Burlington Mayor Kiss Using Staff Time to Move Forward with Lockheed Martin "Partnership."by: Jonathan LeavittOriginally Published on Green Mountain Daily Fri Jun 10, 2011 at 12:31:37 PM EDT |
Despite a City Council resolution which was passed in February, 2011, Burlington Mayor Kiss is using staff time to move forward with a Lockheed Martin "Partnership" without notifying the public. Burlington Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee Meeting 6-7-11 from Arthur Hynes on Vimeo. Burlington Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee Meeting 6-7-11 from Arthur Hynes on Vimeo. The last clause of Councilor Mulvaney-Stanank's February 7th resolution states, "Let it be further resolved, that CEDO shall seek public input through at least one public meeting at City Hall before the City agrees to proceed with a proposal involving Lockheed Martin." Inside a controversy filled meeting Tuesday, Larry Kupferman, director of Burlington's Community Economic Development Office (CEDO) informed the City Council's Community Development and Neighborhood Review committee that CEDO, at Mayor Kiss' direction, has been moving forward with plans for a project with Lockheed Martin. The plan involves a conference to be held in conjunction with Lockheed Martin, University of Vermont and University of Maryland, to be hosted in August at UVM. In describing the conference, Kupferman referred to a "partnership" with Lockheed, but when questioned, declined to define the amount of time or details of the CEDO involvement. |
| These revelations drew strong criticism not only from a room full of constituents, but City Councilors too, including one from the Mayor's own Progressive Party. Ward 3 Progressive City Councilor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said "Given the attention on this issue I'd hoped things would be a little more public, or at least the Council would be informed about discussions that were still happening with Lockheed in any sort of public way. [...] I think given the interest the public has shown on this it would have been nice if the Mayor had, and nice is not even the appropriate word, it would have been I think more appropriate for the Mayor to mention it in the public comments or have something that go out, so people have a chance to weigh in. Knowing that this process [drafting community standards] is still going on." Burlington residents joined the City Councilors in voicing their displeasure with Mayor Kiss actions. Ward 2 Burlington Progressive Jonathan Leavitt said, "It just seems like a real affront to democracy for the Mayor to move forward with Lockheed Martin as this process is still unfolding, as City Councilors and citizens are partnering in good faith to craft thoughtful legislation. For the City to move forward, with corporate sponsorships just like this, for the Mayor to have CEDO staff using staff time as you just said, to move forward with this in total contravention of [Councilor Mulvaney-Stanak's] early February City Council resolution. Why are we here? Why do we have City Councilors drafting legislation if it isn't going to be followed? Where does that leave the citizens of Burlington who are partnering in good faith disregards those good faith gestures. What does that leave us to do?" Burlington lawyer and activist Sandy Baird questioned CEDO Director Larry Kupferman, saying "I was surprised at the words you used, a 'partnership.'" Baird continued, "I thought there was a letter of intent to continue negotiations. And that's really of concern to me. I thought this was going to be more of a public process before you continued." Peggy Lurs opined, "Our climate change problem isn't just about technicalities, but a lack of democracy." In a charged exchange with Kupferman, Liza Cowan said, "So in other words CEDO broke the resolution, they broke the public faith." South End resident Jay Vos appealed to the CEDO director to explain the seeming contradictions of the Mayor's policy, "Can you explain this? Because it's beyond me." In six months since Mayor Kiss' dealing with the world's largest war profiteer leaked in the media, Burlington residents concerns about Mayor Kiss' actions have received nation attention. Perhaps you saw The New York Times coverage of your neighbors' community organizing against Mayor Kiss' controversial proposal to tie Burlington's reputation to the world's largest weapons maker, Lockheed Martin. Perhaps you saw Bill McKibben promoting No Lockheed community organizers' work on Twitter. Beyond the basic questions about responsive government that were raised at Tuesday's committee meeting, the larger question remains: why is Mayor Kiss is partnering on climate issues with a corporation that actively blocks climate legislation. Lockheed sits on the board of the US Chamber of Commerce which sues entire states to stop them from regulating climate change and lobbied against Congress' 2009 climate bill. Bill McKibben in a recent Burlington Free Press article says of Lockheed, "The fear that they could be just greenwashing is real -- for instance, these guys belong to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has opposed every single good idea on energy and climate for decades; to me, that's a sign they're willing to make money on climate, but still work in Washington to prevent meaningful progress." Perhaps that's why, in the New York Times article, the head of a local sustainability company expressed serious concerns to his company's brand if this proposal moves forward. Many citizens also wonder why Mayor Kiss, who supposedly thinks Climate Change is so urgent that he needs to partner Burlington with one of the worst corporate polluters on the planet, hasn't convened his Mayoral Task Force on Climate Change since November 14, 2007. When Mayor Kiss was on the re-election trail in 2009 he frequently invoked the words of former Burlington Mayor Bernie Sanders, saying, "Burlington is open for business but not for sale." The disclosures of Tuesday night be serious questions of that pledge. Web Resources for further reading: |
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Burlington Mayor Kiss Using Staff Time to Move Forward with Lockheed Martin "Partnership."
