Autonomous Military/Corporate Research

SCAM, or Students Concerned About Militarism, is an autonomous research group geared to help activists create the literature they need to effectively run grassroots movements against militarism.

Please contact badheartbull (at) riseup (dot) net with research proposals or collaboration inquiries.

SCAM has partnered with the Campus Action Network  at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as the nation’s largest nuclear abolition network Think Outside the Bomb. SCAM has presented at conferences such as Finding Our Roots (Chicago, Feb 2009) and Think Outside the Bomb (Albuquerque, Aug 2009).

SCAM hopes to augment current work-in-progress on “Exelon: Energy & Power” with an extensive oral histories project.

Lucasville Uprising Zine

This is the content of a zine I wrote for an event we had last night in Columbus, Ohio. Insurgent Theatre debuted its new play AD SEG in Columbus at the Solidarity Showcase, which also featured open performances by myself, Ben B, Mattie, Sam & Connie’s “Legal Q & A.”

The highlight of the night was a transmission from Ohio State Penitentiary by brother Siddique Abdullah Hasan, who told the story of his experience with the uprising in 1993, and subsequently how he was railroaded and placed on death row because of his participation in a negotiations team that peacefully ended the prison riot.

At the end of this text is information on what you can do to support the Lucasville 5, and their mailing addresses on death row so you can write them and send them your support.

LUCASVILLE UPRISING
Redbird Prison Abolition
Columbus, Ohio

DEATH ROW HUNGER STRIKE: OHIO STATE PENITENTIARY

On January 3rd, 2011, three of the Lucasville 5 went on hunger strike. Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders), Bomani Shakur (Keith Lamar), and Jason Robb refused meals to protest the inhuman conditions they have faced since the 1993 Lucasville Uprising. Namir Mateen and George Skatzes, who comprise the rest of the Lucasville 5, could not participate due to health issues. Collectively, the five demanded to be given the same living conditions allowed to other death row prisoners.

Among their demands:
(a) Partial contact visits with their family, where they can touch family through a small opening in a visitation window
(b) Access to legal resources, such as online databases
(c) Access to the media through in-person interviews
(d) Basic items, such as cold weather clothing and food

For 18 years, these men have been living in isolation, with no human contact other than their death row guards. They have only been allowed outside of their cells for one hour a day, during which they are allowed time for shower and “recreation” in an “exercise cage.” Why have they been subject to these deplorable conditions? These five men helped peacefully negotiate the end of the longest prison riot in the United States to date in 1993.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections agreed to accommodate the demands of the hunger strikers on January 14th, 2011. Robb concluded his strike on January 14th, and Hasan and Lamar on the 15th, which coincided with a solidarity protest outside the Ohio State Penitentiary.

LUCASVILLE UPRISING: SOUTHERN OHIO CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

The uprising at Lucasville, like many prison revolts, was a response to the horrible conditions that all prisoners face. Some of these conditions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) include: guards going unpunished for brutally assaulting and killing inmates; prisoners being denied the right to unionize while being forced to labor for less than a dollar a day; prisoners denied access to rehabilitation or educational opportunities; guards provoking violence among prisoners, intentionally allowing some prisoners to be armed, fitting prisoners with wires and encouraging snitching, intentionally pairing prisoners together to fuel racial tensions; intense overcrowding, double-celling, and denied transfers. Some prisoners at Lucasville were chained to their cells, maced and tear gassed, forced to sleep on the floor, only allowed 5 minutes of phone time a year, extremely limited or altogether excluded visitation, and denied proper medical care.

The arrival of prison warden Arthur Tate precipitated a number of worsening conditions in Lucasville. Since his hiring in 1990, Tate had greatly diminished or altogether cut a number of prison programs, including the music, literary, and college programs. He required prisoners to march to their meals, work, recreation, worship services, and the commissary. High security prisoners were denied participation in vocational programs as they were placed on lockdown in their cells after 6PM. Guards were given the liberty to make up arbitrary rules on the spot, with no requirement to put the rules in writing or provide them to prisoners.

In addition to these ongoing offenses, and just prior to the uprising, the prison warden informed prisoners that there would be mandatory testing for tuberculosis, which involved injecting each prisoner with an alcohol based solution. Muslim prisoners staunchly objected, as the mandatory injections violated their religious abstention from alcohol.

On April 11th, 1993, these conflicts ignited into an 11 day uprising inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville that resulted in prisoners occupying the L block. Despite guards’ attempts to fan the flames of racial tensions in SOCF, prisoners in L block united across racial lines and gang divisions. Members of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood were standing in solidarity with Black Muslims and Black Gangster Deciples. During the uprising, eight guards were taken hostage, and eventually one was killed. Nine inmates were killed, and a majority of inmate deaths have suspected relations to warden Tate & SOCF guards encouragement of snitching. Rather than ending with wholesale slaughter and invasion by the national guard, as other prison riots have ended, Lucasville was ended by careful negotiations between five prisoners and state officials.

Deliberate stalling in the negotiations on the part of the state likely resulted in a deterioration of the situation. On April 12th, prison warden Arthur Tate shut off the electricity and water to L block in response to prisoners speaking with the media. The situation escalated, and the prisoners took hostage guard Vallandingham, who was killed two days later when water and electricity were still cut.

The negotiation team, which was comprised of Namir Abdul Mateen (James Were), Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders), Bomani Shakur (Keith Lamar), Jason Robb and George Skatzes, effectively negotiated to win “better conditions” for prisoners in SOCF, which in reality were the bare minimum required by law. Part of the demands they negotiated was to keep themselves free from any retaliation from the state. Following the end of the uprising, Hasan, Robb, Namir and Skatzes were found guilty for the death of officer Vallandingham. Bomani was charged with organizing a death squad that killed five informant prisoners. All were implicated in being leaders of the uprising due to their role in the negotiations.

These allegations were corroborated by other inmates who then received shorter sentences, a telling sign of false testimony. The Lucasville 5 now sit on death row, where they have been further denied what is allowed to other death row inmates — human contact with family, access to legal resources, the media, cold weather clothing.

Using by now familiar language, the Ohio Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation denied any need to “negotiate in good faith” with prisoners who take hostages, and the Ohio Supreme Court has deemed the rebelling prisoners “enemy combatants.” Despite a Court of Appeals decision that eavesdropping by the state on prisoners’ conversations in L block was illegal, and thus evidence from those conversations could not be used in court, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that obeying that law to the aide of rioting prisoners was out of the question. This clearly demonstrates a double standard upheld in our court systems, which has been used in the case of the Lucasville 5 to send a number of men to death row, and perhaps worse, a robbed life behind bars. Add to this false testimony, complete lack of physical or DNA evidence, inadequately funded and prepared defense lawyers, and in the case of Siddique Hasan, moving his case to the county with the highest percentage of death row sentences, and any suggestion that the Lucasville 5 were allowed due process seems laughable.

The state’s response to the uprising has been death sentences for those identifiable as holding “leadership” roles in the riot (or, more realistically, in ending the riot), building a new Supermax Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, and increasing the use of solitary confinement, or administrative segregation, “Ad Seg.” Following their logic, Ad Seg reduces the rates of prisoner on guard violence by isolating prisoners. Ad Seg also causes severe mental and emotional distress for inmates, sensory deprivation, and a convenient veil of secrecy for guard on inmate violence.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

1968: riots in old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio
1972: Southern Ohio Correctional Facility opened in Lucasville, Ohio
1983: black mentally ill inmate Jimmy Haynes beat to death by guards
1983: black inmates Lincoln Carter and John Ingram, who witnessed Haynes’ death, found dead in their solitary cells the next day
1988 (Dec): prisoner Tim Meachum killed
1989 (Jan): prisoner Billy Murphy killed, prisoner Dino Wallace stabbed
1989: 42 percent of prisoners polled by the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee respond with concerns for their personal safety
1990: Warden Arthur Tate appointed to SOCF
1991 (May): Tate sends a memo to all prisoners and visitors, stating he has opened a PO BOX to facilitate prisoners to snitch by mail, the address reads “Operation Shakedown”
1993 (Mar): Tate sends a memo entitled “Request to Construct a Maximum Security Unit at SOCF” to the South Region Director of prisons, where Tate states his desire to increase security at SOCF, essentially turning it into a Supermax with all prisoners on 23 hour lockdown
1993 (Apr): Tate issues a memo stating mandatory TB tests for all prisoners
1993 (Apr 11): Lucasville Uprising begins as prisoners return from recreation, six inmates killed, 8 guards taken hostage
1993 (Apr 13): Tate cuts water and electricity to occupied L block
1993 (Apr 15): Guard Vallandingham killed
1993 (Apr 21): 21 point agreement reached, 407 prisoners surrender, 5 remaining hostages released
1997: Lucasville 5 fast demanding medical treatment for Skatzes, and upgrading their security from Level C to Level B
1997 (Sep): a disturbance breaks out in DR-4, where the Lucasville 5 are housed. many death row inmates, including Skatzes and Robb, were beaten severely when guards in riot gear regained control of the block.
1998: Ohio State Penitentiary Supermax Prison in Youngstown opened, which now houses 4 of the Lucasville 5.
2003: ODRC adopted a policy of blocking media access specifically to Hasan and other riot-related prisoners, effectively cutting off any media reports of conditions inside
2011 (Jan 3-15): three of the Lucasville 5 go on hunger strike for improved conditions, and win all of their demands

TERMS

“OPERATION SHAKEDOWN:” Following the murder of a well respected prison teacher by a prisoner, all of SOCF was placed on lockdown, with each prisoner locked in his cell. Guards entered and ransacked prisoners cells at will, clad in riot gear.
LOCKDOWN: prisoners are locked in their cells, sometimes the lights are cut, and no one is allowed to leave for any reason.
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT or ADMINISTRATIVE SEGREGATION: prisoners are kept in isolation in small cells, some as small as 5 feet by 9 feet. Prisoners are locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, and some are completely denied interaction with other inmates.
SUPERMAX: a Supermax (“maximum security”) prison is perpetually under hightened control, and features solitary confinement cells. Ohio State Penitentiary, which holds 502 inmates in Youngstown, Ohio, is a Supermax prison.

NEO-SLAVERY IN AMERICA

The conditions that precipitated the uprising at Lucasville in 1993 were by no means unique to the experience of prisoners at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. On the contrary, recent accounts by prisoners, such as those made in 2005 by Georgia State Prison inmate James E. Scott in “Neo-Slavery in the Dirty South: A Look at the Racist Georgia Department of Corrections,” show a continuation of deplorable conditions. Scott describes the work conditions overseen by the Georgia Department of Corrections:

“Prisoner-slave laborers are forced to work in sweat shops for longer hours than state paid prison employees. …Georgia’s prisoner-slaves are burdened with the responsibility to keep state prisons fully operative with as little outside influence as possible. …Prisoner-slave laborers are responsible for manufacturing every article of the prison issued clothing worn by prisoners. At Hancock State Prison dozens of prisoner-slaves can be found slaving away at sewing machines for nine hours a day, five days a week and free of charge.”

Prisoners in Georgia make prison boots, mattresses, pillows, linen, and soap. Furthermore, they are responsible for the maintenance of prisons’ interiors and their exterior landscaping. Prisoners also grow the food used in prison on large-scale plantations.

Scott describes the racial discrepancies inside of Reidsville Prison. The general population is majority white, while people of color fill up the prisons’ 9 foot by 5 foot solitary lockdown cells. He describes the lockdown facilities:

“L and M buildings, of the SMU are the most notorious prison structures in the history of the state’s penal system. Many, many murders, suicides and brutal assaults have occurred in these two buildings over the decades. I have witnessed a couple of cowardly prison guards on restrained prisoner assaults, and have heard the stories of many more.

“…The living conditions in these tiny cells are of the most deplorable type. The paint has peeled from the walls, decades of dirt and filth has accumulated in every corner and crack, and insects and rodents are everywhere. With only one clogged up intake vent, ventilation inside the cells is almost non-existent. The heat of summer is horrendous and the winters are always frigid. The windows inside each dormitory are completely painted, preventing sunlight from entering. This causes extreme sensory deprivation, which helps to eventually push a great many men to the brink of insanity.”

James Scott’s account makes for a chilling prelude to a statewide prison strike that upset the balance of power in Georgia’s prisons in December of 2010. Thousands of prisoners non-violently protested their labor and living conditions and refused to work, and much like Lucasville, stood united across racial and gang divisions against their common enemy, the DOC. As the prison depends on their labor to run, the Georgia Department of Corrections was faced with the decision to hire outside labor. Georgia’s prisons were put on lockdown following the strike, and strikers faced brutal retaliation, including shakedowns and beatings, forced drug tests, and solitary confinement. Little or no major media coverage has surfaced on this strike, despite its historic scope. Media reports that have surfaced have simply repeated the Georgia DOC’s press releases or focused on the use of contraband cellphones and the potential for violence.

Prisoners accross the country describe their incarceration as slavery and a denial of their basic human rights. These prisoners have extremely limited options for asserting their rights, demands or geting their voices heard. The Georgia DOC’s response, as with Ohio’s DRC in the case of Lucasville, has clearly focused on punishing inmates and further hampering their ability to organize or speak, rather than taking their demands seriously.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

Organize public demonstrations and events!
Get the word out about prison conditions!
Humanize prisoners by writing them and sharing their stories and thoughts!
Use your immediate sphere of influence to send less people to prisons and rely less on law enforcement!
Start community accountability groups, neighborhood associations, and restorative justice work!

One of the most influential things you can do to help support the Lucasville 5 is to write letters. You can write personal letters of support to the 5, whose addresses are on the back of this booklet.

We also encourage you to write to the following people, as they have a considerable amount of influence in the lives of the Lucasville 5.

Governor John Kasich
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, Oh 43215-6117
Phone: 614-466-3555

Gary Mohr, Director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
770 West Broad Street
Columbus, Ohio 43222
Phone: 614-752-1164
gary.mohr@odrc

State Representative Ted Celeste: proponent of ending death penalty in Ohio
77 S. High St
10th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215-6111
Phone: 614-644-6005
district24@ohr.state.oh.us

TALKING POINTS:
(1) There is no DNA evidence or physical evidence that implicates any of the Lucasville 5 with any of the ten murders that happened during the 1993 uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
(2) All parties whose testimony benefited the prosecutors resulted in substantial benefits in return for their cooperation, including: no indictment, reduced charges, concurrent sentences, early parole.
(3) As there is no evidence, and testimonies are likely false, amnesty should be granted to those all involved in the Lucasville rebellion, as it was granted in New York following the Attica uprising.
(4) End the death penalty in Ohio.
(5) End the cruel and unusual punishment of Administrative Segregation.
(6) Close all prisons! Free all prisoners!

OTHER RESOURCES

Educate yourself on these issues! This is but a very brief starting point.

Articles, Books & Web Resources
http://racetraitor.org/lucasville1.html
http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=3590
http://georgeskatzes.proboards.com
http://www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_23/siddique_abdullah_hasan.html

Click to access HasanBriefAmicusCuriae.pdf

“Freedom Sought for Lucasville Five” article by Sharon Danann in Workers World
“Neo-Slavery in the Dirty South: A Look at the Racist Georgia Department of Corrections” by James E. Scott
“Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising” by Staughton Lynd
“Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Davis
“Resistance Behind Bars” by Victoria Law

A List of Ohio Based Solidarity Groups can be found here:
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/resources.htm

CONTACT INFO

For more information on the Lucasville 5 or how to get involved with prisoner support, please contact us!
REDBIRD PRISON ABOLITION
http://www.redbirdprisonabolition.org

To write to members of the Lucasville 5 and send them your support, contact them individually:

Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders) #R130-559
Namir Abdul Mateen (James Were) #A173-245
Bomani Shakur (Keith Lamar) #A317-117
Jason Robb #A308-919
Ohio State Penitentiary
878 Coitsville-Hubbard Road
Youngstown, OH 44505-4635

George W Skatzes #A173-501
Mansfield Correctional Institution
PO Box 788
Mansfield, Ohio 44901

Sugar Plum Faeries and Child Slavery

Christmas is everywhere, Black Friday is upon us, and it seems that everywhere you look there is someone or something trying to sell itself to you, despite the fact that the US and global economies are far less than healthy, and most consumers lack the cash flow to go out and binge-spend this holiday season. And along with the holiday season comes sweets: cookies, pies, and sweet, delicious, melty, mouth-watering chocolate.

I, a white woman, college graduate, living the first world, in America where the chocolate industry pulls in about $13 billion annually, I love chocolate. I find it hard to get through the month without eating at least a little nugget of the dark stuff. But I’m starting to rethink that craving that I have, especially after hearing some grueling stories of how our chocolate (and many other sweets, for that matter) is made.

This isn’t new news, but it’s new to me, as I haven’t ever really looked into the reality of the chocolate industry, specifically on the front end. Joe and I were talking recently and he told me about a movie he saw that revealed some of the less-than-appetizing realities of child labor and human trafficking that the chocolate industry necessitates. That said, 70% of the profits from that $13 billion industry go into the hands of merchants and corporations, and only 5% ends up being paid to the farmers, most of which work small, family owned farms in places like West Africa and Central/South America. Given the slow-down of the global economy, and the results of trade agreements made in the last 15 years under the auspice of free-marketeering neo-liberal economics, small farmers in West Africa have been hit particularly hard by the fluctuations in market prices. The deregulation of the West African agriculture and the abolition of commodity boards in the region are concrete results of the rise of the economic regime of neo-liberalism, and have directly impacted the shape of agricultural labor in the region.

When market prices fall on small, family-owned cocoa farms where the annual revenue is between $30-100 per family member, you can imagine why child labor would become a reasonable solution. Many of the children working on these cocoa farms in Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon are children of the farmers themselves. Many of the children who end up becoming enslaved are sent off by their impoverished families in Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo, with the hope that they will send back restitutions to help pay for necessities like food, health care, and education for their families. These families’ hopes are dashed when their children become another symptom of global capital, disgustingly underpaid child laborers.

About 2/3rds of the chocolate industry is controlled by Hershey and M&M/Mars, which has yet to adopt or enforce any strict regulations to better the economic and labor realities of the farmers from which they source their cocoa. In 2001, the US House of Representatives passed legislation (the Harkin-Engel Protocol) that would have become law to require a “slave-free” label on chocolate not produced under slavery conditions.

