The RW received this statement:
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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 anywhere and 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 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.

Michael Albert

Mike Alewitz, LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoject

Laurie Anderson

Edward Asner, actor

Russell Banks, writer

Rosalyn Baxandall, historian

Jessica Blank, actor/playwright

Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange

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

Robbie Conal

Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College

Kia Corthron, playwright

Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange

Barbara Dane

Ossie Davis

Mos Def

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University, Hayward

Eve Ensler

Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning

Elizabeth Frank

Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible

Danny Glover

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

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

Harold B. Jamison, Major (ret.), USAF

Erik Jensen, actor/playwright

Casey Kasem

Robin D.G. Kelly

Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Barbara Kingsolver

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

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

Robert Nichols, writer

Kate Noonan

Rev. E. Randall Osburn, exec. v.p., Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Grace Paley

Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter

Jerry Quickley, poet

Juan Gómez Quiñones, historian, UCLA

Margaret Randall

Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights

Adrienne Rich

David Riker, filmmaker

Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup

Edward Said

Jonathan Schell, author and fellow of the Nation Institute

Ralph Schoenman & Mya Shone, Council on Human Needs

Alex Shoumatoff

John J. Simon, writer, editor

Norman Solomon, syndicated columnist and author

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

S. Brian Willson, activist/writer

Howard Zinn, historian

For a more complete listing of signers, see: www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm

Contact the Not In Our Name statement at: nionstatement@hotmail.com