Posted on 10/10/2002 12:06:10 PM PDT by randita
Not In
Our Name
L
et 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 peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the United States government should have the same rights of due process. We believe that questioning, criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.
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.
I
n our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress, not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right to rain down military force anywhere and anytime. The brutal repercussions have been felt from the Philippines to Palestine, where Israeli tanks and bulldozers have left a terrible trail of death and destruction. The government now openly prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq -- a country which has no connection to the horror of September 11. What kind of world will this become if the U.S. government has a blank check to drop commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?
In our name, within the U.S., the government has created two classes of people: those to whom the basic rights of the U.S. legal system are at least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at all. The government rounded up over 1,000 immigrants and detained them in secret and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of others still languish today in prison. This smacks of the infamous concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in World War 2. For the first time in decades, immigration procedures single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment.
In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. The Presidents 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.
There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that must be seen for what it is and resisted. Too many times in history people have waited until it was too late to resist.
P
resident Bush has declared: youre 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.
We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to rise to this challenge. We applaud and support the questioning and protest now going on, even as we recognize the need for much, much more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration from the Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk, declare there IS a limit and refuse to serve in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
We also draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience from the past of the United States: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the underground railroad, to those who defied the Vietnam war by refusing orders, resisting the draft, and standing in solidarity with resisters.
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.
The over 28,000 signers include...
53 Maryknoll priests and brothers
James Abourezk
As`ad AbuKhalil, Professor, Cal State Univ, Stanislaus
Michael Albert
Mike Alewitz, LaBOR aRT & MuRAL Project
Robert Altman
Aris Anagnos
Laurie Anderson
John Ashbery, poet
Edward Asner, actor
Russell Banks, writer
John Perry Barlow
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Joel Beinen
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
Jessica Blank, actor/playwright
William Blum, author
Theresa & Blase Bonpane, Office of the Americas
Fr. Bob Bossie, SCJ
Oscar Brown, Jr.
Judith Bulter
Leslie Cagan
Kisha Imani Cameron, producer
Henry Chalfant, author/filmmaker
Bell Chevigny, writer
Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
Noam Chomsky
Ramsey Clark
Ben Cohen, cofounder, Ben and Jerry's
David Cole, professor of law, Georgetown University
Robbie Conal
Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College
Paula Cooper
Kia Corthron, playwright
Kimberly Crenshaw, professor of law, Columbia and UCLA
Culture Clash
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Barbara Dane
Angela Davis
Ossie Davis
Zack de la Rocha
Mos Def
Ani Di Franco
Julie Dorf, International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Carol Downer, board of directors, Chico (CA) Feminist Women's Health Center
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University, Hayward
Bill Dyson, state representative, Connecticut
Michael Eric Dyson
Steve Earle, singer/songwriter
Barbara Ehrenreich
Deborah Eisenberg, writer
Hector Elizondo
Daniel Ellsberg
Brian Eno
Eve Ensler
Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning
Frances D. Fergusson, president, Vassar College
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Laura Flanders, radio host and journalist
Jane Fonda
Richard Foreman
Elizabeth Frank
Michael Franti, SpearHead
Terry Gilliam, film director
Charles Glass, journalist
Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible
Danny Glover
Leon Golub, artist
Juan Gómez Quiñones, historian, UCLA
John Guare, playwright
Allan Gurganus
Jessica Hagedorn
Sondra Hale, professor, anthropology and women's studies, UCLA
Suheir Hammad, writer
Nathalie Handal, poet and playwright
Michael Hardt, author of Empire
Christine B. Harrington, Professor of Politics, NYU
David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
Stanley Hauerwas, theologian
Tom Hayden
Edward S. Herman, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Susannah Heschel, professor, Dartmouth College
Fred Hirsch, vice president, Plumbers and Fitters Local 393
bell hooks
Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
Abdeen Jabara, attorney, past president, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Fredric Jameson, chair, literature program, Duke University
Harold B. Jamison, major (ret.), USAF
Jim Jarmusch
Erik Jensen, actor/playwright
Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback
Casey Kasem
Robin D.G. Kelly
Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Barbara Kingsolver
Arthur Kinoy, board co-chair, Center for Constitutional Rights
Sally Kirkland
C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Yuri Kochiyama, activist
Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers
Barbara Kopple
David Korten, author
Barbara Kruger
Tony Kushner
James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers Guild/L.A.
Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network
Beth K. Lamont, Corliss-Lamont.org
Jesse Lemisch, professor of history emeritus, John Jay College of Justice, CUNY
Harriet Lerner
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine
Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead
Lucy Lippard
James Longley, Filmmaker
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance
Janet L. Abu-Lughod
Staughton Lynd
Dave Marsh
Aaron McGruder
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
W.S. Merwin
Susan Minot
Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First
Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
Tom Morello
Robin Morgan
Viggo Mortensen
Robert Nichols, writer
Linda Nochlin
Kate Noonan
Claes Oldenburg
Pauline Oliveros
Rev. E. Randall Osburn, exec. v.p., Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Ozomatli
Grace Paley
Michael Parenti
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
Frances Fox Piven, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Katha Pollitt
Jerry Quickley, poet
John T. Racanelli, Presiding Justice (Ret), California Court of Appeal
Margaret Randall
Marcus Raskin
Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights
Amy Ray, Indigo Girls
Adrienne Rich
David Riker, filmmaker
Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
James Rosenquist
Judith Rossner
Matthew Rothschild
Edward Said
Susan Sarandon
Saskia Sassen, professor, University of Chicago
John Sayles
Jonathan Schell, author and fellow of the Nation Institute
Carolee Schneemann, artist
Ralph Schoenman & Mya Shone, Council on Human Needs
Pete and Toshi Seeger
Mark Selden, historian
Frank Serpico
Rev. Al Sharpton
Wallace Shawn, playwright & actor
Martin Sheen
Ron Shelton, filmmaker
Alex Shoumatoff
Russell Simmons
John J. Simon, writer, editor
Kevin Smith
Kiki Smith, artist
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY
Norman Solomon, syndicated columnist and author
Scott Spenser
Nancy Spero, artist
Art Spiegelman
Starhawk
Bob Stein, publisher
Gloria Steinem
Oliver Stone
Mark Strand
Peter Syben, major, US Army, retired
Michael Taussig
Tony Taccone, director
Marisa Tomei
Marcia Tucker, founding director emerita, New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY
Coosje van Bruggen
Gore Vidal
Anton Vodvarka, Lt., FDNY (ret.)
Kurt Vonnegut
Alice Walker
Rebecca Walker
Naomi Wallace, playwright
Immanuel Wallerstein, sociologist, Yale University
Rev. George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological Seminary
Leonard Weinglass, attorney
Cornel West
Haskell Wexler
John Edgar Wideman
Saul Williams, spoken word artist
S. Brian Willson , activist/writer
Jeffrey Wright, actor
Howard Zinn, historian
Organizations for identification only (partial list as of early August)
For more complete listing of signers, see: www.nion.us
Contact the Not In Our Name statement at: www.nion.us
Do they validate the names of those who "sign" via the Internet? It appears that if you shell out some money, you can "sign" anybody's name. Good way to embarass an opponent.
As evil as Tommy D is, IMO he's too canny a player to do something this politically foolish.
I am shocked, just shocked, to see Cornell West's name on the list!
Bu11$hi++er
One in which a twisted bunch of diaper-headed, 11th-Century-minded fanatics will not threaten the civilized world with annihilation.
Well, if you hadn't used "@#%$" instead of what you meant to say, you too could be a "word artist".
Ok. I'm going along with 99% of not contributing to the success of these people but I'm not giving up Monty Python just because Terry Gilliam is a clymer.
The government now openly prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq -- a country which has no connection to the horror of September 11.
One might make a coherent argument that Iraq was not the primary force behind the September 11 attacks. But to claim it had "no connection" with the Islamic terrorist organizations most intimately connected by our current evidence is a bald-faced lie.
But what should one expect from a screed that thumps its chest in indignation over American abuses, while defending the systematic repression, murder, and totalitarianism of a regime like Iraq by stating,
"We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers."
In other words, let Saddam carry on like the lovechild of Attila the Hun and Lucretia Borgia. Let him gas a few thousand Kurds, or torture a few thousand Shiites. Let him stockpile nukes and gas as pay the people who walk into schools and blow themselves and other kiddies to bits. Let him invade his neighbors the moment the U. S. hints it won't try to stop him. We'll defend his actions as "determining his own destiny."
It's nice to see the anti-American left out of the closet again for a change. These hypocrites enjoy the benefits of American freedom, but condemn the rest of the world to a dismal totalitarian hell. Then they have the gall to criticize America, with a smile and a nod to their totalitarian friends.
Those who thought the left only did this because they were fooled by Marxist lies should have the scales dropping from their eyes at this point. This isn't about Marxism - and perhaps it never was. These people are animated by a deep hatred for America - for its history, its culture, its values, and its people.
Not into the dumb and pretty type, eh? :-)
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