From The Brandywine Peace Community

Five arrested attempting to deliver Notice of UN Nuclear Ban Treaty Prohibition

Another Martin Luther King Day has passed.

A new decade, January 20, 2020.  It was cold, real cold, with a wind that always seems to accompany the Martin Luther King Day peace demonstrations at Lockheed Martin from 1995 til now (and for 17 years before that  at General Electric).

Our large banners attached to a-frames wouldn't hold. We had to adapt. Our  heavy wooden sign reading "We're making a killing!" and painted with the Lockheed Martin logo in the background, was grounded to an iron light post at the main entrance to the King of Prussia, PA corporate complex of the world's #1 war profiteer.  We shared a Statement of Commitment, and Brandywine troubadour singer-songwriter, Tom Mullian, did some verses from his song, "I may not get there with you."

As our bell of peace tolled loudly, Crime scene was stretched across the driveway as five people attempted to deliver poster size copies of  our   to Lockheed Martin personnel.

Company security police vehicles blocked delivery and Upper Merion police arrested Paul Sheldon, Media, PA; Tom Mullian and Theresa Camerota, Wyncote, PA; Robert M. Smith and Rev. Patrick Sieber, osf, Philadelphia, PA.  Each were cited for disorderly conduct and released from the Upper Merion police station.

Dr. King looked down on us. We remembered and looked up.

Statement of Commitment

Reader: We protest Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 war profiteer, and its economy of war, from drone warfare technology to nuclear weapons and the forgotten but no less real peril of nuclear annihilation.
Response/All: From the depths of our hearts we defy the messages of hate, racism, sexism, greed and violence.  We reach-out to people, near and far, to honor Dr. King in acts and works of justice, love, and protest of injustice, cruelty, and war.

Reader: We are not here to talk about Donald Trump nor his lies, greed, and vicious policy actions.  We are here to defy what Donald J. Trump represents and all that support and have profited from what hate bestows.
Response/All: At Lockheed Martin, we honor Dr. King anew, remembering what he described as the intertwined ‘evil triplets of American society: Racism, Materialism, and Militarism.’

Reader: We remember that for justice, peace, human decency and truth, Dr. King died rather than give in to the racism, war, and violence he faced.
Response/All: We toll a bell of peace for justice, nonviolence, and love.  [Pause, toll the bell.]

Reader: We bang drums in celebration of Dr. King, his life and his message of hope and resistance in the face of racism and sexism, greed, militarism, violence, and war. [Pause, bang the kettle drums and let out loud yell.]
Response/All: We are here to say no! to Lockheed Martin and to say yes! to the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty.

Reader: Here at Lockheed Martin, on Martin Luther King Day, we continue to support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to hold Lockheed Martin, the U.S.’s chief nuclear weapons contractor, in violation of the treaty.  We again bring to bear on Lockheed Martin the following notice and through our presence and insistence push for adherence to the treaty.
All:
Notice of UN Treaty Prohibition
King of Prussia, PA, Martin Luther Day, January 20, 2020, this complex of the Lockheed Martin Corp. as well as related Lockheed Martin facilities across the United States are involved in contracting to the U.S. government, the U.S. military, and the U.S. Department of Energy to develop and build nuclear weapons and related delivery systems which are prohibited by the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

No matter what governmental authority or corporate body gets in our way, the sin, the horror, the madness, the crime of nuclear weapons must and will end!  The earth and its people can and must be saved.  Join us, however, and as soon as you can.

The Brandywine Peace Community was formed in the Spring of 1976 by a small group of Vietnam War resisters, and anti-war peace activists seeking to continue resistance to U.S. war making and militarism.  Each and every year since then, we've demonstrated a remembrance of Dr. King and moreover, the commitment to the philosophy and practice that he advanced and introduced to us and the country. This was before the observance of Dr. King's birthday became a federal holiday, marked on the third Monday of January.

F1978 to 1995, at General Electric's nuclear weapons and war-centered plants in Philadelphia and King of Prussia, PA,  in Camden and Moorestown, NJ,  we imagined Dr. King and heard his words as we resisted nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear war, war preparations as an American way of life, and the daily acceptance of a U.S. permanent war economy.