Somehow, US chocolate industry giants convinced Congress to change that standard and make the label “voluntary,” so consumers remain ignorant to whether or not their chocolate is made by child slaves. The closest indication we have to the ethics of our chocolate is the “fair-trade” certified label we find on our more exorbitantly priced chocolate products. (You can’t be certified “fair-trade” if you use slave-labor, so some of the reason why it is more expensive is because the farmers are actually paid to harvest it. That said, it is likely farmers see very little of the $3 you might shell out for a Black Panther Endangered Species Chocolate Bar.) We also have a pledge by Hershey and M&M/Mars that they would voluntarily certify slave-free chocolate by 2005. Of course, they missed their deadline, didn’t get it done until 2008, and even then only half of their chocolate produced from Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana has been said, by these corporations, to be “slave-free.” That leaves more than 30% of chocolate on the US market a mystery, and likely produced by West African child slave labor. This also leaves the US chocolate market, and West African agriculture, completely un-regulated, and the corporations in control of disclosing the reality of their labor practices. And we all know how committed to transparency giant US corporations are.

Furthermore, in a conversation I had recently with a friend of mine who farms the sugar beet harvest in Minnesota, I became aware to the disgusting source of the majority of all of the beet sugar we consume in America. The sugar beets are genetically modified, the patent to which is owned by none other than Monsanto. They are grown in fields that have been so over-farmed they are deserts, the only way life can thrive there is with the help of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers use diesel machines to mechanically harvest the beets, nearly asphyxiating themselves on the fumes. (Having been nearly asphyxiated by diesel fumes once while hitch-hiking in Arizona, I can attest to how horrifying and sickening it is.) Any health issues farmers have before going up to the harvest are exacerbated by the high levels of diesel fumes and toxic chemicals (Round-up, specifically) farmers are exposed to, notably in the dust that blows like apocalyptic sand-storms across the fields as they are harvested.

About half of the granulated sugar in America comes from sugar beets. In 2009, the majority of the US’s sugar beet farms switched to Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready genetically modified sugar beets. Huge plantation-like sugar beet farms in Minnesota, North Dakota and Idaho now use GMO beets. Monsanto’s beets have been kept out of fields for most of the past decade after candy giants Hershey’s and M&M/Mars said they wouldn’t use the GMO beets, but this statement remains yet another by the candy companies that is unregulated and off the books. And now, with GMO beet sugar flooding the US market, it is a wonder how these companies couldn’t use GMO sugar, given that the most available alternative to beet sugar is corn syrup, and most US corn syrup comes from Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready GMO Corn. More convincingly, American Crystal, the company that supplies beet sugar to Hershey’s, M&M/Mars and Kraft, announced in 2008 that it would begin sourcing its sugar from GMO beets. It is important to note that much like chocolate and slave labor, US food companies are under no regulatory obligation to disclose whether or not their products use GMO foods.

In a world controlled by money hungry corporations, with no regard for the quality of living of anyone, let alone the poor third world farmers that work for them, slaves or not, its no wonder that our delectable chocolate bars are made with genetically modified sugar and cocoa picked by illegally trafficked child slaves. I’m also not totally convinced that buying the “better” or “more ethical” alternative, ie: fair trade, will really solve this problem. Hershey’s and M&M/Mars are huge, they are powerful, they rake in billions of dollars annually in profits. These corporations wield massive amounts of political power, as evidenced by the outcome of the Harkin-Engel Protocol. I don’t personally believe that the free-market is democratic in nature, and I don’t believe that we “vote” with our dollars; I don’t believe that as consumers we shape the nature of the products we buy. These are the lies of green-washing corporations that have realized there is a market in convincing people they are doing-good by buying products, most of which aren’t even necessary in our everyday lives. These are the lies of a society that is controlled by capital, where the free-flow of capital and the artificial borders of nation states force children into slave labor.

While boycotting companies like Hershey’s and M&M/Mars may create public awareness and media hype around the issue of child slavery in West Africa, it probably won’t change their outlook on regulation, and it won’t likely change the percentage of profit that these corporations take from chocolate sales. It isn’t very likely that they will start paying farmers a paltry 10 or 15% of their sales, rather than 5%. This global discrepancy in where profits are allocated is a major part of the problem that causes child slavery. If the industry itself makes in excess of $10 billion annually, you would think that the hundreds of thousands of (child) field workers could be paid a fair wage.

We need to seriously challenge the power structures that govern our lives, from corpora-fascist to neo-liberal free market power, to even the non-profit charity industry that gives hand outs to impoverished people without challenging the nature of their oppression or working for real political empowerment. We need to realize where we are effective, and work to our strengths, rather than banging our heads against insurmountable odds, like these industrial complexes that we can barely conceptualize.

I had a dream the other night where Michael Jackson was singing a song something like “Africa, you didn’t tell us about the child slaves.” Like he had rescinded his whole “heal the world” thing. Food for thought.

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/facts.html
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/27/9926
http://motherearthspeak.blogspot.com/2009/07/white-sugar-now-coming-from-genetically.html
http://aromatherapy4u.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/soy-corn-wheat-cotton-sugar-beets-candy-breakfast-cereal-what-you-need-to-know/

Supplanting Oppressive Infrastructures (For AREA Chicago)

The organizing work I have been doing this year has been focused on transforming and supplanting dominant infrastructures with different infrastructures that model sustainable and just relationships. I arrived at this work of looking at infrastructures from developing a systemic critique of the nuclear weapons and power industry. In trying to understand this industry, infrastructures are conceived of as physical or ideological conduits for the transport of electricity, capital, death/life, and power.

There are many infrastructures that are woven into the nuclear industry. There are physical infrastructures, such as those that produce nuclear fuel for weapons and power, or the systems of diesel vehicle transportation that move the fuel from mine to power plants or weapons facilities. These infrastructures are driven by profit, and intrinsically linked to the economic infrastructures that assign worth to certain things, like uranium ore, yellowcake, and global hegemony, but not to others, such as quality of life and health, clean water, old growth forests, and so forth.

These economic infrastructures include the complicated bureaucratic networks of patronage from government to private corporation for the construction and operation of weapons and power facilities, all loans and risks of which are underwritten at taxpayer expense. Capitalism is another such infrastructure implicit in this relationship, where wealth is transported as numbers in computers all across the globe. By and large, the economic infrastructure in this country, our industrial jobs and the largest investments of capital, whether private or government, is that of a military economy. This fact illuminates another infrastructure, that of the social infrastructure that exists in order to perpetuate military dominance and empire.

This social infrastructure of labor exploitation, colonialism and genocide provides the foundation for other infrastructures that maintain the nuclear weapons and power industry, and continue to enforce America’s imperial designs militarily, economically and politically. Social infrastructures that reify empire include the ideologies that support white supremacist hetero-patriarchy, these infrastructures that value eugenic sameness and order our access and control of wealth, health, education, culture, power. Without the general population’s maintenance of and compliance with these social infrastructures, the other infrastructures of capitalism, nuclear power plants, or US weapons facilities would cease to exist.

Infrastructures necessitate maintenance. Infrastructures decay. Infrastructures are appropriated, re-appropriated. Infrastructures are constructed, and can be deconstructed, abandoned, reinvented.

The nuclear weapons and power infrastructures are closely reliant upon and interdependent with infrastructures of fossil fuel and imperial militarism. Conceiving of these juggernauts as physical networks or pipelines with points of pressure and vulnerability allows us more freedom in defining our relationship to them, as well as in defining the shape and form of our resistance to them. If these infrastructures exist somewhere, then they may not exist somewhere else. If they are permeable and in flux, they are susceptible to entropy, then we have an entry point.

One system of infrastructures that is becoming increasingly popular in America as an alternative to dominant infrastructures of militarism, capitalism and empire is that of permaculture. Permaculture includes a number of technologies that humans have been using for thousands of years to sustain ourselves, shelter ourselves, and incorporate our wastes back into natural systems. To an industrial society, permaculture forces us to radically change our relationship to the earth. We are challenged to work to sustain her, and to work reciprocally with her to sustain ourselves.

A permaculture farm has a number of infrastructures. Water infrastructures on such a farm, for example, will seek to get as much human use as possible from water before returning it into the natural system. Such an infrastructure may start with rain water catchment, such as a roof that slopes into gutters that drain into rain barrels. This water may then be used for cleaning or drinking, and then used again through a grey-water system. Grey-water may be filtered through rocks, gravel, sand, dirt, or poured into a bucket of mulch, and then used to water a garden.

Food from the garden is eaten, composted, and returned to the soil. Such a food infrastructure may include chickens or pigs, humanure toilets, worms, bees, fungi. This infrastructure may stretch outside of a single farm and network locally or regionally with other farms, supplementing what each is able to produce and diversifying the resources and landscapes to which single farm has access. These infrastructures are easy to comprehend on physical levels, when considering what to do with food, water, and waste.

But what of the social implications of permaculture infrastructures? And where do energy infrastructures fit into this system? Is there an ideological infrastructure built into permaculture that allows this system to move beyond environmental sustainability or “greening” to a just and sustainable social relationship?

The current conception of permaculture in America is shaped from David Holmgren’s twelve “Permaculture Concepts.” When applied, these concepts work to guide one’s relationship to their environment on a principle of permaculture, or permanent sustainable agriculture. These concepts include the observation of patterns and systems of one’s specific location or context, catching and storing energy and resources, reuse of resources, producing no waste, self regulation and the acceptance of feedback or criticism, integration and use of the marginal and edges, valuing diversity, and creative use and response to change. Using nature, ecosystems and biorhythms as analogy, we can observe how these concepts operate in our surroundings and learn to apply them to our social interactions.

As our fragile biosphere reaches its limits for sustaining first world consumption patterns, we will begin to see feedback from our environment that will shape and limit our own behaviors. As we burn more fossil fuels, continue urban development through new construction projects (“green” or otherwise), factory farm and mono-crop our food, and increasingly mine uranium/coal/oil/natural gas in increasingly destructive ways, we will see a rise in global temperatures, changing weather patterns, rise in sea levels, and species extinction. Food scarcity and disease will become major problems, and it is likely that the current infrastructures of social relations and capital will continue to provide access to resources, death/life and power to those who have control and power over those infrastructures.

In this scenario, it is absolutely necessary to recognize how dominant infrastructures privilege a certain few and deny access to others when beginning to conceive of alternative or supplementary infrastructures. We cannot simply change our infrastructures for food acquisition and energy without questioning and transforming the social and economic infrastructures that shape our local, regional, and global exchanges.

Permaculture as it is often applied and practiced allows certain segments of society with access to certain resources an amount of autonomy from dominant infrastructures. There is a movement among sustainably minded peoples to move away from reliance on capitalist markets for their food, and in many ways how and what America eats is a barometer for their politics. The green-washed corporatization of the sustainability movement has lead to the increased success of huge corporations such as Whole Foods, and in a similar vein farmers’ markets have proven very popular among wealthy urban classes who can afford to pay to buy direct from local farmers. Food justice remains a huge issue among poor communities, however, who do not have the luxury of securing access to healthy food with wealth. Permaculture in this sense can offer an immense amount of autonomy for poor populations that are able to grow their own food, or create their own local food production markets. This struggle is closely entwined with environmental justice, however, due to the high incidence of toxic industrial and energy infrastructures being located in, near, or upstream of poor communities and communities of color. In this sense, food justice is more than having access to healthy food, it is also having access to knowledge of permaculture technologies, clean water and soil, time, and the empowerment to initiate and organize such a project.

The issue of sustainably powering one’s household is even more complex. The technologies for installing autonomous and sustainable energy generation units are typically much more complex and resource intensive than growing one’s own food. Depending on the natural resources available to one’s household, such as wind, direct sunlight, or flowing water, and the energy needs of the household, the installation and maintenance of solar panels or micro-hydro power units could be costly. Technologies like solar panels require intense resource extraction, are generally not made locally, and are hard to repair and maintain with local resources and know-how. Again, the issue of who has access to these technologies and the resources to power them remains a social justice issue, one marked by gender, race, class, and status.

While building alternative infrastructures for food and energy allows us autonomy from dominant material infrastructures based on oppression, capitalism and militarism, these infrastructures, while unsustainable, continue to operate. In following the tenant of permaculture that instructs the use and valuing of diversity, and that which instructs the use and value of edges and the marginal, we must keep in mind that dominant infrastructures serve to most oppress those on the edges and the margins. If we are truly to value difference and the marginalized, we must recognize that these intertwining movements for environmental justice, just and renewable energy, gender, racial, and class justice, demilitarization, and nuclear abolition are in fact a global struggle for collective liberation.

When we look to the margins, we see groups working to sustain traditional food-ways and sustainable agricultural relationships to the earth. One such group, La Via Campesina (1), draws the links between globalization and the westernization of dietary and agricultural technologies and infrastructures that serve to oppress peasant and indigenous populations around the world. This group defines itself as “the international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers,” as well as “an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation.” Their group works along the permaculture principle of using locally available resources to defend “family farm based production” that is “in harmony with local culture and traditions.” Through reclaiming indigenous agricultural infrastructures, La Via Campesina reclaims, defines and defends their space on the margins of centralized capitalist corporate agriculture that seeks to colonize indigenous life-ways and labor.

As a system, permaculture seeks to restore our relationship with the earth from one of exploitation to one of stewardship through building new physical infrastructures, likewise it necessitates the building of new social infrastructures in order to supplant the oppressive social infrastructures that foundationally support capitalism, empire and militarism. We need to begin building the social infrastructures that will serve as conduits for material support, solidarity, free exchange of information, non-violent communications, and respect. Having built these, we will be free to tear down those that only allow access to a privileged few and serve to reify the infrastructures and systems of oppression.

My knowledge and understanding of the environmental and social implications of permaculture have been gleaned over the past two months while I have been on a national tour speaking about nuclear abolition and building alternatives to militarism, colonialism, and capitalism. Our tour has visited a number of different community farms and permaculture projects, both urban and rural, and we have been observing and learning from those who practice the building and transformation of sustainable environmental and social infrastructures. This tour is part of a larger campaign, called Disarmament Summer, based around northern New Mexico and working to transform the nuclear infrastructure of Los Alamos National Nuclear Weapons Laboratory.

Through this campaign, we have members of our youth network, Think Outside the Bomb, working with affected communities in the Espanola Valley that surrounds Los Alamos. There, we are building cross-cultural social infrastructures that are laying the groundwork of collaboration. We have identified the goals of our campaign by asking folks in affected communities what their visions of transformation of the weapons labs would look like. Due to the heavy influence that Los Alamos has on communities in the Espanola Valley, as it is the main provider of jobs, financial security, and community investment, folks there have demanded economic transformation of the nuclear weapons infrastructure of Los Alamos. They want to keep their jobs, but they want jobs to be safe, to not harm their bodies or their environment. Think Outside the Bomb and our partner communities are calling for a transformation of the labs’ industrial infrastructure to move it from weapons technologies to the development of technologies that focus on clean up and containment of nuclear waste, as well as renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, and hydro-electric.

This work will culminate with a ten day permaculture and non-violent direct action training encampment in Chimayo, New Mexico. There we will bring members of affected communities together with youth from across America to build physical permaculture infrastructures that will remain in the community, as well as to teach permaculture skills to folks so they can bring those technologies home to their communities. The camp will grow solidarity between guests on the land and their hosts by allowing visiting youth to develop a better understanding of what it means to be a community affected by nuclear infrastructures. The horizontal, cross-cultural social infrastructures that are being constructed to help sustain this organizing into the future will provide the framework for this solidarity, understanding and communication. They also serve to supplant and erode the oppressive social infrastructures that perpetuate the colonization and genocide of affected communities.

Think Outside the Bomb’s permaculture encampment and our Disarmament Summer campaign construct and highlight concrete infrastructures that we have at our disposal right now to transform and supplant nuclear weapons and power, fossil fuel energy, colonial and white supremacist social relationships, and the project of American empire. It is important for us to build up these alternative infrastructures while still agitating for social and political change so that we may remain focused and critical of our vision of a more just and sustainable world.

LINKS TO PERMACULTURE & SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECTS

1. Proposals of Via Campesina for sustainable, farmer based agricultural production. Published at the occasion of the WSSD summit in Johannesburg, August, 2002. Found at the site http://viacampesina.org
2. http://www.decolonialfoodforthought.com/2010/04/ecological-food-justice-and-indigenous.html
3. http://indigenous-permaculture.com/index.html
4. http://www.tewawomenunited.org/
5. http://www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org

Rebecca Riley is a puppeteer, musician and independent researcher. She is currently organizing with the Think Outside the Bomb network as the National Tour Coordinator. She is based out of Chicago, although she is living in a Chevy Astro Van somewhere along the west coast until the tour ends in August.

I’ll trade 20 kg of Thorium for $5 million Gelding…

I was on the phone with a guy at direct loans today to try to put my $17 grand in student loans back into economic hardship deferment when he asked about my employment. I told him I was on a three month tour talking about nuclear abolition (ie: unemployed). He asked if I meant weapons, power or both, and I said both. He said I should look into Thorium as an alternative to uranium for power generation.

Later, I was having a conversation with this dude in a friend’s living room in Asheville, who also mentioned Thorium as some strange solution to nuclear problems. I then did a little internet research, and found that Thorium is a metal used in World of Warcraft, and is generally watched over by the Thorium Brotherhood. After more investigation, I found some totally shady internet pages from “thorium mining industries” that have apparently been buying up all of the US’s Thorium reserves for the last few years just waiting for the price to skyrocket.

Then I thought about trying to find some more reputable websites. So I searched on the Los Alamos Study Group’s website, and found some information on a Thorium Storage Building in Technical Area 3:

http://www.lasg.org/maps/pages/contents/ta3det.htm “The Thorium Storage Building (Building 159, Figure 4-3, Sheet 2), part of the Sigma Complex (Section 4.3.2.1.1.2.2), is a Hazard Category 3 nuclear facility because it is used for storing thorium in both ingot and oxide forms. To ensure material accountability and to limit radiation doses to personnel, Building 159 is surrounded by fencing and has its own controlled access.”

This is part of the Sigma Complex, which apparently deals with the fabrication of DU weapons. From above site: ” Current activities in the Sigma Building focus on test hardware, prototype fabrication, and materials research for the DOE’s Nuclear Weapons Program, but they also include activities related to energy, environment, industrial competitiveness, and strategic research.”

Unknown amounts of Thorium waste is stored in Technical Area 39 at Los Alamos National Labs (http://www.lasg.org/waste/mdab21.htm) along with other weird toxic substances.

from: http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/1908 “Thorium is an important element for study because it is a constituent of KREEP, the acronym for potassium (symbol “K”), rare Earth elements and phosphorous. KREEP is the last material to solidify from a geologic melt.

“The moon once was hot and molten and as it cooled minerals crystallized and sank to form the core, if they were heavy, or floated upward to form the crust, if they were light. The elements in KREEP do not readily incorporate into minerals and so the mixture remains molten the longest. These elements, then, are signatures of the original material under the moon’s crust, and their presence on the surface indicates some process — volcanic events or impacts strong enough to punch through the crust — must have dredged them up from the interior.

