The Government’s prosecution of me for non-compliance with the 2006 census begins on Tuesday April 15th.
Many thanks to Susan Thompson (Vive le Canada website) for her great work on the census boycott and on-going support.
And thank-you for the words and supporting actions from others. I stand erect knowing you are behind me.
There MAY yet be another offer – depending on court decision (guilty): I can fill in the census and avoid jail or whatever. But after reading Lockheed Martin’s record of corruption, I would sooner roast in hell (or jail!) than cooperate with any of this.
I am judging the Canadian Government by the company they keep: Monsanto, the chemical companies and now Lockheed Martin. These are scurrilous corporations (corporations are people). The Government should not be doing business with them, not with their long records of court convictions.
CONTENTS
(1) WHO ARE WE THAT WE REMAIN SILENT?
(2) UPDATE ON COURT CASE
(3) LOCKHEED MARTIN, GREAT COMPANY
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(1) WHO ARE WE THAT WE REMAIN SILENT?
“These people should be in jail. They have done far more harm than jailed people have done. And they have a lengthy record of convictions.”
The criminal records of some of the corporations that the Government of Canada is contracting with are appalling. Millions of dollars of our money go to these corporations. I am more familiar with the record of Monsanto and the other chemical companies. Many thanks to Susan and the Vive le Canada website for the goods on Lockheed Martin (scroll down to (3) LOCKHEED MARTIN, GREAT COMPANY).
Excerpts from (3):
“The U.S. Department of Defense is Lockheed’s biggest customer, accounting for more than half of the company’s yearly revenue, and the U.S. government itself accounts for roughly 80% of Lockheed’s business.”
Based on the percentage, I’d say that Lockheed Martin is effectively a Department of the U.S. Government.
Lockheed now has a subsidiary in Canada. The Quaker Society from Halifax, in its 2004 submission to Statistics Canada said:
(1) ” The Halifax Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is very concerned about the Canadian government’s decision to award a $20.5 million dollar contract to a unit of the U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT). …
(2) In February 2003, Lockheed Martin Canada Inc. was also awarded a multi-year contract by the Canadian Department of National Defence to provide a health care information system on Canadian Forces personnel. That contract is worth approximately $17 million and covers only the first 14 months of the project. The contract has the potential to exceed an estimated value of $56 million, however, if all four phases are delivered over the anticipated 10-year period.”
It would be good to determine the percentage of Lockheed’s Canadian subsidiary business that comes from the Government of Canada. The following part of Vive le Canada’s record on Lockheed – alone – states that we should not be supporting this company. I also believe that if this is a list of convictions, the list of deeds done without being caught is longer. There wouldn’t be continuing convictions if it wasn’t profitable to break the laws:
“Lockheed claims to have changed its corporate culture. But this doesn’t appear to have stopped instances of corruption or law-breaking. As just one example, the U.S. Project on Government Oversite reports that:
. In 2002, Lockheed Martin had the second highest number of instances of misconduct and alleged misconduct of any US government contractor and pay outs of just over $426 million US in fines.
. In 2000, Lockheed Martin was charged with 30 violations of the US Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Lockheed Martin paid a civil penalty of $13 million.
. In 1997, Lockheed Martin exported material to South Korea that can be used in missile delivery/reentry systems. Lockheed did not obtain the export license required for national security and nuclear nonproliferation considerations. The company paid a $45,000 civil penalty.
. In 1995, Lockheed Martin pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for paying bribes to officials of the Egyptian Government. The company paid a criminal fine of $24.8 million. From: The US Project on Government Oversight”
“For a company like Lockheed Martin, war is good for business. So it’s no surprise the company and people formerly connected with the company spend so much time lobbying for aggressive U.S. public policy. …
The national security reporter for the New York Times was quoted by Common Dreams.org saying: “Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed hold the posts of secretary of the Navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex, and director of the national spy satellite agency.”
Lockheed is also the defense industry’s top political donor.
…So in truth, Lockheed doesn’t only benefit from war-centric U.S. policy – the company helps set it.” (from Vive le Canada website)
———
(Now it’s me, Sandra, writing again.)
Lockheed Martin should be run out of this country. Without our tax dollars they most likely wouldn’t be here.
Lockheed is not a single example.
Two years ago we worked on a collaborative approach (various government departments, university officials and citizens) to solving the problem of chemicals in the environment.
Under “Health”
“Corruption of the companies, public record. May 02-06 #9.”:
” It is my expectation that you (Government officials) will govern with common sense and integrity. Read the track-record on the chemical/pharmaceutical/biotech companies. It’s long. These people should be in jail. They have done far more harm than jailed people have done. It is well documented.
When you read below the appalling record of the corruption of these companies, you will understand how abhorrent and completely unacceptable it is that even one penny of tax-payer money should go to these companies, whether through Government Fronts or through “matched funding”, or “out-sourcing”. For a Government official to say that the amounts of money are small, is simply not true. Nor is it a reasonable defence. The record of corruption demonstrates that these companies need to be POLICED, with no leaway.
When Connie from the PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency – Health Canada) asked how the public might be convinced that the PMRA is doing its job, after you read the record, you will understand that having “Industry Scientists” on panels that make any decisions related to governance or policy or regulation is to undermine public trust in the PMRA. Call a spade, a spade: you judge a person (the PMRA, Statistics Canada, the Dept of Defence) by the company they not only keep, but act as pimps for, with our money.
The University is part of this collaborative effort (to get rid of pesticides, for health): the history of corruption will be of interest to them. I remember picking up a brochure years ago, at the College of Agriculture. Monsanto contributed $11 million to the construction of the new College. And they fund research. The undermining of “science” is well documented (“Science Under Siege”).
At the National Farmers Union (NFU) meeting in Saskatoon Nov. 2004, in the question period following David Suzuki’s presentation, Tom Wolf placed the case for the scientists before the audience: the chemical corporations fund the research. David shrugged his shoulders, was forthright and unapologetic:
the University sells its soul to the devil.”
If you don’t know the public record on the corruption of Monsanto, BASF, etc. it’s under “Health”. See “Corruption of the companies, public record. May 02-06 -9.”
Now the record on Lockheed Martin (see (3) below).
Who ARE we that we remain silent?
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(2) UPDATE ON COURT CASE
For this week the priority is to get the information on Lockheed Martin out to people and to media. The only value in my going to court is to draw attention, thereby increasing the level of awareness. Get people talking. This is an issue for Canadians in general.
(INSERT: I never did proceed with the following affidavit idea.)
Susan Thompson (creator of Vive le Canada) will supply an affidavit for my later court appearance, to say that she did not comply with the census and to date, has not received a summons to appear in court. (People must be treated equally before the Law. If I am prosecuted, so must others who have boycotted.)
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(3) LOCKHEED MARTIN, GREAT COMPANY. WITH THANKS TO SUSAN THOMPSON FROM VIVE LE CANADA.
So what’s so bad about Lockheed Martin?
Lockheed Martin Makes Weapons of Mass Destruction
The most obvious and indisputable fact about Lockheed Martin is that the company is the biggest defence (aka military or weapons) contractor in the U.S., and also the biggest defence contractor in the world. Put simply, Lockheed Martin makes money by manufacturing lethal weapons and weapons of mass destruction that are then used by the U.S. in conflicts all over the world. Lockheed Martin is the company that makes the Trident missile, aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-22 and the C-130 Hercules, as well as high tech space based military components like the
DSCS-3 satellite. Many of the weapons Lockheed makes are nuclear weapons, such as missiles designed to be launched from submarines.
Lockheed Martin Works Primarily for the U.S. Government
The U.S. Department of Defense is Lockheed’s biggest customer, accounting for more than half of the company’s yearly revenue, and the U.S. government itself accounts for roughly 80% of Lockheed’s business. That’s something to consider when reading the Lockheed Martin slogan “We never forget who we’re working for”-because it is obviously the U.S. government, not the Canadian people, that they’re thinking about.
Gives new meaning to the phrase “military industrial complex”–and now that same American military industrial complex is extending into Canada.
