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| Rob Shetterly under arrest at General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works on April 27. Photo credit: Peter Robbins |
The LBJ 25 will not be prosecuted for obstructing a public way during the celebration of a war ship at General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works on April 27. Citing the desire to avoid wasting her staff's energy on nonviolent protesters, District Attorney Natasha Irving told Maine Public reporter Susan Sharon: "That's going to take time away from their week when they need to prepare cases of child sexual abuse.”
One of the LBJ 25, Jason Rawn, commented in an email:
By talking about not wanting to waste scarce resources on this trial, she really opens up the whole question of war dollars and the "legitimacy" of investing in well-organized destruction instead of conversion and regeneration. Great parallel to our basic message!Another member of the group, artist/activist Rob Shetterly of Americans Who Tell The Truth, told Sharon:
"You know, the U.S. military has the biggest carbon footprint of any entity in the world and it's at this moment in our history, to keep doing this is not giving us more security, it's making us more insecure."
Protests at the shipyard, Shetterly says, are not to shut down Bath Iron Works but to change its mission to support green energy.
General Dynamics/BIW management show a pattern of ridiculing conscientious objections to their building weapons of mass destruction. During the campaign last year to block a state tax giveaway in Maine, BIW Vice President John Fitzgerald told a sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jennifer DeChant of Bath, that protester Bruce Gagnon was "a one-man band." Subsequently, scores of Mainers signed up to put their names on this ad supporting Gagnon.
In the wake of arrests at the April 27 christening[sic] of the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, the local newspaper serving Bath Iron Works ran a snarky editorial mocking the 25 who were arrested, largely on the basis of age.
The op-ed drew swift rebuttals pointing out that climate catastrophe was anything but trivial, and that the protests had done a good job of making the connection between Pentagon contracting and carbon pollution of Earth's atmosphere.
Steve Clark of Freeport commented, "Whether you agree or disagree with their intent, the protesters were serious in their actions and deserve a more serious response than this facetious piece."
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| Photo credit: Peter Robbins |
As a member of the LBJ 25 myself I can tell you that at least as many more folks had signed up to participate in civil resistance that day, but were unable to attend due to various conflicts with the date.
Another war ship will roll out of GD/BIW in late June, and planning for civil resistance on behalf of conversion to address climate change are already in the works.
Will there be even more arrests next time? Stay tuned.
I lived in Pomona about a mile away from General Dynamics plant where they built Stinger missiles, one of which was used by the SS Vincennes to shoot down an Iranian passenger jet on a known flight path over the Mediterranean Sea, killing 290 civilians.
ReplyDeleteFor a while, huge vinyl banners were hung on the chain link fence around the missile plant that read, "Safety First," as some campaign directed at employees, where GD management was oblivious to the absurdity of urging safety at a missile plant. General Dynamics had been found guilty of a pattern of fraud that extended over a decade with overcharging, sometimes double billing, and low ball bidding with cost overruns designed to drive their competition out of business. This was the Reagan era, where his opted to double the military budget, and a number of the military contractors saw this as the opportunity to double the price they were charging for items already in the pipeline. Stinger missiles from this same plant were supplied to the Mujahideen.