfer tubes.
Today, remember our friends from Military Families Speak
Out in their trail of mourning and truth. One by one we hear
mothers and fathers read the names of their sons and
daughters, and hundreds of other U.S. troops killed in Iraq,
and of thousands of Iraqis, killed in Iraq. Fernando Suarez,
who traveled to Iraq as part of a peace delegation, would say:
"Bush lied and who died? My son, Jesus!". Bush lied and who
died: Sherwood R. Baker, Inad Mohammad, Seth Dvorin,
Anood Talib,
The crosses before us today announce the fact of Lockheed
Martin - weapons and war. These crosses express our
mourning for the casualties of war and weapons, of human
neglect and environmental indifference, of the greed and
violence summarized daily and made corporate in Lockheed
Martin. These crosses represent the suffering and crucifixion
of Jesus Christ today.
We stand in resistance to Lockheed Martin. We embrace the
nonviolent cross of our time: resistance to war and militarism,
the works of peacemaking and service to the victims of war,
resistance to the injustice that is Lockheed Martin, the face of
war-making today.
Today, in mourning and resistance, we remember Jesus
words: Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to
you...(John 14:27)