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Dear
Friends of the Brandywine Peace Community
March 2005:
The Brandywine Peace
Community began the new year as we have each of the past 28
years -- honoring the real historic memory of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. with an expression of nonviolent direct action. On King Day of 2005, we gathered at Lockheed
Martin in Valley Forge, PA and began our calendar year of nonviolent
resistance and active peacemaking at the obvious place of war-making
today. As you already know, Lockheed Martin, the world's #1 weapons
corporation, is the Iraq war's #1 profiteer. Nearly 150 people endured
bone chilling weather to share in the reading of names of Iraq War
dead. We were joined by people whose lives have been devastated by the
war which has been so very profitable for Lockheed Martin. Celeste
Zappala, whose son, Sherwood Baker, was the first PA National Guardsman
killed in war since 1945; Jim Talib who last Fall returned from Iraq
and
has joined Iraq Veterans Against the War; Michael Berg, whose son,
Nick, was
brutally slain in Iraq last year. Subsequent to the King Day
litany and the reading of the names of the war dead, 16 people were
arrested for attempting to deliver to Lockheed Martin coffins with
pictures of the war dead and lists containing thousands and thousands of names -
Iraqi & U.S. - that have died in this war. In memory of Dr. King
and consistent with our history of nonviolent resistance, we will
continue to hold Lockheed Martin accountable.
The National Call for Nonviolent Resistance and action
campaign of resistance to the war in Iraq (that Brandywine has been
helping to convene) will be launched in our area and nationally
around the March 19 - 20th 2nd anniversary of Bush's War in Iraq.
The summer of 2005 approaches and the 60th Anniversary of the world's first atomic test blast (July 16, 1945, code-named: "Trinity") and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons, and especially the Bush Administration's re-emphasized nuclear weapons program and its drive for "Star Wars" weaponry, continue to be at the heart of U.S. militarism. Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki at Lockheed Martin ( for which we are already making plans) is knowing that resistance to Lockheed Martin is at the center of resisting today's nuclear madness and policy of "endless war". With your continuing support, we will continue our war protests and the campaign of resistance to Lockheed Martin that lies at the center of our commitment and work. In these deadly times, we ask you to make a statement of hope by giving now as generously as you can to the ongoing work, nonviolent resistance, and peace organizing of the Brandywine Peace Community. In a dark time, your support is the greatest expression of the lighted candle of peace that you can make. Please give now! Mail your contributions to: Brandywine Peace Community PO Box 81 Swarthmore, PA 19081 Make your check payable to the Brandywine Peace Community. Tax deductible contributions of $25.00 or more should be made out to: New Society Educational Foundation (memo the check "for Brandywine"). December
2004:
It certainly didn't take long for us to see what four more years of Bush will mean and what Lockheed Martin has in store for us. Days after the presidential election the U.S. began the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in the largest single combat operation since the Vietnam War. 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 now nearly 1300 U.S. deaths in Iraq and the more than 6,000 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. That's the real business of war and the weapons makers. That's Lockheed Martin whose reach in weapons production and impact on war policy is without parallel or bounds. 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 war's 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 (right now, mass transit in the Philadelphia area is faced with life threatening cuts), housing (an estimated 3.5 million are likely to experience homelessness this winter) are every bit the casualties of war. The Business Section of the Sunday New York Times, November
28, 2004, featured an encompassing profile of Lockheed Martin entitled "Lockheed and the Future of
Warfare" The piece was written by Tim Weiner formerly of the
Philadelphia Inquirer, who years ago wrote the illuminating series
exposing the Pentagon's secret "Black Budget", a fund outside of any
public or congressional oversight, containing more than $60 billion for
clandestine weapons programs.
The New York Times says what we've been saying for years now
and what has brought us to Lockheed Martin in nonviolent resistance
since the arms and government contracting behemoth was formed eight
years ago in the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta: Lockheed
Martin is the defining corporate weapons producer and author of war
policy in Iraq and around the world - in space, on, over, and under the
seas.
We request your support as we
continue to stand for peace, in nonviolent opposition and resistance to
war and Lockheed Martin..
A friend in Ohio e-mailed us in the wee hours of November 3
saying:
"Despair should be saved for better times. Now we must be
hopeful because peace and lives depend on something hopeful. Thank you,
Brandywine, for being steadfast over all these many years and decades,
and for knowing that you are still there for peace."
We too are thankful for what we've been able to do,
especially in keeping public
protest
and nonviolent resistance to the war as well as our ongoing
campaign of nonviolent resistance to Lockheed Martin
going.
Over the past six months we've been at the Philadelphia
Federal Court providing support to people who, like 90 year old
wheel-chair bound peace legend, Lillian Willoughby, have gone to
jail for seven days in groups of 5 to 10 at a time for their continued
resistance to the war, refusing to pay the Federal fine for blocking
the Phila. Federal Building Complex, in the Brandywine Peace Community
organized nonviolent resistance the day after the U.S.
bombardment and invasion of Iraq began.
Last May, just as the torture at Abu-Ghraib was coming to
light, Under-Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz came to
Philadelphia to speak at the World Affairs Council. We were there as
were the TV cameras. In June, we joined with our good friends of
Military Families Speak Out at the offices of Pennsylvania Senators
Specter and Santorum in Philadelphia demanding that: All U.S. troops
[our sons and daughters] be Brought Home Alive Now. Last August, when
Bush came to the Boeing helicopter gunship plant in Ridley Township,
Delaware County, we were there too in a very successful and diverse
demonstration of opposition to Bush's war. As the U.S. combat assault
on Fallujah commenced this Fall, we were out publicly decrying the
continuing war. These are just a few examples of our recent chronology of
peacemaking and nonviolent resistance which includes our monthly
potluck program, the mainstay public gathering and forum on progressive
issues in the area, now in their 17th year. Throughout all our anti-war
protests in Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs, as well as the
national networking efforts (e.g.: The Trails of Mourning & Truth)
that Brandywine has helped to convene, we've continued the
campaign of nonviolent resistance to Lockheed Martin repeatedly
standing in vigil and engaging in civil disobedience right where the
weapons are built, profited from, and from where Lockheed Martin
enables the miseries of empire.
In these deadly times, we ask
you to make a statement of hope by giving now as generously as
you can to the ongoing work, nonviolent resistance, and peace
organizing of the Brandywine Peace Community.
In a dark time, your support is the greatest expression of the lighted candle of peace that you can make. Please give now! Mail your contributions to: Brandywine Peace Community PO Box 81 Swarthmore, PA 19081 Make your check payable to the Brandywine Peace Community.
Tax deductible contributions of $25.00 or more should be made
out to:
New Society Educational Foundation (memo the check "for Brandywine").
In these dark
times, the Peace of the Season from the Brandywine Peace Community.
HISTORY: In 1993, General Electric sold
its Aerospace Division to Martin Marietta. Consequently, Martin
Marietta doubled in size and in 1995 merged with Lockheed to become
Lockheed Martin. All the facilities which once carried the names of GE
Aerospace, Martin Marietta, or Lockheed, are now Lockheed Martin. Since
its inception, announced with the slogan "And this is just the
beginning!", Lockheed Martin has been and continues to be the world's
largest weapons corporation as well as the U.S.'s largest international
arms seller and the U.S.'s chief nuclear bomb contractor. Lockheed
Martin has also become involved in the privatization [i.e. "for profit
management"] of state welfare departments.
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