SCROLL DOWN, the last item is
TO: DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
2016 July: I was going to make a separate posting out of the Letter to Dalhousie University. But scrolling past the updates on resistance to Lockheed Martin show it as a “one of” in a larger set of actions. It also demonstrates, unfortunately, that the expectation of ethical conduct must be driven by citizens. It sure as hell does not come from leadership in our hallowed halls of learning.
CONTENTS
A. UPDATES
B. ACTION – THANK GOODNESS THERE ARE MILLIONS OF US!
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A. UPDATES (Item #7 is about Dalhousie.)
1. TODD STELMACH from Kingston makes his 4th Court appearance on Wednesday, AUGUST 6th. He will plead not guilty to failure to comply with the Statistics Act (because of the 2006 out-sourcing of Census work to Lockheed Martin). We will likely know the date for Todd’s trial after his court appearance.
To Todd, his wife Chelsea and the group of local supporters in Kingston:
there are hundreds, if not thousands, of us standing behind you. Many of us are supporting you with our own actions.
Government tenders for the 2011 Census are in progress. We can help your letter-writing campaign to ensure that the Govt of Canada does not out-source any part of the next Census to Lockheed Martin Corporation. (INSERT: the Government did again out-source work on the Canadian census to Lockheed Martin Corp.)
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2. BRIAN STEWART, New GlasgoW, Nova Scotia appeared for trial in July over failure to comply with the 2006 Census. Brian’s reason for non-compliance is not related to Lockheed Martin. The case against Brian was dismissed following discussion with the Prosecutor.
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3. UNITED KINGDOM, 2011 CENSUS, LOCKHEED MARTIN
It’s been great to connect with Sarah and Susan in the U.K.!
They have taken a stand against Lockheed Martin’s role in the 2011 U.K. Census. As has the U.K. Green Party. Sarah has an excellent web-site:
http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2007/08/lockheed-martin-and-uk-census-collusion.html
We’re sharing information. More later.
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4. MEDIA COVERAGE
I can’t thank people enough. CP (Canadian Press) and Canwest have both carried stories on the Census/Lockheed Martin debacle. Coverage across Canada. Todd has received on-going, very supportive local press. I did a 15-minute spot and an hour discussion on Vancouver community radio, with another 15-minute spot on July 28th.
The hour discussion focused on the new “Canada First Defence Strategy” (earlier posting). Many, many thanks to Gail Davidson whose role extends beyond media.
Media attention has added to our numbers, and certainly to public awareness of Canada’s involvement with Lockheed Martin.
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5. DID WE FIND OTHERS OF THE 65 PEOPLE CHARGED WITH FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE CENSUS?
No. It may be that in the face of legal costs and the prospect of jail-time, most people pleaded guilty and filled in the form, in exchange for a small fine and no jail-time? I don’t know. (INSERT: Darek Czernewcan found us subsequently in 2008. And in 2010 a last person in the Court system over the 2006 census and Lockheed Martin found us.)
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6. PREPARATION FOR TRIAL
The Prosecutors are required to “disclose” their case against the accused, so that the accused can defend themselves against the charges. Through the disclosure process I have requested items such as a copy of the contract between the Government and Lockheed Martin, the amount (dollars) budgeted and then actually paid to Lockheed, the number of persons who did not comply, and so on. Information has not been forthcoming.
Other work includes a collection of information on Lockheed, for use in Court. Thanks to Hart Haidn for sending in a paper from Belgium which explains the worst of the weapons (cluster bombs, land mines and depleted uranium) manufactured by the arms dealers and who is manufacturing what. The research high-lights which of the Belgian banks invest in these companies. It shows that Lockheed Martin manufactures cluster bombs.
Details in another email.
The weapons are barbaric. It is hard to believe that humanity, western humanity no less, is so depraved. It is easy to understand why recruits for the peace movement are to be found among the veterans of war.
If you come across pertinent information on Lockheed Martin please send it in. Time is short. We are hoping that Todd’s trial date will be later than mine. We will be pressed to be ready for Court by January 7-8th (my trial-date). (INSERT: the trial eventually proceeded, but a year later in January 2010.)