Lockheed Martin Benefits from the Iraq War
Products manufactured by Lockheed Martin have been critical to missions in the U.S.-led wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraq war is a war that Canadians rightly rejected. According to Global Exchange and other non-profit corporate watchdogs, “In 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, the company held $21.9 billion in Pentagon contracts”. And it should hardly be a surprise that “since 2000, the year Bush was elected, the company’s stock value has tripled”.
Shouldn’t Canadians who refused to support the Iraq war also refuse to support, with our tax dollars, a company that profits hugely from that war?
Lockheed Martin Interrogates Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Elsewhere
Lockheed Martin has now expanded its services to include providing private contract interrogators to U.S. prisons, by buying a smaller company. Such private interrogators have been called into question due to the scandal at Abu Ghraib. As the following article notes, “the increased outsourcing of interrogation to private contractors raises questions of accountability and of enforcement of regulations designed for the military. Human rights groups are openly critical of this new trend.”
From Meet the New Interrogators: Lockheed Martin, by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch, November 4th, 2005:
…Lockheed Martin, then a completely different company, was also interested in entering this lucrative new business of intelligence contracting. It bought up Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a small company with a General Services Administration (GSA) technology contract issued in Kansas City, Missouri. In November 2002, Lockheed used GSA to employ private interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The contract was then transferred to a Department of Interior office in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
The issue of private contractors in interrogation did not come to light until mid-2004, when a military investigation revealed that several interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison were civilian employees of CACI. The contract to the Virginia-based company was also issued by the Department of Interior’s Sierra Vista, Arizona office, located a stone’s throw from the headquarters of the Army’s main interrogation school.
(CACI did not actually bid on the original contract, but like Lockheed in Guantanamo, it had bought another company–Premier Technology Group-which did. The Fairfax, Virginia-based firm provided interrogators to the Pentagon in August 2003 under a GSA contract for information technology services.)
Scandal at Abu Ghraib
One of the CACI interrogators, Steven Stefanowicz, was accused of involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal that broke in May 2004.
It was soon revealed that Stefanowicz, who was trained as a satellite image analyst, had received no formal training in military interrogation, which involves instruction in the Geneva Conventions on human rights.
A subsequent report in July 2004 by Lieutenant General Paul Mikolashek, on behalf of the Army Inspector General, found that a third of the interrogators supplied in Iraq by CACI had not been trained in military interrogation methods and policies. The same report mentioned that of the four contract interrogators employed by Sytex in Bagram, Afghanistan, only two had received military interrogation training, and the other two, who were former police officers, had not.
It also emerged that no one knew what laws applied to private contractors who engaged in torture in Iraq or whether they were in fact accountable to any legal authority or disciplinary procedures. When the media began to question the role of the private contractors and the legality of their presence under unrelated information technology contracts from non-military agencies, the Pentagon swiftly issued sole-source (“no bid”) military contracts to CACI and Lockheed.
For the full article visit: Meet the New Interrogators
Lockheed Martin Is Leading the Development of the Missile Defence System
According to its own website, Lockheed Martin not only builds missiles and missile systems, the company also “contributes to every U.S. land-based, airborne, sea- and space-based missile defense initiative; and consults on air and missile defense issues with U.S. and international governments”. And Lockheed Martin “is leading a national team to develop the Ballistic Missile Defense System’s Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication System, or C2/BM/C”. See: Missiles & Missile Defense
NEW: Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) has also directed us to his seven pages of research on Lockheed’s involvment in missile defence, available at:
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/57/Articles/22-28.pdf.
The Ballistic Missile Defence System is a system that has been controversial and repeatedly criticized for
a) not working as publicized, since it is extremely difficult to essentially hit a bullet with a bullet
b) being useless against a terrorist attack
c) being extremely expensive
d) likely starting a new arms race as other countries work to find ways to penetrate the shield and
e) weaponizing space, as argued in Mel Hurtig’s best-selling book Rushing to Armageddon.