“Thorium emits gamma rays — a high-energy form of light — of a distinct energy.” Does this mean that we are going to try to mine Thorium on the moon? You know LANL scientists are that crazy.

Some other LANL historic archive from Manhattan Project Era mentions Thorium as a material that can create uranium isotope 23 (233 U) (http://www.lanl.gov/history/people/pdf/oppenheimer1.pdf) but I couldn’t really figure out what the fuck they were talking about.

Resorting to wikipedia, I am convinced that Thorium does exist, as wikipedia is my general barometer of reality. Quoth the wiki: “Advocates of the use of thorium as the fuel source for nuclear reactors state that they can be built to operate significantly cleaner than uranium-based power plants as the waste products are much easier to handle.” The “advocates of the use of thorium” refers to the World Nuclear Association, whose by-line is ‘Promoting the peaceful worldwide use of nuclear power as a sustainable energy resource,’ and who has a fucking Westinghouse advertisement on their website. Remind me which part of nuclear power is sustainable? http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html

Summary: some people are starting to hear about some miraculous mineral whose lucrative mining prospects are untapped, a mineral that the Department of Energy has been studying since the Manhattan Project and that is currently stored in waste form in the canyons of the Los Alamos National Lab (environmental justice activists can talk further about the benevolent research that often goes on at THAT lab), and a mineral described by nuclear industry sycophants as “tanatalising” (yes, the World Nuclear Association article on Thorium has a typo in its opening sentence).

Health effects anyone?

from: http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/th.htm

“Breathing in thorium in the workplace may increase the chances of development of lung diseases and lung and pancreas cancer many years after people have been exposed. Thorium has the ability to change genetic materials. People that are injected with thorium for special X-rays may develop liver disease.

“Thorium is radioactive and can be stored in bones. Because of these facts it has the ability to cause bone cancer many years after the exposure has taken place.

“Breathing in massive amounts of thorium may be lethal. People will often die of metal poisoning when massive exposure take place.”

And this is what the Center for Disease Control has to say: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147-c2.pdf

“Both large and small amounts of radiation are damaging to health. Current scientific consensus is radiation can also increase the probability of cancer, and a conservative assumption is no threshold level exists below which there is no additional risk of cancer. There is considerable debate about how great the cancer risks are when people are chronically exposed to very low levels of radiation. Since everyone is environmentally exposed to a small amount of radiation, the minimum amount of additional radiation that may constitute a health hazard is not well known. ”

“The following sections summarize the health effects associated with thorium. Evidence exists that most, if not all, effects of thorium may be due to its radiological, and not chemical, effects. The mechanism of toxicity for all effects are not well understood.”

“Respiratory Effects. Although the SMR for respiratory diseases was 1.31 among workers at a thorium refinery (Polednak et al. 1983), the increase may have been attributable in part to smoking.” I seem to remember hearing a similar story about Dine uranium miners who were afflicted with lung cancer from breathing in radon gas. I mean cigarettes.

“Progressive cirrhosis of the lungs was found in a subchronic inhalation study in rats (Likhachev et al. 1973a).” That study also had to be thrown out because the rats were smoking on the job. “The severity of the lung cirrhosis was directly related to the radiation dose and the amount of thorium dioxide.” ….oh.

“Because the workers were exposed to other toxic compounds (silica, yttrium, acid and alkali fumes) as well as other sources of radioactivity, toxic effects cannot necessarily be attributed to thorium. Therefore,study do not appear in Table 2-l or Figure 2-l.” It must suck to work at that plant, they dont even know whats making you sick!

“No studies were located regarding the musculoskeletal effects in humans after inhalation exposure to thorium…No studies were located regarding renal effects in humans after inhalation exposure to thorium….No studies were located regarding immunological effects in humans after inhalation exposure to thorium….No studies were located regarding the following health effects in humans or animals after inhalation exposure to thorium. 2.2.1.4 Neurological Effects 2.2.1.5 Developmental Effects 2.2.1.6 Reproductive Effects ”

I detect a gender bias in their research.

“A statistically significant excess of deaths from pancreatic cancer was seen in a cohort of 3039 former thorium workers employed for 1 year or more (6 observed vs. 1.3 expected) but not in workers employed for a shorter time.”

So we know what we know: Thorium will give you cancer, and its radioactive.

We know what we dont know: We dont know about how it affects future generations or women’s bodies.

We dont know what we dont know: How to deal with all the fucking nuclear waste in the world.

And we dont know what we know: mining other radioactive minerals that give workers cancer is not a sustainable, safe, or ethical solution for energy generation.

I dont trust industry solutions to nuclear power, just like I dont trust industry solutions to giant fucking oil spills.

Barack Obama’s Disarming Nuclear Rhetoric

by Rebecca Riley

“So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”[1] US President Barack Obama, April 5^th, 2009.

Barack Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 in part for stating that America was committed to seeking a world without nuclear weapons. In his acceptance speech, he noted that one can, indeed, “bend history in the direction of justice.”[2] This prestigious award placed President Barack Obama among some of the most influential and world renowned freedom fighters; Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964), Nelson Mandela (1993), Mother Teresa (1979). The peace prize has also been awarded to some of the most insidious war criminals and architects of war, colonial oppression, and human suffering; Henry Kissinger (1973),[3] and Menachem Begin (1978).[4] The question here that begs to be asked is not whether Obama resides within the former or later categories, but rather what political reality this award obscures.

Obama himself knew that this award was contentious. He stated in his acceptance speech that he is Commander-In-Chief of two immensely destructive wars in the Middle East,[5] a reality that does not marry well with a Peace Prize. He also stated that he wishes to make disarmament of the US’s nuclear arsenal his foreign policy centerpiece.[6] These statements, however, stand in contradiction to the political realities that Barack Obama has and is creating throughout his political career.

Take for example the recent announcement of the budget for the Department of Energy (DOE)’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for the fiscal year of 2011. Early in 2010, Obama submitted to Congress his administration’s first comprehensive budget. This budget included a marked increase of government funding for the NNSA. The NNSA will get a total of 13% more money in 2011 than it got in 2010, including a 14% increase of funding for Nuclear Weapons Activities. This includes the increased funding of “research and development in nuclear weapons science and technology and to build new infrastructure for the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium parts for nuclear weapons.”[7] This brings the total amount of money that the United States will spend on new nuclear weapons in 2011 to over $7 billion dollars. This is the most money ever requested by a presidential administration to be spent on nuclear weapons, including those during the arms race of the Cold War.[8]

These facts stand in direct contradiction to the comments Obama has made regarding his position on the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal. This contradiction is complicated by several other important political realities: the increase in permit and license requests for new uranium mines and nuclear power plants; the expansion of existing nuclear weapons facilities; and Barack Obama’s history of weakening nuclear regulatory legislation during his time as senator in the state of Illinois.

Despite its costly nature, in terms of financial,[9] health and environmental costs,[10] the nuclear power industry is experiencing what might be deemed a “redux” today. Following the melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979, as well as public dissent and organizing around nuclear power plants, nuclear power generation lost a lot of popularity among the general public. For the last several decades, the United States has seen absolutely no activity in the way of the construction of new nuclear power plants. When uranium prices dropped drastically in 1992, uranium mining activity in the US also slowed. Interest in mining has been rising of late, however, alongside the price of uranium. In 2003, the price of a pound of yellowcake uranium was $7. In 2008, it was $138.[11] Currently there are 17 new nuclear power plants in the licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).[12] There are 13 new uranium mines in the process of opening, along with 10 project expansions and one project restart.[13]

Nuclear weapons and energy are intrinsically linked. Both are direct consequences of the Manhattan Project of the 1940s, and neither would exist without the front-end of the uranium fuel cycle, from the mine through the enrichment process. The difference between weapons grade and energy grade uranium is only one more enrichment cycle. Thus, the influx of uranium production and enrichment fuels not only the nuclear power sector but also the United States’ nuclear weapons capabilities. It is most likely not a coincidence that at the time we see the United States uranium mining industry resurging we also see a notable proposed expansion of the United States’ weapons production capacity.
With the increase in the NNSA’s budget in 2011 comes “critical infrastructural improvements” at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Y-12 in Tennessee. Los Alamos National Laboratory is planning to build a new building deemed the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement nuclear facility, which operates as a plutonium pit factory. Y-12 will be graced with a new Uranium Processing Facility to enrich uranium for the US nuclear weapons stockpile. The weapon facility in Kansas City, Missouri, also expects an expansion in weapons production capabilities in the near future. These multi-billion dollar investments in new nuclear weapons infrastructures stand in direct opposition to all of the claims Obama has made for disarmament.[14]

A number of news articles have covered the links between Obama’s presidential campaign finances and the nuclear industry. Over $150,000 were given to President Barack Obama by employees of Exelon during his 2008 presidential campaign.[15] Exelon is the nation’s largest nuclear energy utility, and is based in the state with the largest number of nuclear power generating stations, Illinois. Illinois, coincidentally, is also Barack Obama’s home state. Obama’s history with Exelon philanthropy goes back before his presidential campaign. Since 2003, it has been reported that Obama has received over $227,000 total in campaign contributions from Exelon employees.[16]

Obama’s legislative history toes the line of his corporate sponsorship. In 2005, Obama helped to defeat an amendment to Bush’s energy bill[17] that would have eliminated loan guarantees for investment in new energy projects by corporations such as Exelon. The result was that the financial burden for these energy projects has been shifted to US taxpayers.[18]

2006 saw the introduction of nuclear legislation by then Illinois Senator Barack Obama. The Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2006, S. 2348, initially mandated that state and local officials be notified within 24 hours of unplanned radioactive discharge from a nuclear facility. This legislation came about because of an Exelon power plant in Braidwood, Illinois, a town in Obama’s congressional district, that was leaking tritium into the groundwater.[19] Public outcry prompted Obama to put the bill into motion; however, Obama made significant changes to the bill that took out much of the regulatory power. These changes were largely influenced by Exelon and the nuclear industry’s strong opposition to the bill, including dissenting voices from the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear think tank. In the end, Obama removed the language requiring disclosure of leaks by the nuclear industry, and the bill never got out of Congress.[20]

Just recently, the Illinois Senate voted successfully to lift a 23-year ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants in Illinois. The decision is now put to the House, and if it is passed it will allow companies like Exelon access to the billions of dollars already ear-marked by Obama’s Administration for expansion of the nuclear sector. The ban was originally initiated in 1987, the year after the melt-down at Chernobyl.[21]

The lull in nuclear industrial activity over the past thirty years has allowed frightening reminders of the toxicity of nuclear power and weapons to slowly recede from the public eye. A generation has passed since large-scale nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, meanwhile nuclear weapons issues are kept largely under wraps. There are communities, however, that can never forget the deadly legacy of the uranium fuel cycle, or of the horrors of even the “smallest” nuclear power leaks and spillages. Nuclear waste and contamination is forever. Now that the government is opening the legislative door and the taxpayers pocketbook for new nuclear endeavors at a time when energy issues such as mountaintop removal and foreign fossil fuel dependency are high-profile, nuclear is again entering the public discourse as an “alternative.” So far, that discourse has been largely framed by nuclear corporations set to profit enormously from the expansion of the industry, and politicians who have made their careers on pandering to corporate interests over that of their constituencies.

When Obama speaks of nuclear disarmament, we must remember how he turned his back on the people of Braidwood. We must remember where he is allocating taxpayer dollars. We must keep in mind the difference between political rhetoric and political reality. Finally, we must again add a human voice to the discourse on nuclear weapons and energy; one that speaks to the horrific human and environmental costs that don’t fit so neatly onto corporate ledgers.

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[1] A transcript of Obama’s Prague Speech can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/05/obama-prague-speech-on-nu_n_183219.html

[2] Transcript of Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/obama-nobel-peace-prize-a_n_386837.html

[3]  1973, the same year he orchestrated the fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet’s rise to power in Chile, overthrowing Salvador Allende.

[4] In 1982, Begin oversaw the invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli Defense Force. Three months into the invasion, the IDF committed a heinous massacre in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Refugee camps in Beirut under the watchful eye of then Defense Minister Arial Sharon. Sharon was forced to resign (although he later became Prime Minister of Israel 2001-2006).

[5] He then went on to justify the US’s war in Afghanistan as one of self-defense. I’m still fact checking news archives to see when the Afghani Army’s first aggressive act against the US was.

[6] Evidently wishing to push his escalation of the Afghanistan War out of the annals of history.

[7] Dr. Robert Civiak, Tri-Valley CAREs. “Enhancing Nuclear Weapons Research and Production to Support Disarmament?: An analysis of the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request for Nuclear Weapons Activities.” 22 Feb 2010. http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/reports/FY2011BUDGETRPT.pdf

[8] Ibid. Civiak’s article helps to illuminate a lot of the details of where money will be allocated in the NNSA’s budget; details I won’t be examining further in this article, but are worth knowing to understand the direction in which Obama is taking America’s nuclear industry.

[9] Many arguments have been made on the economic infeasibility of nuclear power, despite industry claims that it is affordable. This site provides one such argument: http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/kyotonuc.htm. Without massive government subsidies (ie: taxpayer dollars), nuclear power would be completely unfeasible as an energy source.

[10] Another imperative of this discussion, which I don’t have space to elaborate on in this piece, is the environmental and human costs of the nuclear fuel cycle. Much good literature has been written on this topic. Here is a very short introductory article I wrote on uranium mining and its affects on local communities: http://thinkoutsidethebomb.org/nuclear.html#titletop. See also: http://www.indypendent.org/2008/02/27/1504/

[11] It is speculated that the price of uranium has been raised in part by hedge funds: http://www.indypendent.org/2008/02/27/1504/.

[12] http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf

[13] http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/materials/uranium/ur-projects-list-public.pdf; see also http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusa.html or more information on specific sites and projects.

[14] Another look at the NNSA’s FY2011 budget by Darwin BondGraham: http://reachingcriticalwill.blogspot.com/2010/02/president-obamas-nuclear-surge.html.

[15] http://watchdog.net/empl/exelon

[16] http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html

[17] This bill has served to simplify the process for applying to build new nuclear plants, as well as to provide government incentives to nuclear utility corporations. See: Matthew Cardinale. “Democratic President-elect Barack Obama faces a hungry nuclear industry.” IPS Latin America. 15 Jan 2009.

[18] http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair07042007.html

[19] Steven Dolley. “NRC approves resumption of tritium discharges at Braidwood station.” Inside NRC. 18 Sept 2006.

[20] Matthew Cardinale. “Democratic President-elect Barack Obama faces a hungry nuclear industry.” IPS Latin America. 15 Jan 2009.

[21] Dave McKinney and Steve Contorno. “Senate votes to lift ban on building new nuclear plants.” Chicago Sun Times. 15 Mar 2010.

Uranium Mining & Local Communities

“Uranium mines and mills have operated on or near our communities for over 50 years.  Located in the heart of the Grants Mineral Belt the experience of uranium mining and milling created devastating impacts to the environment, human health, which will last for generations to come.  The history of uranium mining has also created social and economic change that has impacted our tradition, culture and spirituality.” – A Statement by the Southwest Indigenous Uranium Forum (1)

The nuclear fuel cycle in the US, from mining, to milling, to enrichment, creates not only an immense amount of radioactive waste, but also poses a significant health threat to those working and living in and near nuclear industrial sites. Lack of awareness or refusal to tell employees of the health risks of uranium mining has led to increased and pervasive health problems for certain populations. Indigenous peoples of the Southwest who have been forced into economic hardship due to the disruption of their traditional life-ways and encroachment on their land base by centuries of Spanish, Mexican and American colonialism, were the primary labor force to work in the Uranium mines. When the mining industry first came to New Mexico in the first half of the 20^th century, it promised jobs to populations who were hard hit by poverty, but did not inform any of the workers of the potential risks of uranium mining.

Before uranium mining boomed in the Southwest, lung cancer was very rare among Native Americans there. A paper from 1982 entitled “Lung Cancer among Navajo uranium miners” (2) looks at the concurrence of Diné (Navajo) males who sought medical attention for lung cancer between February 1965 and May 1979, and those who worked in uranium mines. Of 17 patients, 16 worked in uranium mines, and one did not. Over half of these men suffered from small cell undifferentiated lung cancer. Furthermore, this report finds that a statistically significant number of early miners developed this type of cancer after exposure to uranium ore. Uranium ore naturally decays into Radon-222, which has been identified as a cancer causing agent. (3) Other studies report increased likelihood of kidney disease, diabetes, lung and renal cancers, deformities, birth defects, chromosome aberrations, and leukemia for populations living near uranium mines and mills. (4)

In addition to the health effects described above by western scientists, uranium mining, as well as other mining and resource extraction, serves to harm the people native to the Southwest in deeper and more resonating ways. Uranium mining necessitates the development of the earth that goes against the fundamental belief systems of the First Nations of the Southwest, one which is, speaking in generalizations, predicated upon maintaining balance and harmony with the earth. This abrogation of belief systems is intensified when the mines are built over or into sacred sites. Development on sacred sites disrupts the Pueblo people’s ability to continue practicing the rites and ceremonies that are essential to preserving the balance of the universe, according to their beliefs. By dislocating a people from their land base, these peoples are also dislocated from their cultural and spiritual practices. This disruption serves to continue the long process of cultural genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Southwest; a colonial and genocidal history that also includes (but is not limited to): forced sterilization, medical testing, children forced into foster homes and boarding schools, relocation to urban areas under the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which was part of the Indian Termination Policy, among others. When stated and overt national legislation and policy actively pursues the extinguishment of a people’s family structure, language, culture, and spirituality, this is called genocide by the Geneva Conventions.(5)

Take for example the Chevron mine, which was the world’s deepest uranium mining shaft. This mine was built into Mount Taylor, which is a sacred site for the Navajo, Acoma, Laguna and Zuni peoples. Manuel Pino speaks more on this subject in his address at the World Uranium Hearing in Salzburg. (6) Another prime example would be Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, which was built upon an area, now restricted from public use, that encompasses thousands of shrines and sacred sites for the neighboring San Ildefonso and other Pueblo peoples. By destroying, polluting, and keeping people from sacred sites, the existence of Los Alamos National Laboratory is in itself an ongoing act of genocide, a crime against humanity.

“For nations who ground their identity on an intimate connection to the earth, and utilize plant metaphors to describe their origin and engagement with the universe, the effects of the plutonium economy are not only quantifiable health risks, but also the unique cosmological repercussions of a material and symbolic colonization, of discovering a radioactive plant, a vanished shrine, a polluted spring, or a toxic honeybee on ancestral lands.” — From Joseph Masco’s “The Nuclear Borderlands.” (7)

(1) From: http://www.siuf.net/about.html; accessed 13 Mar 2010.

