Protestors at Toronto Air Show reject presentation of war and its brutality as ’entertainment’

Oppose the Militarization of Culture! Make Canada a Zone for Peace!

Anti-war activists held a protest on September 5 at the Toronto annual air show held at the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds. The air show is a venue for weapons manufacturers to showcase their armaments, including Lockheed Martin, lead sponsor, to advance its bid to sell its F-35 jet to the Canadian military and was broadcast live by 680 news. It is also a venue to promote the military’s role in the Covid pandemic, a public health crisis, codenamed Operations Inspiration and Laser. On Labour Day, September 6, the RCAF Snowbirds overflew a CFL game held at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, the Labour Day Classic. Previously they participated in airshows in London, Ontario, Abbotsford, BC, and Camrose, Alberta.

The US of A(rms)

The United States dominates the global arms trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the Middle East | WILLIAM D. HARTUNG

Infrastructure of US bases in the Middle East | David Vine

The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the endlessly war-torn Middle East. There, believe it or not, the U.S. controls nearly half the arms market. From Yemen to Libya to Egypt, sales by this country and its allies are playing a significant role in fuelling some of the world’s most devastating conflicts. But Donald Trump, even before he was felled by Covid-19 and sent to Walter Reed Medical Center, could not have cared less, as long as he thought such trafficking in the tools of death and destruction would help his political prospects.

Oppose spending another $19 billion to support US aggression

The Justin Trudeau Liberal government plans to spend $19 billion buying 88 fighter jets from a not-yet-chosen foreign war contractor to replace Canada’s aging CF-18 fighter fleet. This works out to about $216 million per aircraft. The war contractors had until the end of July 2020 to submit their bids, a deadline first extended from May 2019 to March 2020, then to June 2020. So far Boeing (U.S.), Lockheed Martin (U.S.), and Saab (Sweden) have entered the competition. The Trudeau government is expected to announce the chosen contractor by 2022, with the first aircraft delivered by 2025. On July 24 vigorous protests against the purchase plan were held at 18 MPs’ offices across Canada.

Spending $19 billion on fighter jets won’t fight COVID-19 or climate change

By TAMARA LORINCZ

Last July, the federal government launched a $19-billion competition for 88 new fighter jets — the second-most expensive government procurement program in Canadian history.

In the running are Boeing’s Super Hornet, SAAB’s Gripen and Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter. Bids are due in July, the winner will be selected in 2022 and the first combat aircraft will be delivered by 2025.

Profiteering from US aggression against Iran

By SARAH ANDERSON

Merchants of Death – Lithograph by Mabel Dwight

CEOs of major U.S. military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran. This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military official . As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked, inflating the value of their executives’ stock-based pay.

I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings.

Canada’s integration into the US imperialist war economy

By K.C. ADAMS

Canada’s integration into the U.S. imperialist war economy is a serious matter of concern for Canadians. The U.S. war economy has tentacles into every U.S. state as well as Canada and countless other places abroad. The war economy encompasses production and sales of military goods and services to military customers domestically and internationally and all the fixed and circulating value it requires to operate such as buildings and fuel. The war economy includes thousands of military bases, airports, colleges, research centres, intelligence agencies, testing facilities and a vast army of active duty and reservist military personnel and services to veterans.

10 years of resistance to the US-led Halifax war conference: ‘We built this city’, 2015

By EL JONES

Former Halifax poet laureate, El Junes spoke at the annual rally against the 7th Halifax International Security Forum, November 2015, Cornwallis Park, also known as the Halifax Peace and Freedom Park. Part of a series published in co-operation with the Nova Scotia Advocate.

We built this city
We built this city on land we stole
Built this city
Built this city on land we stole

‘Interoperability’ – Euphemism for integration and annexation of Canadian Forces in the service of empire-building

By TONY SEED

The “new” defence policy of the Trudeau Liberals espouses the goal of greater “interoperability” with U.S. and NATO military operations. This word is repeated no less than 23 times in the policy document.

