P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081-- brandywine@juno.com (610) 544-1818

GOOD FRIDAY 2007

APRIL 6, 2007

"Oh Death, Where is thy sting?  Oh Grave, Where is they Victory?"
1 Corinthians 15:55

"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." (from the Stations of Peace & Justice, Good Friday, April 6, 2007, Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA)

On Good Friday, April 6, people gathered in front of the main driveway entrance to the Lockheed Martin weapons complex in Valley Forge/
King of Prussia, PA. For the 30th consecutive year, The Brandywine Peace Community held its Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace
parallelling the last steps and crucifixion of Jesus Christ with the contemporary crucifixion of Jesus and the human family: war.  The
names of Iraq war dead were read - a bell tolled for each -  and then the Stations of Justice & Peace, modelled on the traditional Stations
of the Cross, commenced at the driveway entrance to Lockheed Martin. 

Each station was accompanied with the reading on the  war in Iraq, militarism, social and environmental neglect, Lockheed Martin's
obscene war profits, and examples of nonviolent resistance to war.  With each Station and reading, a cross - bearing the names of Iraq
War dead, the economic casualties of the war economy, and Lockheed Martin logos at the crucifixion nail points - was carried into
the main driveway entranceway (blocked by Lockheed Martin security and Upper Merion police). 

By the time of the 12th Station - "Jesus Dies on The Cross" - a row of people holding the four foot high crosses stood across the
driveway entrance.  The bell began tolling amidst the silence and a banner reading - "Lochkeed Martin  War and Weapons  Christ
Crucified" was unfurled.  Those in the driveway entrance tuned and began walking onto Lockheed Martin with an eight foot high cross
and the aforementioned banner intending to proceed to the building where the arms giant produces battlefield computers used in Iraq
and components for cruise missiles. 

All were stopped  refused to leave and were arrested. Those arrested and released on Disorderly;y Conduct citations were:  Mary
Jo McArthur,  Carroll Clay, Joe Clay, MJ Gentile, Beth Friedlan (all of Philadelphia); Jackie Baumann and Rev. Patrick Sieber (of New
Jersey); Teresa Camerota, Wyncote, PA; Tom Mullian, Media, PA, and Robert M. Smith, Swarthmore, PA.

"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: RESIST LOCKHEED MARTIN    THE PROFITS OF
WAR    THE CRUCIFIXION TODAY (from Stations of Peace & Justice, Good Friday, April 6, 2007,
Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA)

******************************************************************************************************************

link:
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/19/lockheed-lockdown

Lockheed Lockdown
Facing prosecution for last year's trespass at Rick Santorum's office,
the Brandywine Peace Community's Philadelphia 14 just can't stop
protesting.
by Sam Tremble
Published: April 18, 2007
protest

It's Good Friday, but a dozen Lockheed Martin security guards joining
hands are not engaged in prayer. Stretched across the entrance to the
Lockheed Martin facility above King of Prussia Mall, they are forming a
human barricade of criss-crossed arms and black boots, backed by another
dozen Upper Merion township police, including one German shepherd.

On adjacent Goddard Boulevard, a paddy wagon is parked between two police
SUVs with flashing lights. Ten members of the Brandywine Peace Community
(BPC) walk toward the line, each holding a 4-foot-tall wooden cross. The
crosses, part of BPC's annual Stations of Justice and Peace
demonstration, bear anti-war messages and a picture of Jesus' crown of
thorns. The words "Weapons & War" read across while "Christ Crucified"
reads down. At the top of each is a picture of Christ's thorns and the
names of three dead. On one cross, Kyle J. Renehan, 21, of Oxford and
Hamza Reekad, 6, of Iraq are named as Iraq war dead. Ethel Freeman, who
died abandoned in her wheelchair at the New Orleans Convention Center
after Katrina hit, is named as a domestic poverty casualty.

Robert Smith, BPC's founder, inspired at 18 by Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.'s 1967 speech in protest of the Vietnam War at Harlem's Riverside
Church ("Somehow this madness must cease," exclaimed King of the
violence), sees direct connections between the atrocities of war,
domestic poverty and the manufacturing of weapons. Lockheed Martin is the
largest weapons manufacturer in the world and the recipient of
extravagant government contracts. BCP believes that if that money the
taxpayers' money was redirected toward programs of social uplift,
poverty and injustice would no longer plague the country. Smith founded
BPC 30 years ago to direct the momentum of the Vietnam movement against
corporate profiteers of war.

"One of the lessons we'd learned from the Vietnam war period was that
there needs to be a community," says Smith. "And there needs to be a
spiritual underpinning to that community [to] provide those communities
with the strength to persevere."

It's the group's spiritual basis that has kept it together while other
political groups that arose to meet specific challenges disbanded either
after the goal was achieved or, as happens too often, met with repeated
failures. BPC is in it for the long haul: Their continued campaigns are
based less on results and more on moral and spiritual obligations.


BPC grew out of Smith's early political endeavors. In 1970, he spent
seven months in Allenwood Federal Prison for resisting the draft. Upon
release, he began working with local peace groups in Delaware County,
where he attended Delaware County Community College. Their work consisted
mostly of draft counseling, draft board blockades and getting arrested.
During this period, Smith was in and out of various jails for five- to
10-day sentences. In 1971, he formed the Street Messenger Community
Project in Media. *(please note correction below)The group committed one
of the most famous acts of resistance in U.S. history in March 1971, when
they broke into an FBI office in Media and uncovered files documenting
the FBI's COINTELPRO campaign of surveillance and neutralization of
anti-war and civil rights groups. *(please note correction below)

"There are some people who only know Media by that," says Smith. "It was
reported around the world.

"In the wake of that, the FBI was, let's just say, on Street Messenger a
lot," says Smith. "The woman who would become my wife was asked to become
a government informant."

Out of this group, the Brandywine Alternative Fund was formed. Seeing a
direct connection between taxes paid and wars waged, they refused to pay
their taxes and instead gave out grants and loans to social change
groups. Some of the groups, such as the Wilma Theater, went on to become
very successful.

After the war ended and Carter pardoned the draft resisters, some members
of the Brandywine Alternative Fund banded together to form the Brandywine
Peace Community in 1977.

On April 23, 14 members of BPC (including Smith), calling themselves "The
Philadelphia Declare Peace 14," face prosecution in Philadelphia
Municipal Court (1301 Filbert St.) on three misdemeanor charges: defiant
trespass, criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit trespass. On Sept.
25, 2006, they occupied the lobby of Rick Santorum's office at 1339
Chestnut St., hoping to have him sign a declaration of peace calling for
the withdrawal of all troops by March 2007. Since it is a private
building, it's up to the management who can enter. But the matter is
complicated by Santorum's status as a public official, who should be
accessible to the public.

While the trial is in session, BPC will hold a vigil on the northeast
corner of City Hall at Broad Street and JFK Boulevard.

Though this is one of the first trials for nonviolent resistance to the
Iraq war, the case is certainly not sensational. The trial probably won't
set any precedents. If found guilty, the defendants are more likely to
receive fines and community service than jail sentences. But winning it
is far from inconsequential.

"It would be a vindication of First Amendment rights," says civil rights
attorney Paul Hetznecker, representative and legal adviser to the group."
And I think that's pretty important."

Hetznecker has known Smith since the mid-'80s and is currently
collaborating with him on BPC's "Don't Spy on Me" campaign, launched last
June. The main tactics so far have been to use the Freedom of Information
Act in an effort to uncover government surveillance of innocent citizens,
designed to disrupt free speech. Participants are encouraged to request
information about their own political activities and about groups that
they belong to. The goal is to legally achieve the same level of
government accountability and transparency that the 1971 FBI burglary
sought.

Back at Lockheed, the 10 BPC members holding crosses stop at the
barricade, though their intention is to bring their message inside the
doors. As nonviolent resisters, they stop at the line to avoid physical
confrontation and simply hold their crosses. Beth Friedland, 46, of
Center City kneels before the guards.

"I always kneel. It's my way of submitting myself. I'm just putting it
all down for peace," she later explains.

A guard informs the resisters one by one that they are trespassing. They
refuse to leave and are escorted to the paddy wagon. About 25 supporters
watching from the sidewalk begin to pack up their signs and displays into
cars parked in the IMAX and Champps parking lots across the street.
Daniel Lanctot, 14, present with his father and three younger siblings
from Lansdowne, picks up the discarded crosses left in the street. An
officer approaches and towers over him.

"Thank you," says the officer. Lanctot stands up, looks at him but says
nothing, and carries as many crosses as he can to the sidewalk.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

For more information on the Brandywine Peace Community, call 610-544-1818
or visit brandwyinepeace.com.

  Philadelphia City Paper   

(*While the Street Messenger Community Project supported the Media FBI
break-in and disclosure of what the FBI was doing, the members of the
"Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI", which carried out the
action, at the time and since have chosen to remain anonymous)