 (2) Gottlieb, LS; LA Husen (1982-04-01). “Lung cancer among Navajo uranium miners”. Chest 81 (4): 449–452. doi:10.1378/chest.81.4.449. http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/4/449. Retrieved 13 Mar 2010.

(3) Harley, Naomi; Ernest Foulkes, Lee H. Hilborne, Arlene Hudson, C. Ross Anthony (1999). “Chapter 2: Health Effects”. A Review of the Scientific Literature As It Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses. RAND Corporation. pp. Volume 7: Depleted Uranium. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1018.7/mr1018.7.chap2.html. Retrieved 13 Mar 2010.

(4) Reports can be found at: http://www.wise-uranium.org/uhr.html; accessed 13 Mar 2010.

(5) The Geneva Conventions define genocide, in part, as: “inflicting on members of the group conditions of life intended to destroy them, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and taking group members’ children away from them and giving them to members of another group.” Genocide is a crime against humanity. From: <a href=”http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html#CAG
“>http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html#CAG</a&gt;; accessed 15 Mar 2010.

(6) Pino, Manuel. Address at the World Uranium Hearing. Featured in “Poison Fire, Sacred Earth: TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS.” THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING; SALZBURG (1992). http://www.ratical.com/radiation/WorldUraniumHearing/ManuelPino.html, accessed 13 Mar 2010.

(7) Masco, Joseph (2006). “The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post Cold-War New Mexico.” Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.

Battelle & the Nuclear Complex in Columbus, Ohio

This piece was written for a friend of mine who is putting on a work shop at a radical space in Columbus, Ohio. Her presentation comes at the same time as the peace walkers making their way through Ohio to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City, May 1st-3rd 2010.

BRINGING NUCLEAR ABOLITION HOME

When we talk about Nuclear Abolition, we often think of very lofty principles. We think of the peace and anti-war movements, we think about global politics, the cold war, we think of mutually assured destruction and deterrence. Nuclear Abolition is about much more than this, however, and to keep Nuclear Abolition in such a lofty theoretical position actually serves to benefit those who hold power over us.

The human and environmental costs of nuclear weapons and nuclear power affects people every day all over the country, as well as the world. Wastes generated from uranium milling, mining, and processing pose direct catastrophic health concerns to the communities that host them. Uranium mining, milling and enrichment happen at different locations all over the country, generally in poor communities of color, or on occupied indigenous lands. This means that uranium must continually be shipped across the country in order to meet the current demand for nuclear energy.

While nuclear power generation itself does not produce CO₂ emissions at the nuclear reactor, and thus is being touted as “clean” or “green,” it does leave behind a massive trail of nuclear waste. We can see this in the form of uranium tailings (left over at the mine), irradiated and contaminated water (used extensively in the mining, milling, enrichment, and power generation processes), and spent fuel rods (which generally stay put at the reactor site, the most visible on-site manifestation of nuclear waste). Furthermore, every other step of the uranium fuel cycle requires the use of fossil fuels, such as that used for transportation.

Given this information, Nuclear Abolition is much more about environmental justice for the communities it directly affects than it is about global politics and relations between nations, or the threat of nuclear war. While the threat of nuclear war is a real, the ongoing destruction of people’s bodies and lives within the United States and its occupied territories is an ongoing reality, a war that has been waged every day since the conception of the Manhattan Project and the opening of the first uranium mine in New Mexico in the 1950s. This also means that our ability to act is not restricted to begging our elected federal government officials for abstract notions of peace. We can act strategically in our own communities to demand an end to the oppression brought by nuclear weapons and energy.

THE NUCLEAR COMPLEX IN COLUMBUS, OHIO

Ohio is the site of a few different nuclear projects, situated along the Ohio River, Lake Erie and other bodies of water. The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant[1] is found near Lake Erie on Locust Point outside of Toledo, and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant[2] is about 35 miles outside of Cleveland on Lake Erie. Piketon, Ohio hosts a few different Uranium Enrichment facilities, including two sites licensed by U.S. Enrichment Corporation that enrich using Gaseous Diffusion and Gas Centrifuge technologies.[3] Other nuclear projects, including the Piqua Nuclear Generating Station[4], have opened and closed in the past 60 years, and leave behind nearly permanent contamination. The Dayton Daily News released an article called “Ohio’s Nuclear Legacy” that offers more detailed information.[5] Columbus, Ohio, hosts its own nuclear sites.

425 West Town Street once hosted B & T Metals Company, which fabricated uranium metal rods for the Manhattan Project in 1943.[6] The site contaminated nearby “building surfaces, drains, equipment, exterior soils and manholes in nearby streets.” The DOE certified cleanup of the site in 2001.

On West Jefferson and King Avenue (see Figure 1), [7] the Columbus Environmental Management Project is engaging in the decommissioning and clean up of 15 buildings left over from over 40 years of atomic energy research and development performed by Battelle. Battelle (which now goes by the name Battelle Memorial Institute and is registered as a non-profit) engaged in “fabrication of uranium and fuel elements; reactor development; submarine propulsion, fuel reprocessing; and safety studies of reactor vessels and piping.” Clean up of both of these projects were scheduled to be completed by 2005, and the buildings then returned to Battelle “without radiological restrictions.” Waste, which includes uranium and thorium, should have been shipped off site for “disposal.”[8]

The Case School of Applied Science at Ohio State University did research and development with uranium for the Atomic Energy Commission. It was removed for consideration of decommissioning in 1990 because the DOE did not have the authority to proceed with decommissioning.[9]

The Ohio State University operates a 500 kW Nuclear Research Reactor that was built in 1961.[10] The reactor is located at 1298 Kinnear Road.[11] In 1997 the Ohio State University was fined $13,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for “failure to conduct physical inventories of brachytherapy and other sealed and unsealed sources and failure to dispose of accumulated radioactive waste.”[12]

MORE ON BATTELLE

As noted above, Battelle Memorial Institute began in 1929 as a private company owned by Gordon Battelle. In the 1930s, Battelle owned machine shops in the Columbus area that soon began doing materials research for domestic iron and steel industries. Battelle provided armor plating for US Army Tanks in 1939 during the First World War, and developed fuel for the Nautilus nuclear powered submarine in 1949. Other Battelle designs include: the Xerox machine (1959); the Universal Product Code, or UPC (1964); cruise control (1970); compact disks, photovoltaic cells for solar energy (1974); and fiber optics, along with Mitsubishi & NTT (1987).[13] Today Battelle Memorial Institute, which is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with tax exempt filing status, sees over $5 billion in contracts for research and development every year. Much of that money comes from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Department of Homeland Security.[14]

Battelle conducts oversight and management of a number of national laboratories across the United States:

• Battelle is partnered with Bechtel National, the University of California, BWX Technologies, Washington Group International and Texas A&M University in what is called Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. In 2007, Battelle and their cohorts formed this Limited Liability Corporation to conduct oversight and management of the Lawrence Livermore National Nuclear Laboratory. Research and development at LLNL focuses on high-performance computers, advanced lasers, and nuclear weaponry.[15]

• Battelle signed onto a team with SUNY-Stony Brook to operate the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1997. Brookhaven is home to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and the Synchrotron Light Source.[16]

• Battelle Energy Alliance began management and operation of the Idaho National Laboratory in 2005, which claims to be the leader of the “national renaissance in nuclear energy.”[17]

• The Battelle National Biodefense Institute currently manages the National Biodefense Analysis & Countermeasures Center, a research and development institute funded by the federal government. This contract through the US Department of Homeland Security began in 2006 with the creation of the NBACC.[18]

• Since 1998, Battelle has helped to manage the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where it works to develop solar cells, nanostrctures, hyrdrogen energy, and fuel cells.[19]

• Battelle manages the $1.4 billion DOE research project called the Spallation Neutron Source, which is a part of Oak Ridge National Nuclear Laboratory. This project is touted as “the largest civilian science project in the world.”[20]

• Battelle has managed the Hanford National Nuclear Laboratory in Washington State, now called the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, since 1965.[21]

In addition to conducting management and oversight of nuclear laboratories that continue to advance nuclear weapons technology and proliferation, Battelle employees also often graduate from the ranks of the think tank to hold high paying positions in the nuclear industry. Take for example Steve Porter, who was hired to the position of Laboratory General at Los Alamos National Nuclear Laboratory after serving as legal counsel for the laboratory operations sector at Battelle.[22]

Through their experience with the management of nuclear weapons laboratories, Battelle is conveniently poised to take advantage of the nuclear energy market as well. The company continues its nuclear research and development through its work in the nuclear fuel cycle, including: “nuclear science and engineering; detection, processing and reactor system development; high level waste management; nuclear site and carbon offset assessment; nuclear system performance and safety assessment.”[23] Given its stake in the self-proclaimed “nuclear renaissance,” Battelle stands to gain from the nuclear industry’s claim that nuclear energy is “clean, safe, and green.” Battelle also has its hands in a number of other energy markets, including coal, alternative energies, infrastructures and “grids,” and fuel cells.

A visit to Battelle’s website would provide a more accurate picture of all of the areas they cover as far as research and development are concerned; the following is a quick overview of Battelle’s militaristic ventures:

• armor and protective systems
• avionics
• explosives and energetics
  • munitions and weapons
  • lightweight advanced armor
  • airborn magnetic and electromagnetic sensor systems
  • field support for lethality and missile testing
• High Energy Research Laboratory Area
  • largest privately owned blast containment facility in the US
  • small caliber testing facility
  • explosives preparation facility
  • hypervelocity impact and altitude facility
• information and knowledge management
• strategy and organization consulting
• undersea technology
  • special operations forces support
  • improving fleet combat readiness
  • submersible navigation, sensor systems and environmental control systems
  • undersea warfare: mines, underwater vehicles & robotics, sensors

For more information on the Nuclear Industrial Complex in the United States, visit:

http://totbtour.wordpress.com/mapping-the-nuclear-industrial-complex/

http://ucnuclearfree.org/

Queeries, comments, and concerns: totbchicago@gmail.com

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[1] http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/davi.html

[2] http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/perr1.html

[3] From the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/materials/fuel-cycle/

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piqua_Nuclear_Generating_Station

[5] “Ohio’s Nuclear Legacy: Troubled Past, Uncerain Future.” Offers articles, maps, and diagrams. Found at: http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/index/news/special-reports/piketon/index.html

[6] http://www.lm.doe.gov

/Columbus_East/Sites.aspx?view=2

[7] http://www.iasmirt.org/SMiRT12/N02-1.pdf

[8] Information from the Ohio Field Office Summary, http://www.em.doe.gov/PDFs/PubPDFs/accpath_94-97ape.pdf.

[9] http://www.lm.doe.gov/Considered_Sites/Case_School_of_Applied_Science_Ohio_State_University_-_OH_0-01.aspx

[10] http://www-nrl.eng.ohio-state.edu/facilities/reactor.html

[11] http://www-nrl.eng.ohio-state.edu/

[12] More specific information on violations and penalties: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/enforcement/actions/materials/ea97258.html.

[13] http://www.battelle.org/timeline/index.html

[14] http://www.battelle.org/ABOUTUS/history.aspx

[15] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/lawrencel.aspx

[16] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/brookhaven.aspx

[17] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/idaho.aspx

[18] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/nbacc.aspx

[19] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/nrel.aspx

[20] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/oakridge.aspx

[21] http://www.battelle.org/LABMANAGEMENT/pnnl.aspx

[22] http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/9589

[23] http://www.battelle.org/solutions/default.aspx?Nav_Area=Solution&Nav_SectionID=5&Nav_CatID=5_Nuclear%20Fuel%20Cycle

On Mass Mobilizations, “Community”, and Making Change

The following is a rough exposition of my ideas on direct action, organizing, community building, and how we can begin rethinking tearing down the nuclear industrial complex. Let me restate that it is ROUGH. I will continue working on this and restructuring the argument, adding in additional references and theorists. It currently consists mostly of reflections I have of my own personal experiences, as well as ideas taken from discussions with my brilliant and supportive friends. Special thanks to Nick Robinson for long and constructive conversations following TOTB this year, some of these thoughts may indeed be his, so I hope he will not pursue intellectual property damages against me. Just kidding.

 

The first section is my reflections on mass mobilizations, protests, street marches, etc, and their effectiveness at making change. The second section is where I begin positing alternatives to the idea of “direct action” tactics as we commonly conceive of them, a mostly symbolic spectacle. This includes a critical look at the idea of “community” and “community organizing.” The third section is a sketch of the possible architecture of change, the trebuchet to smash the monster so to speak.

 

 

On large scale mass mobilizations, protests, and convention associated mock-war street riots in the United States:

 

From the first moment a mass mobilization is brought into being, an organizer (master)/mass (slave) binary is put in place. Those who attend an organized event or action, to a large degree, have little or no agency in deciding the messaging or overall goals of the action. They are largely excluded from the decision-making process, and they are disempowered via their lack of agency. Those who attend large/mass actions with their own plans or affinity actions in mind are often viewed by the organizers or media as being disruptive to the stated aims of the protest, bringing unwanted police attention to the action, being intentionally divisive with their ideology and messaging, etc. Large scale and mass actions do not leave room for affinity actions or differences of opinion because they are aimed at getting one specific, simple message into the eyes and ears of the media. Entire actions are planned on how the media will later portray them. Because of this, certain actions and ideologies that may be more “radical” cannot be included because the largely conservative mainstream media will not portray them in a favorable light.

 

This has molded the characteristic of mass actions in America to nothing more than banal displays of democracy which only serve to strengthen the political discourse in this country that the public opinion matters, when in any real or visceral sense, it doesn’t. Large Anti War protests, or other such single-message protests which get a large number of people into the streets, while supposedly functioning as a way for the masses to voice dissent, are viewed as a positive cathartic exhaust in a diluted version of democracy by both the governing powers and the protest organizers. The governing powers continue to allow such events because (1) mass protests do not pose any actual threat to power structures and (2) they justify the increased militarization of the police force.

 

Since Seattle in 1999, large scale protests have been rapidly militarized in the form of heavily armed (albeit with “non-lethal” weaponry) police presence. From surveillance and infiltration of organizing groups to the increased number of police that are deployed at protests, the presence of police in organizing and public protesting space cannot be ignored. Often times this increased police presence is accompanied by an increase in the types of “soft weaponry” that they carry. Rubber bullets, stun guns and tasers, batons, riot shields and helmets, tear gas and pepper spray, horses, and more specialized directed-sound weapons are now deployed regularly at protests in the United States. Anti-globalization and big convergences, such as the RNC or DNC, probably see the most severe forms of militarization of public space, but even May Day and Anti War protests in large or medium sized cities will be host to riot-ready police forces.

 

Riot or mock-street warfare scenarios are now often regarded as an initiation process into radicalism. Ironically, a sub-culture within mainstream political protesting culture has emerged that, despite their disdain for war and violence, recreates war-like scenarios at the fringes of mass actions. Anarcho-punk youth from around the United States and Europe will travel thousands of miles to attend such an action, rather than spending their time and resources building relationships and material or social wealth in their own communities. I could go into my opinions on this issue but that would be a cynical distraction, and I’d rather talk about the militarization of public protest space.

 

The violent engagement of police forces with protesters, whether due to protester or police instigation, justifies the use of such force in the eyes of the state. The violent outburst is a manifestation of the tension from (a) the ideological threat of public dissent present in a mass action, and (b) the physical counter-threat of police violence present in massive and heavily armed police presence. It acts as a catharsis for both sides. And regardless of how many windows get smashed during such a riot or mock-street warfare scenario, little or nothing is changed as an outcome of such an outburst other than the weakening of communities of resistance by police infiltration, jail time from protester arrests, and the material resources necessitated for legal support. Long-term physical and psychological wounds are also incurred, mostly on the side of the protesters due to the disproportionate use of force on the side of the police.

 

Male roles and actions are favored in mass action, especially in scenarios of police/protester violence. Physical strength, daring and heroism are qualities upheld in a riot scenario. As protest spaces are increasingly militarized with police presence and police/protester violent engagement, they are increasingly unwelcoming to groups of people on the lower rungs of the white supremacist, patriarchal value system.

 

The riot police, who may, in this scenario, represent the militarized ideal, are the most masculine of the actors. (This masculinity subverts the police officers’ assigned or chosen sex and/or gender, as their occupation requires them to play out masculine roles in this context. Of course, female officers face extreme patriarchal pressures in their line of work, and are objectified and oppressed as well.) The police hold the monopoly on weaponry, and in that sense a literal monopoly on physical violence. They also hold the power of the “legal system” on their side, with the ability to trump or fabricate charges at will, such as “resisting arrest” or “assaulting an officer” (which can include verbal assault or struggling while face down in cuffs), and in this sense hold the monopoly on judicial violence.

 

Due to this monopoly on judicial violence, and their power to define the terms of “justice” in a riot scenario, the police force a passive role on the protester counter-force. Passive in the literal sense that (if caught, tried, and convicted) physical violence against police, regardless of the physical injury sustained, is a felony (not sure if this is true but I think it is). Therefore, the protester’s agency to inflict violence is severely restricted by the legal repercussions of such violence.

 

The American legal system is systematically engrained with racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise bigoted tendencies. This means that if “violence”[1] occurs from protester to police, and is done by a person of color, female person, queer person, a person who doesn’t easily fit into the male-female gender binary, or a person with precarious legal status, such as prior convictions or lack of “legal” immigration documentation, this person will often times face harsher physical and legal repercussions due to the action. Hence, the idea that a protester can “punch a cop in the face and get away with it”[2] is an idea that really only applies due to the privilege bestowed upon cis-gendered[3], straight, white males. Behavior like this also instigates a violent backlash by the police force (envision a shark feeding frenzy) that then puts all bystanders at risk, regardless of their involvement in such an action.

 

That said, when the entire action is done, people go home, tie up legal loose ends, what has come of this giant spectacle? The media may buzz for a day or two, but after that they will be onto the next story, celebrity gossip, shopping holidays, etc. The mainstream media will not muse over the cultural or political relevance of the protests outside the RNC, they will go on to cover the election, and they will only validate the voices of the two party system. Videos will be posted to the internet, and spread through listservs and the blogosphere, those who missed the action will be amazed and appalled by the riot-porn. Those who were there will relive their mock-war battles and start to heal the psychological wounds caused by the trauma of conflict. The glass will get swept up and the stores will reopen. Or, absolutely nothing at all will have changed for the local businesses. And it is most certain that absolutely nothing will have changed in the minds of the men and women in power.