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Greenwashing War: Burlington, Vermont Mayor Signs Deal With Lockheed Martin
Greenwashing War: Burlington, Vermont Mayor Signs Deal With Lockheed Martin
Originally published on Toward Freedom
Lockheed's Trident Missile
That few details were available when the contractual "letter of intent," adorned with Lockheed Martin's corporate logo, was signed by Mayor Kiss and Lockheed's Senior Vice President certainly didn't assuage the rising indignation of community organizers. Interestingly, it was Mayor Kiss who approached Lockheed about the deal at the inaugural "Carbon War Room," which took place simultaneously with the Vancouver Olympics. The Carbon War Room is a pet project of the 212th richest person in the world, billionaire Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group. Branson's record and cola empire also counts amongst its corporate family global warming contributors like Virgin Airlines and the quixotic, carbon emissions nightmare of Virgin Galactic, space tourism for $200,000 a ticket.
Branson's Carbon War Room partners cities with corporations like Lockheed and private financiers to create market based solutions to climate change. The single-sided, single page letter of cooperation details vague projects for Lockheed to partner with Burlington on including "Urban Triage," "Vertical Wind Turbines," "Solar Photovoltaic Systems," "Telemetrics" and "Three dimensional LIDAR City models." Branson's War Room describes itself as a "30-month challenge to help cities around the world use innovative mechanisms to bring capital, energy technologies and jobs to their citizens in a sustainable and wealth creating way."
Wealth creating in this sense means privatizing existing not-for profit climate change fighting measures like the PACE program (PACE lets US home owners bundle home renewable energy financing into their mortgage, spreading out the payments over 25-30 years instead of the usual home improvement loan term of lease of five years). According to the Climate War Room's literature the United States' PACE market, "is valued at $500 billion." This sort of privatization, which spins governmental non-profit programs into new markets, and thereby so much gold for "gold-level" corporate sponsors of the "War Room" like Lockheed, and billionaires like Branson, is but one of the objectionable pieces of the deal to its detractors. Perhaps even more immediate and inflammatory is the planned interaction between Burlington's school children and Lockheed Martin engineers.
"Are We For Bomb Makers?"
One of the controversial aspects of the deal would allow Lockheed engineers to work inside Burlington schools with schoolchildren. In the past five years Burlington parents' and students' outrage boiled over when war profiteer General Dynamics' program of giving away pencils, bookmarks and books stamped with their corporate logo came to light. When a nine year-old student at Burlington's Champlain Elementary was faced with going to an assembly during the school day to listen to General Dynamics employees, her mom Laurie Essig says her daughter Willa asked, "'Are we for bomb-makers? Do we think it's right to kill people? Her basic question was, 'Why are we treating these people like heroes?'" Due to a perception on Willa's teacher's part, that nine year-old Willa might offend the weapons manufacturers’ employees, the teacher, "brought all the other students down to get their free books and left my daughter sitting alone in the classroom." Essig says. Longtime Vermont peace activist, Joseph Gainza said, during an interview, "I would hope that the City of Burlington and the Burlington School District wouldn't let a corporate member of the military industrial complex take credit for solving the climate change problems it helps everyday to perpetuate."
Meg Brooke, Chair of Chittenden County Progressives says of Lockheed's slated involvement with school kids:
I’ve been trained by the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors (NISBCO) and given many hours to council students how to avoid war. I’ve fought to remove military recruiters from our schools. I regularly taught classes in non-violent conflict resolution in Vermont high schools. I am deeply concerned by the way we normalize violence and war and desensitize our young to the horror our military perpetrates, especially on the young, women, and the elderly. Welcoming one of the leaders of this military industrial complex into our schools goes against all I, and many others, believe. I do not want young Vermonters to see the Lockheed logo on TV and have a positive thought about what that business might have done in their school.
Who is Lockheed Martin?
"We Never Forget Who We Work For" is Lockheed Martin's motto. That mindfulness of who they work for takes a different meaning when one considers that 84 percent of Lockheed's revenue comes from the US government, with the majority of that being Pentagon contracts. Lockheed contracted 98 different lobbyists, was mentioned in 142 Congressional bills and spent nearly $10 million in lobbying just in 2010. This is the multi-national war profiteer which to quote Bernie Sanders, "according to the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, the three largest government contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — have engaged in 109 combined instances of misconduct just since 1995, and have paid fees and settlements for this misconduct totaling $2.9 billion." Further, something is seriously amiss when George W. Bush's Department of Justice, not exactly known for setting precedents in corporate crime prosecution, files a 2007 fraud lawsuit against a corporation raking in a net $3.033 billion in FY '07 (It's worth noting that 1% of Lockheed Martin's annual profits alone roughly equals the City of Burlington's approximately $30 million budget).
Defense contractors are notorious for their fraudulent overcharging of tax payers for weapons systems that things must have risen to truly historic levels of fraud for Bush's DoJ to take action. Indeed Lockheed is number one in the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database, at 54 instances of contractor misconduct, totaling $577.4 million in settlements, nearly twice as many as the next closest war profiteer.
Lockheed Martin has had separate racial, age and gender discrimination lawsuits filed against it in the past two years alone. Does Mayor Kiss really want Burlington's hard won image attached to the world's largest war profiteer whose supervisors in the last 24 months allowed "deaths threats" and threats to "lynch" an African American employee "to continue unabated – even though the company was aware of the unlawful conduct"? One might think all of the above flies in the face of the subsections of Mayor Kiss' Progressive Party platform which state the Progressive Party will, "Insist Vermont will contract only with responsible employers, including local small businesses and local entrepreneurs, hiring local employees" and "Promote cooperative, worker-owned, and publicly-owned enterprises as democratic alternatives to huge profit-driven multi-national corporations." Indeed, many inside Kiss' Progressive Party have expressed concerns with these provocatively strange bed fellows.
Progressive City Councilor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak who represents Burlington's Ward 3 said in a statement, "When any municipality considers partnering with a corporation there needs to be some sort of conversation around a set of standards and principals that reflect the community. With Burlington those standard would need to include language to reflect issues long enshrined in the fabric of the City's life: human rights issues, equality issues, peace and war issues. Any agreement or discussion needs to be guided by these community standards, be it on a project level or a policy level. Sometimes the money involved in a potential deal or partnership is not enough to compromise these principals. This deal, frankly, considering Lockheed's long track record would violate any reasonable community standards for the City of Burlington."
Lockheed and Grassroots Organizers
What isn't immediately clear is what is left for Lockheed engineers to do around Climate Change in Burlington that isn't currently being done by Burlington’s many NGO's, non-profits and local companies without war profiteer logos on their arms. From award-winning Efficiency Vermont to AgRefresh, from the University of Vermont's Gund Institute to Burlington Walk/Bike Council, from Carshare Vermont to 350.org, from Permaculture Burlington to the Localvore movement, and on and on. Even the City's Department of Public Works is involved, installing rainwater gardens into the very street itself on Decatur St in Burlington's Old North End. There are also local organic farmers playing funk and disco as they make the rounds in their solar powered veggie delivery van. "Corporations like Lockheed Martin are simultaneously funding the denial of global warming and trying to profit from it," says Brian Tokar, Director of Plainfield, Vermont's Institute of Social Ecology and author of the recent book Toward Climate Justice. "It's hard to imagine what they could possibly contribute to Burlington's already leading-edge efforts to become greener and more self-reliant." Progressive Party Chittenden County Chair Meg Brooke states in plainsong, "Lockheed is going to show and take credit for twenty years of grassroots organizers blood and sweat, paid for out of their own pockets."
