Earth Day Action – Expose the Crimes of the Merchants of Death

Planned Actions in Syracuse, NY 

In Syracuse, NY, USA, peace and justice groups will bond in solidarity to commemorate Earth Day, the day before, April 21st from 12 noon to 4 PM. We’ll expose the crimes of the war machine focusing on political, financial, church, industry, and military. The war machine enablers will be exposed at five locations:

 

Medea Benjamin an Diane Sare will be joining us.  We hope that you will as well.

1) Starting outside the local offices of Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand, we will spoof the crimes of both Schumer, who takes more weapons makers’ blood money than any other US politician, and Gillibrand , who sits on the Senate Defense (sic) Committee and like Schumer, votes every year to increase the US military budget. We will deliver people’s subpoenas to both, calling upon them to testify at our November 10-13 Merchants of Death Tribunal.

2) Two blocks away in downtown Syracuse at one of the many JP Morgan Chase banks, we’ll do Fat Cats parodies outside and deliver the subpoena to the bank manager, Ms Lynn Nunez.

3) Processing with music, we’ll stand before the headquarters of the Diocese of Syracuse and deliver a subpoena to the local Roman Catholic Bishop Douglas Lucia, calling upon him to break his silence and testify in our Merchants of Death Tribunal to the war crimes happening in his diocese. These include, just hiking distance from his office, the activities of the Hancock Killer Drone base, home of the NY National Guard’s 174th Attack Wing.

4) We will then caravan just 15 minutes to one of Lockheed Martin’s war factories near Syracuse. Lockheed Martin is the king of the Merchants of Death. No other war corporation makes so much profit spreading mayhem around the Earth as Lockheed Martin. We won’t be allowed inside their gates but will attach a subpoena to their compound fence. Last fall, Brad Wolf, the mainstay organizer of merchantsofdeath.org, and others including Ret. Army Colonel Ann Wright, delivered a subpoena to the headquarters of Lockheed Martin’s national headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland.

5) A short drive from Lockheed Martin will take us to the 174th Attack Wing of the NYS National Guard which once bragged that Afghanistan was their prime target. We don’t know what unfortunate foreign people are their target now but we do know that their MQ9 Reaper drones are armed with Hellfire Missiles (made by Lockheed Martin in Orlando, Fl ) and Paveway bombs (made in a Lockheed factory in Archbald, Pa).

Dayshift workers at the East Malloy Rd Syracuse killer drone base will be finishing their day’s work when we greet them with our banners and signs. At the front gate, we’ll attempt to deliver a subpoena to the base commander, Col. William “Rhino” McCrick III. We don’t expect to be arrested this time but over the past 13 years of protest scores of us have been arrested, usually charged with trespass and disorderly conduct. And a bunch of us have done time in the local Jamesville Penitentiary for our scrupulously nonviolent civil resistance to Reaper drone terror. Sometimes we die-in or do colorful street theatre blocking the main gate (see video footage at upstatedroneaction.org). Hundreds of arrests have occurred and many of us have been jailed for nonviolent resistance to drone terrorism.

Originally published on Veterans for Peace, March 09, 2023

This Earth Day weekend a coalition of peace and justice groups are taking action to expose the merchants of death and their enablers by delivering subpoenas to each merchant/enabler with a demand they testify at the worldwide Merchants of Death Tribunal. The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal (November 10-13, 2023) will hold accountable — through testimony of witnesses — U.S. weapons manufacturers who knowingly produce and sell products which attack and kill not only combatants but non-combatants as well. These manufacturers may have committed Crimes Against Humanity as well as violated U.S. Federal criminal laws. The Tribunal will hear the evidence and render a verdict.

Peace and justice groups are encouraged to take action in their local communities on Friday, April 21st (Friday is the better media day and more offices are open). Each peace and justice organization nationwide can decide what to do to highlight the crimes of the war merchants and their enablers.

Organized by Up State Drone Action, VFP Chapter 90, Pax Christi Upstate NY, and Peace Action of New York

Action Ideas (From the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal Website)

• Call press conferences outside of your US Senate offices and/or US House of Representatives offices when delivering a subpoena to these congressional representatives.
• Download corporate subpoenas from the Merchants of Death website and deliver to the four corporate war-maker Merchants of Death under indictment by the Tribunal that have offices in your area (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Atomics).
• Issue subpoenas to Church leaders who may be complicit by their silence or outright support of the merchants of death.
• Issue subpoenas to major banks or investment firms with major holdings in the war industry (e.g. Raytheon, Boeing, etc).
• Go to military bases and issue them subpoenas to testify along with all the others in the US Murder Inc. system.
• Read more here!