The Pratt & Whitney Problem

 

On Saturday we'll turn out early for a protest at the gates of an air show in Maine that will feature the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Activists will distribute flyers designed to push back on recruiting kids and to make clear the connection between the U.S. Air Force and Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza.

U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC last February saying he could not live with his complicity in genocide. He shared how his job in the U.S. Air Force was to provide surveillance and targeting information for Israel’s war planes. Since Bushnell’s death, numerous U.S. Air Force personnel have offered resistance by hunger strikes, burning their uniforms, applying for conscientious objector status, and going AWOL.

The Thunderbirds' proud sponsor is Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of RTX (formerly Raytheon). P&W is drenched in blood money as this genocide profiteer makes the engines for the F-15 and F-16 warplanes Israel uses to drop bombs in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran. And it makes many of the drones they use, too. The U.S. Air Force is also a big customer.

On an October 24, 2023 call with investors, P&W CEO Greg Hayes said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're going to see a benefit of this restocking.” Restocking is the kind of euphemism that genocide profiteers use to conceal that they mean selling weapons to genociders.

P&W's factory in Maine, North Berwick Aero Systems, was on our radar in March when it teamed up with the tax-payer supported community college system to produce workers for the war machine. Some of us stood out at their big pr event announcing creation of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance. Fascism is really the marriage of industry and government to the extent that they operate in tandem to ignore the will of the people or to subvert it by offering "good" jobs.

A "good" job is defined as being one that provides benefits like health insurance, paid time off, full time employment under a union-negotiated contract, and enough income to afford a home plus toys like 4-wheelers and snowmobiles. This kind of job is scarce in Maine, and politicians leverage this to ensure that the war machine always has enough contracts to keep the willing workers engaged.

Air shows recruit future Aaron Bushnells. Not only will the noise and air polluting Thunderbirds enrapture crowds of children brought to the show, but inside there will be flight simulators and video games aimed at creating a desire for future enlistment. Nowhere will the truth about suicide rates among military personnel be shared, nor will attendees learn that the Air Force in particular is experiencing a wave of resistance in its ranks. Turns out that killing children from on high either with a jet or a drone tends to make people suicidal. Who could have predicted that?

P&W doesn't care. It predicts profits, not human suffering. The unholy alliance of P&W with the Pentagon is dangerous. It subverts the will of the people, most of whom don't want genocide conducted at their expense.

Fascism subverts democracy. That's the P&W problem.

Join us to protest while you still can.

Gaza Casts A Shadow As State Colleges Are Yoked To War Profiteers

Members of the Statewide Coalition for Palestine protested outside the unveiling of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance at the York County Community College’s Instructional Site in Sanford on March 1, 2024. (Maine Morning Star)

The U.S. sees a problem: our economy is not on a war footing. Not only can the U.S. not recruit even close to the number of soldiers and sailors they say the Pentagon needs, their wealthy contractors like General Dynamics also report they cannot recruit enough skilled workers to fulfill their Pentagon contracts. 

And despite accepting hefty tax breaks from my state, ostensibly for the purpose of funding job training, GD and others have now maneuvered the state's public post-secondary education establishment to train students in the needed skills.

By accepting funding from the Pentagon to train workers in jobs like welding that are necessary for building war ships and other weapon systems, Maine's community colleges and universities will be pushed to abandon liberal arts or mathematics education and instead fund job training programs. That's what the MDIA is all about.

Founding partners include the State of Maine, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, the Maine Community College System, the University of Maine System, Maine Maritime Academy, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Pratt & Whitney

To add insult to injury, the companies getting this deal -- GD/Bath Iron Works and also Pratt & Whitney -- are directly profiting from Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. (Details on that in my previous post here.)

link to video here

So on very short notice a group organized by the Maine Coalition for Palestine showed up at York County Community College to let Sen. Angus King, Sen. Susan Collins (invited but only zoomed in), and Rep. Chellie Pingree know: "USA your hands are red! Thirty thousand people dead!"

