Palestinian Solidarity March at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023 | Photo credit: Organizing Notes
Reposted from Organizing Notes
Bath Iron Works (BIW) is owned by the General Dynamics Corporation which builds the bunker buster bombs that Washington has sent to Israel. More than 100 have been shipped so far.
BIW built destroyer warships have been sent to the Red Sea (just off Yemen) and to the Mediterranean Sea to protect Israel since this war began on October 7.
In 2003 when George W. Bush launched ‘shock and awe’ on Iraq the very first weapon fired was a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the USS Cowpens which was built at BIW.
In 2008 the USS Lake Erie (also built at BIW) launched an interceptor missile into space to knock out a US military satellite in what was coined ‘Operation Burnt Frost’. The warship’s interceptor proved that navy destroyers could be utilized as Anti-satellite weapons (ASATS). The Pentagon reported that the successful impact created 174 pieces of space debris.
The navy is currently encircling China and Russia with these destroyers that have shown the capability to fire first-strike attack Tomahawk cruise missiles and the ‘missile defense’ interceptors thus giving the Pentagon the ‘sword and shield’ capability in warfare.
The protest at BIW on Friday, organized by young activists who are leading Palestinian solidarity efforts across the nation, linked the issues of Israel-US genocide of Palestine and broader American war-making efforts on behalf of collapsing empire.
No one was arrested at BIW on Friday but the road die-in did shut down traffic and forced the Bath police to reroute worker shift change vehicles causing a major congestion problem. Otherwise there were no incidents at the shipyard. The Bath police showed unusually remarkable patience and professionalism in how they handled the protest.
Activists came early to the shipyard and handed out flyers on Friday morning and at lunch time ensuring that the workers understood that the protest was not aimed at them. Rather it was directed at the war-mongering Biden administration, Congress, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex.
The 1.5 mile march stopped at the home of US Senator Angus King (Independent from Maine) who has repeatedly refused to call for a ceasefire. King lives just a few blocks from the college. At King’s home a letter signed by 1,500 Maine college students was read to the marchers and nine long paper scrolls with names of the known dead in Gaza from Israeli bombing were delivered to King’s doorstep. He was conveniently not at home.
In Sen. King’s front yard was a Ukraine flag signaling King’s long time hatred for Russia. He once had a statewide phone call-in show on Maine Public Radio and I dialed-in to counter his trashing of Russia. He was talking about the melting ice in the Arctic Ocean and the need for the US-NATO to contest Russia for control of that region. After I made my statement to King he said, “If you like Russia so much, why don’t you move there!?”
Because of climate change the Arctic ice is melting and western resource extraction corporations want to wrest control of the region from Russia which has the largest border with the Arctic. Thus the war on Russia, using Ukraine as the hammer, has always been about grabbing Russia’s vast resource base.
So in the last three days I have been to five protests between nearby Bath and my hometown of Brunswick (about 10 miles apart). It has been very exciting to see so many young people connecting the issue dots and leading the organizing.
On we go.
Bruce K. Gagnon is co-founder and coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, he fights the reach of corporate greed into space, which pits him against most Washington officials. He has worked on space issues for more than 20 years. He speaks internationally on this high stakes topic and has written for publications such as Earth Island Journal, CounterPunch, Z Magazine, Space News, National Catholic Reporter, Asia Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Canadian Dimension. He has produced two videos, Arsenal of Hypocrisy (2003) and Battle for America’s Soul (2005) and he published a book, Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire (2005). He is host of “This Issue”, a cable TV program that airs in five communities in Maine, his home state. In 2003, Dr. Helen Caldicott named Gagnon a senior fellow at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, where he also serves on her advisory board.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE 