Pewaukee, WI – On the afternoon of May 13, dozens of anti-war and pro-Palestine activists held a rally outside the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council (WDIC)’s inaugural conference at the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee, a suburb of Milwaukee. The rally spoke out against the WDIC’s stated mission, to increase the influence of defense manufacturing in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Defense Industry Council was founded in December 2023, mere months after the genocide ramped up in Palestine – and just in time to capitalize and profit off the mass deaths of the Palestinian people. This timing has not gone unnoticed in Wisconsin.

Sabine Wolter, a Milwaukee Anti-war Committee (MAC) member who emceed the rally, started off by stating the need for a protest against the WDIC. “Right behind those hotel doors, the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council is meeting. They are working right now to expand defense spending here in Wisconsin. They want more of our tax dollars funneled into the hands of rich defense contractors – tax dollars that could have been used for essential services, like housing, healthcare and education!” Wolter declared, adding, “We are here today to tell them not in our state!”

Concurrently with the rally, five activists staged a die-in in the conference space of the Ingleside Hotel. Initially, they were planning to disrupt an afternoon panel, but they were barred from entering the session. Instead, activists pivoted and staged the die-in in the conference room foyer, while one speaker, Carson Bunker with MAC, stood and spoke on the bloody ties of the WDIC, saying, “How dare you profit off of death and destruction? Shame on you!” and “Wisconsin residents don’t want this. We didn’t ask for this!”

An estimated ten police officers were already waiting inside the conference room foyer, prepared to make arrests to escalate the non-violent protest. The protesters were able to successfully cause a disruption to the inaugural WDIC conference for about seven minutes until two activists were arrested and taken into custody.

At the word of arrests, the protesters quickly mobilized to the Waukesha Police Department where the two were being held. With their solidarity as well as a public call-in campaign, the two protesters were ticketed and eventually released, to cheers from the crowd.

The rally was called by the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee (MAC), a local grassroots organization that has previously protested WDIC events and defense corporations in the area. They were joined by over a dozen other organizations, including CODEPINK Milwaukee, Green Bay Anti-war Committee, Peace Action Wisconsin, Black Alliance for Peace, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Wisconsin.

Throughout the rally, the spirited crowd chanted, “Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!” and “WDIC is guilty!” Protesters carried flags and wore keffiyehs in support of the Palestinian people, who have been suffering under an ongoing genocide by the state of Israel since October 2023.

The WDIC tries to paint itself as serving all of Wisconsin by creating jobs and bringing more money to the state. However, working-class Wisconsinites know that the only people benefiting from the WDIC are the war profiteers at the top. As they get richer, working-class people suffer. In Milwaukee, a lead crisis threatens the public school district, and hospitals are closing every year on top of an already poor access to healthcare.

Wisconsin says no to the WDIC!

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