Stop The War-Makers-Stop
The Weapons-Makers-Stop Arms Sales To the Saudis
By Fred Macklin,
Committee Against Saudi Weapons Sales
“Fuck the Saudis,
their oil and their demented abuse of women and anybody who doesn’t agree with their
program from out of 8th century some place. Fuck them and damn them
for what they are doing to Yemenis, especially women and kids,” bellowed Philly
Price toward a couple of guys as the cars were coming into the Raytheon Parking
lot. Philly Price (not his real name since he is of Saudi descent and not of
the majority Wahabi sect faith and longtime political opponent of the butchers
at home) had been spending years protesting at this very site because of the
almost incestuous relationship between Raytheon’s advanced weapons-making capacities
on this site and the Saudis overweening desire (and ability through the accident
of huge oil reserves) to purchase them- and of late use them. The dire
situation in Yemen and the murder of the Washington Post reporter by the
goons of the kingdom had set his teeth on edge and he was determined to make
some noise about it.
He and odd
selection of righteous Quakers had been weekly or bi-weekly protesting the
relationship between Raytheon (Massachusetts’ biggest employer and beneficiary of
many tax breaks and sweetheart deals) and the Saudis but he felt he needed to
reach out to other groups interested in protesting some aspect of this
relationship. He knew that Code Pink had a year-long, nation-wise campaign to
highlight the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) with Raytheon the “poster child”
of the efforts. He reached out to them and their network which included Veterans
Peace Action. That organization also committed to a year-long campaign against the
local Raytheon operations provided the extra bodies Philly Price needed. Naturally
Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris answered the call and organized the veterans, flags
furling making a huge statement to the passing motorists.
That morning,
the idea was to catch the in-coming employee traffic (a traffic which knew very
well what was happening at the gate entrances since the smaller group had been
doing their actions for years) and point out the obvious relationship between
the supplier and purchaser. Some people held signs calling for conversion to
some form of New Green Deal to keep the employees gainfully employed but the
bulk of the protesters were there to express outrage at the Saudi war crimes against
humanity in Yemen. And in the lead was one Philly Price dressed in his native
dress complete with robes and headdress to make a point that not all Saudis
supported the government and that he was mad as hell about the turn of events.
It was to Sam and Ralph that he made his remarks at the beginning of this archival
caption. They had known him, seen him around the generic peace movement for
years as a quiet and rather staid protester. This was something very different.
In maybe more political language, both agreed though-Stop the massacre in
Yemen-Stop selling weapons to the Saudis.
