Stop the Bombs: Garland TX town hall brings campaign to the people
Garland, TX – Over two dozen people gathered on Saturday, September 13, for a town hall meeting for the DFW Anti-War Committee's “Stop the Bombs” campaign to shut down the Repkon munitions factory.
The town hall builds off numerous community events and film screenings in Garland designed to drum up interest in the campaign and educate residents about the facility. Held in a Garland place of worship, the town hall started with a brief presentation detailing the research uncovered by the Anti-War Committee.
The Repkon facility in Garland is responsible for producing the bomb bodies of the MK-80 series bomb, which Al Jazeera reports are the primary bombs dropped on Gaza. They form a crucial point in the ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The facility also produces the BLU-109 “bunker buster” bombs, which destroy entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Additionally, the facility has racked up multiple environmental and OSHA violations in its decades-long history, threatening the working-class neighborhoods surrounding it.
After the presentation, the room broke into discussion groups to facilitate community input on the campaign's continued development. Many community members brainstormed ways the plant's tooling could be repurposed to help the community. “There's so much more you could be doing with a factory that size that does not involve killing children,” Len Roberts, a Garland resident, said.
“People care about Palestine but don't know how to help or get plugged in,” noted Rose W. “Going up to people in places where there is a large group with flyers and how to help is important.”
Ties were made to other organizations and power wells that the community could use to build pipelines to increasingly strengthen the campaign’s pressure on Repkon. Andrea Vallardes, a labor organizer, said, “I want to engage and use the power of unionized workers, such as workers at Lockheed Martin, by organizing family-friendly events combining refugees, immigrants and others to build labor power fighting for Palestinian liberation and freedom from imperialism worldwide.”
“I'm curious about the danger of emissions the plant is releasing into the neighborhood that we haven't measured,” another Garland local, Chase Grossman, commented. “Outside of the bombs that they make, they are endangering their community and their workers every day.”
Further discussions covered where to apply pressure locally, and different ways to engage the local community and build people power. Specific strategies and tactics, including reaching out to local faith and environmental organizations while stressing the local dangers the facility poses, came up. The small groups then elected a member to report back a summary of their discussion to the rest of the attendees.
“At first, when I heard about this campaign I was a bit skeptical,” said Camille Kaplan. “I didn't think it was possible to win. But now I actually think there is a chance to make it difficult for Repkon to continue business as normal.”
The next event in the Stop the Bombs campaign is a rally and vigil on October 10, in front of the Repkon facility, to mark of two years of the genocide in Gaza.