Gaza Memories, Defense Industry Dissent, Texas’s Border Blueprint, and More
The latest at Inkstick.
Hello, everyone.
This is an especially exciting week at Inkstick — we have two new pieces by our fellows, who are investigating the ins and outs of the military industrial complex.
At Boeing, one of the leading companies in the US defense industry, one dissenter decided that Israel’s war in Gaza was too much and that he could no longer go on performing “moral gymnastics,” as Sophie Hurwitz reports.
Meanwhile in Connecticut, Nell Srinath took a hard look at a slate of temporary layoffs and mandatory furloughs Pratt & Whitney hit many workers with — and what it means for the industry at large.
That’s not all we’ve got at Inkstick. And if you’re not already, please follow us on LinkedIn, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube.
“Texas Offers a Blueprint of US Border Enforcement’s Cruel Future” by Tyler Hicks (April 14)
For years, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has touted his controversial and costly Operation Lone Star crackdown. Now that Donald Trump’s back in power and waging a harsh campaign against immigrants, it's more relevant than ever.
“Pink Slips and Pay Cuts in the US Defense Industry’s Birthplace” by Nell Srinath (April 15)
Connecticut defense giant Pratt & Whitney kicked off 2025 by putting local workers on the chopping block — despite a year of growth. Now, workers facing pink slips and pay cuts want answers.
“How One Dissenter Left Boeing” by Sophie Hurwitz (April 16)
Military-industrial jobs, for some recent graduates, have become almost trendy. But one former Boeing employee explains that the war on the Gaza Strip threw him into a moral crisis that ended with him leaving the company.
“Memories and Mourning as Israel Annexes Rafah” by Mohammed Ali* (April 17)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared the opening of the “Morag Corridor,” a security corridor that slices across the southern part of the Gaza Strip, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the East. For many Palestinians, that sounded like Rafah’s death sentence.
“Deep Dive: How War Turned Gaza into a ‘News Graveyard’” by Inkstick (April 18)
According to a recent study, the Gaza war has “killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.”