The involvement of Lockheed Martin Corporation
in the Canadian census and surveys is the central issue.
THE MORAL ARGUMENT
(1) BRIEF COMMENTARY
(2) MORALITY IS AN ESSENTIAL PILLAR OF CIVIL SOCIETY
(3) WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN WHEN THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE THE MORAL LEADERSHIP FOR THE NATION? (Think of Nazi Germany when you make reply.)
(4) WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THE LEGACY GIFTED TO US BY PRIME MINISTERS LESTER PEARSON, PIERRE TRUDEAU AND JEAN CHRETIEN? IS THAT LEGACY WORTH FIGHTING TO PRESERVE?
(5) IN CANADA TODAY, WHY DO WE NOT DISCUSS, WHY DO WE NOT DEFINE AND APPLY VALUES (MORALITY) TO OUR COLLECTIVE ACTIONS (COMPLICITY, FOR EXAMPLE)?
(6) GANDHI SAID WE MUST BECOME THE CHANGE WE SEEK.
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(1) BRIEF COMMENTARY
One-half of the battle is the LEGAL argument (the Charter Right to Privacy of Personal Information) which I am confident we will win. (UPDATE: October 2013 – we did NOT win the legal argument, at least not for the Province of Saskatchewan and not in this round!)
The other half is the MORAL issue, which is a battle in the definition of Canadian character. As I understand the world, you cannot have a moral nation without a moral population. It is the citizens who must insist on moral conduct, if the leadership of the nation does not.
Canadians would stand up and raise hell if the Government gave our money to a person associated with the mafia, to someone who has been convicted of bribery, of fraud in Government contracts, and so on.
I am going to continue to raise hell over Government money going to Lockheed Martin Corporation, whether for:
– contracts with Statistics Canada
– contracts for healthcare records (military or public)
– Tens of billions of dollars for F-35 fighter jets that are useless unless you are going to war.
CONSIDER: A group of people get together under a corporate name. They commit highly unlawful acts, have a long list of court convictions, and have not been tried for all their crimes. They come to Canada and are not only immune from the laws of our land, but they also receive billions of our tax dollars.
Lockheed Martin was rewarded with Government contracts when they were the producers of weapons that are illegal under Canadian and International Law, when public policy demanded that there be economic sanctions against people like Lockheed Martin who contravene International Humanitarian Law.
The resistance to Lockheed Martin contracts related to Statistics Canada started in 2003, just as soon as the relationship became known. (Lockheed’s role of “contract interrogators” (torture) at off-shore American prisons is equally illegal and immoral but was largely unknown until 2015.)
Lockheed Martin is the American military. They are in the business of creating enemies out of other people. They are the number one beneficiary of dropping bombs on Iraq, an illegal war of aggression made possible through deliberate lies. It is not right that our tax dollars enrich them.
There are implications for a society that fails to uphold moral standards.
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(2) MORALITY IS AN ESSENTIAL PILLAR OF CIVIL SOCIETY
Immorality leads to the break-down of society. You don’t have to think too long to figure out the mechanics of how that works. Thinkers through history have drawn it to attention. A few succinct statements:
– William F. Buckley, Jr.: All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores.
– Edmund Burke: Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
– Frederick Douglass: The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
– Albert Einstein: Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
– George Jacob Holyoake: There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.
– J. A. Froude: To deny freedom of the will is to make morality impossible. (Morality is possible today because I still have the freedom of will to speak up.)
– Samuel Adams: A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow liberties than the whole force of the common enemy…. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader…. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.
What happens to a society (e.g. ours) if
– acts that are judged to be immoral and forbidden to the individual citizen
become
– acceptable and financially supported by the Government when a group of individuals bands together and performs the immoral acts collectively, in the guise of a corporation?
You don’t have to know very much history in order to answer the question.
And maybe it would be less obvious if I wasn’t a Mother!
I don’t see how you can have a moral nation if you don’t have moral people, and I don’t see that you have moral people if no one is willing to stand up and take action when our collective actions are clearly wrong. You do not collaborate to enrich people like Lockheed Martin Corporation. If what is being done in the world is wrong, well, who’s going to stop it, if not us?
Furthermore, OTHER people are doing THEIR part.
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(3) WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE CITIZEN WHEN THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE THE MORAL LEADERSHIP FOR THE NATION? (Think of Nazi Germany when you make reply.)
On October 15th I circulated the email “Success! Rolling back corporate welfare for Lockheed Martin”, a story of citizens in Maryland who mobilized to reverse tax breaks for wealthy Lockheed Martin.
Then there are the people in the posting “Stunning victory: Breaking the law to obey a higher law (Lockheed Martin’s unmanned drones, Creech Air Force Base)”.
I’ll send you the report on the people who are doing a vigil at Peter MacKay’s office in New Glasgow, N.S.: Lockheed Martin propaganda campaign – Minister MacKay: Don’t be a Grinch and Steal Our Future.
Quite some time ago we contacted the kids at Dalhousie University who protested Lockheed Martin’s involvement in Dalhousie. A short while later we connected with the students at the University of New Brunswick who worked to prevent Lockheed Martin from recruiting on their campus.