In fact, Lockheed is not only leading development of the system, but has long lobbied for its creation in the first place. As Hurtig points out in his book, the only reason that NMD enjoys such support from both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. is because it benefits the weapons contractors like Lockheed who have lobbied for its deployment.
From Rushing, in the chapter titled “National Mythological Defence: Profits and Greed Lining the Pockets of Defence Contractors”, pp 160-172:
James L. Hecht, formerly of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver, explains:
But if NMD is not needed, why does it have the support it does in Washington? The answer is: skillful lobbying for unneeded weapons by military contractors who contribute large sums of money to political campaigns–the same reason that the United States is building a fleet of new attack submarines, at a cost of $3 billion each, to counter a next generation of Soviet submarines that will never exist…
…In 1998, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation made it clear who stands to benefit:
Ballistic missile defences as envisaged by the U.S. are unilateralism in its most egregarious form. Those who stand to gain the most from deployment are U.S. defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW.
These corporations will reap tremendous profits. Ballistic missile defences have so little potential value for security that one might conclude that profit and greed are the primary motivating factors in promoting them.
According to Jim Stoffels,
The NMD testing program has been structured to eliminate independent oversight and give unprecedented authority to companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Orbital Sciences corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, which stand to make billions of dollars on the decision to deploy a system that does not exist and cannot work. National missile defence in the United States is not a technology, it has been observed, but a theology. Given that the history of the program is fraught with failure, it is difficult to credit the true believers with protecting anything more than the profits of the weapons industry.
In Canada, public pressure through groups such as Ceasefire.ca forced the former Liberal government to publicly state that Canada would not join the system.
So why would we now support the company primarily charged with developing that system, a system which has little use or benefit except to increase the profit margins of that same company and companies like it, with our tax dollars?
Lockheed Martin Influences U.S. Public Policy and Promotes War
For a company like Lockheed Martin, war is good for business. So it’s no surprise the company and people formerly connected with the company spend so much time lobbying for aggressive U.S. public policy.
As the Center for Corporate Policy (www.corporatepolicy.org) notes, it is no coincidence that Lockheed VP Bruce Jackson-who helped draft the Republican foreign policy platform in 2000-is a key player at the Project for a New American Century, the intellectual incubator of the Iraq war.
The national security reporter for the New York Times was quoted by Common Dreams.org saying: “Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed hold the posts of secretary of the Navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex, and director of the national spy satellite agency.”
Lockheed is also the defense industry’s top political donor.
And as noted above, Lockheed has been one of the companies lobbying for the deployment of a U.S.-led “national missile defense system”, despite the fact that it can’t and doesn’t work–simply because it would be very profitable to Lockheed and other defence contractors.
So in truth, Lockheed doesn’t only benefit from war-centric U.S. policy-the company helps set it.
From USA: Lockheed and the Future of Warfare, by Tim Weiner, New York Times:
Lockheed stands at “the intersection of policy and technology,” and that “is really a very interesting place to me,” said its new chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, a tightly wound former Marine. “We are deployed entirely in developing daunting technology,” he said, and that requires “thinking through the policy dimensions of national security as well as technological dimensions.”
To critics, however, Lockheed’s deep ties with the Pentagon raise some questions. “It’s impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins,” said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts. “The fox isn’t guarding the henhouse. He lives there.”
No contractor is in a better position than Lockheed to do business in Washington. Nearly 80 percent of its revenue comes from the United States government. Most of the rest comes from foreign military sales, many financed with tax dollars. And former Lockheed executives, lobbyists and lawyers hold crucial posts at the White House and the Pentagon, picking weapons and setting policies.
Lockheed Martin Makes Weapons Banned by Other Countries, Including Canada
Land Mines
The Mine Ban Treaty is the international agreement that bans antipersonnel landmines. Sometimes referred to as the Ottawa Convention, its official title is: the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction.
The treaty is the most comprehensive international instrument for ridding the world of the scourge of antipersonnel mines. It deals with everything from mine use, production and trade, to victim assistance, mine clearance and stockpile destruction. The agreement was signed in 1997 in Ottawa, Canada by 122 countries, including Canada. It came into force in 1999 after being ratified by 40 countries.