The event was swarming with journalists eager to interview Maine's congressional delegation, and many of them also wanted to interview and film our protest. Especially after two of us snuck in to the event and raised a ruckus about profiting by participating in the massacre of 13,000 children in Gaza.

Maine Morning Star's Evan Popp and Lauren Macauley published, "At unveiling of defense workforce initiative Maine's top officials fail to escape shadow of war in Gaza"

And WGME local tv news had this piece: "Maine coalition for Palestine protests before Maine defense industry alliance reveal"

A quote from our press release that resonated with an unnamed WGME journalist:

This MDIA effort to make war a core component of the Maine economy is dystopian in the extreme. We should never find ourselves in a position where peace is bad for the Maine economy. War should not be a jobs program.

But warmongering for profit has always been justified in terms of allegedly many good jobs it generates. This enormous lie deliberately sidesteps the fact that a similar investment in several other sectors of the economy would actually generate as many as double the number of full-time jobs with benefits. 

Source: Costs of War presentation of research, Robert Pollin & Heidi Peletier, June 13, 2011

Rep. Chellie Pingree once lectured me on presenting this research to her. In the supercilious way of liberal Democrats she pointed out that her previous gig with Common Cause had her presenting the very same research around the country. Doesn't sound like she learned much.

Or maybe the status and wealth that accrues to a long run in the U.S. Congress proved too seductive.

Whatever the reason, she claims she's proud of selling Maine post-secondary students' futures to General Dynamics.

To quote one of many chants yesterday outside the venue where our elected officials were being glad handed by corporate lobbyists: "How do you sleep at night?"

 

Gaza Genocide Profiteers Doing Business In Maine

The Navy destroyer Carney fires missiles to counter drone and missile fire by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Oct. 19, 2023, in the Red Sea. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Lau/Navy)

Folks are looking for facts about genocide profiteering in our state (Maine) that they can identify sources for so I made a one-pager that's more like two.  I relied on AFSC's fairly current research published here and also Christian Sorensen's deep research into military contracts available via his substack The Business of War. 

I tried to arrange things so that you can tell which sources apply to which info. Note that within AFSC's section there are many more links to sources for claims.

General Dynamics (source: https://afsc.org/companies-2023-attack-gaza)

• The world's sixth largest weapons manufacturer, General Dynamics, supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
• General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes the metal bodies of the MK-80 bomb series, the primary weapon type Israel uses to bomb Gaza. The bodies of the bombs are filled with explosives by the U.S. military, and then can be made into a guided bomb using Boeing's JDAM kits.
• It is also the only company in the U.S. that makes 155mm caliber artillery shells, which have been used extensively to attack Gaza. One source reported that, by Nov. 25, one Israeli brigade fired some 10,000 such shells using BAE’s M109 howitzer.
• 155mm shells have been part of the U.S.’s recent weapons shipments to Israel. The U.S. is planning to send “tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that had been destined for Ukraine” to Israel. Their use by Israel, according to Oxfam, is “virtually assured to be indiscriminate, unlawful, and devastating to civilians in Gaza.” On Nov. 13, more than 30 organizations issued a letter opposing the transfer.
• General Dynamics also partnered with Flyer Defense to develop an armored patrol vehicle that Israel is testing.
• On an Oct. 25 call with investors, General Dynamics CFO, Jason Aiken, said, “I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of [the attacks on Gaza], the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”

Evidence of carpet bombing in Gaza

source: https://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/p/mapping-the-business-of-war)

General Dynamics OTS -  Saco, ME

Aircraft and crew-served weapons (e.g., Gatling guns, 40 mm grenade weapon system, .50 caliber machine gun); guided missile director (MK 82).

General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) - Bath, ME

Many supporting facilities in neighboring towns, particularly Brunswick. For full list, see: www.gdbiw.com/contact-us/directions

War ship (destroyer) production. 

