Brunswick Police Beg Air Show Protesters Not To Block The Road

It was still raining when the assistant chief of Brunswick Police begged us not to block the road during our air show protest yesterday. I kind of regretted that we weren't planning to do that and I felt even more FOMO after a huge tanker trunk entered the main gate of Brunswick Landing and my husband called out, "Jet fuel!" A former pilot, he is aware as many of us are that jet fuel is among the worst petroleum products in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Forty people gathered to object to the promotion of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and their role in the Gaza genocide on opening day of the Great State of Maine Air Show. 

We were lucky to be joined by a large contingent from the IDEAL Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band which kept our spirits up during our three hour stand out. "The gestures of support for our messages, from vehicles entering, were way more numerous than in past years," Mark commented.

While the band took a break we heard from speakers including Trish, a U.S. Army veteran wearing fatigues painted with the words "I can't comply with genocide, can U?" A fitting message to mark the 300th day of Israel's assault on Gaza at an event registered with ShutitDown4Palestine.org. 

Faisal Khan spoke about the devastation in Gaza and the need for us to stay focused on supporting Palestinians, while Barbara West reported back on her recent trip to DC to protest war criminal Israeli PM Netanyahu speaking to Congress. 

Beckham shared some of the many grim statistics on death and destruction by Israel, and Tim Paradis spoke of the ongoing organizing of the Maine Coalition for Palestine and encouraged people to get in touch with that growing organization.

Lou Kimball reminded us of Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice and pointed out that, since February when U.S. Airman Bushnell self-immolated over his complicity in genocide, the assaults on Gaza have gotten much, much worse. And Bruce Gagnon, an Air Force vet from the Vietnam war era, reminded us that U.S. warplanes support imperialist aggression in West Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Europe. Connect these dots and we are well on the way to WWIII.

Screen capture from reporter Pearl Small's interview of Rosemary 

We also heard from Rosemary on recruiters in the Washington County high school she attended. Later she gave this powerful interview to News Center Maine on the recruiting purposes of air shows like the Thunderbirds. She was also among those handing out flyers linking the air show to recruiting, and sharing some dark facts about Thunderbirds sponsor Pratt & Whitney's complicity in genocide.

The local Times Record also gave our protest some coverage in a long article mostly glamorizing the Thunderbirds pilots. None of the corporate press noted that local residents were angered by the incredible noise levels as the warplanes practiced in the days leading up to the show. Maybe that would account for the dramatically lower number of cars passing through the main gate yesterday? (All of us who've protested past air shows at that venue noticed this.) That tickets were $68 a pop may have also been a factor -- my husband reported a lot of grumbling about this on social media.

Special thanks to Maine's Artists Rapid Response Team (AART!) for inspiring images we used at the air show

The most interesting conversation I had yesterday was with a woman from Connecticut whose family had gone into the air show while she boycotted it. She reported that her 14 year old son is fascinated by planes and other military hardware, and that she walks a fine line between living her own values while also supporting her kid's autonomy and developing ability to make his own judgements. We agreed as moms that raising kids in this toxic militarized culture is difficult. But we won't stop speaking our truths even when they're drowned out by the obscene roar of bombers over the settler colony called New England.

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.

The Greatest Health Threat We Face Today: War

Meredith Bruskin holding sign "WAR = CLIMATE CHAOS" (photo credit: Gigi Larc)

Approaching the 20th anniversary of the climate disaster cleverly titled the "War on Terror" -- clever, because you're never going to win a war against an abstract noun -- I'm sharing some words of wisdom from a dear friend. 

Nurse practicioner Meredith Bruskin spoke on the theme "Climate is Health" at our protest of the Blue Angels air show climate crime last weekend in Brunswick. 

You can see video of her remarks if you prefer to receive information that way.

Mary Beth Sullivan & me with ARRT! banner and our Maine Natural Guard shirts
(photo credit: Gigi Larc)

Thank you Luke for speaking about the next generations, something that Indigenous People always consider. I would like to start by recognizing we are on Indigenous land. In addition to the Abenaki, the place we now call MaINE IS HOME TO THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE WABANAKI CONFEDERACY, THE PENOBSCOT, PASSAMAQUODDY,, MALISEET AND MI'KMAQ PEOPLES. We live on their unceded homelands as they continue their struggle with the State of Maine to recognize their inherent sovereignty.

Their struggle is central to the health of all Maine's people-- because it is a fight for the rights of Mother Earth and for community, against State and corporate control and disregard of our natural resources. And I want to express gratitude for their dedicated stewardship of this land and waters, for past, present and future generations.

