This is the best declaration along these lines that I have seen. Although others have written similar pieces with the same good intention, it is tricky to write something that doesn't include verbiage other people wouldn't use. Not so here. (Only one line bothered me: "We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.") What I think is lacking in the world is a way for progressives to go from being gadflies into becoming a force. That would come from an alignment that heretofore we haven't been able to make – there has been no auspice for it. I hope this document will become that rallying point.
-Suzanne-

Read Suzanne's conversation below with Clark K.
of the We Won't Deny our Consciences statement working group.

June 14, 2002

We won't deny our consciences
Prominent Americans have issued this statement on the war on terror

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.

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.

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. 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 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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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/FoodFirst
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

[Contact the Not In Our Name statement at nionstatement@hotmail.com. Initially published by Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002]


Conversation between Suzanne and Clark K.:

Suzanne writes:

I'm a signator. There is one line that I'd like to see omitted: "We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for." Is there any room for this kind of consideration?

I see Howard Zinn is on the Advisory Board. I'd like to point you to his piece, "A Break-in For Peace," as something to popularize to support the movement you are looking to galvanize. This is what I have posted in a dialogue on my "Making Sense of These Times" Website, where the article is a "Five Star Piece."

"I was heartened by Howard Zinn's piece, 'A Break-in For Peace,' about the Camden 28. It really affected me. Now I have an image of our success, where 'thousands and thousands and thousands of small acts' can tip the scale. At the same time, things are too critical not to try to speed up the activity of the resistance. How could we take command?"

I keep referencing this piece over and over to open people's mind to what can happen. Perhaps you can do this, too.



Clark K. responds:

Thank you for your support. While it is not possible to change the text of the statement at this point, we were curious as to why you thought the sentence about defending rights and values should be omitted.



Suzanne responds:

You are making a declaration that seals in the inevitability of war – that we'll always be oppressed and always will have to fight – when in fact your statement is to protest war. Even if in times past we have had to struggle against oppression, your putting the seal of inevitability on it for the future runs counter to the future you are promoting by the statement. It feels like a vestige of old thinking rather than from a higher plane of consciousness, which is so vital for us to be operating from at this time. Why can't you change it if you recognize that it doesn't serve?

I copied my email I sent to you to a friend of Ed Herman's, whom I'd earlier emailed to find out why Ed wasn't a signator to your document. My friend – who likes to remain anonymous – has a lot of discernment about matters like this, and I'm sharing with you some of our back and forth so that you'll get a better picture of the problem – and the possibility. Here's what he said:

I think the crux is the word "fought." How about "advocate?" The "fight" part again has deep Marxist/Leninist roots, with the "wars of liberation," the continuing "struggle for freedom," etc. Yes, that higher plane of consciousness stuff is about beginning to see through a creator's eyes, not a victim's. That us/them paradigm is so ingrained in our awareness that it might be the hardest thing to overcome. We are all one, even the "bad guys." I do not know if the Radical Left can begin donning those lenses (they need to give up their materialism to do that, I believe).

And here's what I said back to him:

This is a great clarification. "That higher plane of consciousness stuff is about beginning to see through a creator's eyes, not a victim's." So insightful. I wonder if this is a little microcosm of what keeps our separation in place, so that we don't have power – we need to bump up to meet each other in that higher order.

Nice if I actually can make some headway here – it would be a good place for an "aha" that many people could get, since the document is otherwise so attractive.