Examples of BIW-built ships in action supporting Israel:

sources: CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/politics/us-warship-close-call-houthi-missile/index.html 

CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/houthis-target-u-s-destroyer-carney-british-merchant-ship-missile-attacks-red-sea-gulf-of-aden/)

Future plans

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/uss-zumwalt-pioneering-hypersonic-might-for-the-us-navy-amidst-fleet-modernization/ar-BB1iEb9R

excerpt: 

The Zumwalt, initially conceived as a littoral combat ship, has seen its mission evolve significantly. Initially, it was to support ground forces with precision-guided naval artillery shells. However, exorbitant costs and technical setbacks saw the ambitious program for 32 vessels slashed to a trio of ships, compelling the Navy to pivot towards the hypersonic upgrade. The Zumwalt, alongside its sister ships, the USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and the Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002), are the beneficiaries of this redirected focus, with all three poised to receive the CPS systems.

Destroyers built in Maine are deployed in both the Mediterranean and Red Sea to support Israel.

RTX/Raytheon subsidiary Pratt & Whitney - North Berwick Aero Systems​​​​​​​,     North Berwick, ME

source: https://afsc.org/companies-2023-attack-gaza

The world's second largest weapons manufacturer and largest producer of guided missiles, RTX supplies the Israeli Air Force with guided air-to-surface missiles for its F-16 fighter jets, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters, which have consistently been used against Gaza's civilian population and infrastructure.

• Pratt & Whitney manufactures engines for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
• On an Oct. 24 call with investors, RTX CEO, Greg Hayes, said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're going to see a benefit of this restocking.”

source: MaineBiz https://www.mainebiz.biz/sponsored/article/pratt-whitney-north-berwick-aero-systems-nbas

Pratt & Whitney’s North Berwick Aero Systems facility produces world-class modules, components, and parts for commercial and military engines. The plant is more than 1 million square feet, and is the largest manufacturing facility under one roof in Maine. This site supports the full life cycle of its products from design and development to production, assembly, overhaul and repair.

 

Who Dares To Resist Raytheon?

Back in 2019, former USM professor Ken Jones and I were arrested together protesting the christening[sic] of yet another General Dynamics war ship in Bath, Maine. Ken was one of those who chose to be jailed rather than pay a bail bondsman, and I was with his partner Melody Shank when Ken walked out of the private for-profit jail in Wiscasset where he and the others were held for a weekend.

Since returning home to North Carolina, Ken and Melody have been active in the resistance to a new war machine factory in their area. Here's reporting gleaned from their accounts as well as the group's Reject Raytheon website.

From Ken's blog post in February 2021:

The site for the Pratt & Whitney (P&W, a division of Raytheon Technologies) plant being planned for Asheville is now being cleared of trees so that construction on the 1.2 million sq. ft. plant can begin soon. 

It looks like mountaintop removal, a not unfamiliar occurrence here in the Appalachian Mountains.  It breaks my heart to see it.

P&W builds engines for commercial and military jets, most notoriously for the state-of-the-art F-35 Lightning Fighter Jet. Raytheon is the 2nd largest arms manufacturer in the world, a major war profiteer.

...

We did a die-in at Vance Monument in the center of Asheville.

We did a rally as part of the international day of action to celebrate the Entry into Force of the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - Raytheon has over a billion dollars of contracts in the nuclear weapons industry.

 

My own research turns up that Raytheon spent $4 million lobbying our elected officials in 2019, and made big contributions to both Republican and Democratic campaigns in 2020.

Source: Opensecrets.com Raytheon summary

The continued operation of government at the national, state, and local level by corporate-sponsored officials is degrading the environment, degrading the health and well-being of children who grow up in poverty, rapidly increasing the number of people experiencing homelessness, and depriving millons of health care in the middle of a pandemic. 

Our current Secretary of "Defense" Lloyd Austin served on the board of Raytheon Technologies after retiring from the military. The children in other countries being killed by U.S. airstrikes could not care less whether the current administration has a D or an R after its name, or how racially diverse it is.

Brave and dedicated activists like Ken, Melody, and their friends are not afraid to call out the elephant in our midst: gargantuan Pentagon budgets that enrich contractors like Raytheon at the taxpayers' expense. 

As the corporate press continues to push the notion that US foreign policy under Biden is significantly different than that of his predecessor, independent journalists will keep pushing back on that lie.

Why not join us to share real information rather than manufactured news?