When Lisa asked me to talk about climate and health, it seemed simple -- climate is health. The water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat -- all essential for our physical health. And when toxins and carcinogens spill into the earth and waters in the interest of corporate profits, cancers increase. We all know that plastic is choking our fish and oceans, burying islands in the South Pacific and spilling into the rivers here in Maine, that lead is poisoning our eagles and our children and tainting our tapwater, and carbon dioxide is strangling the breath of the entire planet--and stoking the cycles of droughts and floods and extreme weather patterns that are traumatizing people around the globe.

Gigi Larc with ARRT! sandwich board (photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

And the pursuit of endless war to increase the profits of our arms dealers and their investors, militarize this country internally, and prop up a fossil fuel economy an d a political system built on white supremacy that has brought us to this raging time, all have a terrible cost in mental health and spirit. Our worsening addiction crisis is no surprise. PTSD from Climate crisis and war are rampant; and we are still losing 18 veterans every day, to suicide.

Jason Rawn with a message for Blue Angels air show audience
(photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

The greatest health threats we face today are war and the existential threat of nuclear war

either by accident or climate catastrophe or what I would call, insanity -- and the risk of a climate disaster causing a nuclear meltdown is terribly real -- I imagine folks in Louisiana understand that really well right now.

Every climate catastrophe causes illness, stress that affects our immune systems, trauma, displacement and increased pollution of our land and waters that in turn causes an increase in illness and lowers life expectancy. And we know the connection to the unequal burden of both climate change and militarism on people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor.

This pandemic gives us a clear view of the effect on health of the deep inequality in our society. We CAN afford healthcare for all our citizens. It would actually save us money to have a Medicare for All system, and it would save thousands of lives yearly as well. Surely, the money spent on displays promoting the military like the Blue Angels could be a hefty down payment for maternal healthcare, and to support Women's Right to Choose! -- let alone that just half of the Pentagon's budget could wipe out hunger nationwide.

Recently about 50 people, activists like us, walked in Asheville, North Carolina to protest Raytheon -- the second largest arms manufacturer world wide -- relocating part of its manufacturing to North Carolina for cheaper labor, in a "military" supporter state.

Speaking out about military spending and the effect this will have on the climate crisis, one of the protestors, Steve Norris said: " This is local resistance to a national disease."

Exactly. We each do whatever we can to choose health over the disease of power by wealth and the war and disaster economy that supports it. Despite the fire raging, we continue. That is what we do. Just like the healthcare workers who are currently risking their lives and exhausting their spirits in their work caring for people in this pandemic, likely a virus very connected to the climate crisis. Just as the indigenous and environmental activists at Line 3 and at pipeline sites around the world who risk arrest and beatings--and in some cases, their lives, continue--so do we.

We will not let them glorify destruction in our name without speaking out.

And every time we speak the truth, we shore up our immune systems and together, share that strength. Despite . Thanks for being here.

I would like to read a poem I dedicate to all of you, called "Despite"...

Cold crisp day, close to breaking

wafer thin , lifted gently

from its lair between tissues

of time : what was, what will be.

And it will. Filled with sky as

translucent as breath

and just as new, these mountains

shared with all their valleys

and companions, oh the friends

that walk with us along the way!

Rich as rain after a long dry time,

as a fire, on a cold winter night.

For this, beloved, I sing my song.

This is the light

that the heart carries.

Despite. Despite.

-- Meredith Bruskin, Swanville

Despite a large turnout and great speeches like Meredith's, there was very little media coverage of our protest of the Blue Angels air show. This despite advance press releases and follow up calls.

You can read Sam Pfeifle's analysis of this news blackout here, published by Maine Beacon. 

Notable exception: C. Thacher Carter in the Times Record who phoned me after the event. His article covering the air show also appeared in the Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal, and Waterville Morning Sentinel (all papers with the same owner).

Polluting Isn't Patriotic And Real Angels Don't Drop Bombs

The Navy's Blue Angels are major polluters who generate around 800,000 tons of CO2 when they put on an airshow. 

