Space Symposium 2010

The annual protest of the Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, April 12, 2010.


The war mongers and profiteers from the "defense" contractors like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Blackwater, Triple Canopy, Bechtel, CACI, etc. who sell death and destruction to the government and buy legislation, access and endless war with the massive profits meet every year at the Broadmoor Hotel.

This year the approach was a survey with 2 questions:
Are nuclear weapons legal?
and
Is drone warfare legal?
Survey says:
Nuclear weapons legal- 12-yes, 4-no, 5-other
Drone warfare legal- 5-yes, 5-no, 10-other
420 men were asked, 70 women for a ratio of 84-16%.

These war mongers are very adept at getting bus loads of school children to come and marvel at the peaceful, albeit expensive uses of space while indoctrinating them with fear and endless war.

Bill Sulzman and Citizens for Peace In Space was joined by the PIkes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, Coloradans for Peace, CSaction, SDS and students groups.

http://www.space4peace.org
http://CSaction.org
http://PPJPC.org
http://coloradansforpeace.org


Photo by Donna


This is a copy of the letter to the editor which Bill Suzlman sent to both the
Independent and the Gazette.  Neither printed it. 
 
     A very significant event will happen next week in Colorado Springs ,
the 26th annual U.S. Space Symposium.  It will like be reported as a feel
good news story, a great boost to tourism and the promise of many more
local Pentagon dollars.  There are other layers to this story that
deserve a second look.  This is actually a huge celebration and marketing
event for the giants of the military industrial complex, 8,000 attendees,
140 exhibitors at two exhibition halls.  Everything is sold out, even the
brand new Cyber War daylong sharing session   The gathering will last for
4 days (April 12-15) and include a major exposure of local school
children to the wares and propaganda of giant corporations such as
Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin and a host of subcontractors
as well.    
    This is the epitome of business as usual..  These are the major
players who lobby for and then get the lions share of the $800 billion
pentagon annual budget.   There will be a lot of civilian space stuff on
display also.  It's the "spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go
down".  In this sense it is a rip off of bona fide space enthusiasts.    
     This event and others like it set the priorities for our future
military policy.  This is the continuation of a wrongheaded policy which
is sending us off the cliff of overreach.  
    And all those Pentagon dollars coming our way will not lead to a
better tax base for our local and state governments.  Tax exemptions for
local military bases take a big bite out of public revenue.  This
includes the thousands of"civilian" personnel who work in tax free
government buildings at  bases such as Peterson and Schriever.  
    The symposium bills itself as a look into a better future.  It's just
more of the same.

Bill Sulzman

Just a quick recap of the demonstration and the final stats on the survey :
 
     As is obvious we had a low rate of participation.  One can ony speculate what that means.  A few stopped to talk about the issues.  Daniel gets the prize for the longest discussion.
 
Thanks everyone,
Bill