 

What about the relationships formed among the participants? Folks on the street likely made friends and new connections, and felt an overwhelming sense of solidarity. However, such an event encourages a lack of long term or working relationship building and maintenance outside of the organizing clique. As the agency for decision-making was restricted to the organizing vanguard, again relegating the mass participants to a passive role, most of the people who attend a protest on a large scale will not take much social networking home. Furthermore, the social networks established for publicizing and getting a large turn out to such events are not necessarily meant to be maintained over the long term. They are used mostly for the event, and possibly for similar events in the future. These networks do not extend beyond event-specific organizing in meaningful ways.

 

Ideological differences among participants are not discussed with regards to messaging and the least common denominator messaging is emphasized in the media and in pre-event literature. There is no open public forum for mediating ideological differences. Likewise, generational, racial, cultural, gender & sexual and political differences not discussed or moderated. Marginalized views remain marginalized.

 

As far as material resource allocation and accountability is concerned, money raised is generally focused on publicity and media, while the undiscussed needs of the attending population are largely ignored. The validity of such an action depends on support from certain groups (labor, people of color, indigenous populations, etc) without any attempt to materially support these people in the action or outside of it. Legal support is generally left in the hands of the individuals who need to use it or the groups they were originally associated with.

 

Even a cursory reading of the above should show that the tactical significance or importance of mass protests or large scale actions, regardless of how violent they get or how much property damage occurs, is little to none. Any messaging is filtered through mainstream conservatism, any subversive ideology or messaging outside of the central message is ignored, marginalized, and silenced, and these spaces are increasingly militarized, with the violence only acting in one direction due to disproportionality and the state’s monopoly on physical and judicial violence.

 

 

 

Alternative visions: Community building and organizing

 

Community building begins with defining community. There are many diverse “community organizations” that serve different elements of a population. Community organizations in one neighborhood can all serve divergent groups and interests.

 

When defining the people we can work with, we need to match that group of people to the goals we wish to achieve and the resources we have. We need to work in a community that can support our goals materially as well. Material support comes in many forms: time, money, work, food, shelter, legal, spiritual and mental support, guidance and direction, etc.

 

Community building requires long-term commitment at a level that is sustainable. It requires being invested in a location. It requires building long lasting working relationships with the people that live near you. It necessitates a diffuse leadership structure that allows any one person to take breaks and shift focus without weakening the community itself or the direction of the project. Community building requires transparent and accountable communication and behaviors. It requires support systems for victims of abuse within the community, conflict mediation, and alternatives to the penal system. Community building should be based on trust, investment, and a set of principles for societal change that are widely acknowledged, accepted, and practiced within the community.

 

The type of work that needs to be done in order to subvert the nuclear industrial complex also involves looking beyond prominent conceptions of community. I will forward some of this discussion to an article, “City Life and Difference” by Iris Marion Young,[4] who claims that the term “community,” like its opposite the “individual,” necessarily denies the differences that occur in large groups of people. These differences encompass political ideals, racial, ethnic and gender identities, among others. The idea of “building community” is premised upon a shared understanding and knowing of those in the community, and in this way is a completely impossible and utopian ideal.

 

When we begin to look at how community building pans out in the real world, no matter what the stated intentions of planned communities may be, we see many of the problems of mainstream society replicated in them. This is to say that rather than knowing each other on intimate levels, we are still in some ways indefinable and alienated from each other. This extends to our ability to know ourselves, and as such we can never really hope to know others as the self remains, at times, quite ambiguous. Also, in defining our community based on likeness and shared ideals, we must necessarily exclude difference. Often times in planned community spaces, such as anarchist spaces (or “infoshops”) or feminist groups in the United States, there is a lack of racial or ethnic diversity. While these groups may in their values list a respect and appreciation for diversity, or even the necessity of it, it remains a trend that likeness prevails. This is perhaps due to identities that cross social groups. For example, anarchist feminist spaces in the United States may lack the presence of black women, even though the group is largely defined as a female group, but because anarchists tend generally to be white, to know white people and have white friends and relationships. Thus those that identify as female and black, or even female, black and radical, may not identify with the white anarchists, and therefore are excluded or exclude themselves from that “community.”

 

As Young puts it, “The most serious political consequence of the desire for community, or for copresence and mutual identification with others [Young’s definition of community] is that it often operates to exclude or oppress those experienced as different. Commitment to an ideal of community tends to value and enforce homogeneity…Too often people in groups working for social change take mutual friendship to be a goal of the group, and thus judge themselves wanting as a group when they do not achieve such commonality. Such a desire for community often channels energy away from the political goals of the group, and also produces a clique atmosphere which keeps groups small and turns potential members away.”[5] 

 

In a real way, we cannot think of community as some ideal of togetherness. When we use the term “community” we must carefully qualify which community, and we must be critical of utopian visioning. Rather than focusing solely on “community” for the groups and spaces that we can envision ourselves organizing in, we can use Young’s alternative of the city as a model for social change networking. Young favors the city model to that of the community model because the city provides a commonality in proximity while allowing for differences in identification. There can be many self defined communities within a city that overlap and exist on top of each other. The city provides a loose framework for association without forcing relationships of inclusion or exclusion.

 

I would like to expand this idea of the city onto our conception of networking and movement building. Rather than trying to build a very large, specific and closely related “community based” movement, I propose thinking of our movement for nuclear abolition as a city. Instead of being loosely associated by proximity, we will be loosely associated in our aim to abolish the nuclear industrial complex. Thus, we will allow agency and autonomy for self-defined communities, groups, and individual actors that exist within the “city.” Our space, rather than being a physical space, is an ideological space, or a communication space.

 

On colonizing and patriarchal organizing, or cross-cultural organizing:

 

Let’s say the goal we have is nuclear abolition. Let’s say that we determine that the groups of people we want to work with in order to shut down nuclear fuel production and processing facilities are working class people, people of color, and indigenous communities who live near uranium strip mining operations. Let’s say that we are composed of mostly young white people from upper middle class backgrounds, with college educations, and only a few of us live near the facilities in question. Let’s acknowledge that the colonizing and racist history of this country has put us in a place of privilege over those that are most suited to directly shut down the nuclear industrial complex. Due to our backgrounds and upbringings, we do not live near or work at uranium mines or processing facilities. How do we begin to bridge the cultural, racial, colonial, class, and many other differences in order to join together to fight? How do we establish trust with peoples who have been lied to and deceived for centuries by peoples like us?

 

This is not a question of how to save people. I want to make this clear. This is a question of how to materially support people so they can better organize and empower themselves. We are not in the position to organize anyone other than ourselves. We are not in a position to convert people to a specific ideology, religion or lifestyle. To do so would be to once again colonize a movement, to deny agency to oppressed people, to become the masters of a movement of slaves. This would only serve to create another system of oppression, and to reproduce prevailing societal norms and hierarchies within our own movement.

 

Much like the above scenario of the event based mass protest or march, we want to avoid vanguardist organizing where a small organizing group (us) defines the goals and messaging of an action or, in this case, a long-term movement within a specific community.

 

What this process entails is to be an ally.[6] It entails taking the supporting role rather than the leadership role. It means establishing connections and working relationships with people and allowing them to define our roles as far as what they need in order to better organize. This requires cultural sensitivity and an understanding of ideological differences between cultures.

 

This role also requires a clear understanding of one’s privilege in order to best serve the needs of those to which one is allied. Knowing one’s strengths and abilities, as well as knowing what spaces one can more easily trespass due to one’s privilege is key. But above all, this process necessitates and requires asking for direction and listening to the needs and interests of others. 

 

One of the great things about TOTB is the network that it is building. There are a lot of groups from all over the country who send representatives to TOTB conferences to share their stories and experiences of struggle. I think that we need to see more representation from groups that are situated closely to the production and processing of nuclear fuel: (1) indigenous communities near uranium mines and mills who are working to assert their treaty rights to retain ownership of the land and stop uranium extraction and refinement; (2) the people working at the processing facilities, whether current or past, who are working to expose the health risks of such an occupation, (and who can possibly be linked with people working on building “green” jobs or alternative energy sources to nuclear power); and (3) United States citizens who live in communities adjacent to mining, milling, and fuel processing facilities who know the longevity of the health affects and are not willing to allow such disasters in their localities.

 

Upon contacting these folks, we need to figure out with them what resources we have that can assist them in meeting their goals. There are many groups that already are part of the TOTB network with many skills and resources that could benefit and empower such communities. As aforementioned, this will mean letting these groups define their aims and goals for nuclear abolition and taking an allied role to materially support them in the ways that they define. Through the network that we build and maintain, and by allowing others access to building and maintenance of this network as well, we will start to form the city-like structure mentioned above. Material support and exchange of information will continue to build and swell into a movement of autonomous communities, groups, and individuals working toward the aim of nuclear abolition.

 

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[1] Again, this terminology will be defined by the police, and doesn’t actually have to constitute a physical assault, or even really happen. There are many cases of people being locked up for years or life who never committed the violence against police that they are serving time for. Leonard Peltier is a good example, as he is in jail for life after being framed for the murder of an FBI agent.

[2] A quote liked with the group CrimetInc, who publishes lifestyle-anarchist propaganda that looks eerily similar to the advertising aesthetic used by the mainstream media/youth culture, such as Mtv.

[3] Cis-gendered: a person whose gender identity visibly matches their sex and assigned gender.

[4] I found this article in a book entitled METROPOLIS: Center and Symbol of Our Times, edited by Philip Kasinitz, on New York University Press: 1995. It is a collection of essays that reflect on how capital effects our conceptions of urban space from a very critical standpoint. Features writing by Mike Davis and Loic J D Wacquant, among others.

[5] Young, Iris Mario, “City Life and Difference.” Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times, ed. Kasinitz. New York University Press: 1995. Page 260-261.

[6] “An ally is a member of a dominant group who rejects the dominant ideology and takes action against oppression out of a belief that eliminating oppression benefits everyone.” From a handout, What is an Ally?, adapted from “Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice” edited by Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin (Routledge Press, 1997)

EXELON: Energy & Power

Exelon Corporation

(1) Company History/Structure — Past companies who merged together to form Exelon, past and current Subsidiaries, NRG takeover

also — structure of company as one who owns the lines through which energy is transported, and thus controls the purchase and transport of energy while not necessarily being accountable for energy production

furthermore — exelon owes its success to coal burning plants, and still operates a number of coal burning plants and other fossil fuel oriented energy plants

(2) Board of Directors — ties to other corporations

(3) influence within obama administration, washington offices, lobbiest institutions

(a) DoE: Nuclear Power 2010

(b) Cap and Trade/HR 2454/Waxman-Markey

(c) NuStart Energy Consortium and COL

(4) front end uranium/power production, environmental impact, indigenous genocide (strip mining & dine)

(a) cotter corp/canon city

(b) areva/niger

(c) tenex/kazakhstan

(5) dangers of nuclear energy production: Three Mile Island

(6) brief outline of the nuclear fuel cycle, the companies involved, the industrial investment in nuclear energy, and the problem of nuclear waste: web of profit and environmental destruction

(7) environmental justice & resistance organizations

(a) LVEJO

boeing working piece

INTRODUCTION

 

This essay is written to serve several functions. First of all, it is intended to inform community members of Chicago specifically to the history, leadership and commodoties of the Boeing Corporation in an attempt to arrouse further investigation into Boeing’s role in the larger Military Industrial Complex. I want to, within this investigation, critically question the presence or absence of accountability on the part of Boeing to the workers, their communities, the earth, and the larger national economy, which is more and more becoming solely a military economy. Secondly, I wish to situate Chicago’s acquisition of the corporate headquarters of Boeing within a larger neo-liberal political and public policy context as spearheaded so unabashedly by the current Mayor Richard Daley Jr., and his father. Within this context, I want to determine what role Boeing’s capital investments and philanthropy contribute to the greater Chicago cultural and social millieu. Finally, I want to set all of this oblique objectivism aside: I want to write a critical and scathing condemnation of this truly insidious corporation, and I want to link together the web of oppression and destruction that Boeing has cast over the entire globe. After that is done, we will get to the question of resistance.

 

CORPORATE BIOGRAPHY

 

Boeing Corporation, Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is the United States’ second largest military contactor. Boeing researches, designs, and produces a wide variety of “products” for military and civilian uses: aircraft (military & commercial), logistical/maintenence/training support for said aircraft, intelligence/surveillance systems (giant biomentric towers on US-Mexico border), space exploration (shuttles & space stations), missile defense systems, nuclear & ballistic missiles, command-control-communications “C3″systems, “Phantom Works” (research and development), refueling tankers, and financial services to help fund & sell Boeing products. Boeing received the most federal contract dollars in the first two quarters of 2008, second most in 2007 only to Lockheed Martin.

 

Boeing works closely with, ie: gets huge contracts from, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Energy (DoE), the Israeli Government, the Saudi Arabian Government, and the Austrailian Government, among others. Boeing has tremendous political sway, as a number of its board members have from time to time served in various administrations in Washington; Boeing also is a major political contributor, and has given more than $9 million in the last decade to various Congress-people from both parties.

 

Boeing’s subsidiaries include: AeroInfo Systems, Alteon Training, Boeing Aerostructures Austrialia, Boeing Defense Austrialia, Continental Data Graphics Corporation, Jeppesen (contracted to run Extraordinary Rendition flights), Preston Group, SBS International.

 

 

 

BOEING’S COMMODITY ARSENAL

 

Boeing has greatly diversified its product offerings in order to obtain its own sort of “full spectrum dominance” of the weapons, aerospace, surveillance and communications/information market. What follows is meant to be a menacing sounding list of inventions available to anyone for the right price. Information is taken from Boeing’s website, most of the descriptions summarized by the author.

 

Boeing Military Aircraft

Global Strike Systems:

• EA-18G Growler –  Fighter used by Navy.
• F/A-18E/F Super Hornet – Fighter used by Navy.
• F-15E Strike Eagle – Fighter used by USAF, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the Republic of Korea.
• Harpoon Block III – An anti-ship weapon system, adding Global Positioning System and datalink capability, littoral performance improvement and a precision moving target solution.
• Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) — weapons guidance system.
• Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile (PAC-3) — weapons guidance.
• Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) — from 40 miles it can penetrate more than three feet of steel-reinforced concrete.
• Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM ER) — Guided missile with carefully marketed name for rocket jocks.
• T-45 Training System —  video game for training new recruits.

Global Mobility Systems:

• C-17 Globemaster III —heavy airlift aircraft used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, also flown by air forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Qatar, and NATO.

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Systems:

• 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) —airborne surveillance, communications and battle management.
• Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) — airborne surveillance and command and control (C2).
• P-8A Poseidon —The Navy awarded Boeing an eight-year System Development and Demonstration contract for the aircraft in June 2004. Long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine capabilities.

Rotorcraft Systems:

• AH-64D Apache Longbow —  helicopter with menacing and racist name.
• CH/MH-47 Chinook —medium-to-heavy-lift helicopter for intra-theater troop and cargo movement.
• V-22 Osprey — The Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft capable of taking off and landing like a helicopter, but once airborne, its engine nacelles can be rotated to convert the aircraft to a turboprop airplane capable of high-speed, high-altitude flight.

Global Services & Support

Sustains aircraft and systems with a full spectrum of products and services, including aircraft maintenance, modification and upgrades; supply chain management; engineering and logistics support; pilot and maintenance training, and other defense and government services.

Advanced Global Services & Support (ie: logistics)

Defense & Government Services

• services for infrastructure support; aviation and logistics; information; support operations; managed networks and communications; and other technical services. three subdivisions comprising Boeing Service Company (BSC); Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Services; and Boeing Aerospace Operations (BAO).

Integrated Logistics, Maintenance, Modification and Upgrades

Network and Space Systems

Combat Systems:

• Future Combat Systems (FCS) –the U.S. Army’s modernization program, includes a new family of manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles and sensors. Boeing and partner Science Applications International Corporation function as the lead systems integrator for FCS, managing a team of more than 550 suppliers. Boeing is working on this project with a $20 billion contract from the Army that runs through 2015. (United Press International, http://www.upi.com)

Command, Control and Communications (C3) Networks:

• Network and Information Systems
  • Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) —software-programmable radios that will provide voice, data, imagery and video communications for mobile military users that are interoperable (ie: compatable) between operating systems and agencies.
  • Family of Advanced Beyond line-of-sight Terminals (FAB-T) —contracted to design/build a system that talks to different satellites, enabling information exchange between ground, air and space platforms.
  • Combat Survivor Evader Locator (CSEL) – mobile satellite radio
• Integrated Command and Control (IC2)
• Integrated Shipboard Systems –navy’s submarine & ballistic missile navigators Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Systems – Since 1958, Boeing has designed, developed and produced the guidance and control system for the Minuteman ICBM. The ICBM team is currently leading a team of contractors to replace the aging guidance system electronics in the Minuteman III ICBMs. The new system will extend the life of the Minuteman III beyond 2020.

Intelligence and Security Systems:

• Mission Systems —acquire, manage, visualize and communicate intelligence from multiple sources. addresses the convergence of Information Technology with traditional systems
• SBInet – The transformational SBInet program aims to reduce the United States’ vulnerability to terrorism and protect national interests by providing Border Patrol agents, along the U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada, the tools needed to immediately detect an illegal entry, effectively respond to the entry, and bring the situation to the appropriate law enforcement resolution. Additionally, SBInet will provide enhanced situational awareness through improved fixed and mobile communications systems and a Common Operating Picture, equipping agents and officers with the advantage of real-time, up-to-date, integrated intelligence about illegal border activity, and interoperability with other federal, state, local and international law enforcement bodies. (Sounds nice, doesn’t it?)

Missile Defense Systems:

• Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) —detect, track and destroy long-range ballistic missiles in their flight.
• Airborne Laser (ABL) — ABL is a precise, high-energy laser weapon system that will be capable of destroying ballistic missiles in their boost phase of flight. Boeing leads the development of ABL, which places battle management and beam control/fire control systems and a high-energy laser on a modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft to detect, track and destroy all classes of ballistic missiles.
• Directed Energy Systems (DES) —
  • Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) —support missions on the battlefield and in urban operations (creepy!)
  • High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HEL TD) — truck-mounted, high-energy laser weapon system that will destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds.
  • Laser Avenger —Humvee-based Avenger system to destroy improvised explosive devices (IEDs), unexploded ordnance (UXO) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
• Arrow — The Arrow weapon system is a ground-based system that protects Israel against ballistic missiles.