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7. LOCKHEED MARTIN, $TWO MILLION DOLLARS TO DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY
An earlier posting discusses the new “Canada First Defence Strategy”. It is about making money from war, building up the government-military-industrial-(university?) complex in Canada. Financed by tax-payors and Canadian resource royalties.
I sent a letter to Dalhousie University to request that they rescind the agreement with Lockheed. And have sent copies of the letter to Dal Student Union and to Dal Faculty Association.
If you know anyone who has a connection to Dalhousie, or the Nova Scotia community, please forward information to them. An uninformed population is the only threat we face.
My letter to Dalhousie is below under “ACTIONS”. Brevity is, alas! not my strong suit.
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8. ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE (RMC), KINGSTON ON. LOCKHEED MARTIN?
It seems natural that Lockheed Martin might seek to invest in RMC. A quick search didn’t turn up an announcement like Dalhousie’s. However, it appears that Lockheed has a voice at RMC.
The “Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute” (CDFAI) is at RMC.
Retired General PAUL MANSON sits on the Advisory Council for CDFAI. At one time he was Chief of Defence for Canada, had involvements with NATO, etc.:
“Following military service, he entered business as the president of a large aerospace company, ultimately retiring in 1997 as Chairman of Lockheed Martin Canada.” You can read his biography at http://www.cdfai.org/advisorycouncil.htm
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9. CONCENTRATION OF POWER
In the weapons industry, ” … With the decline in producer numbers, competition among relatively large numbers of firms has been replaced by oligopolies of only a few firms and/or monopolies (Hartley and Sandler, 2003).”
The full article is at (Link no longer valid: http://www.rmc.ca/academic/poli-econ/idrm/papers/2003-6_e.html)
You will be sick of me saying, “Understand the context in which these events are occurring. Know the connections.” Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. They don’t sell only to the U.S. Then look at their Board of Directors. You will find a representative of the nuclear industry.
Take a look at Cameco, Saskatchewan’s uranium producer. It has just bought up the smaller uranium-mining companies in Australia. And has an interest in Bruce Power, builder of nuclear power plants. But more on this later. …
It is why I have titled this series of emails “Industrialism”. It is why this series is not only about Canada’s military strategy, but also about other developments in the plant-animal biotech area, for example. We are looking at exactly the same phenomenon, but in different manifestations.
Always it is important to discern the root of the problem. Otherwise we address symptoms of the dis-ease. Putting band-aids over symptoms is a mask that allows the dis-ease to flourish underground in other ways.
Industrialism leads to the same outcomes, regardless of the area or location of endeavour. Concentration of power. Concentrated power is extremely dangerous.
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B. ACTIONS – THANK GOODNESS THERE ARE MILLIONS OF US!
1. DALHOUSIE UNITVERISTY, TWO MILLION DOLLARS FROM LOCKHEED MARTIN
I wanted to send this to you AFTER I looked up email addresses for more Canadian universities and had sent pre-emptive letters to them. To hopefully dissuade them from taking Lockheed money. Then you could add wherever and however you want.
I am running behind. Will you look up a couple of universities (Board of Governors, President) and send letters to ask them not to follow Dalhousie’s example? If the universities get a sense that Lockheed Martin money might bring the public down on their heads, they might not be anxious to enter into commerce with Lockheed. There are enough of us.
Certainly Royal Military College in Kingston should be more than a little anxious, and therefore open to persuasion, given the high profile in the Kingston Whig Standard of Todd’s resistance to Lockheed Martin.
I am in conversation with a group from the U.S., the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to see if they will do radio interviews in Canada. They have done very good work in the U.S. that shows the extravagance of the Government contracts with Lockheed.
We have the money to fund our universities. We don’t need it to be done through “offset agreements” in Government contracts with Lockheed Martin Corporation.
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2. TO: DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
SENT: Monday July 14th
EMAIL ADDRESS: (andrea.power AT dal.ca)
(I spoke with Andrea in the Administration. She will see that this email is routed as requested.)