Land mines have been banned by countries around the world because they do not discriminate between people, and can just as easily kill an “enemy” as an innocent child. Once used in an area they are dangerous and difficult to find and remove and can remain active and dangerous for years after a conflict has ended, maiming and killing innocent passers-by. The U.S. has never signed or ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, and is one of a list of 40 holdouts including Syria, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Lockheed Martin has often denied any participation in the production of land mines or their components. It has also refused to promise not to produce either in the future. After publishing a report on U.S. land mine producers in 1997, Human Rights Watch has continued to list the company as one of the U.S. producers of land mines, and has found evidence to support the fact that Lockheed Martin has in fact produced mines or components for mines.
For example, see for evidence the following information posted by Human Rights Watch: Recalcitrant Companies
Depleted Uranium Weapons
Depleted uranium is a radioactive material that allows weapons to penetrate heavy armour. The weapons can contaminate areas with low level radioactivity. Radioactive material is toxic to humans, potentially causing radiation poisoning, birth defects, and death not only of “the enemy” but anyone who comes into contact with it including U.S. soldiers. The fine dust released when these weapons are used is also radioactive and can travel long distances in the wind etc. For that reason many people strongly oppose the use of such weapons. Many people consider the use of such weapons as illegal under international law and U.S. military law.
There is ample evidence that Lockheed Martin has manufactured and sold DU weapons, used in the first and second Gulf Wars and in Afghanistan.
Lockheed Martin is Known for Corruption and Breaking the Rules
Lockheed Martin is also known for corruption and breaking the rules.
From USA: Lockheed and the Future of Warfare, by Tim Weiner, New York Times:
In the 1970’s, it was discovered that the company had paid millions of dollars to foreign officials around the world in order to sell its planes.
In one case, Kakuei Tanaka, who had been the prime minister of Japan, was convicted of accepting bribes.
“Without Lockheed, there never would have been a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” said Jerome Levinson, who was the staff director of the Senate subcommittee that uncovered the bribery.
The antibribery provisions of that law, passed in 1977, owed their existence to the Lockheed investigation, he said. The last bribery case involving Lockheed came a decade ago, when a Lockheed executive and the corporation admitted paying $1.2 million in bribes to an Egyptian official to seal the sales of three Lockheed C-130 cargo planes.
Lockheed claims to have changed its corporate culture. But this doesn’t appear to have stopped instances of corruption or law-breaking. As just one example, the U.S. Project on Government Oversite reports that:
. In 2002, Lockheed Martin had the second highest number of instances of misconduct and alleged misconduct of any US government contractor and pay outs of just over $426 million US in fines.
. In 2000, Lockheed Martin was charged with 30 violations of the US Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Lockheed Martin paid a civil penalty of $13 million.
. In 1997, Lockheed Martin exported material to South Korea that can be used in missile delivery/reentry systems. Lockheed did not obtain the export license required for national security and nuclear nonproliferation considerations. The company paid a $45,000 civil penalty.
. In 1995, Lockheed Martin pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for paying bribes to officials of the Egyptian Government. The company paid a criminal fine of $24.8 million. From: The US Project on Government Oversight
Is this a company we can trust to respect our privacy, and is it a company we should support with our tax dollars?
More In-depth Background on Lockheed Martin’s Corporate Profile
The above are brief points that answer this question, including some brief evidence or examples. For much more on why Lockheed is such a bad corporate citizen and the kinds of work the company really does, we highly recommend you read the following in -depth reports:
“USA: Lockheed and the Future of Warfare”
‘It’s a warfare company. It’s an integrated solution provider. It’s a one-stop shop. Anything you need to kill the enemy, they will sell you.”
by Tim Weiner, The New York Times
November 28th, 2004
Link: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11731
Profile
Lockheed Martin: The Weapons Manufacturer That Does it All By Richard Girard Polaris Institute Research October 2004
(Link no longer valid: http://www.polarisinstitute.org/corp_profiles/public_service_gats_pdfs/lockheed.pdf)