Occupy the War Contractors /Profiteers

Occupy the War Contractors /Profiteers- by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, Democratic candidate for President 
 

[Originally written early last year, this grows truer every day. We need to start to anticipate what is coming far more effectively.]

As America begins to awaken and take to the streets, let us remember the happily profitable WAR contractors/Profiteers who are scattered across the country. Over decades past, and still, they have received billions for designing, building, and transporting the weapons of war which have destroyed other nations and are now being deployed here at home against us.

They are directly responsible for sound cannons, droids, and other weapons now aimed at ordinary Americans as well as people around the world. War is being made on us and those providing the weapons are right next door, in many cases.  We need to acknowledge this and act. 

Some of these weapons, for instance the Sound Cannon, also known as the Long Range Acoustic Device, are already being used against us as we protest. LRAD Corporation and is only one example.

From the wikipedia:

“ Against protesters:

The LRAD device was on hand at protests of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City[6] but not used; it was extensively used against opposition protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, in November 2007.[7]
The magazine Foreign Policy has revealed that LRADs have been sold to the government of the People's Republic of China. American companies have been banned from selling arms to China since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Local residents of Dusit in Bangkok witnessed it in use during protests of Triumph factory employees against dismissals on August 28, 2009.[8] The LRAD was used for the first time in the United States in Pittsburgh during the time of the G20 summit on September 24–25th, 2009.[9][10] Pittsburgh police again utilized LRAD as a precautionary measure to prevent unruly crowds from getting out of control following the 2011 Super Bowl. LRAD systems were also purchased by Toronto Police for the 2010 G20 summit.
In 2009, the government of Honduras used it on at least two occasions, on September 22 and 25, to communicate to those seeking refuge in the Brazilian embassy. In addition to embassy staff, these included the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, his family, and some supporters and journalists.
LRAD was also used against college students in the city of Macomb, Illinois at the Wheeler Block Party at Western Illinois University ("WIU")[11] on May 1, 2011.[1]
LRAD was also reportedly[12] used by the Oakland Police Department during the clearance of the Occupy Oakland encampment on the morning of 25 October 2011.
Polish Police also acquired LRAD on december 2010 and used them to communicate with protesters during 11 November 2011 riots in Warsaw city. [13]
LRAD use was also reported as the New York City Police department cleared protestors during the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park on the morning of 15 November 2011.”

LRAD Corporation is located at 15378 Avenue of Science, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92128 USA
Phone:             858.676.1112.

The company which produces tasers, Taser International, their subtext is "Protect Life,” has its international headquarters at 17800 N. 85th St. Scottsdale, AZ. Another office is located in Arlington, Virgina, and yet another, TASER Virtual Systems at 5464 Carpinteria Ave, Suite I, Santa Barbara, CA 93013.

On August 28^th Anonymous released the following information on the producer of drones, which many expect will soon be deployed against Americans within the United States, are all paid for by tax payers.

“August 28, 2011, Alastair Stevenson reports in the International Business Times: The hacker collective Anonymous has released a fresh batch of data taken from Vanguard Defense Industries, a Pentagon and FBI contractor.

The data release was revealed via a post on tor2web.org and later publicised (sic) on the group’s AnonymousIRC Twitter account. In it the group claimed to have released “1GB of private emails and documents belonging to Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI).”

But these are the obvious problems, the end products also imply subcontracters who provide software and other essentials without which the products could not be produced.

There are also the old line, military-industrial complex corporations which are very conscious they are a corporate military presence on alien territory, for instance Northrop Grumman. A friend of mine, a mind-mannered software engineer, and his partner, inadvertently drove into the company parking lot during broad daylight in Maryland to be met by 'security' wearing flack jackets and carrying AK47s.

Some defense contractors are open to their relationship with us. Others are covert.

Santa Barbara, that lovely resort where so many 1%ers live on the Pacific coast above Los Angeles, is also the headquarters for Green Hills Software, yet another defense contractor located at 28 Sola St., Santa Barbara, CA 93103. Notice the significant partners on their “defense customers” page for this company who are more easily recognizable.

Complex weapons systems, high level encryption, and other expensive toys used in war, are produced behind the seemingly safe and friendly doors of businesses which donate to local charities as they cash their government checks and pump out their products of death. We need to rethink our attitude here.

War is the health of the corporate state. General Smedley Butler said this of corporate war profits in his book, “War is a Racket,” written in 1937. “The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people -- didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump -- or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!”

The Occupy Movement is about confrontation. Since its inception more protests have begun and are broadening out in scope.

Protests are traditional tools for awakening the public and growing a movement but awakening is only the first step.

It is time to move directly to accountability. No person of conscience should have participated in making these weapons, no matter how profitable or what justifications were offered by those 'in authority.'

We are facing a reality which includes a corrupt system of justice and elected officials who demand they not be held accountable for their actions. This cannot be tolerated.

We can no longer accept a moral justification based on lies sold to us by government and corporations. Instead, we should non-violently demand accountability and simultaneously work taking each of these areas into account with parallel efforts.

War Contractors/Profiteers

• How much was paid to each specific corporation, owner, and specific employee for these weapons or components which were used to produce weapons or controls on Americans and others around the world?
• What damage has been done to each of us, to others around the world, to our environment?
• What is owed to us, as individuals, for these damages? Certainly enough to reboot the system as we continue the fight to return governance to the most local level.

Asking the questions begins the process which ends in collecting and ending the use of a bogus 'sovereign immunity' to hold onto ill-gotten gains. If we stay in the Corporate-Government (Greedville) paradigm we cannot win. 

Keeping us divided, Right and Left, was a strategy built into their game plan. 

War contractors build a cultural shield around themselves.  This shield is extended to their employees. 

Keeping us apart has involved the use of oppositional cultural icons and ideas. As humans, we build our own worlds of these, ignoring the contractions as long as possible.

War is made only for the profit of corporations and to enlarge the power of Greedville. The people pay and bleed, Greedville profits.

This accounts for the shrill calls for a free market from people who should know a free market cannot exist if government is involved. This reinforces the R – L division.

What is a Free Market?

For more on this look at the use of Milton Friedman as a 'free market economist.' Those who knew him personally knew he was Chicago School and therefore entirely amenable to the use of government at the federal level. 

This largely minimized the voice of Murray Rothbard, whose ideas define the free market far more exactly.

Markets are part of how we cooperate with each other. They cannot work unless our individual rights are affirmed and our system for justice is available to all, no matter what their income or condition.

War Contractors / Profiteers have built themselves into a privileged class, apart from the rest of us. This makes it very much in their interest to ignore the reality now about to hit all of us. Their lives have not changed. Ours have.

ACTION:

If these involved as war contractors are ignorant of the connection between their livelihoods and encroaching death and fascism we need to inform them directly.

To accomplish this we must have the facts in advance.

This requires research on each 'contractor.'

Each 'contractor, also needs to become visible to us and to the general population.

A site using google earth or other similar program can accomplish this. We can, in effect, 'tour' the contractors, heightening awareness nationally and within our communities.

This should impact those employed at each facility, as well as their owners, stock holders, boards of directors, and business partners.

The personal lives of those involved can be penetrated. We can confront them and this, we must do.

Research each contractor, each part and component of what they spend.

Confront, owners, employees, their subcontractors and suppliers, and so awaken a broad range of Americans to what is happening to all of us.

Always destroy the will of the enemy to resist before engagement begins.