ZNet
Not In Our Name
by Multi Author February 04, 2005
As George W. Bush is inaugurated for a 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 Guantanamo, 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 11,000 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
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Laura Flanders
Carolyn Forch̩
Michael Franti
Su Friedrich
Boo Froebel
Nancy Garden
Peter Gerety
Jorie Graham, Harvard University
Andr̩ 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. MacÌ-as, 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
Larryå 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
(for a more complete list of signers, click here for A-K and here for L-Z)
* * *
You may sign this statement on this web site at
http://www.nion.us/READ_AND_SIGN.htm.
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