Annual weapons fair held in Ottawa: Militant picket opposes militarization and war

Canadians from all walks of life held a militant picket on the morning of May 31 against the annual CANSEC weapons fair sponsored by the Trudeau war government and the biggest U.S. arms monopolies. Warmongering Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, who was scheduled to speak at a breakfast event shortly after 7:00 am was delayed in entering, along with representatives of General Dynamics, the producer of light armoured vehicles sold to Saudi Arabia, Raytheon, the world’s largest guided missile producer and many other arms monopolies. Protestors denounced Canada’s participation in escalating war preparations and the use of the CANSEC event to pay the rich weapons monopolies and secure arms for war criminals such as the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others.

The question is not which fighter jet but who controls Canada’s air defence

By GEORGE ALLEN

The monopoly media announced on June 5 that the Justin Trudeau Liberal government plans to buy an unknown number of Super Hornet fighter jets from war contractor Boeing as a temporary measure to replace Canada’s aging CF-18 fighter fleet. In May, Defence Minister Hajjit Sajjan claimed that there was a pending gap in Canada’s military capabilities and that this called for swift action. Sajjan, who recently visited Australia, a country which bought 24 Hornets five years ago, warned that Canada’s CF-18s “need to be replaced now.” He indicated the government planned to move quickly on the deal, and that the purchase of the Hornets would take place without competitive bidding.

Black Ribbon Day: Harper’s anti-communist glorification of Nazism

The principles established at the Nuremberg trials in 1945-46, following the victory over fascism affirmed that heads of state and other political leaders as well as the military leaders must be
held accountable and punished for crimes of aggression, breaking the peace and crimes against humanity. Today, 68 years after the conclusion of the main trial at Nuremberg, the U.S. and its allies including Canada are going all out to smash all the conclusions of Nuremberg.

Canada’s anti-communist crusade

By DOUGAL MACDONALD

On August 23, the Harper dictatorship again marked the anniversary of Black Ribbon Day, a memorial day concocted by the ruling circles of Europe in 2009 to promote anti-communism through slanders and lies and to glorify Nazism. The Canadian Parliament designated the same day as the “National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communism and Nazism in Europe” in December that same year. Each August 23, Prime Minister Harper and certain of his ministers attend meetings and make official statements and speeches to mark the day on behalf of the most reactionary dregs of society who link human rights to the rehabilitation of Hitlerite crimes against humanity, all in the name of high ideals. They deliberately promote the view that the Hitlerite Nazis who slaughtered the peoples of Europe, Britain, and the Soviet Union were heroes and the anti-fascist forces who fought them to the death, especially the communists, should be erased from the historical record.

Action against Halifax arms show

NO TO THE MERCHANTS OF DEATH!

NO TO WAR PREPARATIONS!

ALL OUT TO OPPOSE DEFSEC 2014

HALIFAX ARMS TRADE SHOW!

Thursday, Sept. 4 4pm

Cunard Centre

961 Marginal Road – near Pier 23 behind the Westin Hotel, past the Seaport Farmers’ Market

Judge advises government on how to criminalize dissent

Many Canadians have refused to fill out the new census, on the basis that it was contracted out to the anti-national, anti-social, warmongering Harper government to Lockheed Martin. This U.S. merchant of death is one of the largest supplier of arms to the Canadian Forces and a main force in the militarization of research in Canadian universities; its intimate relations with the government are visible at CFB Stadicona, where Lockheed has penetrated the premises of Maritime Command, setting up shop within the base itself. (In June 2010, the long-form mandatory census was also scrapped and replaced with a “voluntary” version that is already damaging the reliability of statistics impacting all Canadians but mostly those living in small towns and rural areas.) It is clear that the Harper gang, with its claim that it  is defending “Canadian values,” cannot face the truth or the conscience of the Canadian people; at the same time it is violating international law in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it instead initiated criminal prosecutions of those who had refused to fill out the census. The following Canadian Press article exposes how a Toronto judge, instead of upholding the rule of law, advises the Harper gang as to how to better give its actions to criminalize dissent a legal stamp of approval and successfully prosecute Canadians taking a principled stand. The judge further slanders defendant Audrey Tobias and states the passage of time has “dimmed her memory.” His ruling and advice further illustrates how arbitrariness is supplanting and negating the legal system with the aim of criminalizing dissent.