Photo credit (including whole group pic): Ellen Davidson

Sixty people from ages 94 to 1 turned out to protest yesterday in Brunswick, Maine, lining the streets as hundred of cars bumper to bumper crept by.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Luke Sekera-Flanders of Community Water Justice was our MC and spoke forcefully on the mandatory patriotism he has experienced growing up and attending public schools in Maine.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

The recent high school graduate also shared the costs to climate of the U.S.'s vast military empire.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Bruce Gagnon of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space spoke about the menacing presence of US military aircraft in countries around the world, and shared that Brunswick resident Jean Parker’s sliding glass door shattered on Friday as the Blue Angels did their practice runs prior to the air show.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

I spoke on behalf of the Maine Natural Guard urging people to take the pledge to help their neighbors connect the dots between climate crisis and Pentagon greenhouse gas emissions. Information on this has been controlled because military emissions are usually omitted from national reporting by the US. Urged people to sign on to demands that COP26 in Glasgow this fall include military emissions in the agreement that nations negotiate there.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

Meredith Bruskin of Swanville spoke from a public health nurse perspective on the effects of climate crisis on our physical, mental, and spiritual health. And of militarism's damage to our spiritual well-being.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

VFP national Executive Director Garret Reppenhagen who has recently moved to Lincolnville, Maine spoke about enlisting to go to Iraq for economic reasons after his veteran father passed away. He decried the glorification of war via air shows that lure unsuspecting youth into signing away years of their life and possibly experiencing trauma they never recover from.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

Tarak Kauff from New York spoke about the Pentagon’s environmental harms and the militarized culture we live in.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

The IDEAL Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band showed up and energized the crowd with several rousing numbers including a singalong of classic antiwar anthem “Down by the Riverside.”

Flyers on climate & militarism were handed through many car windows by Veteran for Peace members including Doug Rawlings, co-founder of VFP which originated in Maine.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

Banners created by the Artists' Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) of the Union of Maine Visual Artists were highly visible to passing motorists.

Photo credit: Gigi Larc

My husband Mark Roman was spotted in his Maine Natural Guard t-shirt in downtown Brunswick later in the day by a woman who noted that there was a big protest at the air show today. She shared that her mother had made a sign for the occasion: Polluting Isn't Patriotic.

Our protest was also included in the local newspaper Times Record's reporting on the air show by C. Thacher Carter:

The Blue Angel performances also drew a crowd of roughly 60 protestors, who spoke out against the environmental impact of the Blue Angel performance. Protestors stood near the main gate at the corner of Bath Road and Admiral Fitch Avenue late Saturday morning.

Lisa Savage, founding member of Maine Natural Guard and 2020 U.S. Senate Independent Green candidate, was one of the protestors present. The Maine Natural Guard is an organization that examines the Pentagon’s use of fossil fuels and its impact on climate change.

“This protest was to point out that the carbon footprint of an airshow like this, the Blue Angels, is huge and putting a lot, a lot of carbon in the air,” Savage said. “To be burning jet fuel for entertainment is probably not a great approach to mitigating the effects of the climate change on the ability of this planet to sustain our life.”

Savage said that the group also has the point of view that the airshows are recruiting events to encourage enlistment and that there are 140 nations that consume less fuel than the Pentagon does in a year.

Videographer Martha Spiess was on hand for Peace Action Maine and I will share her documentation of this great event soon.

Military Sacred, Free Speech Be Damned

Jenny Gray at the Navy Blue Angels Air Show in Brunswick, Maine on Sep. 6, 2015
photo: Peter Woodruff

From Jenny Gray's post on facebook:

Observations after 3 hours of protesting blue angel's show.

They were legion stuck in traffic, and couldn't help but read signs of all 15 or so of us. Most were working class, and poor with a few driving BMW's thrown in, & a few vets.

A handful of Freedom riders ! showed up, one with a confederate plate on very nice Harleys and brand new American flags. They were angry as they came and stood beside us and got the drivers a little fired up. So we saw a few fingers and got the usual -- we have to fight for our freedom. I said what do you think I'm doing out here ? Sunbathing ? No I didn't say that -- about sunbathing.

I said: You can't have a war without a planet! Yeah. And a few people wanted to know what my sign meant : I drew some blue fighter planes and wrote Carbon Hook // # coolyourjets

Get it ?

It got hot pretty quick. I was under a huge pine. But most protested out in the rising high sun and only one of us was under 40, and one or two pushing 80, hard. The regulars. Hopefully Bruce will post photos. Like Lisa said, even if there are only 10 of us out there -- hundreds read signs ..

Oh yeah and Bruce said -- Good for people too think about what the people we bomb go through when they hear the jets coming over their homes and towns and villages and then bombs start hitting, exploding ...

From Bruce Gagnon's post to his blog Organizing Notes "Protesting at the Air Show": 

photo: Peter Woodruff

Several from the 'Patriot Riders' motorcycle club parked their bikes and jumped in front of us.  They stood in front of Veterans for Peace member Tom Whitney (white shirt) and threatened to beat him up when he held his sign up so it could be read.  After about 15 minutes the club whose motto is "Freedom isn't Free" got back on their motorbikes and roared off. The Brunswick police, just across the street, did nothing.  If a group of peaceniks jumped in front of a right-wing protest we'd be quickly made to move and likely would face some rough treatment by the cops.

