Activist nuns take aim at military companies

[Tinoire]

Activist nuns take aim at military companies

By Leslie Wayne The New York Times
Saturday, February 19, 2005

NEW YORK Decades ago, and during a different war, many churches were at the forefront of antiwar efforts, whether it was the high-profile activism of the Catholic Berrigan brothers, who splattered blood on draft records, or mainstream church marches against nuclear weapons.
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While most of that activism has since fallen away, a hardy band of Catholic nuns has remained true to the cause of peace - though activism today takes them to corporate boardrooms and shareholders' meetings. Nuns from dozens of orders are completing resolutions to be introduced at shareholder meetings this spring.
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Of course, no one is saying that companies like Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics or Raytheon are about to lay down their arms. But military companies, faced with the persistent nuns on their doorsteps, have begun to meet with them, and, in some cases, have begun to see their business in different ways.
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"We are raising questions that no one asks but us," said Valerie Heinonen, a Catholic nun and social responsibility consultant in New York. "Part of what we are doing is planting seeds. These companies have an overwhelming influence wherever they operate and I don't think religious bodies should be separate from that."
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The shareholder proposals to be offered by the nuns would make any military executive squirm. At the top of the agenda is limiting foreign military sales in countries where the arms can fall into the hands of child soldiers or perpetuate never-ending wars. The nuns are also promoting an ethical code of conduct that holds arms makers accountable for the impact of their business on the environment, and on the political and social stability of countries where they operate.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/18/business/nuns.html

[The Sheik]

1. NWGAB: Nuns with guns against Bush.

Now that is catchy.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. Catchy, but not factual, since the nuns don't have guns. nt

[chlamor]

3. Lockheed Martin runs this country

Here is more info on the innumerable operations LM is involved in.


"From nuclear missiles to fighter planes, software code to spy satellites, the Patriot missile to Star Wars, Lockheed has come to dominate the weapons market in a way that the Standard Oil Company used to hold sway over the nation's petroleum supplies. And it all happened with the help of the federal government, which steered lucrative no bid contracts Lockheed's way, enacted tax breaks that encouraged Lockheed's merger and acquisition frenzy in the 1980s and 1990s and turned a blind eye to the company's criminal rap sheet, ripe with indiscretions ranging from bribery to contract fraud."

"Now Lockheed stands almost alone. It not only serves as an agent of US foreign policy, from the Pentagon to the CIA; it also helps shape it. "We are deployed entirely in developing daunting technology," Lockheed's new CEO Robert J. Stevens told the New York Times report Tim Weiner. "That requires thinking through the policy dimensions of national security as well as technological dimensions."
But even in the IT sector, the big bucks are to be made in the burgeoning surveillance and Homeland Security business. Lockheed now runs the FBI's archaic computer system, which took some much deserved heat for letting the 9/11 hijackers slip through its net without detection. It also won the $90 million contract to manage the top secret computer network for the Department of Homeland Security, a system that is supposed to function as a kind of "deep web", linking the systems of the FBI, CIA and Pentagon."

"We want to know what's going on anytime, any place on the planet," pronounced Lorraine Martin, Lockheed's vice-president for Command, Control and Communications Systems. And eliminate them, naturally."

"On the battlefield of defense contractors, Lockheed has now achieved full-spectrum dominance." here is the link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair01222005.html