RESISTORS A-K -- NOT IN OUR NAME NEW YORK TIMES 2-PAGE SPREAD MONDAY
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notinourname.net
The NION Statement of Conscience will be published Monday morning in the New York Times as a two-page spread. The statement has now been signed by 45,000 people.
This publication will speak for all of us.
The war now being planned against Iraq is a further terrible step in the deadly trajectory of events described in the
:
Not In Our Name
Statement of Conscience
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 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.
In 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 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.
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.
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.
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 40,000 signers include...
53 Maryknoll priests and brothers
James Abourezk
As`ad AbuKhalil, Professor, Cal State Univ, Stanislaus
Dr. Patch Adams
Michael Albert
Jace Alexander
Robert Altman
Aris Anagnos
Laurie Anderson
John Ashbery, poet
Edward Asner, actor
Jon Robin Baitz
Russell Banks, writer
John Perry Barlow, co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Joel Beinen
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies, New Internationalism Project
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, chair, Interim Pacifica Foundation Board
Kisha Imani Cameron, producer
Henry Chalfant, author/filmmaker
Kathleen Chalfant
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
Robert Creeley
Kimberly Crenshaw, professor of law, Columbia and UCLA
Culture Clash
Joan Cusack
John Cusack
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Barbara Dane
Rev. Herbert Daughtry
Angela Davis
Ossie Davis
Zack de la Rocha
Mos Def
Ani Di Franco
Diane DiPrima
Mark Di Suvero
Julie Dorf
Carol Downer
Roma Downey
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
Nina Felshin, author of But Is It Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism
Frances D. Fergusson, president, Vassar College
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Bookstore
Laura Flanders, radio host and journalist
Jane Fonda
Richard Foreman
Thomas C. Fox, publisher, National Catholic Reporter
Elizabeth Frank
Michael Franti, SpearHead
Glen E. Friedman
Bill Frisell
Terry Gilliam, film director
Milton Glaser
Charles Glass, journalist
Jeremy Matthew Glick, co-editor of Another World Is Possible
Corey Glover
Danny Glover
Danny Goldberg
Leon Golub, artist
Juan Gómez Quiñones, historian, UCLA
Vivian Gornick
Jorie Graham
André Gregory
John Guare, playwright
Allan Gurganus
Jessica Hagedorn
Sondra Hale, professor, anthropology and women's studies, UCLA
Suheir Hammad, writer
Nathalie Handal, poet and playwright
Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket)
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
Geoffrey Hendricks
Edward S. Herman, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Susannah Heschel, professor, Dartmouth College
Fred Hirsch, vice president, Plumbers and Fitters Local 393
bell hooks
Doug Ireland, contributing editor, In These Times
Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
Abdeen Jabara, attorney, past president, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Rev. Jesse Jackson
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
Bill T. Jones
Casey Kasem
Evelyn Fox Keller, history of science, MIT
Robin D.G. Kelly, history and Africana studies, NYU
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
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