"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."
Over the next week, the Not In Our Name statement will carry out an audacious project to puncture
the whole shameful celebration of war, greed, and intolerance that will surround the second
inauguration of the Bush regime.
Our aim is to publish across the nation a NEW statement of conscience (text below), signed by this
nation's recognized voices of conscience. Bush does not speak for us. He does not represent us. He
does not act in our name. And the whole world needs to hear that.
We want this statement to ring throughout all forms of media, and reach every part of the country.
In this country, free speech is very expensive. But think what a difference it will make if tens
of thousands of us contribute, and a few who are able contribute tens of thousands.
We have but four days left to raise the necessary funds. If you would like to see this statement
in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle and many others
large and small, then you need to go to Not In Our Name statement web site at www.nion.us, sign this
statement, and make your on-line contribution.
Together we can make this happen!
* * *
Not In Our Name
George W. Bush is about to be inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. Let
it not be said that the 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 claims to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq on baldly
false pretenses, raining down unspeakable destruction, horror, misery and death to as many as
100,000 people. It destroys entire cities in the name of so-called democratic elections, while
intimidating and disenfranchising tens of thousands of African-American voters at home. It holds an entire
nation hostage, forcing on its people torture, hunger, and unimaginable privation and humiliation.
In our name, it holds in contempt both international law and world opinion. It has carried out
torture and detentions without trial all over the world and proposes new assaults on our rights of
privacy, speech and assembly. It has already stripped the rights of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians
in the US, denying them legal counsel, holding them without cause, stigmatizing, and deporting
tens of thousands.
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? But under this government anyone can be declared an "enemy combatant" by
Presidential decree with no meaningful redress or independent review, by a President whose rationale for
concentrating power in the executive branch is "trust me." Its choice for Attorney General is the
legal architect of torture from Guantanamo to Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib.
As terrifying "trial balloons" are floated about invasions of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea,
about leaving the United Nations, about new "lifetime detention" policies, there is no telling what
further crimes this government will commit in our name against nations or individuals deemed to
stand in the way of its goal of unquestioned world supremacy.
The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian
Fundamentalism as government policy. We must face the fact that this extremist movement is no longer on
the margins of society. It aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to drive gay people
from public life back into the closet. It seeks to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and
scientific truth, smugly denying thousands of years of human scientific achievement.
We believe all people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or
spiritual belief they choose. But we will not surrender our right to think to extremists and the
President in whom they have their strongest ally. The Grand Canyon was not created by a biblical
flood. Women are not human incubators. Breast cancer is not retribution for having an abortion. AIDS
is not a punishment from God. Evolution happened. Religion can never be compulsory. This
government may claim to make its own reality, but we will not allow it to make ours.
Millions of us worked, talked, marched, poll watched, contributed, voted, did everything we could
to defeat the Bush regime in the last election. It was a massive effort, bringing forth new
energy, new organization, and new commitment to struggle for justice. It would be a terrible mistake to
let our failure to stop Bush in this way lead to despair and inaction. On the contrary, this broad
mobilization of people committed to a fairer world, a freer world, a 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 it 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 courage and creativity, mass actions and individual moments of courage. We must
come together whenever we can, and we must act alone whenever we have to. This will require
extraordinary acts from ordinary people.
We give our love and support to the soldiers who have refused to fight in this immoral war, and we
pledge to create community that backs courageous acts of resistance. We applaud the librarians who
have refused to turn over lists of our reading, the high school students who demand 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 stand with the tens of millions of people
throughout the world who fight every day for the right to create their own future.
It is our duty to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe
history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.
Among the initial signers are:
Janet Abu-Lughod, professor emerita, New School
Michael Albert
Edward Asner
Michael Avery, president, National Lawyers Guild
Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York
at Old Westbury
William Blum, author, US foreign policy
Judith Butler, author and professor, University of California at Berkeley
Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official
Jorie Graham, Harvard University
Abdeen M. Jabara, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Staughton Lynd
Reynaldo F. Mac¡as, chair, National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies
Robin Morgan, author and activist
Jill Nelson, writer
Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate
Center - CUNY
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter (Bulworth)
Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights
Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive magazine
Luc Sante, writer
Naomi Wallace
Howard Zinn, historian
* * *
You may sign this statement at http://www.nion.us/READ_AND_SIGN.htm. You may also e-mail your
name, how you would like to be identified and your state of residence to sign@nion.us. (Personal
contact information will not be shared or utilized for any other purpose.)
September 23rd, 2004
It’s 4 AM. I’m awake and talking to you.
Whenever I get the chance I read the comments posted by those who read this page.
I never responded before, but there’s something I need to share with you…
There’s a purpose for me going through the trouble of sharing myself with you in this very intense journey for me.
- I don’t write this page to pump up my ego. I enjoy reading your comments about your appreciation and love, but this is not my purpose.
- I don’t write this page to give you an intellectual or emotional entertainment.
- I don’t write this page to give you something to talk about.
I don’t care if you like what I write or you hate it or it bores you to death. I don’t care if you think I’m a great person or an ass hole.
I go through the trouble of looking everyday for an Internet café, so you can have a fresh and alive thought or insight, hoping with all my heart that something I write would move you to act.
I don’t care if my words touches you or move you to tears. My only purpose is that my words would move you to act.
I’m trying to give you a sense of the camino without the blisters and the bee stings. But you still need to walk your walk - have your own personal blisters, experience your own personal sunshines.
This is not a sophisticated gossip column or an ongoing paparazzi story.
When conceiving this page, I was looking for a new way to bring people to more awareness of their own life, moving them to take action in their own life, creating a better life for themselves and others.
And yet, it seems… that people still read about…
Knowing I lost many of my readers already, I’m risking loosing some more…
Hey, how about taking something from what you read. Something that feels right. And instead of nodding in agreement… go and do something about it.
Do you realize that you can TODAY meet a total stranger, that even speak a different language than yours, and open your heart to him or her…? Don’t think so? How about your teenage kid? How about your parents? Did you ever asked them what their dreams are? What their vision is? What are their fears? And did you ever sit to listen? Did you ever shared yours?
How about today?
I’d love to hear these stories in the comments!
How about knocking on your neighbor door, right now, asking if there’s anything you can do to make their day a better day?
When you see their surprised/shocked experience explain them it’s “happy neighbor day"!
If you find anything in my words that inspires you - go and do it.
When I read 15 years ago in Richard Bach’s book Illusions, “Live never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world, even if what is said is not true. ” and that day I stopped lying.
As soon as I finished reading Paulo Coelho’s, “the Alchemist” - I developed a new training - “the Flow".
After I gave my first One Experience training I asked my old teacher what should I study now. He said, “stop studying and start teaching, writing, spreading the word…” Since that day I never stopped writing…
I’m nobody special. I eat and shit and fuck just like you. I smell like hell after walking all day. And after a shower and a long rest, I can be really friendly and fun to be with…
Just like you…
Looking forward to hear about YOU…
With all my love, Nisandeh
******
I could not begin to explain what I'm gathering from this man's journey..... I found this site from a newsletter, one of so many I receive, and I've sat here this morning reading every entry.... I chose to share this one with you, in particular, because it says soemthing I think is so important. It reminds us that this man is an ordinary, everyday person, just like you or me. You don't have to be some unreachable, untouchable hand of the divine to teach, to have meaning, to inspire. You, me, anyone can be a leader. ANyone can make a difference in their own way.. and you should. No one has a reason to do nothing. Even the smallest, most invisible, disabled creature can effect the course of the universe...
Be Something!
Tabitha )O(
