Advent vigils at Bath Iron Works

 

On Saturday I joined the Advent season vigil at Bath Iron Works in Maine.  The vigils will be held every Saturday with the upcoming ones on December 7, 14, and 21. They begin at 11:30 am for an hour.

We stand with signs and banners in front of the General Dynamics administration building and then walk down to one of the gates where the workers pour out at noon. Flyers are offered to the workers and some take them. Many pick-up trucks and cars crawl past us so we usually have a captive audience.

In recent years we have seen the BIW work force become increasingly younger. They've not had the many years experience of seeing our regular BIW protests like the past group of workers had. 

The Navy shipyard builds Aegis destroyers that these days are operating in the Red Sea in support of Israel's genocide in Palestine. The destroyers continually fire Tomahawk cruise missiles into Yemen in an attempt to degrade its missile launch capability. So far it appears the US has had minimal success. The US fires very expensive missiles while Yemen responds with quite cheap weapons.

The destroyers made at BIW are also now appearing in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea as they attempt to encircle and provoke Russia. In addition Washington is also sending these warships along China's vast coastline and frequently through the Taiwan Straits in provocative moves toward Beijing.

In the photo above note the listing of all US military service branches - which now include the Space Force. Just below the banner you can catch a glimpse of one Aegis destroyer being built. General Dynamics (which owns BIW) is working on 6-7 destroyers at the shipyard.

Bruce