NOT IN OUR NAME

[welshTerrier2]

the WorldCantWait organization gives credit to the "Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience" as their primary inspiration ... World Can't Wait is holding nationwide protests tomorrow, October 5, against the bush adminstration's policies ...

here's a link to their website to find a demonstration near you: http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2418&Itemid=232&_event=14

here, printed in full (with permission) is the most current statement of conscience from "Not In Our Name":

source: http://www.nion.us/NSOC/NION2wsigninfo.htm

STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCE AGAINST WAR AND OPPRESSION

As George W. Bush bullies his way through his second term, let it not be said that people in the United States silently acquiesced in the face of this shameful coronation of war, greed, and intolerance. He does not speak for us. He does not represent us. He does not act in our name.

No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason.

In our name, the Bush government justifies the invasion and occupation of Iraq on false pretenses, raining down destruction, horror, and misery, bringing death to more than 100,000 Iraqis. It sends our youth to destroy entire cities for the sake of so-called democratic elections, while intimidating and disenfranchising thousands of African American and other voters at home.

In our name, the Bush government holds in contempt international law and world opinion. It carries out torture and detentions without trial around the world and proposes new assaults on our rights of privacy, speech and assembly at home. It strips the rights of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in the U.S., denies them legal counsel, stigmatizes and holds them without cause. Thousands have been deported.

As new trial balloons are floated about invasions of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea, about leaving the United Nations, about new “lifetime detention” policies, we say not in our name will we allow further crimes to be committed against nations or individuals deemed to stand in the way of the goal of unquestioned world supremacy.

Could we have imagined a few years ago that core principles such as the separation of church and state, due process, presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, and habeas corpus would be discarded so easily? Now, anyone can be declared an "enemy combatant" without meaningful redress or independent review by a President who is concentrating power in the executive branch. His choice for Attorney General is the legal architect of the torture that has been carried out in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib.

The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian fundamentalism as government policy. No longer on the margins of power, this extremist movement aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to stoke hatred of gays and lesbians, and to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and scientific truth. We will not surrender to extremists our right to think. AIDS is not a punishment from God. Global warming is a real danger. Evolution happened. All people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or spiritual belief they choose. But religion can never be compulsory. These extremists may claim to make their own reality, but we will not allow them to make ours.

Millions of us worked, talked, marched, poll watched, contributed, voted, and did everything we could to defeat the Bush regime in the last election. This unprecedented effort brought forth new energy, organization, and commitment to struggle for justice. It would be a terrible mistake to let our failure to stop Bush in these ways lead to despair and inaction. On the contrary, this broad mobilization of people committed to a fairer, freer, more peaceful world must move forward. We cannot, we will not, wait until 2008. The fight against the second Bush regime has to start now.

The movement against the war in Vietnam never won a presidential election. But it blocked troop trains, closed induction centers, marched, spoke to people door to door -- and it helped to stop a war. The Civil Rights Movement never tied its star to a presidential candidate; it sat in, freedom rode, fought legal battles, filled jailhouses -- and changed the face of a nation.

We must change the political reality of this country by mobilizing the tens of millions who know in their heads and hearts that the Bush regime’s “reality” is nothing but a nightmare for humanity. This will require creativity, mass actions and individual moments of courage. We must come together whenever we can, and we must act alone whenever we have to.

We draw inspiration from the soldiers who have refused to fight in this immoral war. We applaud the librarians who have refused to turn over lists of our reading, the high school students who have demanded to be taught evolution, those who brought to light torture by the U.S. military, and the massive protests that voiced international opposition to the war on Iraq. We affirm ordinary people undertaking extraordinary acts. We pledge to create community to back courageous acts of resistance. We stand with the people throughout the world who fight every day for the right to create their own future.

It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.