CC: Dalhousie University Faculty Assoc DFA AT dal.ca
CC: Dalhousie Student Union dsu AT dal.ca
(Note: I also sent the “Canada First Defence Strategy” (email) to the Faculty Association and to the Student Union.)
TO: Dalhousie University
– The Senate
– Board of Governors
– President Dr. Tom Travis
FROM: Sandra Finley (contact info)
Dear Members of the Dalhousie Governing Body,
I ask you to re-consider the decision to accept funding from Lockheed Martin Corporation.
I am being prosecuted for failure to fill out my 2006 Census form.
Thousands of Canadians boycotted the Census in protest: part of the Census work was contracted-out to Lockheed Martin Corporation.
Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. The U.S. economy is in trouble but Lockheed Martin thrives. The more war and violence, the richer Lockheed becomes. The majority of their money comes from tax-payors. The American’s bill for war currently runs at two billion dollars a week.
There’s much more than the Census and the funding of universities involved in Canada. Lockheed is a major player in the American military-industrial complex, as you know.
– the health records of the Canadian military have been contracted-out to Lockheed Martin. This is an ill-advised conflict-of-interest. The American military has a history of denying compensation to veterans whose lives and offspring have been seriously maimed by their own U.S. weapons: chemical weapons (Agent Orange in Viet Nam) and now by the radioactivity of weapons made with depleted uranium (Iraq).
– the Canadian Military signed a “Troop Exchange Agreement” on February 14th with the American Military. In the event of “civil emergency” the Government of Canada can call in the American troops. The official name for the arrangement is the “Civil Assistance Plan”. This is a breech of sovereignty of the Canadian people.
– posted on June 19th, Canada has a new “defence” strategy. We will have “compatible doctrine” with the U.S. and “interoperability”. The decades-long Canadian dedication to alternatives to “killing wars” is gone. The new “Canada First Defence Strategy” is remarkably about making money from war.
– through “offset agreements” in contracts with the Government, Lockheed announced a few million dollars in research funding to you, Dalhousie University. The only way Lockheed can do this is if the Government contracts provide exorbitant profits. It is tax-payor money that goes to the universities, but the credit goes to Lockheed.
– The terms of how the public money is spent in the research community will now be largely influenced by Lockheed Martin, the source of the gifts. Non-violent resistance serves the public interest. But the public, no-profit, interest in “defence” will not be the subject of the research at the University. Armies are defeated not by killing insurgents, but by winning the support of the population and thus denying the insurgents both refuge and recruits. But there is no money to be made in non-violent resistance, in the ways of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Lech Walesa. (These are the truly great generals.)
It is the same situation at the University of Saskatchewan, but with a different transnational corporation: Monsanto provides generous funding to the College of Agriculture. There is absolutely no public interest in the development of food crops that are designed by the criterion that they can be sprayed with chemicals and survive. The public interest in food crops that serve the nutritional needs of the population, and sustainability, are ignored. Again, there is no money to be made in serving the public interest. And yet that is the domain of the university.
– these same offset agreements mean that Lockheed spends money in Canada, building up our military-industrial complex. Canada will have an economy dependent upon the waging of war.
Lockheed Martin is set to play a pivotal role in the 2011 Census in the United Kingdom. Resistance there is growing.
It is up to us to shape the world. It is not difficult to see that we are in a time of escalating violence. Nuclear armaments are again a threat to survival.
There are alternatives to the agenda offered by Lockheed Martin. George Soros, self-made billionaire, author of “Open Society” brings freedom fighters from different countries to the U.S. for training. They return to their countries with support. Gandhi brought the British Empire to its knees. East Germans, clothed in the symbolic white tunic of Gandhi, joined hands on village greens and stood silent. They brought down an oppressive regime.
The ways of non-violent resistance require ingenuity. Traditional warfare, in the ways of bombs and destruction, is obsolete and for good reason. It doesn’t work.
A world moulded in the image of Lockheed Martin, war-monger and profiteer, in the interests of what is profitable in the short term, is a sell-out of the soul and of our grandchildren.
Please re-consider your decision to take money from Lockheed Martin.
Best wishes,
Sandra Finley