TORONTO – A Toronto judge lambasted the government Wednesday for its prosecution of an 89-year-old peace activist who refused to fill out the 2011 census, and found her not guilty.

Audrey Tobias admitted that she refused to fill out the basic personal information the census required because it was processed using software from U.S. military contractor Lockheed Martin.

PBS show on drones funded by drone maker

FAIR – The PBS Nova broadcast “Rise of the Drones” was sponsored by U.S. drone manufacturer Lockheed Martin – a clear violation of PBS’s underwriting guidelines.

As Kevin Gosztola reported (FireDogLake), the January 23 broadcast was a mostly upbeat look at surveillance and weaponized drones. “Discover the cutting edge technologies that are propelling us toward a new chapter in aviation history,” PBS urged, promising to reveal “the amazing technologies that make drones so powerful.”

All Out for May Day 2012! – International Day of the Working Class

On Halifax May Day 2012 – an exchange

Shipbuilding yes, but not the militarization of shipbuilding

The Harper agenda and the need for a new direction for the economy

Haligonians denounce Harper’s visit to the Naval Dockyards, April 4, 2007.

By TONY SEED

Originally published May 6, and extensively revised May 16 and May 28, 2011 and again on January 23, 2013.

SHIPBUILDING is one of the traditional manufacturing industries in the Maritimes, Quebec, certain lake ports in Ontario, and British Columbia that is in crisis. Now, instead of resolving the crisis in favour of the people, the warmongering positions of the Harper government include the militarization of all shipbuilding. In Nova Scotia the suggestion always hangs in the air that the militarization of the economy and the $20 billion war budget are the solution to the economic crisis and regional disparities and it is a matter of “buy Canadian” or “buy Nova Scotian” versus outsourcing, either abroad or to another region such as Quebec.

For your information: Premier Dexter’s remarks to the arms dealers

The Merchants of Death – lithograph by Mabel Dwight

By TONY SEED

THE DEXTER NDP was brought to power on June 9, 2009 promising “a better deal for Nova Scotia families.” We didn’t have long to wait to see which “families” he had in mind nor the “better deal.”

On July 1st, Mr Dexter attended the opening of the new offices of Lockheed Martin. Now, precisely three months following the election to the day, the new premier is appearing before the military-industrial complex gathered at the DEFSEC Atlantic arms show in Halifax with declarations that “aerospace and defense industry in Nova Scotia is helping to build a more prosperous economy in this province” and promising that “This government is committed to supporting the aerospace and defense industry in Nova Scotia…” He lists the U.S. arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and General Dynamics – as “partners” and decisive for his fictitious “prosperous economy.” As always, “a better deal for” the Irving family, which is looking to make the big score from the militarization of shipbuilding, lurks in the background.

Mr Dexter’s obeisance to the forces of war and empire does not represent a volte-face, even though the NDP base is upset and haunted about the seeming turn-around.

Before the election, we analyzed that “a Dexter government will be poised to negate the rights of various sectors of the population of Nova Scotia, as well as around the world, while it will use the state political and judicial power to defend monopoly right, fight for ‘their monopolies’ in the international marketplace under the banner of ‘making Nova Scotia competitive on world markets,’ and facilitate the all-round militarization of the economy and ports.”

At a time of deepening economic crisis, the Nova Scotian government immediately began to abdicate its duty to provide for the immediate needs of the working class and people for social programs to sustain them, the economy and the society. Mr Dexter openly advocates arms production and war as the solution to the objective economic, social and political problems facing the people of Nova Scotia. It is unacceptable and must be condemned.

Tamara Lorincz, who sent me the text of this speech, notes:

“The federal government gave Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and producer of nuclear weapons, cluster bombs and hellfire and PAC missles, $2 billion dollars (our tax dollars) to upgrade the combat systems on the frigates in Nova Scotia, and then the provincial NS government gave Lockheed $1.8 million dollars for a payroll rebate on those jobs. We could have hired nurses, child care staff, teachers and energy auditors instead. Please tell the federal and provincial governments that you do not want your tax dollars to go to weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin.”