Lockheed Martin: Good guys or bad guys?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Ever since the Doug Williams fiasco I've been tuning into any information that has to do with Lockheed Martin, and I can't say that everything I hear has been positive. Just a short inventory:

(1) The name came up with reference to Sibel Edmonds & transactions which were made in Turkey. Is it one of the companies that Ashcroft tried to protect?

(2) The name is coming up again with one of Cheney's kids being appointed general counsel to a Homeland Security position. Apparently, there was lobbying going on on behalf of Lockheed prior to that.

(3) And three NASA mistakes were attributed to Lockheed programming.

So, who wants to fill in the blank. What is going on with Lockheed? Are they good guys or bad guys?

[Coventina]

1. Depends on who you ask.

Boeing would tell you Lockheed are the bad guys!

[ewagner]

2. In the "old days"

under Kelly Johnson, the Skunk Works anticipated our defense needs and developed them, often with their own money, and then brought them to the Pentagon.....that all changed.....the relationship between them and the defense department is incestuous right now..

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. Lockheed = military industrial complex = bad.

They're certainly not advocating a "culture of life" :sarcasm:

[leveymg]

4. Among the worst. They've moved into domestic surveillance big time.

Everything from DHS computer systems to red light cameras.

Big Brother, Inc.

[donsu]

9. agree

nt

[jojo54]

5. Please don't diss 'em

Hubby has been contracting for them since Oct '04. He's finally getting iterviewed for a perm position today. We're keeping our fingers crossed, as he hasn't had a perm position in 6 years and we haven't had health insurance for the past 5 yrs.

At this point in time, it's a matter of survival if ya know what I mean.

[vptpt]

6. Good luck on that

Sadly, to feed ourselves these days, we have to think about working for the enemy. Any chance he can fight from the inside?

[jojo54]

8. I don't think so

he's kind of hot and cold when it comes to standing up for his rights. He's always dissing me for logging on to DU so much. He's a Dem, but there's times I think twice about it.

[leveymg]

10. Maybe you should get separate Internet accounts

Might give him some plausible deniability.

This is terrible that we have to start thinking this way. I want my country and my privacy back.

:hide:

[Lone Pawn]

12. "fight from the inside?"

Are you seriously suggesting that he work to sabotage his company--and in doing so, potentially US military operations?

Dear God, I hope he has more sense than to try and do that.

[tammywammy]

13. Both my parents work for Lockheed.

So, it's what's keeping food on my table each night and allowing me to go to the doctor whenever I need to.

My mom's a scheduler, keeping track of what's done, what needs to be done, and why isn't it done.

My dad's a computer programmer. Last time I talked to him about what he was doing (and it was....a long time ago, more than 6 months), he was checking the carbon-carbon (the black stuff) on the Endeavor space shuttle nose cone. (Most of the time he starts taking with too much jargon and I can't tell what he's telling me, so I don't really ask him what he's working on.)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. They should add bodybag production to their inventory.

They would then have a full circle. Kill 'em and plant 'em and get the taxpayers to pay for it all.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Bobby Eberle

of GOPUSA and Jeff Gannon fame, worked for Lockhead before he became a full time GOP activist.

[leveymg]

14. Lockheed has had its share of Conspiratorial Right types going

back to WWII. A strange den of Alistair Crowley-Black Arts-neoFascist types in Los Angeles -- a sex and magik cult that called itself the OTC -- was exposed right after the war when a Lockheed missile scientist blew himself up in his garage.

Apparently, with what's come out about Eberle and Gannon, this stuff never went away.

These guys make us look like Puritans by comparison.

[midnight armadillo]

15. They offer to buy my company once in a while

Same with the fuckers over at Raytheon. If we sell out, I am so the fuck outta here, I wouldn't work for either one of them. The likelihood of this happening is incredibly slim though, we're employee owned and happily profitable.

[leveymg]

16. What do you guys make and do?

Let me guess, that's classified.

Sounds like SAIC.

[midnight armadillo]

17. No, not classified.

Just a bunch of PhDs making a living off of the SBIR/STTR programs. Our website tells everything we do. I won't mention it for reasons of personal privacy and to keep my work life out of my political one :-)

[leveymg]

18. Good idea, unless you work for a VERY progressive firm

I take it your company develops dual-use technologies. That's a pretty broad definition.

Care to be more specific?

Just curious. (Friendly, smiling, waving icon)

[politicat]

19. When they do science, they're pretty good.

When they were doing space work, innovating and trying to get off the planet, they were doing very good work. They used to be reasonable about profit, and put a lot of money into innovation. (Same with Morton Thiokol, Boeing, and several other aerospace organizations.)

But what they're doing now... sitting on their asses, taking profit without innovation, sleeping with the Pentagon...

These days, they're useless. The science used to be important to them. Now they've lost the vision of space.