Then there are the unspoken ironies of Lockheed working on climate change: the US military, with all its Lockheed technologies has a 363,000 barrel per day oil habit, making it the single largest purchaser of oil in the world. If the US military were a country it would be amongst the top 20 countries in annual oil consumption well in front of Australia. Activist Joseph Gainza points to this saying, "Private corporations that helped create climate change are not going to be part of the solution." What's more, as Chittenden County Progressive Chair Meg Brooke said, "The military is the number one enemy of sustainability and Lockheed isn’t going to do much to change that as their money comes from manufacturing machines that are completely unsustainable. Their F35’s, which threaten our environment, use 2,000-4,000 gallons of fuel and hour."
The F-35 is Lockheed's new next generation fighter plane which is controversially slated to be stationed at Burlington Airport. James Leas, one of the main organizers of the Stop the F-35 Coalition in Burlington writes in a widely circulated open letter to Mayor Kiss "Lockheed Martin is one of the world's largest war profiteers. Its products are designed to destroy the environment and living things. Please help me understand how Lockheed Martin, a company that is one of the chief purveyors of death and destruction, is going to be telling Burlington about sustainability?" In 2007, Lockheed sheepishly admitted it had overcharged, and would repay, the Federal government $265 million plus interest for over-billing American taxpayers on the same F-35. Lockheed called the $265 million dollar over-billing “inadvertent.” Author Brian Tokar says, "Lockheed's F35's and other military hardware are among the most petroleum-gorging products in the world. Burlington doesn't need their noisy fighter jets, nor should Vermont tolerate Lockheed's feeble attempts to greenwash their image."
That said, if this pact between Burlington and Lockheed was purely results based, "most sustainability bang for the buck” venture, and not about corporate greenwashing, could Lockheed silently fund the many engineers and community organizers who have been doing climate change and sustainability work inside Burlington for decades, often with little resources? If Lockheed wanted to get the most climate change prevention for their investment, without causing ripples, could they silently dovetail with Burlington's award winning Climate Action Plan and the 200 project ideas it generated? Unlike the Lockheed deal, the Climate Action Plan had many opportunities for public input.
Or perhaps this funding could quietly award under-capitalized companies like Efficiency Vermont, whose low income home weatherization has a two year waiting list. Additionally there is an unfunded Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization study on how physical barriers to separate bike lanes from car traffic would positively or negatively impact downtown business. In many cities where the study has been done, including cities as large as New York City, physical barriers to demarcate bike lanes from car traffic have been shown to create safer, friendlier communities, which increases bike use while simultaneously helping businesses thrive. Absent the capital for the study though, the false "it's bad for business" argument will prevent these bike lane improvements. One climate change consultant estimated the cost of which to be about $10,000 or about the cost of 1/5th of one second in Iraq war spending. But if it were an anonymous benefactor Lockheed couldn't ride Burlington's credibility to the bank, and credibility is the only thing war profiteers like Lockheed Martin can't buy.
The Need For Action in Burlington
In an exclusive meeting with Mayor Kiss he said that the Lockheed/Carbon War Room was not the only way to finance the projects he envisions the City of Burlington taking on, merely the more "serendipitous." I asked Mayor Kiss at the end of the meeting to what degree the outraged grassroots of Burlington can shape the outcome, considering both the media and the community members have discussed possible civil disobedience to stop this contract with the world's largest war profiteer. Mayor Kiss, after demurring several times said, "Well there's nothing date certain in it. This is just a letter of intent, it doesn't have specific benchmarks for specific projects."
What the Mayor is saying is that the community organizers can shape the outcome by calling and emailing him, by organizing your friends and neighbors, and continually raising the stakes to oppose this. Certainly holding a single public hearing where community members could voice concerns would be a natural place for the Mayor to show his responsiveness to the electorate that put him in power. Community organizers and concerned Burlingtonians could ask for City Council resolutions the critiquing the deal using the community standards and principals Councilor Mulvaney-Stanak calls for.
Mayor Kiss and the Burlington City Council have proven themselves responsive policy makers for Burlingtonians when citizens organize and make demands of them in City Council meetings packed with advocates. Indeed that is exactly how in the past year Burlington passed a resolution to boycott the State of Arizona over its controversial immigration law SB 1070, and how legislation pushed by Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling and downtown business organization The Church Street Marketplace Association to make it a crime to be poor on public sidewalks was stopped cold. If the community continues to organize against Lockheed and if the Mayor is responsive to the grassroots that built his party, then the single page "letter of intent," with no benchmarks, could be slipped deep into the City's archives. That is to say, as usual, everything depends on community organizers building a countervailing pressure to the moneyed interests of corporations and the military which is so strong the elected officials have no choice but to do the moral, just and right thing.
