On Wednesday, November 30th, 2011, War Resisters League joined with Occupy Wall Street activists and United for Peace and Justice for a protest at the Aerospace and Defense Finance Conference, a meeting in which Department of Defense officials met with the CEOs of 30 military contractors, including reps from three of the top five defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. As the U.S. government spends roughly $400 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year on weapons systems and military contracts, all of that money goes to the military industry, which pays for two lobbyists for every member of Congress.
So what are DOD officicals doing at an investment conference? They were letting the military industrial complex know that during tough economic times in the U.S., they had nothing to worry about--the 1% will keep making profits. Seventeen WRL and Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested for taking part in a civil disobedience action to attempt to block the front doors of the conference center. Check out the coverage on New York 1 and NBC and this video footage of the action taken by an OWS activist.