Over 15,000 people have now signed this statement. Among the initial signers are:

James Abourezk, former U.S. senator
Janet Abu-Lughod, professor emerita, New School
As`ad AbuKhalil, California State University, Stanislaus
Michael Albert
Edward Asner
Ti-Grace Atkinson
Michael Avery, president, National Lawyers Guild
Russell Banks
Amiri Baraka
Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York at Old Westbury
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange and Code Pink
Phyllis Bennis
Larry Bensky, Pacifica radio
Michael Berg
Terry Bisson
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
William Blum, author, US foreign policy
St. Clair Bourne
Judith Butler, author and professor, University of California at Berkeley
Julia Butterfly, director, Circle of Life Foundation
Leslie Cagan, national coordinator, United for Peace and Justice
Kathleen & Henry Chalfant
Noam Chomsky, MIT
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney-General
Marilyn Clement, nat’l coordinator, Campaign for a National Health Program NOW
Robbie Conal, artist
Peter Coyote
John Cusack
Angela Davis
Diane di Prima, poet
Ronnie Dugger, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Michael Eric Dyson
Nora Eisenberg, author of War at Home and Just the Way You Want Me
Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official
Kathy Engel
Eve Ensler

Nina Felshin, author of But is it Art, The Spirit of Art as Activism
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Laura Flanders
Carolyn Forché
Michael Franti
Su Friedrich
Boo Froebel
Nancy Garden
Peter Gerety
Jorie Graham, Harvard University
André Gregory
Jessica Hagedorn, writer
Suheir Hammad
Sam Hamill, Poets Against the War
Danny Hoch, playwright/actor
Marie Howe
Abdeen M. Jabara, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Jim Jarmusch, filmmaker
Bill T. Jones
Rickie Lee Jones
David Kazanjian
Barbara Kingsolver
C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Evelyn Fox Keller, Professor of History of Science, MIT
Hans Koning, writer
David Korn
David C. Korten
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine & Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue , SF
Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead
Staughton Lynd
Reynaldo F. Macías, chair, National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies
Karen Malpede
Dave Marsh
Maryknoll Sisters, Western Region
Jim McDermott, Member of Congress, State of Washington
Robert Meeropol, executive director, Rosenberg Fund for Children
Ann Messner
Robin Morgan, author and activist
Walter Mosley
Wayne Nafziger
Jill Nelson, writer
Odetta

Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center - CUNY
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter (Bulworth)
Frances Fox Piven
James Stewart Polshek, architect
William Pope L
Francine Prose
Jerry Quickley, poet
Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights
David Riker, filmmaker
Larry Robinson, mayor of Sebastopol, CA
Stephen Rohde, civil liberties lawyer
Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive magazine
Luc Sante
James Schamus
Peter Dale Scott
Roberta Segal-Sklar, communications director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Frank Serpico
Betty Shamieh
Wallace Shawn
Gregory Sholette
Zach Sklar
Peter Sollett
Starhawk
Tony Taccone
Grace Tsao
Alice Walker
Naomi Wallace
Immanuel Wallerstein
Leonard Weinglass
Peter Weiss, president, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
Cornel West
C.K. Williams, poet, Princeton University
Saul Williams
Krzysztof Wodiczko, director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT
Damian Woetzel, principal dancer, New York City Ballet
David Zeiger, Displaced Films
Zephyr
Howard Zinn, historian

[The Magistrate]

1. The Sponsoring Group, Sir

Remains a hard left splinter, on the lines of A.N.S.W.E.R., which will guarantee the demonstration brings no benefit.

[welshTerrier2]

2. i support the "statement of conscience" in full

i will attend a demonstration because i support the statement i posted ... i don't agree with every item in their broader agenda but i think it's important to stand up to show my strong disagreement with bush administration policies ...

when bush uses torture, and wages war against Iraq and Iran, and repeals the Bill of Rights, and serves only his corporate masters, we need to "heat up an activist base" and build an organization that will take to the streets ... whether World Can't Wait is the right vehicle is not a case i care to debate ... i have no allegiance to them ... having said that, we need to "up our energies and organize" ... tomorrow's demonstrations is an opportunity to begin reconstituting a movement ... to stay home accomplishes nothing just as their call to not vote accomplishes nothing ... neither is a position i support ...