Here are the details for contacting the Mayor's office:
Call: 802-865-7272 (Mayor's Office)
Email: mayor@ci.burlington.vt.us
Jonathan Leavitt is a community organizer and writer based in Burlington, Vermont
Partial List of Environmental Lawsuits and Settlements Against Lockheed Martin
Source: Federal Contractor Misconduct Database
Groundwater Treatment (Burbank, CA)
Groundwater Cleanup Violation (at the Burbank area of the San Fernando Valley Superfund Site)
Tallevast, Florida Groundwater Toxic Contamination
Pantano Wash Hazardous Waste Disposal Settlement
Emissions Violations at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
Nuclear Safety Violations (Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory)
Nuclear Safety Violations (Oak Ridge, TN)
Nuclear Waste Storage Violation (Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory)
Radiation Exposure (Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory)
Reactor Safety Violations (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Toxic Substances Control Act Violation (PCBs - 2005)
Toxic Substances Control Act Violation (PCBs - 1998)
Violations of Louisiana Environmental Quality Act
Falsification of Testing Records (Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory)
Radioactive Work Control Deficiencies (Sandia National Laboratories)
Radiological Control Deficiencies (Sandia National Laboratories)
Violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (Sandia ational Labor
Monday, November 15, 2010
Vermonters Stand Up to War Profiteer General Dynamics
Originally published on Toward Freedom
Re-published on Common Dreams, Z Net, After Downing Street
Wednesday, 29 October 2008 22:56 Jonathan Leavitt 
Since the early 1980s, Vermont activists such as Robin Lloyd, Joseph Gainza, Brian Tokar and Jolen Mulvaney have been committing acts of civil disobedience at General Dynamics Burlington design facility and firing range. They climbed fences in order to pour red paint on GD weapons and placed flowers in the barrels of GD cannons. Along with 200 others, they occupied the GD firing range, lying down in front of GD trucks with Gatling guns destined for Ronald Reagan's dirty wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. "The civil disobedience doesn't stop when you're in the courtroom. Every word of becomes part of the public record and is written down beautifully," Mulvaney said, her Vermont gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina earrings flashing.
A lot of knowledge and stories were shared across generations at this activist discussion in Montpelier. Yet no one needed to explain the particulars of courtroom civil disobedience to the youngest member of the panel, 19 year old Rachel Ruggles.
On May 1st of this year, as Ruggles and Kylie Vanerstrom were finishing their freshmen year at the University of Vermont, they walked into the lobby of GD armaments and technical division in Burlington, locked themselves together with eight others, and refused to leave until the company pledged to give back $3.6 million in Vermont tax breaks and convert the 500 local employees to peacetime, "green collar" jobs. Being ignored by GD higher-ups, dragged out of the armament facility by Burlington police, and roundly criticized in the local media for their civil disobedience, was only the beginning. What unfolded afterward was an inspiring display of righteous indignation, and legal maneuvering by women barely old enough to remember a time when this country wasn't at war.
The ensuing trial shared similarities with the famed Winooski 44 civil disobedience, which saw the 1984 occupation of state Senator Robert Stafford's office on the eve of a decisive vote which would allow weapons to be sent to death squads in Central America. Howard Zinn and Ramsey Clark took the stand as expert witnesses as the largest civil disobedience trial in the state's history found the defendants not guilty by reason of necessity. In plainsong this means the Winooski 44's "crime" was pardoned as they were attempting to prevent the larger crime of massive civilian deaths in Reagan's dirty wars. The war profiteer locally testing, assembling and shipping some of the guns to kill peasants in Central America fourteen years ago was General Dynamics.
Rachel and Kylie had no Howard Zinn expert testimony; they represented themselves with legal advice from Sandy Baird, one of the lawyers who successfully defended the Winooski 44. When Vermonters think pitched legal battles played out inside Burlington's Edward J. Costello Courthouse, they usually don't think of 19 year old women taking on the state of Vermont and the world's sixth largest arms maker and winning… well, sort of. This is where it gets complicated.
