One of the activists who pushed for Montreal to sever ties with Israel says he’s not surprised to hear of the meeting with Northrop Grumman.
“Time and time again, the mayor has chosen to align herself with the interests of the American empire and Israel,” said Ali Salman, a spokesperson for Palestinian Youth Movement Montreal. “Just a few months after saying it was not the city’s job to import conflicts, she welcomes the consul general of Israel and even honoured him by having him sign the Golden Book.
“So no, I must say I’m not surprised that she’s meeting with a company that supplies the IDF with weapons used to kill Palestinian children.”
She is not mayor of Palestine she’s mayor of Montreal. The Macklemore Mo Chara Rainbow Keffiyeh Mafia isn’t her constituency. She leads a city with a large Jewish population and a large Arab population. She has to live in both worlds. Northrop-Grumman isn’t some minor company they’re a massive multinational with interests everywhere including Canada and they’ve produced weaponry used in every conflict you can think of.
Like it or not Canada and Canadian jobs benefit from the défense industrial complex which is global. She can’t ignore that and expect to stay mayor for long. The economy will always win and the lesbian anarchist socialist solidarity revolution doesn’t prop up the economy. The Man does.
There’s got to be a difference between defence of a country and the genocide loving Defence Industrial Complex.
Just because Jewish people live in Montreal doesn’t mean they’re happy about the Gaza genocide and the shameless immorality of our government.
Northrop-Grumman is involved in every global conflict as their defense equipment is that ubiquitous - yet only now people are concerned because it’s Palestine? The UAVs in Iraq and Afghanistan were also N-G and BAE and Honeywell and Raytheon and…insert many large multinational companies here.
Montreal has talent that is valuable to this industry and it’s not just about the IDF or ICE or Palestine or whatever your TikTok trash shows you it’s broader and older than that - what do you offer the MTL economy instead besides a rainbow keffiyeh and “conscience” - the people in this industry can’t pay bills with that.
You think people weren’t against neo-colonialism, proxy wars, bombing innocents etc before Gaza genocide started?
Just because you’re getting your news from Fox and friends doesn’t mean anti-genocide and pro-humanity people get their news from Tikkity-Tock.
If an industry can only exist due to continuous murder and genocide then perhaps it’s time we all have a talk about it without mentioning Quarterly Profits.
I do not watch anything from Fox - I read the Guardian UK and CBC thanks.
You can’t make the defense industrial complex go away with your university Marxist group anger.
What will you do instead?
The only two options you acknowledge are genocide and mass murder vs whatever nonsense we got going in your mind as an alternative right now?
Cuz I’m not suggesting to “defund the police and the defence industry altogether”
You’re the one who is defining things in extremes. The defense industrial complex also engages in - defense. Not just offense. They aren’t going to go away because you scream and block a street outside your university and they are valuable to the Quebec economy - you still haven’t said what you’d do instead besides “revolution revolution evil evil ban them!” - no1curr about that energy.
Now negotiating with them to build more on the defense and not the offense side here benefits the local economy. Canadians don’t want to be the socio-anarchist revolution - you might but most don’t give a shit about this. Negotiation and encouraging these companies to make more ethical investments here is the way. If you think they cannot ever be ethical at all then that’s on you - our politicians, business leaders, and those who have gainful employment in this industry do not care about that perspective.
Okay, so she had a productive conversation with them about ethical weapons manufacturing and not profiting off genocidal wars of conquest? Uh-huh… she sure did.
How do you feel about companies in Canada selling locally manufactured weapons, components and tech to Russian war machine?