- We Won't Deny Our Consciences
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- 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 US to resist the policies and overall political direction
that have emerged since September 11 and which pose grave dangers to the
people of the world.
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- 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 US 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.
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- 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.
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- We too watched with shock the horrific events of September
11. 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.
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- 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 v 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.
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- 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.
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 US government has a blank cheque to drop commandos,
assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?
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- In our name the government has created two classes of
people within the US: those to whom the basic rights of the US legal system
are at least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at all.
The government rounded up more than 1,000 immigrants and detained them
in secret and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of
others still languish today in prison. For the first time in decades, immigration
procedures single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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 recognise 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.
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- We draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience
from the past of the US: 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 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.
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- From:
- Michael Albert
- Laurie Anderson
- Edward Asner, actor
- Russell Banks, writer
- Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
- Jessica Blank, actor/playwright
- Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
- William Blum, author
- Theresa Bonpane, executive director, Office of the Americas
- Blase Bonpane, director, Office of the Americas
- Fr Bob Bossie, SCJ
- Leslie Cagan
- Henry Chalfant,author/filmmaker
- Bell Chevigny, writer
- Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
- Noam Chomsky
- Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College
- Kia Corthron, playwright
- Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
- Ossie Davis
- Mos Def
- Carol Downer, board of directors, Chico (CA) Feminist
Women's Health Centre
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University,
Hayward
- Eve Ensler
- Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning
- John Gillis, writer, professor of history, Rutgers
- Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible
- Suheir Hammad, writer
- David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology,
CUNY Graduate Centre
- Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
- Erik Jensen, actor/playwright
- Casey Kasem
- Robin DG Kelly
- Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
- Barbara Kingsolver
- C Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
- Jodie Kliman, psychologist
- Yuri Kochiyama, activist
- Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers
- Tony Kushner
- James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers
Guild/LA
- Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network
- Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun magazine
- Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance
- Staughton Lynd
- Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and
Development
- Policy/Food First
- Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
- Robert Nichols, writer
- Rev E Randall Osburn, executive vice president, Southern
Christian
- Leadership Conference
- Grace Paley
- Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
- Jerry Quickley, poet
- Juan Gumez Quiones, historian, UCLA
- Michael Ratner, president, Centre for Constitutional
Rights
- David Riker, filmmaker
- Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
- Edward Said
- John J Simon, writer, editor
- Starhawk
- Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY
- Bob Stein, publisher
- Gloria Steinem
- Alice Walker
- Naomi Wallace, playwright
- Rev George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological
Seminary
- Leonard Weinglass, attorney
- John Edgar Wideman
- Saul Williams, spoken word artist
- Howard Zinn, historian
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- Contact the Not In Our Name statement
- nionstatement@hotmail.com
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,737060,00.html
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