No one is confusing GD with a paper tiger, or a company with clean bookkeeping. According to a 2006 Washington Post article, "Of the large defense contractors, General Dynamics' concentration in Army programs has given it the most direct benefit from the Iraq war… Since just before the 2001 terrorist attacks," GD's combat systems unit's "revenue and profit have tripled." Just after the May 1st civil disobedience, Burlington journalist Benjamin Dangl, writing about Kylie, Rachel, and the rest of the self described "GD 10," stated that GD had, "$7.8 billion, with $382 million in profits [...] 94% of its contracts come from the US government."
To its critics, GD seems to be the embodiment of everything Dwight Eisenhower cautioned of in his farewell address of the revolving door of money, people, and power between the military, corporations like GD, and the government charged with regulating it all. Eisenhower, ironically a hawkish Republican, called this the "military industrial complex," and said it would pose an ever increasing threat to our democracy.
However, a couple of powerful Vermonters, who regulate war profiteers on a regular basis, tend to disagree. VT Congressman Peter Welch, elected on an anti-war mandate and who, in April 2008, described himself in a VT-based Seven Days article as a "cop on the beat" in regards to Blackwater and KBR's defrauding of taxpayers, has a soft spot for GD as a local employer. Though Kylie was quick to point out "elected officials like Peter Welch claim to be against the war when they're trying to win people's votes, but Welch takes campaign contributions [$3,500] from General Dynamics." Even Senator Patrick Leahy, author of the "War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007," touts the GD contracts he's helped bring home to the Green Mountain arm of the company all over his website: $900 million, $129 million, $57 million, to name but a few. Many contracts are Hydra-70 missiles headed for Iraq and Afghanistan. His Vermont Chief of Staff Chuck Ross says the Senator believes GD provides, "Good Vermont jobs" and "ensures that our country has the defense it needs."
When pressed about this, Rachel fired back at Vermont's anti-war Congressional delegation, "Jobs and security for who and at what cost? Is that really the first encounter we want people around the world to have with Vermont, a smoking village and all around pieces of rockets that say made in Vermont?" In a 2,300 word Time Magazine expose on General Dynamics in 1985, journalists explained that "Fleets of investigators and critics are challenging General Dynamics' integrity and its fitness to be a pillar of the nation's defense...The Securities and Exchange Commission is studying whether the company may have manipulated its stock price, and the Defense Department is looking into possible national security violations."
In Rachel and Kylie's eyes, GD, like a Dick Cheney crony, has been steadily overcharging taxpayers ever since. According to a 2005 Time Magazine article, GD's CEO has been regularly hauled in front of Congressional investigations recently to find out "why General Dynamics charged the Government for such 'overhead' costs as a $14,975 party at a suburban Washington country club and the babysitting expenses of one of its officials." The same article states, "the Internal Revenue Service is reportedly examining whether General Dynamics has been cheating on taxes," and that the weapons-maker has a history of malfeasance that includes everything from charges of "improperly billing taxpayers $158 million for overhead costs ranging from billing taxpayers for the kenneling of an executive's dog, to the purchase of a company director's kingsize bed." ($158 million can buy a lot of pooch pampering and so the canine in question even comes with an appropriately regal, old world name: Fursten.) Even in the age of Halliburton's fraudulent contracting and overcharging taxpayers, the wet dog stink coming off GD's practices caused the Navy to recently suspend contracts for a time.
At the GD 10 trial's outset, Vermont's State's Attorney TJ Donovan said the activists should sign a plea bargain: agree to pay $77 a piece for restitution, perform 50 hours of community service, and in exchange, receive no criminal record. Other members of the GD 10 claim Donovan was pursing increasing penalties for two protesters who'd previously had their charges dropped in similar plea agreements. One of them, Jen Berger, claims Donovan, "vowed to do away with civil disobedience." Donovan counters he "never said" such a thing, though two other protesters, Rachel and Will Bennington corroborated Berger's claims.
Though in State Attorney Donovan's eyes, "Free speech is not an absolute right. It can be regulated in time, place and manner." Donovan also suggested legal protests like the 5pm peace vigil in front of Burlington's Unitarian Church are "more effective" than the civil disobedience at GD. Bennington agrees that, "it's great that there's a vigil," he but doesn't, "see how having a vigil outside of a church is more effective than going into the belly of the beast and saying that we don't want you here. Segregation wasn't ended by people standing outside of churches and having vigils." At the end of the day all ten of the protesters accepted Donovan's plea deal.
