Detroit, MI – On Tuesday June 16, activists rallied outside of the Reindustrialize Summit to oppose war profiteers, surveillance tech billionaires, members of the war mongering Trump administration and high-ranking military personnel. The companies that attended the conference seek to bring war industry manufacturing and surveillance tech jobs to Detroit and other Midwest cities to expand their businesses. For this reason, protesters demanded that the attendees and the companies they represent have no place in their city.
The event was organized by the Detroit Anti-War Committee, Freedom Road Socialist Organization Detroit, and Engineers Against Apartheid with many other organizations participating.
The conference was hosted in the Hudson’s building, which is owned by Detroit Zionist billionaire Dan Gilbert. The speaker list of the conference included capitalists from war-profiteering companies such as Boeing, Hadrian, Lockheed Martin, GM, Castelion, and the Summit’s marquee sponsor, Govini, which makes “defense” software.
The conference included speakers from the Trump administration such as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, United Nations Ambassador Waltz, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of War David Lorch, and Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. The Reindustrialize Summit featured pre-recorded videos from President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
At the beginning of the rally, a few members of Detroit Anti-War and Freedom Road Socialist Organization protested on the street corner closest to where the attendees were exiting the Reindustrialize Summit. These protesters were met with antagonism by several attendees, including keynote speaker Campbell Meyers, CEO of CreateMe, who pushed a protester. Not long after this encounter and others, the Detroit Police Department exited their vehicles nearby and told the activists to join the rest of the rally on the other side of the street. Despite providing no clear legal justification for this request, Sergeant Johnson threatened to arrest the activists if they failed to comply.
Though the police prevented the activists from taking one street corner, they occupied two out of the four corners of the intersection, forcing many attendees to either walk around the crowd in the street, walk through the crowd where they were heckled, or completely change the direction they were walking.
Detroit Anti-War Steering Committee member Daanyal Syed said, “We cannot allow these companies to make Detroit their home. The jobs they might bring are ones soaked in blood. The services these killer companies will offer the city will only increase surveillance and the deadliness of our police force. Services that these companies want our tax dollars to fund them. These people are not only murderers, but they’re also thieves, stealing from our paychecks to fund their bloodsport.”
Celia Erikson, a member of El Comité de Acción Comunitaria de Detroit, spoke on how some of these companies collaborate directly with ICE. These companies include Palantir, Northop Grumman and Ford, which is headquartered in Dearborn and provides vehicles to CBP and ICE. The Department of Homeland Security uses prison labor to modify their vehicles for agency-specific purposes.
Erickson finished her speech, “The technologies created by these companies and their use by ICE harm real Detroiters, real children, parents, families and community members. That is why we are here to say, Reindustrialize, get the fuck out of Detroit!”
Jackson Robak of Freedom Road Social Organization Detroit stated, “Detroit doesn’t need reindustrialization, if it means slaughter. Detroiters don’t need bomb factories; we need factories that build up the people. We need to bring back automotive and working-class jobs that better society. We need union jobs, not jobs run by war profiteers or jobs that kill children.”
Towards the end of the action protesters gathered outside of the Shinola Hotel, which is also owned by Dan Gilbert, where CEOs, speakers and attendees of the conference were staying. Protesters chanted “Detroit makes it clear, war profiters aren’t welcome here!” and proceeded to heckle the speakers by shouting their names and their crimes.
Some of the high profile attendees took it upon themself to “speak” with the protesters, coming down from the balcony to the rally across the street. Two of these individuals were Cody James, CEO of OpenX, a company that works with the Air Force and war profiteer Raytheon, and Brian Greeley, senior vice president and chief banking officer of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. While James was quickly deterred from interacting with the protesters, Greeley proceeded to antagonize the crowd. As he was escorted by a line of police officers, Greeley called one of the protesters a queer slur.
The rally continued for an hour after that, with the protesters continuing to target the men on the balcony. After chanting, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, loser chuds go away!” for several minutes, a vast majority of the people on the balcony returned inside the hotel. Despite earlier being driven off the balcony due to the activists recognizing him, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr returned outside, smiling and waving at the protesters as they continued to call out his complicity in the Trump administration’s warmongering and targeting of immigrants at home. Not long after this, the rally concluded with only Carr and a few others remaining on the balcony.
Beyond just the scope of the protest, the Reindustrialize Summit showed itself to be a hub of imperialist networking and a platform for the Trump administration’s destructive agenda. For example, while at the Summit, General Motors announced a partnership with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer well known for producing the Hellfire missiles Israel has dropped on Gaza throughout the genocide.
At the same time, despite the struggles of the day, from Detroit police department’s repression to Brian Greeley’s bigotry, Detroit made a clear stance against the summit. The fight against these companies and the Trump administration continues. As the protesters yelled to Brendan Carr as the rally ended: “See you next year!”
#DetroitMI #MI #AntiWarMovement #Palestine #Divestment
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