Posted on 09/23/2002 8:45:31 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
A bunch of left-wing celebrities, including Ed Asner, Ossie Davis, Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, Casey Kasum, Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone and Marisa Tomei, helped pay for a full page ad in last Thursday's New York Times denouncing President Bush's war on terrorism.
Also adding their name to the ad: Time magazine contributor Barbara Ehrenreich and Steve Earle, singer of John Walker's Blues. Across the top of the page the ad screamed: "PRESIDENT BUSH has declared: 'you're either with us or against us.' Here is our answer:"
The ad, paid for by a group calling itself "Not in Our Name," screeched below: "We call on all Americans to RESIST the war and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate."
The signers equated 9/11 with the terror inflicted by the U.S. military: "We too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago, Vietnam."
The Bush administration "put out a simplistic script of 'good vs. evil,'" the signers complained, a formula "that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media."
An excerpt of the low-lights:
Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression.
The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world....
We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own governments do -- we must first of all oppose the injustice that is done in our own name. Thus we call on all Americans to RESIST the war and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate. We choose to make common cause with the people of the world.
We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11, 2001. We too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We too joined the anguished questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a thing could happen.
But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of "good vs. evil" that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had happened verged on treason. There was to be no debate. There were by definition no valid political or moral questions. The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home....
In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. The President's spokesperson warns people to "watch what they say." Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called Patriot Act -- along with a host of similar measures on the state level -- gives police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised if at all by secret proceedings before secret courts.
In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and functions of the other branches of government. Military tribunals with lax rules of evidence and no right to appeal to the regular courts are put in place by executive order. Groups are declared "terrorist" at the stroke of a presidential pen.
We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a new domestic order. We are confronting a new openly imperial policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and manipulates fear to curtail rights....
President Bush has declared: "you're either with us or against us." Here is our answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all the American people. We will not give up our right to question. We will not hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. We say NOT IN OUR NAME. We refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in our name or for our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from these policies; we will show our solidarity in word and deed....
Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and rally others to do everything possible to stop it.
END of Excerpt
Artists? Anyone can call himself or herself an "artist." Howard Stern does.
Intellectual? I always notice that when these "intellectuals" encounter a fair, honest debate, they are first to attempt to silence the opposition and the first to scream "hate speech."
Professors? Yes---they have that one correct. American academia does not "celebrate diversity." Ninety-eight percent of university professors in are left-wing atheists---except for hard science, engineering, and medicine. Funny that. The capacity for the touchy-feely womyn-african-left-handed-queer-studies crowd to actual conjugate an original thought is under whelming
Gotta appreciate the 'artistic' irony of such an event though.
This ad is simply another death spasm from the lunatic Left; they stopped being provocative about 1978, and don't even merit 'annoying.' All this article does is confirm, for the umpteen millionth time since 9/11/01, their pathetic irrelevance. Thanks to this kind of self-inflicted political stupidity, the anti-war Left has become as important as the Skinhead movement.
Memo to Susan Sarandon: if you want to raise the credibility of "Not In Our Name," you might want to get some pointers from leaders of more important political organizations - like Lyndon LaRouche.
I don't know, but I imagine that the term should be categorized with terms like "armchair quarterback" or "backseat driver". I picture someone who spends his evenings attending movie premiers and political fundraisers, and his days penning books about environmental topics about which he has no firsthand experience.
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