Space and Intelligence Systems:

• Global Positioning System IIF (GPS) — satellites for radio navigation system
• Transformational Satellite Communications Space Segment (TSAT SS) — communication satellites.  Boeing is one of two contractors working under a risk reduction and system definition contract.
• Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) – bigger tubes for military internet

Space Exploration:

• Boeing Launch Systems — throws shit into space
• Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services (CAPPS) —for the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, expendable launch vehicles and other payload programs at Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
• Constellation —supports NASA’s implementation of human and robotic exploration program. Boeing is working with NASA to meet the Vision for Space Exploration, which includes a return to the moon not earlier than 2020. Boeing is responsible for producing and delivering the avionics systems and upper stage for the Ares I rocket.
• International Space Station (ISS) — Boeing is the major subcontractor to NASA’s spaceflight operations contractor, United Space Alliance.
• Space Shuttle —again, Boeing is NASA’s major contractor.

Tanker Programs

KC-767 International Tanker

Phantom Works : Research & Development

Joint Ventures

• Sea Launch — shoots shit into space.
• United Launch Alliance (ULA) —spacecraft launch services for the U.S. government: Department of Defense, NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and other organizations. Launch operations are located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
• United Space Alliance (USA) — established in 1995 as a Limited Liability Company equally owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, serves as NASA’s prime contractor for the space shuttle and provides operations services for the International Space Station. USA employs more than 10,000 people in Texas, Florida and Alabama.

 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

 

Boeing’s Board of Directors is a quite influential and affluent bunch. Most of them have served in Washington and as CEOs of other war profiteering corporations. It would be hard to argue that their interests do not lie in the perpetuation of endless war; likewise it would be hard to argue that they have not had considerable influence in the White House and Washington in shaping the policy that allows for the perpetuation of endless war and a war-based economy.

Walter J McNerney, Jr is the current President & CEO of the Boeing Corporation since 2005. He was CEO of 3M (2001-05), and held a number of presidencies or CEOships at various divisions of GE, who was awarded $35,792,415,192 in DoD contracts between 2000-2008, 84.2% of which were no-bid. He also sits on the Board of Procter & Gamble, who were awarded $312 million in DoD contracts in 2007.

Willaim M Daley, the brother of current Mayor of Chicago, has served/is serving as US Secretary of Commerce 1997-2000, JP Morgan Chase Chairman of the Midwest (2004-), and SBC Communications President (2001-04). SBC is a giant telecommunications corporation recently merged with at&t to make AT&T (in 2005, shortly after Daley left SBC), which owns a shit-ton of telecommunications companies, including AT&T, Ameritech, SBC, Southwestern Bell, Pacific Telesis, and Bell South. A number of these companies contract to the federal government and Department of Defense, offering communications “solutions” to the military and government. (wikipedia, at&t website) SBC itself has received over $2.6 billion in DoD contracts from 2000-Q1 2008, 28% of which were no bid contracts.

Daley was also Evercore Partners Vice Chairman (2001). “Established in 1996, Evercore Partners is a leading investment banking boutique providing advisory services to prominent multinational corporations and financial sponsors on significant mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings and other strategic corporate transactions. Evercore also has a successful investment management business through which we also manage private equity funds, institutional assets and private wealth.” (www.evercore.com) Evercore’s website lists BOEING as one of their past clients!

Daley currently sits on the Board of Abbott Laboratories (who has received over $150 million in DoD contracts since 2000, 2/3rds of which were no-bid contracts), Boeing, EDS ($6 billion in DoD contracts since 2000), and Merck ($18 million in DoD contracts since 2000).

Daley is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as chairman of Gore’s 2000 presidential election campaign, and chose Gore’s VP nominee. He was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. In 1993 Daley was a special council to President Clinton on the passage of NAFTA. In 1997 Clinton named Daley Secretary of Commerce. Daley is likely to run for the governor of Illinois in 2010.

Kenneth M Duberstein was Deputy Secretary of Labor under President Gerald Ford, aide to Ronald Reagan in1981, Deputy Chief of Staff in 1987, and Reagan’s final White House Chief of Staff. He was political advisor to Senator John McCain. Duberstein is Chairman and CEO of the influential lobbying firm Duberstein Group, which lobbied to remove a restriction on introducing known carcinogens into processed foods sold to consumers for agribusiness-giant Monsanto (popular for patenting all life and genetically modifying plants so their seeds don’t reproduce). He currently sits on the boards of Boeing and Conoco-Phillips, and sat on Fannie Mae’s board of directors from 1998 to 2007.  Conoco-Phillips got $1 billion in DoD contracts 2000-2008. Duberstein is chairman of the Ethics Committee for the US Olympic Committee, which undoubtedly has some influence on Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.

 

William Daley and Kenneth Duberstein are a formidable pair to have on the Board of Directors for any corporation. In Chicago, however, their significance is paramount to furthering the neo-liberal designs of Mayor Richard Daley (more on that later). The connections between William Daley and The Mayor are obvious, making the case for policy supporting the business interests of Boeing of interest to The Major even stronger. Duberstein, however, is an interesting case due to his Olympic connections. Both the acquisition of the Boeing headquarters and the possibility of getting the 2016 Olympic bid are of huge importance for Chicago and its position as a “First Tier Global City.” Boeing will inspire other transnational capitalist ventures to invest their prestige in Chicago, and the Olympics generally serve to attract not only corporate sponsorship for cities but also massive amounts of real-estate development in previously underdeveloped neighborhoods (ie: gentrification, displacement, colonization, big-time).

General James Jones was recently appointed by Obama as national security advisor. Jones formerly was the supreme allied commander of NATO, served in the military for 40 years, and is President and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21^st Century Energy (which calls for the expansion of US oil and gas production). He has been director of Cross Match Technologies, producer of biometric identification technologies, in addition to being a director of the boards of both Boeing and Chevron. Shortly following Jones’s appointment to national security advisor, a jury acquitted Chevron from lawsuit filed by Nigerian nationals. They were suing Chevron for flying in Nigerian military and police to quell an occupation of an offshore drilling platform that resulted in the deaths of two protestors of the environmental destruction of the Niger Delta region.

John H Biggs is a member of the board of directors for Boeing (since 1997), JP Morgan Chase (2003-07), and Ralston Purina. Nestle merged with Ralston Purina in 2001, and was awarded $513,609,252 in DoD contracts since 2000, 98% of which were no-bid contracts.

Linda Z Cook has held various CEOships at Royal Dutch Shell, and currently sits on their board, as well as that of Boeing. Shell has received $7.3 billion in DoD contracts since 2000. Cook is considered the 11^th most powerful businesswoman in the world.

 

Rozanne L Ridgeway has served a plethora of public office positions (namely because the State Department moves its employees every two years to keep nationalist loyalties to America and not the region in which the person is serving, as I learned first hand from a Foreign Services Recruiter): US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (1985-89), US Ambassador to East Germany (1983-85), Counselor of the Department of State (1980-81), US Ambassador to Finland (1977-80), US State Department Deputy Asst. Secy. of State for Oceans and Fisheries (1975-77), US State Department Deputy Chief of Mission, Nassau, Bahamas (1973-75), US State Department Deputy Dir. of Policy Planning, Inter-American Bureau (1972-73), US State Department Ecuador desk officer (1970-72), US State Department Political Officer, Oslo, Norway (1967-70), US State Department International Relations Officer, European Bureau (1964-67), US State Department Visa Officer, Palermo, Italy (1962-64), US State Department Personnel Officer, Manila, Philippines (1959-62), US State Department Information specialist, Bureau of Intelligence & Research (1957-59).

 

She is a member of the board of 3M, Boeing, Emerson Electric (1995-) ($40 million DoD contracts since 2000),  Sara Lee (1992-) ($350 million DoD contracts since 2000), Manpower (2002-) ($394 thousand DoD contracts since 2000), and Union Carbide (1990) ($32 thousand DoD contracts since 2000).

 

Mike S Zafirovski was Nortel President and CEO (2005-), Motorola President and CEO (2002-05), Motorola EVP and President Personal Communications Sector (2000-02), General Electric President and CEO, GE Lighting (1999-2000), and General Electric President and CEO, GE Lighting Europe, Middle East, Africa (1996-99).

 

He is currently on the board of Boeing and Norten ($234 million DoD contracts since 2000), and was on the board of Motorola 2000-2005 (who had $2.4 billion in DoD contracts since 2000).

 

 

BOEING AND THE MILITARY/NASA

 

The following is the history of Boeing’s relationship with the military as it pertains to the growth/development of their corporation from http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/boeing.

 

Boeing’s firm trained flight instructors during the First World War and was one of the few postwar survivors from among the slew of aircraft companies that sprang up to meet the enormous needs of the U.S. and Allied armed forces. The Coolidge administration moved to assist the development of the industry by setting long-term aircraft procurement plans for the army and navy and by encouraging the growth of private carriers through the awarding of lucrative airmail contracts. Among those carriers was Boeing, who won a contract to shuttle mail between Chicago and San Francisco under the name Boeing Air Transport Co.

 

When wartime mobilization began, Boeing began producing hundreds of B-17 Flying Fortresses for the army. A later model, the B-29, was the plane used in the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The company also produced a series of bombers, including the renowned B-52.

 

The Reagan administration’s escalation of defense spending fattened the military side of Boeing’s operations. In addition to getting more money to build its AWACS airborne command posts, the company began to get more involved in military electronics–though not as much as it hoped to when making a $5 billion bid in 1985 for Hughes Aircraft. Hughes ended up with General Motors instead.

 

In 1991 a team headed by Boeing and the Sikorsky Aircraft division of United Technologies was chosen to build a new generation of combat helicopters for the U.S. Army. The contract could eventually be worth $34 billion. Boeing was also part of a team (along with Lockheed and General Dynamics) chosen to supply 650 Advanced Tactical Fights to the U.S. Air Force–a deal that could be worth $90 billion to the three companies. The Seattle company joined yet another team (including Grumman and Lockheed) to compete for the contract on the U.S. Navy’s new A-X attack plane. In 1991 Boeing formed an alliance with the Thomson-CSF subsidiary of Thomson S.A. to pursue opportunities in global military markets.

 

In May 2005, Boeing announced its intent to form a joint venture, United Launch Alliance with its competitor Lockheed Martin. The new venture will be the largest provider of rocket launch services to the US government. The joint venture gained regulatory approval and completed the formation on December 1, 2006.

 

The Department of Defense awarded Boeing $25.2 billion dollars in contracts in the fiscal year of 2007. These contracts incapsulated over 12,000 different transactions between the two entities. This accounts for 17.2% of all dollars awarded by the Department of Defense for 2007. 9.8% of the contracts open to competition from other military contractors or multi-bid; 11% were single-bid; and 79.2% were no-bid contracts.

 

Some of the largest contracts Boeing received were $1.6 billion for the manufacturing of  fixed wing aircraft. This contract provides full funding for the Lot 31 aircraft and Advanced Procurement Funding for Lot 32 aircraft. Additionally, this contract includes a modification of $41,472,018 to the Lot 31 aircraft. Boeing received two of those contracts, as well as $1.1 billion for the research & development of operational systems and $1.1 billion to Bell Boeing joint project for 19 V-22 Osprey aircrafts. Between 2000 and 20006 Boeing received over $127 billion in contracts from the DoD. (www.fedspending.org)

 

Contracts awarded to Boeing in 2007 from NASA totalled some $596 million, included 230 transactions and accounted for .4% of all the dollars awarded by NASA. 33.5% were multi bid and 66.5% were no bid contracts. These were for R&D of a space station, guided missile manufacturing and space transportation and launch services. From 2000 to 2006 Boeing received around $5.8 billion in contracts from NASA. (www.fedspending.org)

 

VISION 2020: FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE OF THE BATTLESPACE

 

Vision 2020 and the Long Range Plan are ideological maps invented by the military that circumscribe a geography of total militarized control, containment, and colonization of planet earth. Written by the US Space Command, Vision 2020 speaks of using what various military and private corporate resources the US government has at its disposal to expand the borders of the country, essentially, to wrap around the planet. Whether this is by way of surveillanve and communications sattellites, weapons, lasers, spaceships, or inhabitable space stations, Vision 2020 is dependent on aerospace corporations like Boeing for the fulfilment of its plan of ultimate colonization. Colonization here takes on two meanings: first, the armed acquisition of the material and human resources of the entire planet, second the attempt at establishing settler-communities and resource extraction schemes in space, on the moon, or nearby planets.

 

Boeing itself, as noted above, has directed its commodities toward aiding in the complete colonization of earth and the nearby space surrounding earth. This is the meaning of “full spectrum dominance:” the ability to out-pace, out-maneuver, out-produce, out-kill (and out-source) any other competing entity in the control and containment of resources with a wide variety (or “full spectrum”) of technologies. Full spectrum dominance relies on a foundation of complete access to all information: logistical, tactical, spatial, technological, etc. This fulcrum of attainment of all information fits well with the neo-liberal agenda to convert manufacturing & product industry economies to information economies. An information economy requires the use or consumption of products and food made elsewhere in the world, using other society’s resources, and thus necessitates a colonial relation and forced subjugation of those peoples. This drive to attain an information technology, being pushed by the military, private corporations, and neo-liberal politicians forces the militarization of information – specifically, information will be inceasingly relied upon by military powers and thus fundamental for the complete colonization and dominance of the globe. Access to information, therefore, will become a “battlespace” itself. Information superiority is defined in Joint Vision 2010 as “the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversay’s ability to do the same.”

 

Sidenote: the creation of the internet was funded by a DARPA (Defense Advanced Resarch Projects Agency) grant, an agency created following the launch of Sputnik. While this wonderful resource (the internet, not DARPA) can be thought of today as “civilian” or “free,” one must recognize its history as a product of the military attempt at dominating and controlling the access to and flow of information, and also recognize the likelyhood for the military to want to reappropriate that informational space.

 

The stated necessity for this “full spectrum dominance” is outlined in the Long Range Plan and Vision 2020, in the premise that there will be competing forces or adversaries that will have “equal footing” in the “battlespace,” because the “space ‘playing field’ is leveling rapidly.” A rational analysis of the current situation of military powers on earth would argue the opposite, that the United States reports spending as much (and probably spends TWICE as much) on its military than EVERY OTHER NATION ON EARTH COMBINED. With this monitary reality comes the political, technological and power-based reality that, while the US has made itself many enemies, few if any of them are capable of competing with the US in a “level playing field,” ESPECIALLY in outer space.

 

NSA/INTELLIGENCE-COMMUNICATIONS

As reported in Defense Daily by Calvin Biesecker in 2003, Boeing acquired Conquest, a Maryland based firm that serves the US Intelligence Agency and specializes in intelligence, surveilance and reconnaissance. 97% of Conquest’s business is within the intelligence community, and 95% of their employees have security clearances. The firm now opoerates under Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems division as Boeing Advanced Information Systems-Maryland Operations. Conquest received a $27 million contract from a US intelligence agency to provide technical development, and is subcontracting with Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman on the project. This acquisition tightens Boeing’s relationship with the intelligence community, not only with a division in close proximity to the headquarters of the NSA, but also by bringing on board a number of security sector insiders with security clearance.

 

Boeings Space and Intelligence Systems Mission Systems division got press recently (2008) for their mismanagement of Project Railhead, a $500 million project to work on the National Counterterrorism Center’s terrorist watch list. Reports state that the project has been “crippled by technical failures and contractor mismangement.” (http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2008/09/railhead-projec.html) This project was to upgrade the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (or TIDE), a complex datasharing program that delivers to 16 different intelligence agencies data on more than 400,000 supposed terrorists. Alongside scathing denouncements for their mismanagement of the project, Boeing has come under criticism for a $200 million retrofitting of an office building in Virginia to house the 800 contractors working on Railhead.

In a 2007 article, Tim Shorrock writes about the role private contractors play in US domestic spying (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14821). He writes about Boeings work on interpolability, or connecting various systems for the free sharing of information. This technology is useful for security agencies in that it allows their various databases, such as TIDE, to be accessible by other agencies regardless of who was contracted to design their computational and information sharing devices. These developments in information technologies also help Boeing prepare for the markets opening in the military under the Vision 2020 plan. Boeing brags about its developments in interpolability, most likely to save face from past failures (like TIDE and project Railhead): “In 2005, it lost a major contract with the NRO to build a new generation of imaging satellites after ringing up billions of dollars in cost-overruns. The New York Times recently called the Boeing project ‘the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects.’” Sharrock continues:

Boeing’s geospatial intelligence offerings are provided through its Space and Intelligence Systems unit, which also holds contracts with the NSA. It allows agencies and military units to map global shorelines and create detailed maps of cities and battlefields, complete with digital elevation data that allow users to construct three-dimensional maps. (In an intriguing aside, one Boeing intelligence brochure lists among its “specialized organizations” Jeppesen Government and Military Services. According to a 2006 account by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, Jeppesen provided logistical and navigational assistance, including flight plans and clearance to fly over other countries, to the CIA for its “extraordinary rendition” program.

 

 

 

 

 

HOMELAND SECURITY/BORDERS

 

Boeing was awarded $219,945,089 in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security pertaining to the implementation and research & development of SBInet in 2007 (fedspending.org). $20 million of these 2007 contracts were for congressional district 7 in Arizona, along the Mexican border, for the implementation of SBInet. An additional $114 million was awarded to district 2, a congressional district bordering California, to be used at the Goldwater Test Range and pertaining to the implementation of SBInet. Boeing hired Elbit Systems, Israel’s major defense contractor and builder of the Palestinian apartheid wall, to build SBInet on US-Mexico border (Brenda Norrell for http://www.counterpunch.org).

 

 

A number often quoted regarding the contracts given to Boeing for SBInet is $69 million for research and development of SBInet funded by the Department of Homeland Security. This contract was NO BID. Boeing has been contracted to build Canadian border towers as well, even though the hi-tech border project in Mexico is seen as failure and huge management mishap. The US Border Patrol is erecting 16 more video surveillance towers in Michigan and New York with Boeing’s help. The value of Boeing’s contract (indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity extending thru 9-30-09) to build SBInet across both the northern and southern borders is estimated by various sources at various times to be between $2 and 8 billion (Wikipedia).

 

Booz Allen Hamilton was hired to do oversight on Boeing’s Mexican border project. The consulting firm was also hired by Boeing to make sure they remain “competitive” in the aviation market. In February of 2007, the US Government Accountability Office cited DHS and the SBInet project for poor fiscal oversight and lack of demonstratable objectives. GAO recommended placing a spending limit on Boeing, but DHS rejected that recommendation outright. The chairman of the oversight and government reform committee, Congressman Henry Waxman, said this about SBInet in February of 2007: Dept of Homeland Security hired 98 to staff oversight of SBInet; more than half are private contractors. Some of these private contractors work for companies that are business partners of Boeing (a la Booz Allen). “Virtually every detail is being outsourced from the government to private contractors. The government is relying on private contractors to design the programs, build them, and even conduct oversight on them.”