We will fight in Saskatoon: Lockheed Martin has given $3.5 million to the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology (SIIT) to train youngsters in relation to its unmanned drones. If that’s not the height of immorality, I don’t know what is. It is also the height of stupidity: American tax-payers fund the development of Lockheed Martin’s illegal-in-the-rest-of-the-world and immoral weapons. Lockheed Martin turns around and sells those weapons to whoever will buy, like the Chinese (need hyperlink to the article). They have been tried, found guilty and paid fines in the millions of dollars for breach of arms export controls. (hyperlink) It is only a matter of time before other nations are using drone warfare against the U.S. (North America). . . . WHO ARE the brilliant strategists in our “security” forces? They have lost a lot of brain cells somewhere along the way. I am also reminded of Michael Moore’s film “Bowling for Columbine”. That film has been a wonderful contribution that helps unmask the systemic training for violence through American institutions. You really should see the movie if you haven’t already. Lockheed Martin plays a role. It helps you to understand the subtlies of the American war machine, should you require any motivation to resist its further intrusion into Canada.
As far as I know, the first protests in Canada against Lockheed Martin began in 2003. Relatively few people knew who Lockheed Martin is. The work has been slow but steady. Today the awareness of Lockheed Martin is multiplied many times over, and from following the developments over the past years, I’d say that the resistance in North America has ratcheted up over the last six months.
What is the role of the citizen when the Government does not provide the moral leadership? it looks like we know the answer and we’re doing it!
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(4) WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THE LEGACY GIFTED TO US BY PRIME MINISTERS LESTER PEARSON, PIERRE TRUDEAU AND JEAN CHRETIEN? IS THAT LEGACY WORTH FIGHTING TO PRESERVE?
Canadians had a two-fold legacy of peace-making and sovereignty in Canadian foreign policy. Quislings in our Government gave us the Canada First Defence Strategy in June 2008. (hyperlink) We now have compatible doctrine with the U.S. among other sell-outs. Our legacy is down the toilet. I doubt that a Canadian Prime Minister could keep us out of an Iraq War, an illegal war of aggression, if it happened today.
It is still possible to re-claim our legacy. It’s actually pretty easy to do. Pass this information along. All we need is a critical mass of informed people, we don’t need EVERYone.
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(5) IN CANADA TODAY, WHY DO WE NOT DISCUSS, WHY DO WE NOT DEFINE AND APPLY VALUES (MORALITY) TO OUR COLLECTIVE ACTIONS (COMPLICITY, FOR EXAMPLE)?
A central requirement for democracy is public discourse. We need to have the conversation. The Government contracted-out work on the Canadian census to Lockheed Martin Corporation. Thousands protested in 2006. Many more thousands will engage in creative acts of non-violent resistance during the May 2011 census, simply because many more people today know about this involvement of the American military in our census. Also, the resistance to the $16 billion (the KPMG Report later put the lifetime cost at $44 to $45 billion) for Lockheed Martin fighter jets is mounting steadily, thanks to Ceasefire.ca and others.
A good part of the reason that we do not discuss and apply values is because the mainstream media has not done a good job of informing Canadians about the situation with the census. And many people don’t know who and what Lockheed Martin is. All is well so long as we can be kept in a state of ignorance – – but we can’t be kept in that state if we will ourselves to be an informed and engaged citizenry.
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(6) GANDHI SAID WE MUST BECOME THE CHANGE WE SEEK.
Can we improve Canada’s role in the world, our contribution to the world community, if we stop providing tax money to groups of individuals who collectively perform immoral acts? I mean, why WOULD we fund such groups of people, or be complicit with them?
There are easy ways to refuse to collaborate with Government contracts for Lockheed Martin – – you won’t be thrown in jail for failure to comply with the Census long form.
Lockheed Martin is involved in the Canadian census. We can refuse to cooperate with StatsCan. Lockheed Martin (2016) is threatening the Government: if Canadians don’t buy their F-35 stealth bombers, Lockheed will pull out almost a billion dollars worth of sub-contracts to Canadian firms. We can refuse to pay a portion of our taxes, an amount that represents our individual share of the military pot. Conscience Canada coordinates that effort. (hyperlink) Ceasefire.ca (hyperlink) coordinates the resistance to the fighter jets. They both need our solidarity and help – more details later on how to do that. Call out the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Our investment in Lockheed Martin increased by 14 times in one year, if memory serves correctly 2010-2011.
IN CONCLUSION
– On January 13th I expect to be found “not guilty” of the charge against me (failure to comply with the Statistics Act by not filling out a census form in 2006). UPDATE: Oops! misplaced confidence. I was found “guilty”, and given a conditional discharge.
– It will be a win on an important legal issue (whether the Government is allowed to trample the Charter Rights of citizens).
– However, more important moral issues remain. The battle will not end with a win in court on the legal issue.
It was moral consideration, not legal considerations, that caused myself and thousands of other Canadians to begin telling the Government in 2003 that they must not award census contracts to Lockheed Martin Corporation.