A group of local protesters demonstrated in front of the Lockheed Martin headquarters in Sunnyvale, about 11 miles northwest of San Jose State, on Friday to voice opposition to nuclear weapons.
Lockheed Martin is a U.S. aerospace, arms, defense, information security and technology corporation founded in 1995.
In 2020, Lockheed Martin was the leading arms manufacturer in the world based on defense revenue, according to an Aug. 5 article by Statista, a company that specializes in market and consumer data.
Charlotte Casey, member of the San Jose Peace & Justice Center, said she has been coming out to Lockheed Martin every fourth Friday of every month for several years to demonstrate against war and nuclear weapons.
The San Jose Peace & Justice Center, located in Downtown San Jose, is a resource center and community space that advocates promoting peace, equality, environmentalism and justice in the South Bay.
“It's a place in San Jose, for people who care about what is going on in the world, who blame capitalism for a lot of the problems and who are opposed to the U.S. dominating and militarily threatening and occupying,” Casey said.
She said she wants to inform people about the ways in which their tax dollars are spent on war and weapons by the government.
“Just because there's such a buildup of nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Russia are the primary ones that have so many weapons and anything could happen,” Casey said. “Even an accident could cause a terrible, nuclear accident that could really devastate the world.”
Casey said she wants an end to war, deaths and destruction that nuclear weapons cause.
She added that military bases, weapons and the U.S. Department of Defense are the biggest contributors to global warming.
“There's so many people who really feel the same way we do,” Casey said.
Peggy Coleman, Pacific Life Community member and one of the protest organizers, said she has been protesting against nuclear weapons since 1974.
Pacific Life Community is a West Coast-based network of advocates who fight for nuclear abolition and human rights.
“We live in an unceasingly violent world and I have my grandchildren's future and future generations to think about,” Coleman said.
Every month the Sunnyvale protest has both the San Jose Peace & Justice Center and the Pacific Life Community participating.
“But when they're organized, like with the Pacific Life Community, or groups that are at the Peace & Justice Center, it really makes a big difference,” Coleman said.
Mark Dellamano, one of the protesters, said he has been a Pacific Life Community member since 2006.
Dellamano said the construction of weaponry and military budget influences all of the decisions the U.S. makes.
“It's costing a lot of lives and there are other ways to resolve this conflict than taking human life and threatening violence,” Dellamano said.
He said Lockheed Martin is making a lot of money off the war in Ukraine, making the world more dangerous.
Lockheed Martin plans to increase its production of its high mobility artillery rocket system, a weapon in high demand in Ukraine and Europe during the Russo-Ukranian War, according to a Oct. 18 Politico article.
At an international trade-show by U.S. and allied weapons manufacturers, Ukraine was looking to buy artillery and long-range precision weapons, according to a June 20 article by Modern Diplomacy, an organization that assesses and evaluates international issues.
Dellamano said he wants to see a reduction in the defense budget because the U.S. account is bigger than the next 10 countries combined.
The U.S. spends more money on defense than China, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea combined, according to a May 11 article by Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing awareness and accelerating action on America's long-term fiscal challenges.
Dellamano said with that kind of military budget, the U.S. is able to buy a lot of political power, causing the budget to continuously feed itself.
He cited the “Cross of Iron” speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th U.S. president, “Every missile that's built, every bomber that's built, every weapon of war that's created, it takes away from the public welfare, hospitals, road infrastructure, all the things that get neglected because we're diverting so much money to the defense budget.”
Dellamano said he and other protesters will continue to show up and advocate against war and nuclear weapons even if there are no concrete results.
“We'll continue and hope that the message gets across and maybe there'll be some results that we don't get a chance to see,” he said. “You know, you work for an end, you work for raising consciousness, you work for people that realize that this is a problem.”
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Vanessa Tran contributed to this article.