 

Obviously Boeing is doing a pretty crappy job of “securing” the southern border. But they don’t seem to be phased, and are in fact being supported wildly by their contracting agency. This is undoubtedly because the border project that is currently being built, known as Project 28, is not really about solving the problem of illegal immigration, or of the increasing necessity for free-flow of labor, or of the problem of humans being considered “illegal” in the first place. Project 28 calls for radar, infrared, lasers, microwave, iris biometrics, facial biometrics – in a town, Aravaca, Arizona, that is separated from the border by a mountain range, community members feel the giant tower pointed toward their homes is spying on THEM and violating 4^th amendment rights for protection from unlawful search, as well as their privacy (Norrell, counterpunch). Project 28 is about experimenting with new technologies, like facial and iris biometrics, and about collecting massive amounts of information, sorting through them, and attempting to analyze them in “real time,” fed on the ground to Border Patrol who can act almost instantaneously. Project 28 is about “accelerating the kill chain” (to use frightening military jargon), about creating a surveillance culture and a police state, and about harvesting and controlling information. Project 28 is militarizing the border, militarizing information and information technologies, and restricting human access to international space via border crossings, restricting access even to privacy and personal information.

 

To further illustrate the creepiness of the SBInet border project, Border Patrol was flying unmanned Boeing drones (UAV’s) along the border until one crashed near Nogales in 2006. Reports warned if a UAV flew too low the lasers on board could blind or cause other injuries to people on the ground (Norrell, counterpunch).

 

 

Furthermore, Project 28 and SBInet, as they are being manifested on the ground, are operating largely by political rules. Take, for instance, the locations where the border wall is actually being built.

 

As Mellissa del Bosque reported in the Texas Observer, the border wall is being built “strategically” thru houses, and not through fancy corporate golf courses or industry “plantations” owned by rich oil barons. She tells the story of a Dallas billionaire, Ray L. Hunt, and his 6,000 acre private “Sharyland Plantation.” Hunt, a close friend of GW Bush, was appointed member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received security clearance and access to classified intelligence (like WHERE SBInet would be constructed – all information regarding the placement of the fence is classified). He has in the past decades transformed his property from agricultural land to gated communities with houses costing between $650 thousand and $1 million, golf courses, elementary schools, and a sports park. Also, part of the Plantation is an 1800 acre business park and Sharyland Utilities, run by Hunt’s son, which delivers electricity to plantation residents and Mexican factories. Hunt is attempting to create a trade corridor the size of Manhattan along the border with a Mexican business partner of his.

 

Meanwhile, a few miles away from the plantation various Texans are suing the Department of Homeland Security for attempting to build the wall on their private property, sometimes even THROUGH their existing homes. And of course this wall is accompanied by no talk of any real or meaningful immigration reform; thus the wall is a really expensive and needlessly technological “band aid” for the larger social problem of Mexican poverty, as augmented by NAFTA, and the necessity for legal and undocumented migrant laborers to prop up the Mexican economy with wages made in the United States.

What legislation has been passed by Congress, however, further strengthens the powers of the chauvinist and militarized Department of Homeland Security. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 that was passed by congress mandated 700 miles of double fencing to be built along the southern border from California to Texas. This was passed in lieu of real immigration reform (or in spite of it). In August of 2007 the number of fence-miles was reduced from 700 to 370, citing budget shortages and technological difficulties. The 2005 REAL ID Act passed along with the Iraq funding bill, and declared that the head of the Department of Homeland Security could waive any laws standing on the way of “expeditions construction of … barriers and roads” along the border. DHS used it to push fencing in Arizona and San Diego. Michael Chertoff, the head of DHS, has proven himself fond of exercising this power first with fencing and now with SBInet.

 

In the last decade, Boeing has made a name for itself as one of the biggest political contributors to Washington giving more than $9 million to both parties of members of congress. (Center for Responsive Politics) In 2006, Boeing gave more than $1.4 million to democrats and republicans – a majority of this money going to Congressman Duncan hunter, who championed the Secure Fence Act. In 2006, Hunter received at least $10,000 from Boeing and more than $93,000 from other defense companies bidding for the SBInet contract. The main themes of his campaign were “illegal” immigration and building a border fence.

 

 

 

BOEING AND LABOR

 

Boeing industrial factories in the United States are highly unionized, and as aerospace represents a large economy and labor pool, negotiations are constantly occurring between Boeing executives and the union vanguard of its labor force. Strikes of recent vintage organized by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers include a 24 day strike in 2005, a 69 day strike in 1995, and a 48 day strike in 1989, as reported on the St. Louis Peace Economy Project website (www.peaceeconomyproject.org).

 

Most recently, in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, IAMAW went on strike for 58 days. Boeing blames a $56 million loss of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2008 on the strike, and a recently used this as reasoning for cutting 10,000 jobs in 2009. That is 6% of their workforce. 4500 jobs will be lost from the Seattle-based commercial plane division that held the strike. This strike stands as a testament to the workers power to cripple military industry, as well as to the corporation’s power to collectively punish its work force and further subjugate insubordinate workers with the fear of losing their jobs.

 

The result of the 58 day strike was a secret contract renegotiation made in Washington DC between union cabal and Boeing execs that “protects more than 5,000 factory jobs, prevents outsourcing of certain positions and preserves healthcare benefits…pay increases over four years” (www.businessweek.com). The union represents 27,000 workers, and it merits asking WHICH 5,000 jobs were secured, and at the expense of which other jobs.

 

Boeing recently reported a 50% decrease in revenue for the first quarter of 2009 (I heard this one morning on Chicago public radio), not surprising in this faltering economy.

 

More labor history, from http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/boeing:

 

In 1990 the company also settled a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of 700 people who had allegedly been hired by Boeing for jobs that involved exposure to electromagnetic pulse radiation and were monitored for health effects without their knowledge. The lead plaintiffs’ counsel charged that the 700 persons were used as human research subjects without their consent. The settlement, in which Boeing admitted no wrongdoing, involved payment of $500,000 in cash and an annuity to the family of one employee who claimed that he developed leukemia as a result of the exposure. The company also agreed to pay for regular medical examinations over ten years for the other class members, who reserved the right to bring claims for compensation if they develop adverse health effects.

 

In 1991 U.S. EPA fined the company $620,475 for improper storage of hazardous wastes and deficiencies in its training practices regarding toxics. That same year the company was sued by a group of employees who charged that Boeing had concealed the dangers of a substance (Ferro CPH2284P) they were exposed to on the job.

 

 

BOEING IN CHICAGO

 

The Boeing headquarters acquisition can be viewed as part of Mayor Daley’s plan to make Chicago in to a “first tier global city” – and in this vein is tied integrally into Chicago’s attempt to get 2016 Olympic bid – advertising Chicago as an attractive site for business executives and corporate headquarters, transnational capital investment, and a regional tourism destination.

 

Members of Boeing’s Board of Directors sit on the Chicago Commercial Club roster, the elite Fortune 500 cabal who plots public policy initiatives. Here we see the interest of politicians and private corporations aligning so maliciously against the urban poor and people of color: the acquisition of a corporate headquarters creates only low wage unskilled service sector jobs in a city that has been literally gutted and ghettoized by the flight of industrial centers in past decades. More rich capitalists move in, help create public policy to further marginalize and gentrify communities of color/working class, making new hip, niche communities for yuppies working downtown, the city in turn grows “wealthier” by switching out poor and rich from city to suburb or exburb, thus attracting more capitalist fucks and international prestige – the cycle continues in perpetuity.

 

This cycle is that of the policy put forth by neo-liberal urban politicians and explained so beautifully in the Area Chicago article “Growth Machine Gone Global” by Nick Kreitman (http://www.areachicago.org/p/issues/city-as-lab/growth-machine-gone-global/). The neo-liberal agenda goes roughly as follows: shift manufacturing and industry to the third world, build service and knowledge economy in the first world – first world industry lacks the “international competitiveness” to maintain manufacturing jobs, or rather the highly unionized manufacturing labor pool effectively organizes for higher living wages, which is unsustainable for corporations seeking a higher profit margin and more vulnerable labor pool.

 

What this has meant for Chicago is a gutting of manufacturing jobs in the last half century, mainly among the black urban working class and poor. City spending has been moved to downtown, neglecting neighborhoods that desperately need it due to the economic collapse caused by deindustrialization. The service industry has been built up, and the city is attempting to attract corporate investment (Boeing) and tourism. This system also serves to make more capital for already wealthy corporations and politicians, effectively reinforcing their political and power bases.

 

The result is a widening of the gap between rich and poor, which is a highly racialized division. Selected investment gets funneled into “desirable communities,” such as the loop, or those which the city wishes to make “desirable,” like Wicker Park or the expansion of Lincoln Park into what was once Cabrini Green. Public institutions, CPS, CHA, CTA, are neglected along with “undesirable” (read: poor, black) neighborhoods such as North Lawndale.

 

Under the first Major Daley: 1958 “development plan for the central area of Chicago” called for the exclusive use of urban renewal dollars in the central business district. Central Area Committee and Commercial Club support development of downtown by writing editorials for the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, which become vocal pieces for neo-liberal urbanist propaganda. The result was the development of 32 million square feet of office space from 1962-1977. Following this expansion of the business district, from 1967 to 1987 Chicago lost 326,000 manufacturing jobs. The industrial suburb of Cicero itself lost 50% of its total employment in the 1980s.

 

Under the second Daley, state funds were increasingly funneled into building up the tourist and downtown business industries, in an attempt to build up Chicago as a “Global City.” Millions of dollars were invested in revamping various tourist and business properties: $250 million to Navy Pier, $150 million for United Center (which also served to displace and destroy a black neighborhood), $987 million for McCormick Palace, $500+ million for Millennium Park, Soldier field, Comisky Park, etc. These renovations created 128,000 tourism industry jobs, but the lack of investment in industry retention lost around 100,000 jobs in the same period. (Also, there is of course a considerable wage disparity of a factor of 3 between low paying service sector jobs and unionized factory jobs.)

While the globalization and outsourcing of the production of goods does play some part in first world deindustrialization, it is estimated by Paul Krugman that only 15% of industry jobs are lost in this manner – thus, in the case of Chicago, the rapid deindustrialization must be affected by both policy set forth by the city and the individual aspirations of corporate firms in Chicago. Trends seen in Chicago at this time, sometimes called “milking the cash cow,” were epitomized by Gulf & Western, which bought up profitable manufacturing firms, ran them into the ground, and then reinvested the capital elsewhere (Paramount Pictures, for example). Other firms folded due to lack of succession schemes, or because white business owners (who comprised 90% of the industry) did not want to be tied to physical assets in “racially changing” neighborhoods, ie: black communities centered around factory jobs.

 

This resulted in a decrease of employment of black males in the manufacturing industry from 52% in 1978 to 28% in 1987. North Lawndale, mentioned above, was especially hard hit by deindustrialization. The community lost thousands of factory jobs: International Harvester plant closing late 1960s, 14,000 layoffs; Hawthorne plant of Western Electric 1984, 43,000 jobs lost. The loss of factory jobs meant the loss of services sector and retail jobs, and by 2000 the neighborhood had a population of 66,000, with only one bank and one supermarket.

 

Deindustrialization and the neo-liberal urbanist scheme are further analyzed and critique in “The Ghetto, The State & The New Capitalist Economy” by Loic J D Wacquant.

The essay cites a Bensman and Lynch report that discusses the collapse of the steel industry in southern Chicago and its disproportionate impact economically on blacks due to the fact that the mills were such a large source of employment for them. Fewer blacks found jobs after lay offs than their white counterparts. The Urban Poverty Project interviews with Chicagoland employers showed that many employers (we saw from the last article that 90% of the manufacturing firms are owned by whites) enlisted racists hiring practices against and didn’t want to hire black men, based on stereotypes of their character and work ethic.

 

Also, companies employ a corporate strategy of union break up via relocation of manufacturing firms which tends to shut the city out of economic development. Companies will relocate new plants away from central cities and black populations. Blacks historically have been more prone to unionize and use collective action to protect their economic rights.

 

City policy and legislation also played a role in the geographical changes in the city that led to the increased isolation of black populations and the collapse of black neighborhood economies: the Highway Act of 1956 (under the first Daley) aided white flight, also building highways through and on the edges of black communities to create a “buffer” or apartheid wall; the Federal Housing Authority gave loans to whites to build homes in the suburbs, it did not extend that luxury to blacks; the 1954 Housing Act was used to funnel money into urban renewal that favored city-center business, hospital and university interests. Federal subsidies also appeared that encouraged the construction of factories in the largely white suburbs. Black neighborhoods were the site of the construction of 99% of Chicago Housing Authority’s housing projects, which resulted in a net gain of 476 housing units due to all of the existing housing that was destroyed in order to build the projects. The eventual replacement of public housing funds by federal sharing grants controlled by local elites resulted in the diverting of much needed money into real estate and property owner development outside of the ghettos.

 

In this context, the Boeing headquarters acquisition represents a victory for Daley’s plan for creating a global city, and little real significance for Chicago’s working class and poor. The headquarters will transplant 4-500 executive and administrative jobs, relocating many of them from the former HQ in Seattle. Boeing’s relocation brings further prestige to the downtown business district, while working class and poor communities and communities of color continue to be peripherialized, criminalized, and increasingly policed. In fact, some of the only money we see being focused in communities of working class poor and people of color is that of the police state, with the recent allocation of m-4 military grade carbine assault riffles to the Chicago police department.

 

BOEING’S SWEET TAX DEAL, WITH LOVE FROM CHICAGO

 

To relocate its headquarters, Boeing was granted $3 million in tax subsidies, tax-increment financing incentives, and $19 million in property tax abatements over 20 years from the city of Chicago (taxpayers). It got $41 million in tax credits and benefits from the state of Illinois (taxpayers). 15 years of business-tax breaks will allow the company to get corporate tax credits roughly equivalent to the amount of income taxes the firms new employees pay the state (therefore no net tax gain). And, as icing on the money flavored cake, the city agreed to establish a downtown heliport that Boeing, as well as other firms, can use to ferry executives in and out of the city center.

 

PHILANTHROPY/PUBLIC RELATIONS SAVE-FACE

 

Boeing’s 2008 Corporate Philanthropy Report lists the different ways in which Boeing gives to various communities. In the introduction, they state that they are not just interested in funding communities, but changing them. While this language is meant to make Boeing seem like an integrated agent in some sort of positive community growth, more often than not their investment in various locally-based institutions serves as a form of discrete colonization. This is the case not only ideologically with regards to the specific institutions they choose to support and, more importantly, those that they don’t, but also within the direct roles that specific types of cultural capital play in neighborhoods and communities, how they change the demographics of neighborhoods, and how gentrification is prodded along by policy makers and elite business owners all with a vested interest in increasing their stranglehold on capital.

 

That aside, the ways through which Boeing wishes to change communities: cash grants, donations of products (like computers, services, or loaned labor), employee volunteering, collaborations/partnerships with NGOs, local governments and other corporations, donation of intellectual capital, and business donations and sponsorships meant to build Boeing’s branding and reputation.

 

Specific programs Boeing has been involved in: disaster relief (employee and corporate contributions in the hundreds of thousands for various regions from Myanmar to Southern California), micro-financing for Niger’s Zindar Region, Dropout Prevention/America’s Promise Alliance, and the Smithsonian African American History & Culture Museum in DC. The company reports spending around $58 million on various projects in 2008, notably putting 47% toward education and 10% toward arts and culture.

 

BOEING & CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 

The 2008 report includes a section on Boeing’s donations to the Chicago Public School system, in the form of cash grants, corporate partnership and intellectual donations. Boeing makes considerable donations to the Renaissance Schools Fund, part of Mayor Daley and CPS Superintendant Arne Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 plan for overhauling Chicago Public Schools, which have grown notorious for their inadequacy, underperformance, underfunding, and high drop out rates. Renaissance 2010 is built off of the premise that “mixed-income” schools will perform better than “poor” schools (read: black and latino schools), essentially ignoring any role that racism, economic strangulation & deindustrialization, and neo-liberalist gentrifying policy has had on deteriorating CPS. This is, of course, because Renaissance 2010 aims at further impoverishing poor communities by removing their access to education, pushing poor/brown/black families out of their properties, moving in higher-income folk, reopening schools, and hailing the success of a transparent transplantational and colonial project.

 

The Performance Pipeline Program that Boeing contributes to through the Renaissance Schools Funds seeks to “replicate” high-performing schools, by examining the “model” through which these schools are run, and transplanting that model to a “new school.”  This of course will serve to replicate private, charter and magnet schools from wealthy white neighborhoods, while increasingly neglected public schools, often in lower-income neighborhoods of color, get closed down due to under-performance. The rhetoric of Renaissance 2010 is much like that of GW Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act: both of them serve to uphold and reward already privileged schools and privatized school models, both rely increasingly on standardized testing, “quantitative” and grade-based forms of measuring schools impact on communities, and both serve to collectively punish schools that under-perform, their students, and their communities.

 

Another similarity between Chicago’s schools and the No Child Left Behind Act is that NCLB requires schools receiving federal funding to provide information to students about the army, and Chicago’s school system is becoming increasingly militarized. Chicago now boasts the nation’s largest number of military high schools (five, soon to be six, as well as nine other high schools that have military academies within them). Chicago middle school students are sold military recruitment propaganda through Cadet Corpse, 10,000 high schoolers are enrolled in JROTC, and 1000 students attend specialized military academies – high schools operated by the military. As “civilian” public schools (the necessity for this qualifier makes me vomit) in low-income communities of color get shut down, rotting due to the neo-liberal neglect of public institutions while millions in city tax dollars are spent bringing corporations like Boeing to the downtown business district, the students are then shuffled off to these military academies (Meiners & Quinn for AREAChicago, “Military in CPS”). As corporate sponsor to Renaissance 2010, thus reaffirming and helping to impose Mayor Daley and the unelected Chicago Board of Education’s designs on the children of Chicago, Boeing profits from the wonderful public image of “giving to education,” contributes to the militarization of Chicago’s youth by supporting a system that restricts their access to education and pushes them into military training facilities due to lack of any other option, and with the opening of Chicago’s air force high school, essentially pays to train future pilots to fly Boeing planes.

 

BOEING & “THE ARTS,” CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

 

Boeing donates to the Old Town School of Folk Music, theatres, the free annual jazz festival in Chicago, as well as property developments in Millennium Park, including $5 million for the Boeing Gallery, open-air art spaces. “The Boeing Pavilion” (as the concrete along Monroe Street at the entrance to the park reads) stands as testament to Boeing’s involvement in building Daley’s dream tourism hub. What does this mean for Chicago? Arguably Boeing is “giving back” to the Chicago community by throwing some money at high profile, visible private and public art programs, but for Boeing this philanthropy means further tax write offs (not that its paying taxes in the first place) and a good public relations image in its new home town. To weigh the cost-benefit to the public of Boeing’s headquarter relocation, one should take into account the MILLIONS of dollars the city of Chicago and state of Illinois have given Boeing, not only in the beginning of the 2000s, but deals that extend for upwards of TWENTY YEARS into the future, weigh that against the less than $5 million, according to their philanthropy report, that Boeing invests in the arts in all communities, not just ones in Chicago.

