Yesterday, July 27, 2024, on a beautiful, hot summer day, I was arrested along with eight other peace activists while blocking the entrance to the parking lot at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Bath, Maine. The shipyard at BIW builds an ever growing flotilla of enormous and enormously expensive warships which patrol all the world’s seas.

We had no illusion that we could stop, interrupt, or even delay the christening of this deadly ship. The intent of our arrest was merely to call attention to, to witness, the priorities of this nation – that we spend billions, trillions of dollars every year on war and preparations for war instead of on healthcare, education, affordable housing, and environmental remediation. If a fraction of the money spent on weapons were dedicated to combating hunger and reaching out with diplomacy and humanitarian aid to the world’s poor, many of the worst tensions in the world could be de-escalated without violence.

And the U.S. would be recognized as a creator of life and care rather than the iron hand of power and imperialism.

That was the general framework of yesterday’s protest. The specific intention was to continue our outrage against the U.S. support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. U.S. weapons continue to be used to kill defenseless civilians – the majority of them women and children. Over 40,000 now – a very conservative estimate because no one knows how many victims’ bodies are buried in the bombed rubble. And more children are now dying from starvation, malnutrition and disease than the bombing itself. 

And all of that is intentional. This is a war of ethnic cleansing made possible with the staunch complicity of the U.S.

All of us who pay taxes in this country are made complicit, too. 

And, remember, that the money – our money – which buys weapons for Israel has a circular life cycle. The weapons kill and destroy in Gaza, but the money goes to the weapons manufacturers here in the U.S., making fortunes for Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics (which makes the warships), Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, etc. Those companies then lobby our Congress to keep the wars going. Many of the executives move from corporate jobs to the State Department, the Pentagon, into politics and academia and back again, making sure that the support for war-making is systemic.

The amount of money being made in destruction and death is breathtaking – literally.

And, all the while, the U.S. military is the world’s single greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Isn’t it curious that a handful of old folks like myself (there was one young person) are criminalized in our attempt to shine a light on the deadly corruption of the warmakers who instigate and profit from mass killing? It’s also curious that just a few days ago our Congress cheered and applauded Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, as he addressed them. Netanyahu is a war criminal, a justifier of racist genocide – frankly, a monster. I wondered if even one of our congressional members was aware of the despicable parallel to the members of the German Bundestag cheering on Hitler in the 1930s.

An explanation for why this would be possible is not hard to find. Literally all of our Congresspeople receive large political donations (bribes) from the weapons makers and from the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC). Even genocide can be bought.

Getting arrested is the least I can do.