Boeing weapons confab shut down by protesters
www.workers.org
Seattle A broad coalition of 57 organizations rallied outside the Boeing Company’s Defense Supplier Summit, March 14, shutting down the first day of the conference. Boeing profits from sales of many of the death-dealing weapons used against Palestinians in Gaza. As a result of the demonstration,

The action was an extended rally of 500 people held in front of the downtown Seattle Convention Center. The main organizers were from Filipino solidarity organizations — International League for Peoples Struggle, Gabriela Together and Resist U.S.-Led War Movement. Foundational organizing was done by Falastiniyat, a Palestinian women’s organization, along with Samidoun and Students for Palestinian Equality and Return. Most of the rally speakers and leaders were women.

At the rally, speakers said Boeing should lock down their summit website and lock the convention center doors because of the power of the movement. A Palestinian woman said that the [neocolonial] attack had dropped 45,000 bombs, the equivalent of three atomic bombs, on Gaza. Many of these bombs were produced by Boeing.

A member of the AAPI community raised the importance of mobilizing against the Rim of the Pacific war games this summer in Hawaiʻi. RIMPAC is a major U.S.-led war game with Washington’s partners.

The rally was preceded by a solidarity teach-in held two days before the mass rally at the Boeing Summit. Activists were given the information and tools needed to organize against the vast network of military suppliers that make up the U.S. war machine.