We stood for just over three hours at the entrance to the former Navy base in Brunswick, Maine today while thousands of people limped their way toward the Blue Angels airshow in a major traffic jam.  It was an organizers dream - a captive audience.  People often complain that we are always 'preaching to the choir' but that wasn't the case today. 

We had a couple dozen positive responses from those driving into the airshow but the vast majority of people were sullen, angry, and even viciously nasty.  Since 2003 we've done these airshow protests here in Brunswick at least 7-8 times but this was the meanest crowd I can remember.  Several others in our group of 15 noticed the same thing and wondered what the difference was this time around. 

I think it is a complicated question with several possible answers.  First I'd suggest that those who are pro-military are tired of losing all the wars that the US keeps fighting.  (After all we have this huge high-tech military machine and can't lick those darn folks in dusty Afghanistan.) So pro-war people get surly when peaceniks dare appear at a 'patriotic show' like this one today.  Secondly there is the 'Trump factor' where 'The Donald' is promising a return to the glorious past of the USA.  He tells his supporters that we'll have the greatest military (undefeatable) once again, we will build a wall along the Mexican border, that he'll bring the jobs back that 'China took from us' and other such trash.  This opens the door for the latent racism and blood thirsty warmongering that is instilled in the core of many American hearts and gives license to the unleashing of this rabid dog.  An airshow, where there is a kind of worship of killing power on display, becomes a perfect festival of sacrifice.  But there standing at the entrance of the airshow is the crew of peaceniks spoiling the party.  It pisses alot of them off - big time. 

A half-dozen of the so-called 'Patriot Riders' zoomed up on their motorbikes, parked them, and grabbed their American flags and began to jump in front of some of our folks who were holding signs.  They tried to pick a fight with retired medical doctor Tom Whitney, who is a member of Veterans for Peace, but were unsuccessful in their bullying tactics.  One of them got in front of the banner I was helping to hold but I asked him to move and he did.  He began yelling to cars, "God bless the USA."  After a minute I asked him if God blessed other countries as well?  He was startled by the question but did generously agree that God likely did bless other nations as well. 

The 'Patriot Riders' were trying to hand out cards to airshow enthusiasts as their cars crept toward the former base.  The red-white-blue card read in part "Seeking new members....We believe in the Constitution of the USA and all of it's preambles." 

We heard a lot about freedom today from the passing motorists.  Things like:  "If it wasn't for these planes you wouldn't have a right to stand there protesting."  The funny thing though is that most of those spitting out the 'freedom' word at us really didn't like the fact that we were actually exercising such freedoms by protesting the airshow.  Many of them shot us the finger, thumbs down, cursed at us, gave us the evil stare and the like. 

I've been publicly protesting for more than 35 years but today felt like one of the most abusive events I have ever experienced.  We know that the American empire is in collapse and I believe that in their hearts people know this to be true.  [emphasis mine] Folks want to hang on to old glory but the tattered flag is fading fast in the dusty winds of time.  I fear that the corporate oligarchy that runs the USA is turning the rage of the people against the critics - a red-white-blue version of Hitler's fascist brown shirts.  We see this being done in other places like Ukraine.  What makes us think that they would not do the same here in the US as well? 

I was glad we were at the airshow today with our signs and banners.  If you want to reach the American people just go out onto the streets because they are in their cars.  The road has become the town square in the US of A.

I was not there myself though I helped publicize the event and had an op ed, "Air Shows Are A Crime Against The Climate" published in the local newspaper. Now that I hear how the protests went I feel especially badly that I wasn't there.

To hear that a "patriotic" motorcycle gang with confederate flags displaying showed up and threatened an elderly retired doctor who is one of the hardest working peace organizers I know is disturbing. 

To hear that the police -- public servants, paid by several of the taxpayers being harassed -- did nothing in response is frightening. 

As a white person, my privilege has given me the illusion that the police will protect my rights if I'm threatened with violence. When public servants don't protect everyone's rights equally -- for instance, when police shoot and kill unarmed black and brown people -- the rule of law is rendered null and void. And that includes "the Constitution of the USA and all of it's [sic] preambles." Freedom isn't free, indeed.

When this history major puts reports of harassment and threats of violence met by police indifference together with the enthusiasm for presidential candidate Donald Trump's popular promises to return America to its former military glory, I feel we are one giant step closer to fascism. 

And, I will not stop protesting until the day they gun me down.

photo: Peter Woodruff