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Hooked on the War Economy

Woodstock's Dirty Secret

By LAURIE KIRBY

December 27, 2009 "Counterpunch" Dec. 22, 2009Woodstock, New York -- I’m proud
of my small town’s worldwide association with peace. Many times during the 24 years
that I’ve lived here, I’ve stood in peace vigils on the Village Green – and provided a
bit of local color for visitors’ snapshots. Tourists and other assorted pilgrims are drawn
to Woodstock by peace as well as by the festival that didn’t happen here.

So I was stunned as I sat the other day in our excellent public library, examining an
archive which they store in a remote closet. The documents told me that for six
decades Woodstock’s largest employer has been making crucial, custom components
for nuclear missiles.

In the 60s and 70s, hippies graced the Village Green. A mile away, down a banal
country lane, under the benign gaze of a statue of the Buddha, skilled workers
assembled fans that were "critical to the success of nearly every U.S. military missile
program," as the company’s promotional material boasted. And specially-designed
Woodstock fans were busy in the skies over Vietnam in B-52 bombers, making
possible the "Christmas Bombings" of 1972, which were the largest heavy bombing
strikes launched by the U.S. since World War II.

Today, Made-In-Woodstock components fly F-15s and F-16s and Apache attack
helicopters over Iraq, rumble through Afghanistan in Bradley tanks, fire warheads
from rocket launchers, and prowl the oceans in nuclear submarines.

The Iraq War provided an upturn in Woodstock’s weapons contracts, as had the
Vietnam and Korean Wars ("Woodstock Company Expands For War Work" was the
headline of a local newspaper in the early 1950s).

The Cold War work of Woodstock’s Rotron Inc. fueled the growth of the town and
provided employment for some of its artists. The company, which also makes civilian
products alongside its core military work, has been a notable supporter of community
efforts such as the rescue squad. Meanwhile (although this only became known in
the 1980s), TCE and other highly toxic byproducts of weapons production were
contaminating the wells of neighborhood homes, who to this day can’t drink their well
water or grow their own vegetables.

In 1973, the company even received a Special Award from Rockwell International,
maker of the Minuteman nuclear missile. "Year after year," the award said, "the
Rotron fan has performed on the Minuteman missile program without a single
instance of failure."

Next to a model of a Minuteman, the award displayed a replica of one of Sir Francis
Drake’s ships, likening Rotron’s contribution towards keeping the Soviets at bay to
Drake’s turning back the Spanish Armada in 1588. (Today, the third generation of
Minuteman ICBMs, now made by Boeing, are still a lethal nuclear threat – and still
rely on Woodstock components.)

I stared at the nuclear missile and the sailing ship. What does it mean, I wondered,
that for 60 years Woodstock, with its hippie-granola-peace reputation, has quietly
had an economy anchored in nuclear terror and arms manufacturing?

It doesn’t mean that our tiny town is particularly evil. Rather the reverse: it means
that Woodstock – like all towns – is both special and, at the same time, like everyone
else.

All over the United States, in every congressional district, communities depend upon
the war economy. Our own weapons-components plant, though it looms large in our
local economy, is a small fish in the huge and murky pond of military contractors.

It means that, yes, even in Woodstock, too much of our hard work and creativity is
expended producing products and services that go to war, that is, to desolation and
waste. [not to mention murder, genocide, repeated and continuous violations of Geneva & Nuremburg... If this is what happened even to Woodstock you must suspect somehow that America is rotten to the core, its governmental system irreparable, its leaders irredeemably corrupt, its citizens complicit - only one way out of such a mess, I fear. -ths]

And it means that, together with towns around the world, we have a responsibility to
turn our local productivity in a positive direction.

Environmental, economic, and security crises are forcing us to rethink the economy.
War makes all these crises worse. We can help to solve them by promoting peaceful,
green manufacturing and services.

In a recession, people are naturally afraid of rocking the boat when jobs are at stake.
But so many things we actually need are desperately underfunded. Fixing our
infrastructure, for example, and educating our children. When money is put into
these, it creates more jobs (per dollar invested) than war production.

Perhaps we shouldn’t, after all, follow the example of that plunderer and slaver Sir
Francis Drake ... or any modern successors.

Laurie Kirby is a Professor of Mathematics at Baruch College of the City University of
New York, and a Woodstock musician. He is a member of Woodstock Peace
Economy.