Ruggles claims, "We never planned to pay restitution. We didn't understand what we were signing." So when the other eight members of the GD 10, who'd been locked together in the weapons facility, anted up the money and agreed to perform their community service, it made what came next surprising. The presiding judge asked at their next scheduled appearance how were they going to pay restitution. Kylie and Rachel looked up at the judge, in her bone white collar and mate finish ebony robes, behind her staid bench at the courthouse, and said that they "couldn't pay on moral grounds" restitution to a company that makes manufactures 14,000-pound guns which fire up to 4,200 shots per minute and Hydra 70 rockets in the People's Republic of Burlington.
The response was swift and decisive, Rachel recounted, with the slow intonation of someone still in disbelief: "The judge said morals need to be put aside. She threw the real issue out the window" and held the two "in criminal contempt of court." Kylie said despite the twosome's relative legal naiveté, "We researched restitution laws. The aim of restitution is to ease the burden of a victim. Restitution is for a mom's car that's smashed, or a small business. It was a total misuse of the law. It [restitution] isn't supposed to be punitive." According to Rachel, "She [the Judge] wanted us to pay restitution or go to jail. The judge threatened us with being put in prison indefinitely and being charged daily. We didn't think the judge was bluffing. We went to court fully prepared to go to jail." But in Rachel's words the judge was using the legal system, "like a debtor's prison for a war profiteer."
Cue overwhelming odds and ominous clouds. When asked if they ever doubted themselves, before the final sentencing, Vanerstrom pauses for a moment. "Even some of our friends told us we were being silly," she said. "But even if it were one dollar, we were not going to pay. I never doubted that what we were doing was the right thing and the right cause. When we were ordered to pay restitution and refused to do so it made me more sure." They laundered their "one nice outfit" a piece, and, with lumps in their throats, walked up the steps and through the courthouses' metal detector one final time, prepared to do the perp walk out the back door in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits.
At the sentencing, Donovan pulled out the sort of courtroom pyrotechnics that are usually more the providence of Matlock or John Grisham novels than Patriot Act America circa 2008. He said, "My position was although I didn't agree or condone what they were doing, we reached a fair compromise where they could keep their deferred sentences and pay twice the original amount to a charitable fund for injured soldiers [instead of General Dynamics]." Kylie says, "I feel grateful, TJ could have stood aside and been silent. I think we had a strange miscommunication. He kind of came through for us." Though, she adds, Donovan lectured the two of them, saying "having a criminal record isn't a badge of honor." After reassuring the Judge multiple times that they would pay, an exhausted Rachel and Kylie emerged "victorious" in their words, in principal, if not on paper. "I think Kylie and I were probably the happiest people who have ever left that court room."
As for the future, I asked each if they would disappear into a quiet life, now that their trial is finally behind them. Rachel smiled and said, "I'm relieved the court case is over and feel ready to do something bigger. We fought our battle. TJ and other attorneys would have it that civil disobedience didn't happen. The change we're talking about is huge, it's an economic conversion. I don't know how we could do it if we weren't civilly disobedient at times. More large scale civil disobedience is necessary and I'll be happy to participate in that because of what we're up against." Almost finishing her sentence Kylie chimes in, "we've been involved with a new group concerned with Vermont's transitioning economy into a peace economy. And we have big plans for the future. We want Vermont's major export not to be weapons of mass destruction."
Kylie, Rachel and the rest of the GD 10 have their work cut out for them as the torrent of money continues to pour into GD: a new $51 million dollar contract was signed the day after their arrest. So far in October, GD has signed $704 million in new contracts. Not to be outdone, the activists have called a rally against GD at Vermont's Statehouse on Saturday November 1 at 1:30 pm. According to Joelen Mulvaney, suddenly now it's this new generation's civil disobedience "inspiring" the older activists.
More information on Rachel, Kylie and the Vermont movement against General Dynamics can be found here: http://stopgeneraldynamics.blogspot.com/
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See this video of the May 1st action at General Dynamics in Burlington, VT. Filmed and edited by Sam Mayfield:
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Contact Jonathan Leavitt at jonathan.c.leavitt@gmail.com
Sources:
http://www.generaldynamics.com
http://stopgeneraldynamics.blogspot.com
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200505/050505.html
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200704/041007.html
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200403/0304a.html
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200403/0304a.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14campaign.html