btw, the last ANSWER demonstration i attended, and i don't like ANSWER much, i got to hear a great speech by Howard Zinn ... is there anything wrong with his positions? demonstrations are made up of all sorts of people who attend for many different reasons ... if we can't mobilize into "street energy", we remain an isolated, ineffective force ... and i'm not arguing that demonstrations are the be all and end all of political change; clearly, they are not ... but imagine a situation where bush refuses to leave office at all or the republicans cancel the '08 elections or there is a military coup; i'm far more comfortable seeing the early organization of a resistance than i am having people locked away in their houses ...

demonstrations are a starting point ... they can serve to energize people and make them more active in the political process ... C-Span revolutionaries are just armchair quarterbacks ... get out in the streets ... hear some speeches ... carry a sign that says what YOU believe in ... if the organizing group is not "the way", you've still delivered YOUR message ... and you've sent a message that you will not just stay home while our country is being destroyed ...

[The Magistrate]

3. That Is How It Works, Sir

There is no doubt the practiced duplicity of these conspiratorial groups works on their target of well meaning persons who are themselves above-board in their actions. But most monies donated, for example, will go to feed the leaders of the parent R.C.P. of Avakian. The agitation will be employed more at recruitment for, and display of, the R.C.P. than at the stated objective of the demonstration. It will be a grab-bag of revolutionist and Moaist blather, utterly useless for moving any substantial portion of the public of the country to an increased disfavor for the war, or the present regime. It will be fortunate that it receives little main-stream publicity, because it will certainly repell many more people than it attracts.

"Don't watch a Communist's lips: watch his hands."

[welshTerrier2]

4. Maoist blather?

at the last anti-war demonstration i attended, i heard speeches by Howard Zinn, a representative from United for Peace and Justice, and a woman from an anti-poverty center ... i saw tons of Kerry for President signs ... i saw tons of bush sucks signs ... i saw one sign that read "war is how Americans learn about geography" ... there was even a fairly large group from a nearby zen monastary ... they had these really cool sort of tambourine percussion thingies ...

i'm pretty sure they weren't maoists but i guess you never really know ...

oh, and to be fair, there was one display table (out of maybe 50 or so) that had literature from some kind of communist group ... they were giving out lollipops ...

here are the scheduled topic for tomorrow's demonstration: Labor & Fair Wages - The Environment/Our Safety - Impeachable Offences - Katrina/Our Safety - The WAR & WMD - Health Care – Education - Election Fraud - Women's Rights - The 1st & 4th Amendments - Torture - Gay Rights and Science.

while, there might be someone with a maoist view on "Labor and Fair Wages", is there a maoist view on the environment or impeachable offences or Katrina or the war and wmd or health care or education or election fraud or women's right or the 1st and 4th amendment or torture or gay rights and science? or do you think they won't really talk about those topics and they'll magically put us all in a marxist trance and whisk us away to their labor camps and indoctrination centers?

see, the problem is that we've all become very isolated ... where is the energy? i attend meetings for the Democratic Party ... we talk about appointing block captains and setting up call groups and licking envelopes ... it's all important ... and i even attended my state convention and heard a few excellent speeches ... but there's no sustaining energy ... there's no "emotional attachment" and human interaction ... in short, there's no movement ...

i think there's a huge difference between a political campaign and a "movement" ... and i think both, not just one, are important ... when the Democratic Party organizes marches and speeches and rallies and tries to pull together people from communities all over the country to protest the war and bush's criminal violations of our Constitution, give me a call ... i'll be glad to help pull the event together ... i'll even march right up in the front with my anti-war sign ... but they refuse to do that ... so for them, i'll lick envelopes and get paper cuts ... tomorrow, i'll be petitioning the government with my little tiny sign that might not make any difference at all to anybody except me ...

[The Magistrate]

5. Revolutionist And Maoist Blather, Sir

The M.C. who introduces will be full of it; the speaker's list will include the usual wretched, un-focused grab-bag, most from shells affiliated with the covert organizers. You would do well, Sir, to disabuse yourself of the notion that the denizens of the hard left are any different in character from the general run of political operatives, and to understand that they are not friends of anyone whose aspirations stop short of violent revolution. My patience with people like that ran out around '73....

"The enemy of my enemy is usually another enemy of mine."