Day 2 - Bethesda, MD

Fighting Privatization and Military Spending

The March of the Americas continued this morning to the corporate headquarters of Lockheed Martin, where we were joined by two busloads of homeless veterans from New York City.

David Schlien, representing the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union, spoke passionately from the flatbed truck that serves as our mobile stage. He cited Lockheed Martin as a prime example of corporate welfare. Lockheed is the 41st largest corporation in the United States and most of its wealth comes from tax dollars. Lockheed spends millions to lobby our government to ensure its contracts. "Lockheed is blurring the line between government and the private sector to get money." He cited Lockheed lobbyists who went on to work in influential government positions, or vice versa, who helped to funnel millions of tax dollars to Lockheed.

He introduced AFGE's S.W.A.M.P. (Stop Wasting America's Money on Privatization) campaign, designed to stop such giveaways of public money to private corporations. Rather than building corporate profits, this money should be used to meet the human needs of our country.

A welfare recipient from Washington DC, and former employee of Lockheed testified how she had been mistreated during her workfare placement there.

Russ Funk from War Resister's League, Sister Margaret McKenna from New Jerusalem and Kristin Betts from the Kensington Welfare Rights Union talked about the need to reassert human needs as a priority over today's unprecedented levels of peacetime military spending. As a company which has climbed to the top through mergers and acquisitions (each marked by layoffs for its employees and bonuses for its executives), selling weapons used in wars around the world, Lockheed exemplifies how corporations put profit before people.

Recently, Lockheed has won contracts to administer the Electronic Benefit Transfer system in many states across the US as they privatize their welfare programs. Welfare recipients in those states must use an EBT card, similar to a ATM card, to receive their benefits. Each time they do, Lockheed extracts a fee- directly profiting from people's poverty. As poverty becomes more desperate in those areas, it has become clear that privatization of the welfare system is doing nothing to improve the conditions of poverty for children and families. It is merely serving to transfer a portion of the already meager welfare benefits away from people who need them and into the hands of Lockheed Martin.

Cheri Honkala rallied the marchers together on the way out, reminding us that the only way we can take back our rights is to organize our community. She also introduced a representative from the DC Labor Party chapter.

The march was joined by Leonilda Zurita Vargas from the Coordinating Committee of Women of Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba- Producers of Coca in Bolivia. They resort to growing coca because it is their only opportunity to support their families, but they are attacked by their government for doing so. They are organizing to defend their land and their rights as women against human rights violations. They are fighting for real solutions to their situation, and not the "alternative development" schemes funded by the US, the money from which is really used to continue the killing, torture and detainment. An organizer of marches throughout Bolivia, Leonilda will be marching with us for the whole month, linking the poor of Bolivia with the poor of the United States.

Marching on from Lockheed Martin, the homeless veterans led us out. Along the march more people gave testimonies to how their economic human rights were being violated. Michael Pahios and Oliver who organized the bus of homeless veterans gave their testimonies, saying that although they served and fought for this country they and many other veterans still have no place to call their home. They vowed to continue to organize veterans. The veterans returned to New York City to help organize the final destination of the March of the Americas where hundreds more homeless veterans will join the marchers.

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