Peace Activists Occupy General Dynamics Weapons Plant
Vermont activists entered General Dynamics and locked themselves together in the firm’s lobby to protest the company’s war profiteering.
By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet. Posted May 5, 2008.
On May 1st, International Workers’ Day, ten peace activists in Burlington, Vermont entered General Dynamics and locked themselves together in the main lobby of the building in protest against the company’s weapons manufacturing and war profiteering. University of Vermont student Benjamin Dube, one of the dozens of other activists present at the event, leaned out a window of the lobby, and pointed to the GD building, explaining, “This is the gas tank of the war machine, and we are the sugar.”
The demonstrators entered the lobby at around 3 pm, and proceeded to lock their arms together with PVC piping, duct tape and other materials. According to a press release put out by the group, the activists were demanding that “General Dynamics stop giving campaign contributions to the politicians responsible for regulating it, stop making Gatling guns, missiles and other weapons of mass destruction and give back the $3.6 million dollars in Vermont tax breaks General Dynamics received in 2007.”
Filed under: Constitutional Rights, General, News | Tagged: activism, activist, anti-war, General Dynamics, Iraq, missiles, peace, politics, protest, Vermont, war, weapons, weapons of mass destruction
