Lockheed
Martin, Mall & Goddard
Boulevards, Valley Forge, PA.
Three days before the outrage of George W. Bush's 2nd Inauguration.
Resist "the giant triplets of American society: racism, materialism,
and militarism" (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967).16 People* were arrested on Monday, January 17 for attempting to deliver the lists containing thousands of names of the Iraq war dead - Iraqi, U.S., and other foreign nationals - along with coffins with pictures of Iraqi children and U.S. war dead.
(* Rick Sieber, Mary Jo McArthur, Beth Friedlan, Ann Geers, Sylvia Metzler, Terry Rumsey, Michael Berg, Rev. Patrick Sieber, Bro. Thomas Ennis, Susan Grubb Johanna Berrigan, Bernadette Cronin-Geller, Bob Smith, Rich Conti, Theresa Camerota, and Thomas Mullian)
We repeatedly made it clear to Lockheed Martin security that our intent was to deliver the names of the war dead and the coffins to the building lobby for management and employees, say a short prayer, and leave the premises. It was not our intent on Monday to commit civil disobedience (as we have repeatedly done over the years and as we do repeatedly throughout the year at Lockheed Martin). On Monday, Lockheed Martin made that decision for us by not so much as allowing us to simply deliver the coffins and names of the Iraq war dead to the company that is profiting from this war. We crossed onto the property with coffins and war dead lists - marked: "Iraq War Dead - The Price of Lockheed Martin War Profits" - in hand and were arrested. All sixteen were released on disorderly conduct citations.
Prior to the civil disobedience,
more than 125 vigiled with banners and
signs in the bone chilling cold and heard the audio broadcast of
excerpts of speeches and sermons by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We then
shared in a Litany of the King Day message (see below).
Then, in front of the Lockheed Martin sign at the main driveway
entrance, one by one the Names of War Dead - Iraqi (from ‘03 - early
‘04), U.S. (PA, NJ, DE, MD) intoned to the tolling of a bell, were read
by people personally impacted and devastated by the war. *Johanna Berrigan, House of Grace Catholic Worker; who has visited Iraq both before and since the U.S. invasion.
*Michael Berg of West Chester, PA, whose son, Nicholas, was brutally slain by terrorists last year in Iraq;
*John Grant, Vietnam Veteran; Iraq visitor; coordinator of the area's Veterans for Peace chapter.
*Bob McIlvaine, from Oreland, PA whose son was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001;
*Jim Talib, Philadelphia, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who returned from Iraq this past September;
*Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, a member of Military Families Speak Out, a group comprised of active duty U.S. soldiers deployed or killed in Iraq that opposes U.S. war policy - Celeste Zappala's son, Sherwood Baker, was killed last April, he was the first PA National Guardsmen to be killed in combat since 1945;
* Bob Neveln who recently married an Iraqi woman, Buthaina Hawas, after repeated trips to Iraq.
We wish to thank each of the speaker/readers for their sharing of grief and tears, love and heartbreak.
(Response - ALL: "For peace, Stop Lockheed Martin For justice, Make War No More")
(*from Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize Speech)
Leader #1: From the pulpit of Riverside Church on April 4 1967 (exactly one year before being shot down in Memphis TN), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sought to conjoin the civil rights movement with the growing movement against the war in Vietnam. In that speech, delivered exactly one year to the day before he was shot down in Memphis, he said: "we are called to speak for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy", for no document of human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters." Here at this division of the world's largest weapons corporation, Lockheed Martin produces the weapons control systems for the very same cruise missiles which, from Aegis warships (also produced by Lockheed Martin), have slammed into Iraq over the years. Last Fall, researchers at John Hopkins University, Columbia University, and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad reported in the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqis and that most of the 100,000 Iraqis ho have 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 now nearly 1400 U.S. deaths in Iraq and the more than 10,000 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. Today, we remember a martyred prophet, a "drum major for justice", a peacemaker, and nonviolent revolutionary. We stand before the Iraq War's #1 profiteer. Today, we stand before Lockheed Martin, remembering all the victims of war and weapons building, remembering all the casualties of social and environmental neglect, remembering all that suffer and die on the altar of corporate greed, empire, and violence.
L#2 * "...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 to 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)
All: (Response:)
L#1:We can never, ever, forget that it was the United States that created and unleashed the very definition and reference for the terror of our age, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction: nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have poisoned our earth, our spirits, our imagination and claim on the future with the threat of unimaginable death and destruction. In 1967, Dr. King called the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". One U.S. Trident submarine (there are 18) carrying 24 missiles, with eight nuclear warheads per missile, is capable of 1,000 Hiroshimas. Lockheed Martin manages most of the U.S. nuclear bomb complex and is the manufacturer of Trident missiles. 99% of all high level radio active material in the U.S. has been generated by nuclear weapons production. Plutonium, which fuels nuclear bombs, has a toxic life of 240,000 years 10,000 human generations. The Bush Administration's Nuclear Policy affirms the centrality of nuclear weapons in U.S. military policy, urges resumption of nuclear testing and production of new, lower-yield earth penetrating nuclear warheads to destroy underground bunkers, and even recommends the use of such nuclear weapons in "surprising military developments".
L#2 *...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)
All: (Response:)
L#1:Today, the federal budget for war is more than $400 billion. The culture of militarism and war, and the economy of war which sustains it, is the very business existence of Lockheed Martin. More weapons; more war: Aegis warships, Trident missiles, Joint Strike Stealth Fighter (the Lockheed Martin warplane which at $200 billion is the largest military contract in human history) "Star Wars" and plans for the full militarization of space. Lockheed Martin is the chief profiteer of the continuing war in Iraq. Lockheed Martin reported last fall that revenues for its last quarter rose by 41%, with $8.4 billion in profits.
The need for emergency shelter is growing in cities across the country. An estimated 3.5 million people in the U.S. are likely to experience homelessness this winter. The New York Times reports that more than 34 million people in the U.S. live in poverty. Almost one in five children under the age of five in the U.S. is poor. Gandhi called poverty "the greatest form of violence.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often referred to "the evil triplets of American society: racism, materialism, and militarism. Every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means billions of dollars transferred from the public treasury to private wealth, from human need to corporate greed. Moreover, every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means another bombing run, another cruise missile attack, another war.
L#2 * "...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 (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964)
All: (Response:)
L#1: If there be such a thing as real human security, then it must rest on something more than what we can do for ourselves with muscle or weapons, something that has to do relationship with others and the earth, with fairness, with honoring the commonweal and the common wealth, with being the neighbor not the overlord. And, that means justice, and democracy, and truth. Dr. King would say: "If you want peace, work for 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 or talk of an "endless war on terrorism". No, if you want peace not empire, or wealth, or oil markets and arms contracts - then work for justice.
L#2 * "...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)
All: (Response:)
L#1: Today, we bring to Lockheed Martin the names and faces of the Iraq war dead and hold the war's chief profiteer accountable for all the Seths and Sherwoods, Nicks and Julies, Kareems and Fazeels, killed in Iraq. For all victims of war, and all the casualties of the economy of war - the homeless and hungry, who die the slow death of racism and poverty, sexism and unmet human need, we choose to walk in the steps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In word and deed, in mourning and in struggle, we honor Dr. King's philosophy of nonviolent direct action, his opposition to injustice and war, by nonviolently resisting the injustice and making of war that is Lockheed Martin.
L#2 * "...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)
All: (Response:)
