Open
World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
A Statement
of Conscience:
Not in Our Name
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 anywhereand 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 USA 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.
From:
James Abourezk
Michael Albert
Mike Alewitz, LaBOR aRT & MuRAL
Project
Aris Anagnos
Laurie Anderson
Edward Asner, actor
Russell Banks, writer
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
Jessica Blank, actor/playwright
William Blum, author
Theresa & Blase Bonpane, Office of the Americas
Fr. Bob Bossie, SCJ
Leslie Cagan
Kisha Imani Cameron, producer
Henry Chalfant, author/filmmaker
Bell Chevigny, writer
Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
Noam Chomsky
Ramsey Clark
David Cole, professor of law,
Georgetown University
Robbie Conal
Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College
Kia Corthron, playwright
Kimberly Crenshaw, professor of law,
Columbia and UCLA
Culture Clash
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Barbara Dane
Ossie Davis
Mos Def
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor,
California State University, Hayward
Bill Dyson, state representative, Connecticut
Steve Earle, singer/songwriter
Eve Ensler
Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning
Laura Flanders, radio host and journalist
Elizabeth Frank
Richard Foreman
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
Jessica Hagedorn
Sondra Hale, professor, anthropology
and women's studies, UCLA
Suheir Hammad,
writer Nathalie Handal, poet and playwright
Christine B. Harrington, Director of the
Institute for Law & Society, New York University
David Harvey, distinguished professor
of anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
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
Fredric Jameson, chair, literature
program, Duke University
Harold B. Jamison, major (ret.), USAF
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
David Korten, author
Barbara Kruger
Tony Kushner
James Lafferty, executive director,
National Lawyers Guild/L.A.
Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network
Jesse Lemisch, professor of history
emeritus, John Jay College of Justice, CUNY
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens
Alliance
Staughton Lynd
Dave Marsh
Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for
Food and Development Policy/Food First
Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
Tom Morello
Robert Nichols, writer
Kate Noonan
Rev. E. Randall Osburn, exec. v.p.,
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Ozomatli
Grace Paley
Michael Parenti
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
Jerry Quickley, poet
Margaret Randall
Michael Ratner, president, Center for
Constitutional Rights
Adrienne Rich
David Riker, filmmaker
Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
Matthew Rothschild
Edward Said
Susan Sarandon
Saskia Sassen, professor, University of Chicago
Jonathan Schell, author and fellow of the Nation Institute
Carolee Schneeman, artist
Ralph Schoenman & Mya Shone, Council on Human Needs
Mark Selden, historian Alex Shoumatoff
John J. Simon, writer, editor
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers
Guild/NY
Norman Solomon, syndicated columnist and author
Scott Spenser
Nancy Spero, artist
Starhawk
Bob Stein, publisher
Gloria Steinem
Oliver Stone
Peter Syben, major, US Army, retired
Marcia Tucker, founding director emerita,
New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY
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 Haskell Wexler
John Edgar Wideman
Saul Williams, spoken word artist
S. Brian Willson , activist/writer
Jeffrey Wright, actor
Howard Zinn, historian