Activist Profile: Brandywine Peace Community
Brandywine Peace Community (BPC), a long-time WRL affiliate, has been throwing their support behind the Occupy movement with “Welcome, Occupy Philly” signs and banners that made the connection between the corporate control of U.S. democracy and the corporate militarism of such war profiteers as Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 war profiteer and Pentagon weapons producer.
BPC is focused on working within the anti-war movement to bring the history of U.S. empire, militarism, and war profiteering to fore as this developing movement looks to create a more defined strategic framework to confront the lethal power of corporate America.
Check out this piece about Brandywine Peace Community’s involvement in Occupy Philly, written by Brandywine staffer Robert Smith:
Occupy Philly began on Thursday, October 6, the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, at Philadelphia City Hall’s Dilworth Plaza, in the center of the city’s corporate and financial district.
At the very start of the encampment, long-time WRL affiliate the Brandywine Peace Community stood in support of the Occupy movement with “Welcome, Occupy Philly” signs and banners that made the connection between the corporate control of U.S. democracy and the corporate militarism of such war profiteers as Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 war profiteer and Pentagon weapons producer.
Throughout the duration of the encampment, we stood in front of the encampment during rush-hour protests with large banners and displays, introducing to thousands of rush-hour passersby what we began calling the “top guns of the 1 percent super rich”: Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, which for decades have been the focus of Brandywine’s campaign of nonviolent action.
In the 1930s, homeless people erected large shanty-towns around the country, illustrating the reality of the Great Depression, calling them “Hoovervilles” after President Hoover who presided over the worst economic collapse in U.S. history.
Seeking to bring the radical economic justice message of the Occupy movement visibly and directly to Lockheed Martin and its major weapons complex in the King of Prussia Mall (the largest shopping mall on the East Coast), we decided to on Thanksgiving Saturday 2011, build a “Lockheed-ville” shanty-town made up of several large wooden A-frames covered in tarps along with pitched tents. Lawn signs up and down the main highway in front of Lockheed Martin and behind the King of Prussia Mall bore the message: “Stop the Top Gun of the 1% Super Rich” along with our large banner reading: “Welcome to LOCKHEED-VILLE: where the business of war matters, and people don’t!”
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