 

Boeing chooses which art to support; that which is safe an reasserts their objectives, essentially creating an ideological echo chamber. Boeing helps sustain art that serves as distraction, or art as elite class privilege (my experience at the jazz festival for example, where I was squeezed in between groups of middle-aged white folk, dressed nicely, who had brought into the pavilion chairs and tables, and were eating wine and cheese – a testament not only to the complete commodification and de-politicization of jazz, a volatile and powerful art form, with many artists aspiring for social justice from its inception, now jazz is popularized to white middle and upper class consumers as background music, as an elite cultural capital, as something that makes them “high class” – this is all problematic, but I digress – sitting in a park partially funded by Boeing, created to bring in tourism and international businesses like Boeing, watching Sonny Rollins, who was probably paid by Boeing in some capacity to perform in a free festival majorly funded by Boeing that in no way was challenging the hegemony of Boeing or being critical of power in any way…) Boeing in return creates for itself an image of a corporation that is positive and active participant in the cultural “community” (or commodity market) when what they are doing is providing entertainment, not any substantial improvement in quality of life.

 

Boeing supports the Environment, Culture and Conservation (ECCo) Team of the Chicago Field Museum as part of its corporate philanthropy. Without even going any further into what the ECCo team does, I will say that it is LAUGHABLE that a company with an environmental record like Boeing, who has contaminated the earth and its inhabitants with radioactive and chemical waste, could attempt to greenwash its image with such an investment. The children of Simi Valley with extremely rare eye cancer only caused by radioactivity who live within 10 miles of a Boeing operated nuclear facility will never see the Chicago Filed Museum (more on that later).

 

With most of these investments, we see a notable shift in how largely public cultural institutions get the funding necessary to maintain themselves. It is incredibly problematic that private industry is funding public services, as it takes the responsibility, as well as the investment, away from the public and concentrates it in the hands of wealthy capitalists who have very different interests from the general public. Also, when the corporation that funds schools, arts, museums and other neighborhood services in a city is a MILITARY corporation, there is an even more dramatic ideological difference between the funding and receiving institutions. Militarism and military industry, which make capital off of death, arms races, and political power conflicts, that is rigid in its hierarchy and its obsession with political power, that is exclusive in its discrimination against women, transgendered and queer folk, do not marry well with education or the arts, which aim at inspiring creation, critical thinking, and healthy analysis of the very systems dominated by militarism.

 

UNIVERSITY AS LEGITIMIZING INSTITUTION

 

The public university is seen as a democratic institution of learning, the bastion of the highly prized “objectivity” of science, and has the characteristic of adding a positive “fig-leaf of respectability” to industries of death, capital and injustice

 

The University of Illinois, for instance, is assisting Boeing on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER program. Other entities helping with this project are Raytheon Engineers and Constructors, Department of Energy, Westinghouse Science and Technology Center, and General Atomics. R&D is led by Boeing and Argonne National (nuclear) Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin. Boeing gives substantial financial help and scholarships to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering students and programs. Furthermore, the UIC Microphysics lab works in partner with Boeing corporation

 

Boeing is also in a partnership with the University of California and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to make DIME bombs, “small diameter bombs” with a high shock impact that literally tears humans to shreds.

 

More from www.notanotherdime.net:

 

Some of useful facts that need to get into national coverage are these:

1. The DIME bomb (GBU-39) is manufactured under DOD contract by Boeing Corporation, St. Louis.
2. The SDB—or the DIME bomb—is a joint project of the AirForce and the Navy. Original research was done at the Elgin Airforce base’s Airforce Research Lab in Florida and later expanded to a collaboration with Boeing under DOD contract.
3. Another important collaborator in the perfection of the design is the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories of the University of California, which “employed a physics-based code in the design and testing of.(these) munitions based on DIME technology.” Livermore uses simulations to perfect the technical (destruction) specifications.
4. The killing power of the DIME is the result of innert fine tungsten particles embedded throughout the explosive fill of the bomb. The particles blast out at tremendous speed expending immense short distance high kinetic energy. Thus the power to rent humans to pieces.
5. The DIME was a spin off from the Bunker Buster design (penetrator bomb) techology research. the Airforce chief loved the concept so much that he rushed it into the pipe line rapidly after 2003 perhaps because of the combination of the propaganda value of a bomb that would be said to reduce “collateral civilan damage” and the tremendous cost efficiency (very high kill/cost ratio with small size, light wt).
6. On September 9, 08 the DSCA notifed Congress that Israel had applied to receive 1000 GBU-39 bombs, related equipment and training for $77 million. DSCA described the sale as “vital to the US national interest and to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability.” Congress voted approval.
7. President Obama’s national security advisory General James L Jones, Marine Corp Rt. was then a member of the Boeing Board of Directors.
8. The original production contract with Boeing was for 12,000 of the GBU1-39 bombs and 12,000 of the GBU2-39 bombs for 4.27 billion taxpayer dollars, but long term contracts appear to call for the production (?and use) of up to 150,000 bombs to outfit all bomber squadrons in the US Airforce.
9. The difference between the GBU 1 and 2 variants is in the type of global positioning systems they use. Both have laser guidance flexibility but the 1 variant is set to a fixed target while the 2 variant can actually track an identifiable target’s movement and can even delay in its attack after launch.
10. These bombs can be launched from up to 60 miles away and from almost any kind of aircraft including drones—thus putting them in the running for the most diabolical of killing machines at a distance.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency of the Pentagon—DSCA—told Congress last September—while the cease fire was still holding— that the weapon was necessary to Israel’s defense. The central irony is that the US defense establishment is touting these bombs as designed to protect civilians during air attacks because of their smaller blast radius. In fact, they were used in most cases to terrorize and kill the civilan population of Gaza. The DIME is not only one of the most lethal unconventional bombs designed to date, but it is being put into service as one of the main weapons for US Airforce bombers of all types because they are so cost efficient, light weight, small and have high kill capability.

Comment: given the purported accuracy and low blast diameter of these weapons there can be little doubt that the Israelis used them to target civilians. We need only consider the high death and injury count among civilians and young children. We have also heard witness reports of Israeli snipers shooting small children as young as 8 running from the war zones. Even if the use of the DIME weapons is not declared a war crime per se , how they were used surely was among the worst of State terrorist war crimes and the US is implicated. Also the amount of rubble seen in photos suggests the possibility that Israel used US bunker busters on apartment houses and other civilan buildings—not just against tunnels to Egypt.

The University of California is an incredibly esteemed university that has its hand deep in the pockets of the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, DARPA grants, and a number of private military contractors for research and project funding. UC manages Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories. As an institution with massive amounts of credibility, the UC lends that credibility to the corporate bodies it partners with. As a democratic institution, the UC has a great track record of not only ignoring student, faculty, and staff calls to divest from its management of the nuclear labs and quit its funny business with military industry; the UC Regents (the main administrative body of the UC appointed by the Governor) has acted toward student activists and demilitarization organizers with such indignance and disrespect that any remaining shred of “democratic” legitimacy should have evaporated long ago. And with a long-time Regent, Richard Blum, husband of CA Senator Dianne Fienstien, former CEO of URS Corporation (another insidious war-profiteer who was vying for contracts during Blums CEOship, and attempting to acquire Washington Group International, which it did shortly after Blum stepped down due to the scandal), it is no wonder that the capitalist elite of the UC are in ideological alignment with the capitalist elite of the private military industry.

 

These examples of the UC and UIC working in tandem with Boeing mean for the universities lots of resources, financially, materially and intellectually, and for Boeing the credibility of the support of institutions of learning. Boeing also scores recruitment of the brightest minds in the science and engineering fields, who it woos with sexy research grants and scholarship money. In a more visceral sense, however, what these relationships really do is tear at the social and moral fabrics of “impartial” institutions of liberal arts and knowledge by their association with profit on death. The strong and clear voices of resistance from the University of California system help manifest and make transparent the hypocrisy of an institution fronting as democratic and socially responsible that is so heavily invested in poisoning the earth and colonizing its peoples.
THE TROUBLE WITH SUBSIDIARIES: PART ONE

THE SANTA SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY & ROCKETDYNE

 

Boeing’s role in the nuclear industry encapsulates both the production and management of facilities, as well as the research/monitoring effects, clean up and decommissioning of facilities. This presents a complete conflict of interest as they make profit off of every component of the nuclear complex, regardless of the political climate, regardless of whether or not nuclear weapons or energy are being commissioned or decommissioned, and all of this with little to no regard for human life or the health of the environment.

 

The following is written with information from www.rocketdynewatch.org.

 

Santa Susana Field Laboratory occupies a highly toxic mountain in Ventura County/Simi Valley, approximately 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Boeing owns and operates areas 1, 3 and 4, where the development and testing of liquid fuel rocket motors has taken place since the 1940’s. A 90 acre Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) in area 4 was operated by Boeing under contract by the Department of Energy between 1949 and 1988. Boeing operated 10 nuclear reactors and facilities at the ETEC. Current cleanup is managed by the DoE, and all nuclear reactors and fuel elements have been removed from the site.

 

In 1959 there was a partial meltdown which resulted in the third largest release of radioactive iodine in history. Boeing and their subsidiary of the time, Rocketdyne (recently sold to Pratt & Whitney for $700 million in 2005) have managed to keep the incident quiet until a class-action lawsuit by residents was settled (they suffered from cancer and thyroid abnormalities) and the site was closed in 1989. The area is under evaluation to determine if it qualifies as a national priorities list site of chemical and radiological contamination. Regardless of the findings of the EPAs investigations, numerous claims have come out from former employees of the site and community members that offer evidence to the extreme toxicity of the SSFL.

 

A March 2007 report entitled “Cancer Incidence in the Community Surrounding Rocketdyne Facility in Southern California” outlines several important research studies done on SSFL with regards to exposure to radiological and chemical agents by workers and community members and their association to cancer and cancer deaths.

 

The report notes that the 1959 partial meltdown at SSFL was not made public until 1979. The SSFL Advisory Panel in 2006 released a report that the meltdown could have released amounts of radioactive cesium and iodine “much more than was released at Three Mile Island in 1979” – and they estimated that those radioactive releases contributed to about 260 more cancer cases. (Community members estimate 1800 cancer deaths.) A recent article by Sue Sturgis on counterpunch.org (“Startling revelations about Three Mile Island Raise new doubts over Nuclear Plant Safety”) details the studies and reporting agencies contracted to monitor the releases of radioactive elements following the incident at Three Mile Island. Her interviews with early investigators of the site tell of grave misreporting of radioactive releases, and new evidence has supported releases thousands of times higher than those initially reported. If the SSFL meltdown was not made public until TWENTY YEARS after the incident, and investigations were done by corporations with invested interest in minimizing the impact of toxicity of SSFL on the community, it is wise to be skeptical of both the reported releases of the meltdown and their consequences. One should therefore be skeptical of the study made by Boeing in 2006 concludes that “radiation exposure has not caused detectable increase in cancer deaths” of radiation workers.

 

The SSFL Advisory panel study also determined that perchlorate, a chemical associated with the disruption of thyroid function, has been detected in wells in the community surrounding SSFL, brought there by surface water runoff from the site. Radioactive tritium has also been found in drinking water wells in the community at levels four times the federal safety standards (http://www.geocities.com/madelinefelkins/Hotlab.htm).

 

A UCLA study of Rocketdyne workers (1993-1999), made with DoD funding noted that occupational exposures to ionizing radiation among nuclear workers were directly LINKED to rates of dying from cancer between 1950 and 1994. 55,000 workers participating in a radiation monitoring program between 1950 and 1993 showed a trend of increased cancer rate mortality associated with increased radiation exposure.

 

The 2007 report concluded that the strongest and most consistent associations of thyroid cancer with proximity to SSFL have public-health significance due to the perchlorate used in large quantities in Rocketdyne rocket fuel tests. The report also suggests that radioactive releases of cesium and iodine, shown to cause thyroid cancer in lab animals, from the 1959 partial meltdown may have increased rates of thyroid cancer in the area.

 

Problems with all of these studies, however, exist in that they do not take into account the behavior and mobility of community members. (I know that I, personally, would have moved in 1979 when I found out there was a meltdown of a nuclear facility anywhere within 50 miles of my home.) Mobility of the population of Hispanics/people of color in the community surrounding SSFL is particularly high, thus these studies are incapable of testing the occurrence or association of cancer in this, or really any, population. Furthermore, at least one of these studies completely omitted data on Hispanics from their study. The 2007 study concluded that to accurately take these factors of behavior and mobility into account would be “too costly.” Costly, yes, but not as costly as living next door to a toxic waste dump being improperly managed. Finally, this report mentions in passing that all of the nuclear activities at the site since the “closure” of the nuclear facility in the 1980s have been limited to clean up and containment, as well as “isolated experimentation.” Whatever that means.

 

The spotty and racist methodology used to attempt to monitor the effects of the meltdown and other chemical pollutants emanating from the SSFL show not only a complete lack of corporate and governmental interest in evaluating the effects of this institution, but an invested interest in maintaining the discourse on the “safety” of nuclear facilities and the viability of maintaining the nuclear arsenal, in spite of the costs to the American public. SSLF and Boeing’s corporate management of the facility do not represent an isolated incidence; nearly every node in the nuclear industrial complex is contracted out to private corporations with multi-million or even billion dollar contracts for some or all parts of the nuclear life span: from R&D to construction, “safeguarding” and management, to decommissioning and cleanup. Boeing itself is involved in several nodes of the nuclear process, as outlined in the case of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

 

In January of 2008, a negotiation was settled between the Schwarzenegger Administration and SSFL community members. The agreement holds the parties responsible for the cleanup of the SSFL site to a very strict set of standards as set by the surrounding community. This represents a major victory for the community surrounding Santa Susana, who has remained to this day shrouded in corporate and government bureaucracy and silencing while their friends and families are dying of cancers caused by radiation and chemical exposure.

 

THE TROUBLE WITH SUBSIDIARIES: PART TWO

JEPPESEN DATAPLAN & EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

 

The story of Jeppesen Dataplan illustrates Boeing’s complicity in the degradation of human rights as sanctioned by global superpower (USA), complete disavowal of Geneva Convention agreements and international laws against torture, and the legal precarity of military contractors in the private sector .

 

The following information pertains to ACLU lawsuits, information from “Extraordinary Rendition on Trial” by Christopher Moraff for In These Times.

 

(1) German citizen Khalid El-Masri VS CIA head George Tenet and “several shell companies” affiliated with the CIA. El-Masri was rendered to Afghanistan in 2003 while he was on vacation in Macedonia. El-Masri’s claim was dismissed in 2006 when the government stated a public trial would risk national security. The US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

 

(2) Yemeni citizen Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah and Iraqi citizen Bisher Al-Rawi join 3 other plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary. Their renditions were allegedly planned with logistical support from Jeppesen International Trip Planning Service, a unit of Jeppesen Dataplan. The plaintiffs allege they were physically and mentally abused, from sleep depravation to electric shock torture, at the locations of their detainment. Jeppesen obscured the flight paths of these captives by submitting “dummy flights” to aviation authorities. El-Rawi spent 4 years at Guantanamo following his rendition without being charged.

 

Despite unclassified documents describing rendition flights and CIA officials (Mike Hayden) openly acknowledging the rendition program, the government is still trying to ditch accountability for these extraordinary renditions by claiming they are “state secrets” necessary for national security. Even officials within Jeppesen have openly admitted that the company was profiting from torture flights (from http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/rendition.html).

 

How can we create a discourse on corporate accountability in the contest of tyrannical hegemon (USA) controlled by the interests of corporations — where CEOs are in the administration setting policy, and lobbyists and military corporations are spending millions of dollars to get political headway in Washington? In this context of corporations exempt from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity that they commit in Iraq, where the USA is not even a member of the international criminal court, thus de facto illegitimating it, where corporations are not legally conceived of as a sum of their human parts?

 

Who can be held accountable and on what scale can an equitable justice be achieved considering the massive amount of destruction visited upon colonized and terrorized populations? No one, there is no justice, the system is fundamentally BROKEN.

 

CONCLUSION

ON FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE VIA OBSOLESCENCE, AN ECONOMY BUILT ON WAR INDUSTRY AND IMPLICATIONS IN POST INDUSTRIAL GLOBAL DEPRESSION

 

This is no longer just a matter of maintaining neocolonial status. The intentions of power and capital have moved beyond the scope of even life on earth, of a human threat, of containment and control of earthly resources and labor. A huge amount of attention, money, research & development, and industry is now focused on SPACE…a realm that contains no practical solutions to earthly problems of access to resources. Vision 2020 and the long range plan are simply delusional attempts at glorifying the almighty cause of “:science” and “understanding,” but on a more visceral and concrete level these ideologies of interplanetary imperialism represent a replacement for the commie specter (one that loosely aligned terrorist groups using unconventional warfare and weapons cannot replace) of the cold war – with no other conceivable enemy capable of challenging the us technologically (guerilla freedom fighters opt for suicide and dirty bombs, or hijacking airplanes or pirating ships) – the ideology of pre-eminence extends to space where fantasies and science fiction somehow justify the most ridiculous or futuristic of weapons, vessels, and surveillance systems, and the most incredibly wasteful squandering of public resources on star wars wet dreams.

 

CONCLUSION: RESISTANCE

 

What can resistance to full spectrum dominance look like? It is a holistic, multi-faceted, diverse struggle that is drawn between all struggles. It is the divestment of privilege of those protected by the military industry, it is the divestment of capital that forces others into colonial bondage, it is the divestment of factionalism and snobbish, cultish activist scenes. Resistance is a map drawn on the human scale, a 1:1 ratio of the

idiosyncrasies and complexities of social interactions, a painfully critical frame for movement, for action, and for life, a map drawn off the page, a map not drawn anywhere.

 

 

 

https://scamuic.wordpress.com

http://www.geocities.com/madelinefelkins

http://www.committeetobridgethegap.org/

http://www.notanotherdime.net/

http://www.ucnuclearfree.org/

http://www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org/

http://www.rocketdynewatch.org/

http://www.peaceeconomyproject.org/site/weblog.php

http://www.corpwatch.org/

http://kickboeingtothecurb.wordpress.com/

http://www.cleanuprocketdyne.org/

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