I am not celebrating. When I hear about West Virginia or Georgia getting defense contracts, I say, good for you, you can have them.
I agree we need more manufacturing in Sioux Falls and across the country, but we should be building things that actually improve lives instead of destroying them.
There is also the economic factor. Since these folks are making weapons for the Pentagon the final product won’t even be available for sale on the open market so we will get NO tax revenue from the facility. Besides maybe 100 local jobs, most of the profits will ship directly out of state and never recycle in our community. Plus, once the contract is fullfilled in two years, will the government order more or will they just pack up and leave while laying off those workers?
We are ALSO paying for all of this with our Federal Tax Dollars so the facility is actually COSTING us. This isn’t free market capitalism manufacturing. This is your tax dollars buying WMD’s that kill foreigners, and little else.
I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when city council was told about this privately and their reaction. I’m guessing not all of them were happy about it. I also think GOED and Rhoden pushed this onto us like the prison and local leadership didn’t have much of a choice in the matter or the courage to stop him. Last I checked with Home Rule Charter we decide on our local zoning, so the council could stop this, but they won’t.
Is this all coming into being in the spirit of Raven, an industry that was created locally during WWII to make parachutes and balloons? Perhaps, it is a continuation of the World War II logic where a northern plains location will protect us from a coastal invasion from the Germans or the Japanese, but in the age of Sputnik and beyond, does this really matter anymore? The Manchester Biscuit Company once became Raven, but now the breadbasket of this country will become the land of drones, Noems, and clones. Clones that will keep us up at night, wondering if it’s one of ours or theirs. Drones, which hopefully are ours, while wondering if they have any sporty new uniforms to wear for a Noem? The Age of Disclosure explains why we have the Space Force, but will altitude or attitude determine if this is one for the Air Force or the Space Force? Or, maybe Senator Rounds knows the answer to that one best as he dabbles in UAPS (which should not be confused with UFOs 😉 ), while Dusty, with his paper airplanes, is busy running for Boys State Governor, and Thune, well, he appears to be hiding or flying below altitude like a smart drone, indeed….. Or, is that a clone instead?
That’s just it, if they were building just drones, that would be awesome because you can also use them for agriculture, etc. They are just building the bombs that get dropped from the drones. This is NOT a drone factory, this is a BOMB factory and little else. We are already a ballistic target because of the Air Guard base, so the isolation argument falls on deaf ears.
But doesn’t every bullet factory own guns? Otherwise, how would they know their bullets work? But then again, I get your point. This is more of a Kaczynski place than a Wright Brothers’ place, huh?